Both of my daughters live in the United Kingdom. That makes me one of the luckiest and unluckiest dads in the world.

My girls are married to a pair of blokes from sturdy Northeast England, who I can’t help but love with all my heart. And believe me, I looked for every reason not to, because when a dad’s daughter is to be married, her partner better love her more than he loves himself, or else …

I don’t see my daughters, who have dual citizenships, or their top-ranked husbands near as much as I’d like, which is the part that makes me unlucky. That these days, they are safe and far away from one of the most dangerous countries in the world makes me lucky.

America is no place for smart, tough, kind-hearted souls like my daughters.

My youngest daughter, and her husband I can’t help but love, are due for a visit in April, but we are in the middle of a discussion that I never thought possible before Nov. 8, 2016, when hate blew a hole through America’s shrinking heart, and I saw for myself just how sick we had become.

As this hate tries to overwhelm us, we are talking about putting off this visit. I am deeply, deeply depressed, and angry as hell it has gotten to this point.

Here is part of what daughter, Kristin, dashed off to me in a missive Tuesday:

“… I wouldn’t have visited Germany in 1939, and I don’t really want to give any of my money to America at the moment. It feels weird to visit a country that’s literally murdering their citizens in broad daylight with no repercussions and that has detention centres (concentration camps). It feels morally extremely tricky. It just feels horrific to pop over to an awful place that stands against a lot of the stuff I stand for.”

“An awful place that stands against a lot of the stuff I stand for …”

She’s right about every bit of that, and it kills me to say it, because I miss her so bad my heart hurts. Maybe if she’d unsubscribe from my work she wouldn’t see things so damn clearly.

I’m joking of course, because no matter what I’m banging on about here, there are millions and millions of others around the globe like Kris who see very clearly what is happening in America right now.

History is still an important subject in places like Europe and the UK, and history is what should be ringing in our ears right now, because it can instruct where we are and where we must go, or else ...

Trump and his fascist Republican Party are soulless, evil ghouls who are setting the stage to break us for good. If you can somehow forget their recent murders, then simply consider their absurd stands against vaccines, science, foreign aid, domestic aid, clean air and water, books, voting rights, human rights, affordable healthcare, NATO, and the truth.

The truth is, America deserves to be shunned by anybody with a beating heart.

While we’ve never been the great nation many of those GOP ghouls want you to believe, you’d be hard-pressed to point to a time in recent memory that we’ve been this distinctively rotten.

And here’s more truth: I can’t stand many of the poisoned people I share this country with. They are dangerous, and sicken me to the core.

After the first Trump iteration ended with his violent coup attempt, I hoped there was still a chance we could pick up the broken pieces and glue them together again. I hoped that maybe after the treasonous assault that billions of people across the world witnessed on TV, Republicans would acknowledge their massive mistake, and join the rest of us who believe in the rule of law. I hoped they would join us in doing everything to make sure that kind of high-test evil never happened again.

Not only couldn’t they do that much, they doubled down with their endless supply of bile, and now seem intent on finishing us off no matter what. There are no lines left they won’t cross. They are led by a devil, who has never apologized for any one of the thousands of truly gruesome things he has done over the course of his miserable life.

I gave up on them when they gave up on decency.

There’s no meeting in the middle when one of the two major parties have thrown themselves at the feet of the most dangerous man in the world since Adolph Hitler.

While creeping up to this terrible place over the decades with illegal wars for profit, and double-talk on the environment, America has finally officially reached the point where it no longer enjoys the benefit of the doubt from the rest of the world.

This is an incredibly sad and dangerous place to be, because isolating ourselves from our neighbors doesn’t make us stronger, it makes us weaker. It doesn’t make us smarter, it makes us dumber. It doesn’t broaden our horizons, it cages us in ignorance.

Our longtime allies have had enough of us, and will no longer believe us when we say it can never happen here, because they can so clearly see the worst has already arrived, even if too damn many people who should know better still won’t see it.

Through Revolutionary wars, Civil wars, World wars and illegal wars, America still tenuously hung onto its diminishing reputation as a force for good. We used to fight against fascism, not embrace it. Thousands have gone to their graves in our righteous wars fighting for what used to be America’s greatest ideals. You’ll find many of their graves stretched out one after another in proud, uniformed white lines on so many battlefields in Europe …

Joe Biden did everything he could to restore order and America’s place among its worldly friends, but there were just too damn many people intent on destroying us from within to allow that to happen.

Day after day, Republicans and their slobbery, lifeless billionaires have been attacking America with a vigor, and for the life of me, I can’t understand how the hell everybody here can’t see this.

You don’t starve your populace of life-saving medicine, science, and programs that help them, if you really care about them.

It’s no wonder South Carolina is now dealing with the largest measles outbreak in the United States since we declared that disease eliminated more than two decades ago.

Truly sickening.

I won’t turn this column off before acknowledging that Europe and UK are not as pure as wind-driven snow, either. They have bloodthirsty, racist far-Right political elements that hang around those places like the measles. They are beating them back, however, and standing together.

These terrible days, however, they are doing that without our help which would be bad enough, except we are also going out of our way to make everything just as hard as possible.

Because that’s what fascist, low-class bullies do, while winking at Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who positively delights in all this.

I spent many years living overseas for most of George W. Bush’s disastrous presidency, which was punctuated by that damn war in Iraq. I did my best to explain to my friends and colleagues in the Far East and Europe that many Americans opposed that illegal atrocity.

Some gave me the benefit of the doubt. Others were rightfully suspicious. When Barack Obama was elected I was finally able to puff out my chest, and get some of the doubters off my back.

That was a long time ago now, and things have gotten considerably worse.

America is burning, and intent on taking everybody down with us.

I am still hoping I will see my daughter in April, but I have a hard time telling her that staying as far away as possible right now isn’t the prudent course.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

Today is the saddest most depressing day in America since Nov. 5, 2024, when anybody with a brain in their head or a heart in their chest knew what was most assuredly coming.

Somehow that didn’t include myriad universities, corporations, media outlets, and even members of the opposition party, who surrendered to this murdering fascist regime almost before it got going, thus greasing the skids for this homegrown national emergency.

I hold them in contempt, and will do everything possible to make sure these cowardice sellouts pay for their betrayal.

And about that media … Try as I might, I just couldn’t get through the newspapers this morning.

I know what I saw on my screen on that frigid Minneapolis street Saturday. There are in fact two sides to this story: The right side and the wrong side. I have heard more than enough from the latter side to last one-hundred-and-fifty lifetimes.

If you are still covering Donald Trump as anything but a violent, lying lowlife you have no credibility. And if you have no credibility you are worthless as a news source.

If you are looking for the truth simply start believing your eyes, dammit.

Our government — let me type that again — OUR GOVERNMENT has been infiltrated by billionaires and well-paid racists to pull OUR money away from funding good and necessary things like healthcare, daycare, and clean air and water, to pay for murder in our streets, and control over US.

They are doing whatever they damn well want, ignoring the law, and crushing dissent.

This is called fascism.

And because we are dealing with a fascist regime, our so-called “Justice” Department has exactly one client, and it isn’t the United States of America. Their client is a despicable, 79-year-old America-attacking thug, who’s deader on the inside than he is on the outside, and fears only one thing more than the truth: our vote.

Because that more than anything is what all this is about, and we must shout that out.

Trump and his murdering regime are readying their burning playing field to make it so Americans cannot do the most democratic there is this November by walking into a voting booth and deciding who we want to work for us.

If you are not seeing this being reported this way turn off that newsfeed and be done with them forever. Time is too short to deal with this dangerous nonsense any longer.

Fact is, we are an isolated country jammed tight between two oceans, and employ the biggest, most lethal military in the world, and enough bullets among our civilian populace to kill everybody in the entire world, and still have billions, and billions of rounds left over.

We are not a great a country, and never have been. We are country that aspires to greatness, but right now is falling flat. On this frigid Sunday afternoon, America has never been uglier or weaker in my long lifetime, because in addition to all those surrendering institutions I mentioned above, too damn many people just don’t give a good goddamn either way.

As I pointed out in my wide-ranging piece Thursday, (which I’ll be honest with you feels like three works ago), these are the people I loathe most of all. If you don’t care about the hell that is going down right now kindly haul your a-- on out of here, because you are not needed.

Look, I am not here today to make you feel worse — I reckon that would be impossible — but I am here to acknowledge your pain, anger and fear. We all need a place to hang all that, and this is as good a place as any I can think of.

I’m depressed and angry, sure, but I’m not going anywhere. I will fight these b------- with all I got, and will be here when we get to the other side.

Because WE WILL get to the other side, good people.

Politics as usual will not get us out of this mess because it is politics as usual that got us into it. Trump’s threat has somehow been underestimated by too damn many for too damn long.

But not by you.

No, you have known all along what would happen if this lawless son of a b---- got another crack at finishing off what he started on January 6, 2021.

We all watched that, too, and now because nothing was done about it by people we put our trust in, we are watching this happen all over again as the same damn man and his same damn thugs are murdering innocent people in our streets right now.

As we figure our way out of this, because we have to figure our way out of this, everybody needs to know this for sure right now:

We were right about all of it, and it’s about damn time everybody started listening to us.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

Stars and Stripes is an editorially independent newspaper that serves the troops and their families overseas.

News this past week that President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are considering interfering with this newspaper’s congressionally mandated mission to provide a paper to the troops free of any interference from outside the newspaper’s editorial chain of command should concern all Americans.

Any unlawful intrusion of this newspaper’s crucial mission would be a detriment to the military readers it serves, and anti-American in nature. Stripes has never been the military’s newspaper. It is the military’s hometown newspaper that reports on the military for the military, and is supplemented with the same stateside news they would expect from any other editorially independent newspaper.

The paper is a non-appropriated fund entity and receives approximately a third of its operating budget from the Pentagon with the rest coming from other sources such as advertising, single-copy sales, and online subscriptions.

Stripes reporters are with the troops during war and peace, and experts on their subject matter. There are countless examples over the years of the paper reporting on important issues that have resulted in positive change for its readers.

Its award-winning 2003 Ground Truth series reporting on conditions on the ground in Iraq alerted military leadership of troops’ concerns in that theater of war.

From that reporting:

“With so many voices clamoring for attention, Stripes decided to try to find out what the ground truth was in Iraq. What were the concerns troops had as they watched their mission change from storming Baghdad to patrolling it? Were things as bad as some servicemembers said? Were conditions as good as others said?”

What Stripes discovered in their reporting led to bipartisan action in Congress to address our troops’ concerns.

I am calling on Congress to once again reassert the importance of Stars and Stripes as it did when Trump went down this perilous road in his first term. Trump correctly reversed course, and posted this on social media channels at the time:

“(Stripes) will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!”

He was as right then as he is wrong now.

While I haven’t set foot in the Stripes newsroom in 17 years, I still believe it to be the most important newspaper in America serving its most important readers. It is a lasting symbol of our country’s occasional capacity to flash greatness.

It is detestable that Trump and Hegseth do not believe our troops deserve a newspaper that advocates for them and their families. It is truly sad they don’t believe our brave troops deserve the same rights, information and freedoms as every other American.

Stripes has been a part of the fabric of this country since the Civil War. It is as American as apple pie. It has survived many decades before this administration came along, and it is crucial it is still around long after it is gone.

D. Earl Stephens, United States Navy Veteran, and Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes, 1999-2009

Disclosure: AlterNet Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Roxanne Cooper served as Stars & Stripes' Director of Advertising and Marketing at their Tokyo facility from 2002-2003 and at their Washington, DC headquarters from 2003-2004.

As I type this from the battleground of Madison, Wisconsin, America and our allies are under steady attack by a 79-year-old, deranged felon with mommy issues, a nuclear arsenal at his disposal, and a gutless Republican Party which is leading from the vicinity of his fat behind …

It’s all about Trump all the time, because the foul-mouthed lout has beaten most of our legacy media, universities, corporations, military, and his subservient weaklings in his pathetic party into submission.

A racist, un-evolved moron, who lies as he breathes, has done all that.

Who says America isn’t the land of opportunity?

It’s even worse of course, because fully 60 percent of America positively hates his guts, and spend hours each day seething as the old man-child snorts, sneers, and destroys for profit as much of our 249-year-old history as he can get his fat, little, purple hands on.

He’s dead on the inside, but reflexively knows just where to go on the outside to drive us all crazy, and America into the swamp he’s always whining about.

Right now the dead-inside man is in Davos, Switzerland, insulting as many of our allies as possible, before he gets his weekly report card from Putin, and the billionaire oil slicks, who are making all this mayhem possible.

We’re just citizens trying to save our country. He’s using the power of our government to destroy it.

It’s a wonder we all haven't died of our rage, which I am quite certain is a part of his diabolical plan. He thrives among the chaos, the lies, the murders, the hate, the vindictiveness, the rapes, and the carnage. He can never get enough. So he presses ahead each day always going lower — always searching out our pain points to exploit them, and really rub it in.

Most human beings aren’t programmed that way. His unlimited capacity to inflict hurt disorients us, and feeds his blood-thirsty party. Murdering a mother in cold blood in the middle of the street, and watching as it is celebrated by millions of our fellow citizens isn’t something decent people can properly process.

Lynchings like these were supposed to be a thing of the past in America. Now an entire political party holds them up as a return to “greatness.”

Don’t you dare tell me both sides are the same …

Then there are your friends and families who support all this. Turns out they are broken in ways we never imagined. “Was he always a racist?” “Does she really believe Trump is acting in anybody’s interests but his own?” “Does he really believe Jan. 6 was OK …?”

With the insidious help of state-run, right-wing propaganda they are living in a reality that might as well be two galaxies removed from your own. Try as you might, you can’t reach them.

It’s terrible it really is, because we know now, they are never coming back. Everybody makes a mistake once, but three times is criminal intent.

And speaking about intention … How about the selfish people who don’t bother to pay any attention at all …?

They defiantly say things like, “I got enough going on without paying attention to politics.” Or the dreaded, “They’re all the same.” Or, “I just can’t deal with this. You are ruining my happy place by talking about it.”

They busy themselves in their bubbles, leaving the rest of us in the cold to deal with this catastrophic free-fall back toward the 1850s.

I would like to strangle these people, I really would. Many of them know better, because they understand what happened in Europe in the 1930s, which makes their gross inaction that much more intolerable, and inexcusable.

So that’s where we are right now, good people, but it’s not exactly where we’ve been the past year ...

Yes, we have seen a few things, but our actions spoke louder than our words in 2025.

In fact, the opposition to Trump and his sheer madness had one helluva year striking back against the evil empire. The truly good and decent people in America poured their hearts out, took to our streets and our ballot boxes, and did what they could to fight past their mental anguish. They crawled over those do-nothings who litter our lives, and exacted many beatings on the regime that means to end us.

Democrats flipped 21 percent of all the GOP-held legislative seats that were on the ballot throughout 2025.

The Republicans, on the other hand, flipped exactly zero Democratically held seats.

Let me type that again: The Republicans flipped ZERO seats.

This rebuttal to pure evil is even stronger than the one we experienced in 2017 in the wake of Trump’s first win, when Democrats flipped 20 percent of all GOP-held legislative seats up for election. The following year’s epic Blue Wave saw Democrats gain 40 seats in Congress, flip seven governorships, and significantly eroded Republicans’ huge advantage in the Senate, all but putting the ghastly Trump in check.

The opposition has never been stronger, but this time is being led by the boots on the ground, instead of the empty suits in Congress. That’s a key distinction, but more on that in just a few.

On Tuesday, New Jersey Democrat Mikie Sherrill was inaugurated to be that state’s 57th governor. Sherrill absolutely battered the Trump-endorsed candidate last November. Like Abigail Spanberger’s smashing victory in the governor’s race in Virginia, it signals a Blue Tsunami that is most assuredly coming the Republicans’ way this November.

And while I am rallying here, let me duck in a quick, Go Navy! Sherrill was a Navy helicopter pilot, who bravely served her country, unlike the burnt-orange draft-dodger who attacked it.

It might not feel like it, but there are millions of veterans like myself, who know the difference between people who truly love and care about their country like Sherrill, and people who use and abuse our country like Trump.

We all need to make ourselves heard, because we understand good and damn well the oath we took, even if too many in today’s military leadership don’t.

Now let me quickly address what you are no doubt thinking: Trump and his Orcs are going to try to interfere with this year’s elections, or shut them down altogether to prevent that Blue Tsunami from coming ashore.

It’s a legitimate worry, and why we need to talk openly and honestly about it, instead of kicking it aside as folly. There’s been too much denialism on a host of fronts from the Democratic Party for my liking.

Trump and his party are evil, and will do every single thing they can to destroy us. Unless we are operating under that assumption, and are prepared to do everything we can to stop it, we can never prevail.

On Tuesday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer was asked by NPR if she thought pro-Trump forces would attempt to interfere with November’s elections.

Here’s what she said:

"It would be a mistake to assume that they're not going to. So I don't know precisely what it is that they might come up with. But we've got smart, sophisticated, savvy people around the table that we will continue to get prepared."

Asked about fears that Trump’s immigration crackdown — deploying thousands of masked thugs into American cities — would become a tool for controlling elections, Whitmer said this:

“I don’t think it’s paranoia to have that concern.”

She said Democratic governors are discussing how to respond, and performing “table top” exercises, though she gave few specifics. “There are important reasons that I’m not going to go into a whole lot more detail.”

That’s chilling, yes, but it is also an opposition party that is slowly starting to understand the stakes. There can be no more warming our hands in front of the fire and welcoming fascists back to our White House. No more pretending that all this will just fade away by employing politics as usual.

Because THAT’S what we were getting from most Democrats in the wake of that terrible November, 2024 election.

This is the most dangerous time in America since the Civil War, and anybody who won’t acknowledge at least that much isn’t worth our time or treasure.

We need fighters, not fawners.

We need people like Sherrill, and Spanberger who know the stakes, and will do everything with the power we have given them to fight for us, and help protect America from itself. These impressive women won because they listened to us.

We the people have more power than we know, and it’s time we made good and damn sure everybody remembers that.

So far, our resurgence has been a people-led revolt, which the Democratic Party Machine has had very little to do with. We have done all this despite the party, not because of it.

We have demanded change, and are leading from the front.

When the calendar turned in 2025, our Democratic “leadership” did nothing but re-elect basically the same people to power who were walloped in 2024.

This is absolute madness.

Chuck Schumer in the Senate, and Hakeem Jeffries in the House survived the massacre, and shortly after Ken Martin took the helm at the hapless DNC.

This very well might be the most uninspiring leadership team ever assembled anywhere for anything. Schumer with his strongly worded letters; Jeffries with his monotone, calculated robotics; Martin so transparent you can see right through him ...

Inspiring leaders like Zoran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race were left out in the cold by fellow New Yorkers Schumer and Jeffries, the latter of which only endorsed him when it no longer mattered. The worthless Schumer couldn’t even be bothered to do that much.

Tell me you’re completely bought off without telling me you are completely bought off.

Through it all, Mamdani prevailed, because it turns out people are craving bold, brave leadership, not more of the same old bull---- from the stale leadership in the Democratic Party.

Mamdani is a generational political talent, and won because he has vision, is not afraid to speak truth to power, and stands for what is most certainly good and right. You can do that when you don’t come off as scripted, boring phonies, who are worried about offending donors, Hakeem and Chuck.

The top of the party feels old, tired and out of touch. You know it, and I know it. So what’s taken so damn long for THEM to know it?

Voters are mad and they aren’t taking it anymore. Out with the old and in with the new. These damn parties and all their money have gotten too big in America. Citizens United saw to that. Now its time for the citizens to truly be united and take it to the man, and never stop taking it to him.

The next 10 months will be the most important time in American history. If we don’t charge past whatever might be standing in our way and vote in obscene numbers, it is is very fair to say we will never get another chance.

But if we do this right, and WE lead as I know we can, there will be an epic wipeout of the Republican Party in November that will be too big for even them to ignore. The 80-year-old, quickly diminishing Trump will be weaker than he’s ever been, and his party will be a fractured mess scurrying to find the nearest hole.

They will be the past.

The future will be ours.

So we make it so.

Power to the people.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

We are in the middle of a national emergency.

Anybody who has the guts, decency, and love of country to pay attention to what is happening in America right now knows this.

While burning the midnight oil (gin) Thursday evening, and unzipping one horrid story after another exposing yet more terror from inside the anti-American regime in our White House, I wanted to be absolutely sure that all the hell we are witnessing is what we think it is.

It is important to be precise about what we are up against, so we can effectively counter it with the necessary heft, and tactics.

So I clicked into my favorite browser and typed in these three words:

What is fascism?

Here is what appeared on my screen thanks to AI that is quickly overrunning our increasingly dumbed-down, and numb society:

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian political ideology and movement characterized by extreme nationalism, a strong centralized government led by a dictator, suppression of opposition, militarism, and prioritizing the nation or race above the individual. It promotes social hierarchy, often racism, and severe economic and social control, opposing liberal democracy and individualism while often aligning with powerful business interests.

Here is the Miriam-Webster definition for the sticklers out there:

Fascism : a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition

Yep. It really is that bad right now, people.

Some Americans will know Italy’s Benito Mussolini, Germany’s Adolf Hitler, and Spain’s Francisco Franco were all murdering fascists that the United States once bravely burned lives and treasure to help stop dead in their tracks.

These days, Russia’s Vladimir Putin most prominently carries the fascist banner, while dragging his orange puppet in tow, the America-attacking Donald Trump. Under Trump’s fascist regime, America has joined Russia with big talk of attacking NATO countries instead of defending them.

This should be absolutely incomprehensible.

But you’ve read this far and still somehow aren’t convinced Trump and his party are fascists … Or, there are certain increasingly dangerous people in your life who consume nothing but state-run propaganda like Fox, and never believe a single word you say anymore.

Well, I suggest you send them what I will type next, so they can never say they weren’t warned or complicit in this ongoing attack on America.

Diving into deeper waters researching this piece, I came across a list headlined Characteristics of Fascism. I had seen this before in passing, but am now happy to attribute it to New Hampshire’s Keene State College. And an aside: I lived in Maine for several years, and was always envious of neighboring New Hampshire’s state motto: Live Free or Die.

That has never been more relevant than it is today.

Anyway, here is the list that defines fascism from the good people at Keene:

• Powerful, often exclusionary, populist nationalism centered on cult of a redemptive, “infallible” leader who never admits mistakes.
• Political power derived from questioning reality, endorsing myth and rage, and promoting lies.
• Fixation with perceived national decline, humiliation, or victimhood.
• White Replacement “Theory” used to show that democratic ideals of freedom and equality are a threat. Oppose any initiatives or institutions that are racially, ethnically, or religiously harmonious.
• Disdain for human rights while seeking purity and cleansing for those they define as part of the nation.
• Identification of “enemies”/scapegoats as a unifying cause. Imprison and/or murder opposition and minority group leaders.
• Supremacy of the military and embrace of paramilitarism in an uneasy, but effective collaboration with traditional elites. Fascists arm people and justify and glorify violence as “redemptive”.
• Rampant sexism.
• Control of mass media and undermining “truth”.
• Obsession with national security, crime and punishment, and fostering a sense of the nation under attack.
• Religion and government are intertwined.
• Corporate power is protected and labor power is suppressed.
• Disdain for intellectuals and the arts not aligned with the fascist narrative.
• Rampant cronyism and corruption. Loyalty to the leader is paramount and often more important than competence.
• Fraudulent elections and creation of a one-party state.
• Often seeking to expand territory through armed conflict.

Chilling, no?

This defines the fascist Republican Party to a T. It should be sent out far and wide to everybody you know — mostly the ignorants and those in denial — and pinned to your refrigerator with this subject line:

Fascism isn’t coming to America, it is here.

Republicans’ brutal attack on Minnesota is just the latest chilling example of the fascism that washed ashore on Nov. 5, 2024, when tens of millions of disgraceful Americans couldn’t be bothered to vote. Innocent wives are being gunned down in our streets by Trump’s paramilitary group, ICE, which is comprised of lawless, jackboot thugs, many of whom were last seen attacking our Capitol in 2021.

They are no longer “standing back and standing by” as their thuggish leader ordered them to in the lead-up to the 2020 election. They are in our personal business and violently coming for our freedom.

Except now, of course, these lowlifes are wearing the very masks they loathed during the killer pandemic their orange leader lied about during that terrifying chapter of American history.

Armed groups like this are also hallmarks of fascist regimes.

Trump, America’s most notorious insurrectionist, is almost sure to invoke the Insurrection Act to finish off Minnesota, on his way to trying to finish off the rest of us.

This would allow the coward, who is a draft-dodger, to use our armed forces in conjunction with his paramilitary group to carry out law enforcement functions in our cities. They would usurp local law authority, and be used to make arrests, conduct searches, threaten citizenry, and generally kick the stuff out of anybody they deem a threat.

I believe this has been Trump’s goal from Day One of his fascist regime, and have written extensively about it. I typed these words the week following his election in 2024:

NOTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect the citizens of the United States of America.
EVERYTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect himself from the citizens of the United States of America.

As a United States veteran who served to protect us from fascists like Trump, I would have paid anything to be wrong, but here we are.

Now let me lay something else on you that I fear I will also be right about: The use of these troops is only a start, because Trump’s real aim is to prevent any further free and fair elections in America.

He will do everything with the unlimited powers his bought-off Supreme Court has given him to prevent this year’s midterm elections. There is not a single thing I have seen from the lawless, felon Trump that allows me to form any other conclusion.

Fascist Republicans have been getting hammered in election after election since 2024, and know full well they are all but certain to lose control of Congress if Americans are allowed to do the most Democratic thing there is this November: VOTE.

Expect Trump to continue to attack other cities in the coming months using the fascist Minnesota playbook to ‘discourage’ people from showing up at the polls, or by simply declaring a national emergency and stopping the vote altogether.

Just last week, Trump stated that he erred in not seizing voting machines after the 2020 election, and his 7-million vote loss to Joe Biden. That, of course, subsequently lead to his violent insurrection attempt, and the Big Lie that still hangs over America like gray, Moscow smog.

Then there’s this excerpt from an unhinged interview with Reuters published Thursday afternoon:

The president expressed frustration that his Republican Party could lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives or the Senate in this year’s midterm elections, citing historical trends that have seen the party in power lose seats in the second year of a presidency.
“It’s some deep psychological thing, but when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms,” Trump said. He boasted that he had accomplished so much that “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.”

It’s fair to assume Trump will do everything possible to prevent any further elections in America. Will he succeed? Well, a lot of that has to do with us, and how we proceed in the coming days and months.

Our legacy media, with notable exceptions, has proven itself close to worthless in covering and defining the greatest threat to America since the Civil War. Many of the media companies that inhabit this shrinking space still can’t even call Trump a liar, much less a fascist.

And what of the leadership in the Democratic opposition?

Are they up to the task?

Are they up to doing whatever is necessary to stand up for us, and protect us from this fascist threat?

Millions of us have been in the streets the past year. Are our leaders listening to us?

I’ll just ask this question outright: Are Chuck Schumer, Ken Martin and Hakeem Jeffries really the best leaders we have to deal with this threat?

If you have your doubts, now is the time to make your voices heard and demand better, because we will not get a second crack at this. Once we lose our right to vote, and our Democratic freedoms they will most likely be gone for good in our lifetimes.

Now that we know what we are up against, we must do everything we can to stand against it, and demand better.

Live free or die.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

Truth is under siege in America, good people, because without it there can be no justice — which is just how the most notorious crook and liar in United States history wants it.

In Donald Trump’s grotesque and larcenous mind, free and fair elections cannot be believed. Violent coup attempts we all watched on TV never happened. Mothers being murdered in cold blood in our streets by masked marauders are perpetrators, not victims. Vaccines that have saved millions of lives are actually unhealthy, and not to be trusted. The worst job numbers in 22 years are not to be believed ...

Up is down.

(Renee) Good is bad.

It is a lot to take.

Since bursting on the political scene with all the subtlety of the Bubonic plague 11 years ago, Trump has told tens of thousands of lies and mistruths. The Washington Post pegged it at a staggering 30,573 at the end of his first term.

That works out to just shy of 21 lies per day — and these are just the lies we know about, and can drastically affect our daily lives.

Can you imagine how much this guy lies on the golf course?

That violent coup attempt, which was the worst attack on our Capitol since 1812, was spearheaded by his Big Lie, which he refuses to stop telling because it is the gasoline that helps to keep his hellish fires raging in his quest to incinerate our Democracy.

Trump’s lying isn’t a part of the story, it is the story, and amid all the chaos and pain he is eagerly bringing us, we are becoming dangerously close to forgetting that.

U.S. President Donald Trump and lady Melania Trump depart for travel to Texas to tour areas affected by deadly flash flooding, from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 11, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

U.S. President Donald Trump and lady Melania Trump depart for travel to Texas to tour areas affected by deadly flash flooding, from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 11, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan ErnstU.S. President Donald Trump and lady Melania Trump depart for travel to Texas to tour areas affected by deadly flash flooding, from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 11, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

We simply cannot trust the President of the United States of America, and the ramifications of that are terrifying.

Trump is a provably terrible, terrible person. This is beyond dispute and something called a fact:

• He has repeatedly verbally and physically abused women.
• He is a proud racist, who has received endorsements from the KKK, myriad white supremacist groups, and murderers like Vladimir Putin.
• He has stolen from charities, and belittled the disabled, and Gold Star families.

The list of truly terrible things he has said and done is endless, but rather than taking up too much of your time rubbing all our faces in his bile, I’ll ask this question:

Why aren’t so many of these things, but mostly the fact that he is an incessant liar, not included in every single story or report about the most dangerous man in the world, and/or his army of fascist enablers in the Republican Party?

This was the crux of my latest piece, in which I grabbed the New York Times by its starched, white lapels and tried to shake some damn sense into them, and the amateurs running their newsroom.

In that piece, I argued that every time our legacy media turns around a meaty story on this grotesque man without mentioning those terrible things, they are doing their readers, viewers, and listeners a disservice.

It is vital background information and context that must be in the reporting about this vile man any time he is making one of his thousands of unsubstantiated claims.

Journalism is about getting at the truth, and then reporting it.

That’s it.

If you are going to report on what the president is telling you fine, but you damn sure better provide context to your reporting.

Just reporting, “Trump said this [fill in the unhinged claim here] on Tuesday,” won’t cut it, unless you also report that the claim is highly suspect because he can’t be counted on to provide the truth.

In fact: He is a liar. Nothing he says can be believed, even if occasionally he swerves into the truth.

Knowing this — and we do without a shadow of a doubt — this is how his claims should be reported: “Trump, who has told tens of thousands of lies and mistruths in the past ten years, made this claim on Tuesday …”

That is accurate reporting.

Any news organization that is not accurate, is not credible. Any news organization that is not credible is not worth anybody’s time.

I am not wrong about this.

Look, I don’t enjoy kicking the crap out of the New York Times like I did on Thursday, though it is my job to do so, when they are not doing their jobs.

At a time when partisan propaganda and lies clog our information highway and are destroying our country, we desperately need places like the New York Times to cut through it all and report the truth.

I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know journalism, and journalism has gone off to die at too many of the once-dependable places along that information highway.

God willing I intend to stay in this fight on behalf of the truth, and the United States of America, until my final breath. As a veteran, I owe the truth, my country, but mostly you at least that much.

Donald Trump is trying to make truth optional in America. If nobody can be believed, nothing can believed. If nothing can be believed, then the most notorious liar in American history will never be stopped.

Don’t stop telling the truth, patriots. We must cling to it and never let go.

Shout it out.

It is the only thing that will truly set us free.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

There was some positive news Monday night. Unfortunately, you had to really lean in to hear it: Special Counsel Jack Smith will testify publicly Jan. 22 before the House Judiciary Committee.

For the next nine days, it is important that pressure be brought to bear that these proceedings are made available everywhere, and treated with the historic significance they deserve.

Our country was violently attacked just over five years ago, and America deserves to finally hear the evidence our government had obtained against the traitor who perpetrated this homegrown terror, Donald J. Trump.

Smith, of course, is the man who was belatedly tasked with leading the investigations into Trump and his repeated attacks on America culminating with the worst assault on our Capitol since 1812 when he tried to violently overthrow the government of the United States of America on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith testified privately in front of this committee last month, and I positively went off on these blasted Republicans who were still trying to cover for their orange idol’s assault on our country that WE ALL WATCHED ON TV.

I have argued strenuously for years, that Trump should be in jail for what’s left of his miserable life for that high crime, and until he is, I will never shut up about it.

I have typed until I am blue in the face about Attorney General Merrick Garland’s criminal disregard for this attack, and just last week, made the case that:

“The attack on January 6, 2021, is an open wound for millions of Americans that will never heal until the reprehensible, anti-American terrorist behind that violent attempted coup is brought to justice and jailed.”

Every single day, tens of millions of us are being gaslighted as this unhinged, lying maniac lawlessly harrumphs around what’s left of our White House filling his bottomless pockets with our money, while taking a blowtorch to our human rights, and our 249-year-old Democracy.

This is doing invaluable harm to our mental health, as we helplessly watch the arsonist stoke yet more raging fires with his never-ending supply of gasoline. This, in itself, is an underreported story.

Why just this week, a video of an innocent woman, Renee Good, is circling the globe in which Good tells one of Trump’s masked gunmen, “I’m not mad at you” and drives off just seconds before that masked gunman shoots her repeatedly in the head, calls her a “f------ b----” for good measure, and then casually walks away to rejoin his pack of blood-thirsty goons, who are littering our streets.

What the hell is anybody with even a shred of compassion and decency supposed to do with this?

Lanny Breuer, the attorney representing Smith, said in a statement Monday night that his client welcomes the opportunity to defend his work on behalf of America:

“Jack has been clear for months he is ready and willing to answer questions in a public hearing about his investigations into President Trump’s alleged unlawful efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his mishandling of classified documents,” Breuer said.

In his private hearing it was leaked that Smith possessed “powerful evidence” and had “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that the convicted felon, Trump, conspired to overturn the 2020 election.

Again, “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” we were never allowed to hear in a criminal trial of Trump because of Garland’s disgusting, and maybe even complicit, slow roll.

The Ohio congressman and screaming monkey, Republican Jim Jordan, will chair the Jan. 22 hearings, so you can expect he will be oiling up his arm until then, so he can fling his seemingly endless supply of feces across the proceedings.

I will also expect the Democrats’ Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, to deftly counter Jordan, and bring plenty of heft and nothing but the facts to this historic hearing.

Raskin is a patriot.

Checking on most of my likely sources this morning, this hearing is so far getting very little attention. I suppose this isn’t surprising given the tsunami of terror that is being directed at us from the most anti-American, and anti-humane administration (regime) in U.S. history.

I, for one, will be banging the drum about this hearing for the next nine days because if nothing else the world needs to be reminded what the traitor, Trump, did to the country he regularly abuses and relentlessly hates.

They need to be reminded of the most destructive Big Lie ever told by a despicable man, who has told tens of thousands of lies since bursting on the political scene with all the subtlety of a Molotov cocktail just over a decade ago.

I’d argue this is must-see history, because while the truly good people of America endure this brutal assault on our country, as well as our physical and mental health, we can take satisfaction for now in knowing we inhabit the moral high ground.

We are standing up for what is good and right, and that is no small thing. Just ask any German who didn't go along with the Nazis.

There needs to be a loud record of the hell we are enduring and have endured, because when freedom rings again — and by God it will — everything must be done to finally bring these attackers to justice.

On January 22nd, we will finally hear “powerful evidence” linking Trump to his attacks.

Mark your calendars.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

I had intended to write to you today about the cold-blooded murder of an innocent mother by masked U.S. government agents on a Minneapolis street Wednesday.

Instead, I want to circle back to the through-line that has enabled killings like this, and myriad other atrocities by the lawless, despicable Donald Trump: The sane-washing of this madman by our abominable and increasingly complicit legacy media.

Let me be as precise as possible with this next run-on sentence: Places like the New York Times can never again be trusted, because of their appalling inability and/or refusal to identify and cover the overthrow of our Democracy, the bludgeoning of decency by Donald Trump and his cowardice, complicit Republican Party, and the most dangerous and volatile times in the United States of America since the Civil War.

I realize I am not breaking any news to most of the readership in this space, but the legacy media’s shoddy treatment of the ongoing attack on America is unfortunately still news to too damn many. I argue their dereliction of duty must be a featured part of these scary times, and a meaty chapter of whatever is left of our historical record if and when this siege ends.

The legacy media have not only let us down, but have actively contributed to our fall from grace.

Today, my friends, the New York Times out-New York Times itself.

While our country burns as it hasn’t in nearly two centuries, we learned that the NYT was summoned to the Oval Office Wednesday night to willingly be used and abused by the appalling Trump, who knows things are so bad for him right now that the free press he clearly loathes might be his only way out of this mess.

In this case, you can’t blame the guy, because it has worked for him before.

Thanks to the New York Times’ heroic telling, we learned that four of their reporters packed up their notebooks and sat down with Trump for what they say was a “nearly two hour conversation.”

“A conversation.” Interesting choice of words there …

Not only did the NYT run tongues-wagging to Trump after his whistle, they decided to treat their “conversation” with top-of-the-fold treatment, and deemed it the most important news of the day.

Take a look at the screen grab that leads this piece. There was not one, but two stories that teased this conversation.

While the world burns, the NYT thought this was the most important thing you needed to know today.

No kidding, this is the second piece in its entirety:

“The New York Times sat down with President Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday evening for an exclusive and wide-ranging interview.
During a nearly two-hour conversation with the Times reporters Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Tyler Pager, Katie Rogers and David E. Sanger, the president talked about subjects including the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis, immigration, the U.S. strategy toward Venezuela, the Russia-Ukraine war, Greenland and NATO, his health, and his plans for further White House renovations.
At one point, he took a lengthy call from Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, the contents of which were off the record. At the end of the interview, he walked the reporters through the White House residence.
The Times’s coverage of the president’s remarks will include stories, newsletters and videos over the coming days, as well as an episode of The Daily on Friday. A transcript of the interview will be published.”

An exclusive and wide-ranging interview! Wow! A walk through our White House! Do tell!!! There will be stories, newsletters and videos!!

Yippee!!!!

Holy you-know-what.

Literally the only thing that even smells like news from this pathetic sit-down — the alleged call from Petro — couldn’t be reported.

Try cleverly telling us there was no news made in this conversation, without telling us there was no news made in this conversation, you dummies.

Because if there was any significant news from their meaty conservation that its paying readership needed to know about, I’ll take it the NYT would have broken that out prominently today and not just sat on it for their “stories, newsletters and videos” that will be coming later.

Anything coming later IS NOT NEWS.

News by definition is NEW.

Oh, and what about the failure to discuss the Epstein Files? Or is the NYT just not bothered that there is a better-then-average chance the guy they were summoned to sit down with is a pedophile.

Or worse, was not discussing Epstein a condition for their big conversation?

I’m almost embarrassed for the NYT and the alleged journalists who work there, but really as an old man who gave his life to daily newspapering, I am absolutely furious by this shoddy treatment of what used to be an important vocation.

Rather than give top-of-the-page treatment to covering all the hell that is going on around us right now, like the shooting by masked government agents of an innocent woman, the NYT decided to make THEMSELVES the top story today by trumpeting they had a conversation with the devil himself where no news was broken, but he was able to pull the release valve on his already blown mind.

For instance, it looks like Trump huffed and puffed and said “only time will tell” when asked how long he will play the role of President of Venezuela.

“Only time will tell …”

Let me tell you something, if a reporter ever came back to the newsroom and told me the only thing he/she got that looked like news from a sit down with the president was that “only time would tell” how long it would be before he exited a country he seized illegally … “only time would tell” how long it would be before I kicked that reporter’s ass out of the newsroom for good.

Instead, the NYT editors treated the whole thing like they got the exclusive of the year.

This is classic NYT where you can read 73 headlines a week that say something approximating this:

“TRUMP SAID THIS!”

“THEN TRUMP SAID THAT!”

“TRUMP DID THIS!”

“THEN TRUMP DID THAT!”

“TRUMP WANTS THIS!”

“NOW TRUMP WANTS THAT!”

The guy could pass gas, and the NYT would dutifully report it, but never dare tell you it smelled.

The NYT is not an organization reporting on the White House, it is a collection of stenographers reporting for the White House.

And there’s something else I want to touch on here, and underline for emphasis before I go back to banging my head against the wall:

In today’s scant offering teasing these coming “stories, newsletters and videos,” there is no mention that the man they sat down to interview is a lifetime stranger to the truth, and in fact, has told a documented tens of thousands of lies and mistruths since entering public life a decade ago.

He is also the author of the Big Lie, which has done catastrophic damage to America.

This means he cannot be trusted, which means their readership needed to be reminded of this. This is vitally important context, and I have argued for years should appear in every story in which Trump is quoted, because it is not only important background, it is a goddamn FACT, and facts are hard to find these days in our crumbling legacy media.

Tell me: In your day-to-day life do you trust anybody you know who regularly lies to you, or are you bare minimum highly skeptical of anything that comes out of their mouth?

There is also no mention that Trump spearheaded a violent coup five years ago yesterday. There is also no mention that Trump is a convicted felon. There is also no mention of his repeated physical and verbal abuse of women. There is also no mention that Trump is an overt racist.

And on and on …

This is all incredibly important background information, especially when we are somehow talking about the President of the United States of America.

All of these things and more — much more — have been sandblasted and smoothed over by our legacy media, so that in 2026 America they are all just perfectly normal behavior from a president.

Except these things aren’t normal, and can never be normal, or we really are done for good.

In fact, and we must never forget this: They ARE the story.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

What too damn many people somehow still don’t understand is that the attack on January 6, 2021, is an open wound for millions of Americans that will never heal until the reprehensible, anti-American terrorist behind that violent attempted coup is brought to justice and jailed.

Five years later, there has not been a single day — not ONE — that has gone by when I haven’t given one of the most tragic days in American history some thought.

There are days it just rattles me — brings me to fury and tears. Count this as another one of those days ...

This is most likely called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but I prefer to think of it as love for a flawed country that I served honorably in the Navy, and the profound disappointment that America herself wasn't found worthy enough to be defended after a brutal attack.

This is devastatingly sad.

When somebody has the audacity to ask why I hate Trump so much, January 6th is the first thing out of my mouth. What follows is a salty string of condemnations like his rampant bigotry and abuse, but it all begins and ends for me on that gruesome, haze-gray winter afternoon in our Capitol five years ago today.

We all saw with our own eyes what went on during a day that has historically been a peaceful transfer of power in America. For all our differences, this is a day we are supposed to shake hands, go to our corners, and move onto the next chapter of the great American experiment.

Except as we all good and damn well know, that is not what happened.

Instead, the grotesque, red-eyed Trump showed up in town sporting his trademark hate, and spurred his weak, subservient henchmen who pathetically hang on his every word into a violent lather, before retreating to the White House to root on his attack.

Many hours later, after cops had been beaten, his vice president was threatened with hanging, politicians of all colors ran for their lives, and some semblance of order was beginning to be restored after the bloody attack had failed … Trump stumbled onto the White House lawn and grudgingly called off the attack, but not before telling his Orcs who laid siege to our Capitol that he “loved them.”

He told them that he loved them ...

This is what happened on that day. Every single person in America knows this is what happened that day because we watched it.

WE WATCHED IT.

Finally, Joe Biden was inaugurated, and the people who truly care for their country breathed a sigh of relief.

Trump was impeached for his high crimes, but wasn't barred from running for office again, because Republicans who watched exactly what you did on January 6, 2021, decided violent traitors deserved a second chance, proving yet again they are expert at double-talking about law and order, just not delivering it.

Soon the bookish Merrick Garland was nominated and confirmed as Attorney General, and my foot got to tapping. It was time for the full weight of the law to land squarely on the fat head of the grotesque man who attacked us.

Months went by and nothing happened. Then a year …

I was slowly losing my mind and my senses. Just what in the hell was going here?

I wrote, screamed, posted, called, and scratched the hair out of my head.

When was that rotten son of a bitch of a traitor going to be charged for his high crimes???

Oh sure, the ineffectual Garland went after the violent Trump toadies who carried out the attack, but never got close to laying a glove on any of the high-paid henchmen who were holed up in Washington’s stately Willard Hotel planning the attack for weeks.

In the end, every one of them were free to pack their bags, pay their bills, stiff the help, and be on their merry way toward more mayhem, and as it turns out, a second chance at wiping us out for good.

I’ll never forget the people who made excuses for Garland, who damn well should have known better.

The people who played us for fools.

The people who would hustle their way onto places like MSNBC, and CNN, and/or write know-it-all columns that Garland had a plan and was some grandmaster law-and-order expert, who was just toying with Trump.

Many were in the legal community, and they told us to cool our heels. Justice was coming.

I hoped they were right, but knew in my heart they were dead wrong, because as a lifelong journalist, I have always preferred to believe my eyes, and the facts.

Nothing was happening, and WE knew it.

I worried their partisan appeasement of the foot-dragging Garland was only making things worse. Instead of using their influence to demand better, and some damn accountability, they haughtily told us things would be OK. They weren’t holding power to account for itself and its (in)actions, they were covering for it.

Well, we all know how it went now, and just how damn wrong all those people were as their credibility, and our country, went up in smoke.

And though these days are sad enough without beating up on Joe Biden, who has been a better man for his 82 years than Trump could ever wish to be for a single minute, I am also not in a cult.

Biden’s failure to use his enormous power to do everything he could to protect us, and make good and damn sure a monster like Trump could never hurt us again was a catastrophic dereliction of duty we might not recover from.

Picking an attorney general who would make sure that everybody who had a hand in that terrible attack paid the consequences should have been Priority No. 1, because if they can get away with it once …

As all those days, weeks, months and years went by and Grandmaster Garland did nothing to get at Trump before needlessly pawning his responsibility over to Special Counsel Jack Smith, I began to wonder if the lack of serious action by the Biden Administration was a sad case of profound naivety, or if it was something far more sinister: Our so-called elite in America simply do not punish their own.

There are rules for thee, and rules for we ...

The last time I saw Joe Biden two Novembers ago, he was flashing a big smile in front of a crackling fire at the White House and literally welcoming Trump back.

Only weeks before he told us Trump was a “fascist” who fosters “an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

I get whiplash just typing that.

I picture that scene now, and the one on that terrible day five years ago, and feel like a damn fool for pouring my heart out in the defense of America, when it was clear that the people who should have cared as much as we did simply didn't.

Astonishingly, in the past few weeks, we have learned that Smith had “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” to prosecute Trump for his attack, and I have called for everything he has to be made public.

It is paramount we know what Trump was up to while he planned his attack.

NPR has done a masterful job reporting on Trump’s ongoing efforts to incinerate everything that is known about his brutal attack, and archived thousands of documents. I encourage you to read and listen to their work.

From their tremendous reporting:

“You know, the government is actively trying to rewrite this history. Five years ago, right after it happened, there was kind of a consensus. Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz called it an act of domestic terrorism. So did the FBI. Even Trump himself said the rioters, quote, "defiled the seat of democracy" and must, quote, "pay."

Pay? He has since pardoned them.

[deep breath]

I am having another one of those moments …

Had Garland acted with the alacrity an attack on America called for, there was bipartisan political will and “consensus” in place to prosecute the most dangerous man in the world. Instead he dithered, and we deserve to know why that happened.

We need to know why that happened.

Listen to me, dammit: What too many people STILL don’t understand is that millions of us will never get over what happened on January 6, 2021.

We demand justice.

Unless you are talking about bringing that justice to the traitor who perpetrated the only violent attack on our Capitol since 1812, I am not interested in a single word you have to say about anything.

In fact, I rage at you.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

The only United States President in history to violently attack his own country, and attempt a coup to stay in power was always going to be a threat to illegally attack other countries like Venezuela, and destabilize the entire world.

This was the greatest fear when Donald J. Trump was recklessly reelected in 2024 by a slim majority of voters in a battered country that is split apart at the seams, and gasping for air.

Trump, of course, promised these people he’d fix 90 percent of our problems on Day One, and has instead doubled and tripled them, while officially becoming the most dangerous problem the United States has ever had to grapple with.

He is a madman with the most powerful military in the world under his fat little thumb, a blank check from a Republican Congress which has surrendered its powers, and a bought-off Conservative Supreme Court that has lost its honor.

To be clear, Trump’s continued attacks on Venezuela have been illegal from the start, violate our Constitution, and have been an affront to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

We told the people who voted for Trump this was going to happen, and while I’d like to sit here and used 225 choice words to rub their faces in it, that will accomplish nothing except blowing an old, functioning fuse.

This morning is a time for resolve, and a clear-eyed vision of the scary road ahead. We are in uncharted territory, but not because we have unilaterally and illegally attacked a sovereign nation. Lord knows there’s been far too much of that in our checkered history.

No, we are in this new, terrible place, because this time a man who has made it clear how little respect he has for the United States and its institutions is behind this latest illegal attack.

I say again: A man who will attack his own, has long since proven he is incapable of defending us and our Democracy.

In fact, he is our enemy.

So now what?

The answer is simple, and the execution will be hard: America has a dangerous dictator entrenched in its White House, who must be removed.

Starting right now, I am suggesting Congress move immediately to assemble a coalition of the willing, and announce their intent to work feverishly toward Trump’s removal.

We simply will not survive three more years of this, or even three more weeks or months at this frenetic, bloody pace, and that must be clearly articulated. Trump’s “presidency” thus far has been chaotic, brutal, and has accomplished nothing but weakening our standing in the world, and making our day-to-day lives far more challenging, expensive, and stressful.

Building consensus for Trump’s removal will be key, and cannot be done politically unilaterally. I doubt highly many Independents who voted for Trump to drop their egg prices voted for illegal, murderous foreign attacks, or Marines in our streets. I am also dubious that many in MAGA are good with Trump’s fixation on everything but addressing our skyrocketing cost of living.

This case for his removal must be taken to the public, begin apace, and the stakes must be laid out clearly: Donald J. Trump is a morally busted, mentally unstable tyrant who won’t stop until he is stopped cold.

This is classic fascism.

He is clearly unfit for the job, and the most dangerous man on Earth.

I am also suggesting the Democratic leaders throughout the world condemn these attacks and lay out the necessary sanctions against us for our illegal acts. The majority of the people in this country would support this during this time of war.

What Trump has done to Venezuela is no different than what Vladimir Putin has done to Ukraine.

Listen to me, friends around the world: We need your damn help.

When another murdering fascist, Adolph Hitler, attacked Poland in 1939 in the run-up to World War II, he justified it with lies and propaganda, which is exactly what Trump has been doing during his drumbeat for war with Venezuela and attacks inside his own country.

Already Trump’s propaganda channels at places like Fox are working feverishly to support this illegal incursion into Venezuela. These must be immediately countered with facts and vigor, and you can count this piece as but a spark that will lead to the raging fire for truth that must be kindled right now.

The only significant difference between 1939 and 2026, is that Hitler was far more popular in Germany than Trump is in America. This is problematic for Trump, of course, but will only make him that much more dangerous as he lashes out, and listens to the unhinged voices in his head, while grotesque men like Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth tug at his sleeves.

Trump’s illegal attack on Venezuela is only the beginning if we don’t put an end to it right now. It’s not a matter of if he’ll attack again, but simply when and where.

And if we won’t do everything we can to stop this now, he will have successfully conquered the United States of America, because we will have surrendered to a traitor.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a mass-murderer and an enemy of the United States of America.

United States President Donald J. Trump has repeatedly appeased Putin, and is an enemy of the United States of America.

That’s today’s column, and thank you for reading ...

Honestly, folks, I hoped to treat myself to a quiet holiday week, but simply must address the latest diabolical Putin-Trump phony attempt at a “peace deal” in Ukraine with some considerable urgency.

I also cannot look away from how this alleged “peace deal” is being reported by what’s left of our stinking garbage can of a legacy media, which is either complicit with Trump and Putin, or incredibly inept at journalism — but most likely both.

Once again, we are all being played for fools by these two dangerous skunks, whose lies echo freely in the vast, empty spaces of these major, bought-off media empires without challenge or context.

I have had more than enough of all of them.

So let’s get right down to it: Aided by a comatose American electorate in which only 59 percent of its voters bothered to show at the polls, Russia worked feverishly to install Trump as president in 2016.

Trump’s Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort was actually passing internal campaign information to Russian intelligence officers during the election.

Go ahead: Read that again.

Trump himself asked for Russia’s help to hack Hillary Clinton’s email on the campaign trail, saying: “Russia, if you’re listening … I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Prescient, eh?

For what it’s worth Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office condemned this public treason by saying in part, “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election.”

I add this because there actually was a time when some Republicans frowned on murdering fascists taking power, instead of courting them.

Look, Trump never even sniffs power without Putin’s help.

And hey, if you think I am typing just a little too fast and loose here to get back to my vacation, then I urge you to have a look at the infamous Mueller Report, which concluded among other damning things, that Russian interference in the 2016 election was “sweeping and systemic.” The report “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.”

Read that way, it’s a wonder Trump wasn’t removed from office and jailed on the spot, except Trump’s slimy personal lawyer, er, attorney general, Bill Barr, came to his own conclusions, which most of the media at the time were only too happy to lap up, spit out, and call good.

The Mueller Report was a complete mindblower, and after reading it, if anybody still willingly believes that Trump wasn’t aware of Moscow’s illegal interventions on his behalf, shouldn’t be trusted to dress themselves in the morning.

Then there’s the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee report in 2020 which concluded “the Trump campaign's interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a grave counterintelligence threat.”

Oh, and that committee’s chair? Well, that would be a guy named Marco Rubio, who lately has lowered himself to a level equal to the proximity of Trump’s ample ass.

You can’t make this up, because it’s all true, but has all but been conveniently forgotten by our ridiculous legacy media, whose reporting on Trump consistently includes little to no context for his myriad past offenses.

On Dec. 22, 1944, on a brutally cold and snowy battlefield in Bastogne, Belgium, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe's rough-and-ready 101st Airborne Division was surrounded and outnumbered by German armor units, which had literally come out of nowhere.

The fighting had been bloody and intense, and the Germans, sensing victory, made a final push to prevail in World War II. Before hitting the Americans with everything they had, the German command sent a message to McAuliffe, demanding he surrender his army.

McAuliffe snatched the missive, and then typed one of his own: “NUTS!”

When the Germans asked what “NUTS!” meant, an American officer clarified, “In plain English,” he snarled, “It means, ‘Go to hell!’”

Buoyed by the defiant McAuliffe the Americans went on to prevail in what would be known as the Battle of the Bulge and turned the momentum of the war in the European theater in the allies’ favor …

For the past 340-plus days, the sick and depraved Donald Trump’s fascist, bigoted, lawless regime has thrown everything they’ve got at a country and people they provably hate, by dint of their consistently repulsive actions that hit a boiling point on January 6, 2021, and have been on full simmer since.

• They have moved to poison our air and water, and battered our government and our White House.
• They have stained our armed forces by pitting them against American citizens, and demanded they follow illegal orders by carrying out murder on the high seas.
• They have banned books and tried to bastardize our checkered history and those hard truths they hate most of all.
• They have wrecked our healthcare system, attacked clean energy, and degraded science and vaccines that have saved millions and millions of lives.
• They have coddled fascists, and taken a hammer to allies that have stood with us and people like General McAuliffe for eight decades.
• They have propped up soulless, greedy billionaires, and covered for pedophiles.
• They have pardoned thousands of crooks for cash, and gone after judges.
• And those prices they promised to bring down? Well, they’ve only gone up thanks to Trump’s idiotic tariffs.

The past 340-plus days have been a bombardment of the senses, and an attack on human rights and just plain decency.

And it has all been by evil design.

Because Donald Trump, and Stephen Miller, and JD Vance, and Elon Musk, and the rest of the grotesque Republicans that spin out of control in their evil orbit want you to feel like America’s defeat is inevitable.

The repulsive and sickly Trump is doing everything he can to step on our necks with those fat little feet which are swallowed up by inner tubes for ankles. He’s a garbage-mouthed, lying lout, who can only find true pleasure in administering the pain that has lived inside him his entire stinking, miserable life.

Well, here’s what I say to that:

NUTS!

We’re still here, and by God we’ve more than proven we can give as good as we get.

Because buried in the rubble and amid all that the smoke, Democrats have been winning elections at an astonishing clip, and if 2026 looks anything like 2025, Republicans are heading for a bloodbath in the coming months.

And they damn well know it.

The failing Trump is in deep trouble, and as we swing hard toward the midterms, his subservient cowards in Congress will have a choice to make: Stay with the man who is trying to end us and them, or run to the Left toward freedom and programs and initiatives that lift all of us up.

Or … there’s a third option: They can just flat surrender.

Already, there have been a record amount of retirements in the House and Senate and as Republicans made the choice to cut and run away from their deeply, deeply unpopular president and toward the safety of their homes.

Here’s a fact: If the midterms were held this Tuesday, Republicans would lose the House by 40 to 60 seats, as well as the Senate. Big races, small races, and medium races would swing toward the left, because that is exactly what has been quietly happening among the carnage of Trump’s continued attack on America.

Major races that were supposed to be nail-biters in places like New Jersey and Wisconsin went to the Democrats by double-digits. Democrat Abigail Spanberger absolutely demolished her opponent in Virginia’s governor race.

In fact, the last time the Central Virginia town of Waynesboro voted for a Democratic presidential nominee, Lyndon Johnson led the ticket in 1964.

This makes it a Republican stronghold.

Well, last month, Democrats swept to victory in every race on that town’s ballot, including the governor’s race, when Spanberger became the first Democrat to ever win the majority in Waynesboro.

That’s change we can believe in, good people.

And there are hundreds of examples like Waynesboro all over the map.

Republicans can’t point to ONE election that they over-performed in this year — NOT ONE — while that is all Democrats have been doing.

Republicans are scared, folks, and it’s about damn time we shook off our doubts and started carrying ourselves as winners. Winning begets winning. It’s OK to walk with a swagger just as long as you are prepared to keep going hard on your way to the finish line.

Who here isn’t prepared to do that????

And let me get this out of the way because my ears are already burning: You are saying what happens if Trump somehow rigs the elections, and calls a national emergency or some damn thing to throttle our vote? Then what, Earl?

If these things were to come to pass, and I don’t believe they will, what does that change exactly?

Are you just going to take your toys and go home and cry? Are you just going let him do it, and whine about things not being fair?

Or are you going to show some damn resolve and keep doing whatever is necessary to protect your country and her people?

Here’s something I hope you consider most of all today:

Trump isn’t even close to as powerful as he wants you to think he is, and you are far, far more powerful than you think you are.

Please read that again, dammit.

I am no Pollyanna, and demand as much from our leaders as I do myself. In fact, I’ve caught a lot of guff for going after Democrats like Chuck Schumer from time to time for their half-a----- efforts in the face of fascism.

After last year’s terrible election I thought too damn many Democrats were taking that beating lying down, and man, it made me furious. Turns out there were a lot of people like me …

I saw them by the thousands at all those rallies. I see them by the thousands in this space every day. We aren’t standing up for Democrats as much as we are standing up for America, and against the fascist Trump.

We want fighters.

Dammit you know me, and I know you, and NONE of us are quitting. That’s tens of thousands of us right here alone standing up for what’s good and right. And if everyone of us plants the seeds of democracy and does the necessary work in the field, thousands and thousands more will rise up and join us in this epic battle.

WE are leading the change and the charge.

And we will win.

I swear to God we will.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

While growing up in a working-class town in New Jersey, my family took the morning and evening newspapers, the latter of which I dutifully delivered to the houses in my tangled neighborhood and along the two main thoroughfares that tucked us all in.

When I’d get home from school, there’d be a mountain of bundled papers waiting for me on the curb. I’d sigh, roll ‘em up, wrap ‘em in a rubber band, pile ‘em in a Santa-like sack, hop on my bike, and sling ‘em in the vicinity of people’s porches. I had more than a few “uh-oh” moments when a paper would get away from me and head straight for a window, or a subscriber’s unsuspecting flower pot.

That’s what mass-communicating looked like back in the 1960s and 70s.

After some above-averagely rambunctious teenage years, and too many classrooms I could never settle into, I served in the U.S. Navy, and was honorably discharged to start living my dream: getting a byline in one of those newspapers I used to sling about. I went on to work at five dailies, one weekly, and two magazines during the greatest, luckiest, and most fulfilling career any man has ever had doing anything.

You know, my friends, I reckon the terrible decline in local newspapers has had a direct impact on the increasing ignorance, propaganda and misinformation in today’s America. You can draw a direct line from the end of our daily newspapers’ heyday, to the beginning of the fascism that is pouring over us like orange, contaminated syrup.

Gone are the days when eager journalists were everywhere that you couldn’t be reporting on what was happening in our communities, and calling power into account in our local courts, police stations, schools boards, sports venues, city halls, and state houses.

These days, most of our towns in this faltering country don’t have a daily newspaper, and there is no way they are any better for it. Too many public officials are now free to rob us blind in private.

Today we have the Internet, and I’ve consistently argued we haven’t come close to reckoning with the tidal wave of change it has wrought on society. Some of it has no doubt been good, but I’m confident as hell I could have lived very happily without it.

I am reminded of this every time I see an idiot crossing a busy street looking at God knows what on their stupid phone. Yet here I am typing to you in God knows where because of that Internet I am currently bellyaching about ...

I’ll be honest with you: When I started writing urgently following one of the most tragic days in American history, Nov. 8, 2016, I had no plans for where any of it would end up. It was simply therapy, and a release of the madness crawling around inside my head, as I tried to make sense of a country and a people I all of a sudden didn’t recognize anymore.

Who could vote for such an obviously grotesque man to lead the United States of America?

I guess I had no idea how many people thought so damn little of their country.

For the first time in my life I was not professionally tied to any single publication, and free to write what I wanted. Words are all I have ever known since I was first published in 1983, so I started pouring my heart out on an Internet that I didn’t trust.

After all that writing, I had a book, three basketfuls worth of columns and a need for a respectable place to hang my jacket and my words. So three-plus years ago, I decided to make Substack home, and I am happy as hell I did.

As many of you are aware, Trump and his lying, subservient Republican Orcs are in a war against the truth, and trying to crush anybody who dares report it. On Sunday, CBS News once again fell at the orange fascist’s fat little feet and spiked a story that was set to run on the once-venerable 60 Minutes news program, about the "the brutal and tortuous conditions" of his detention camps .

This was only the latest surrender by our diminishing legacy media to the convicted felon who attacked us on January 6, 2021.

The media I gave my professional life to is under attack and dying right in front of our eyes, so it is surprising and gratifying as hell for an old, broken down journalist to help breathe life into something new.

Places like Substack are the present in a world where the future comes at us too fast, and we should all do our best to support the tremendous work being done by independent journalists to inform and call power into account.

As a reader first, and a writer second, I know that the written word has staying power, and I like it just fine on paper, or one of these screens.

I am a fiercely independent SOB, and a one-man gang. I don’t collaborate with anybody, because I can’t live with letting anybody down but myself. I spent decades living on somebody else’s deadline. Now I set my own clock. It’s incredible how freeing that is.

I don’t do podcasts, and you won’t see my pretty face streaming live, taped, on the cloud, on a mountain, or anyplace there is some camera.

I learned a long time ago I’m just not made for that.

I co-hosted a TV show in the 1990s, and absolutely hated it. The show came first, and any substance second. That’ll read a little haughty, but it was the truth. So I stayed with the written word, which might explain why money never stayed around me for long.

I have my sources, integrity, but mostly … you.

I was taught working at all those newspapers that readers are pure gold, and owed everything you got. You are the reason I am here, folks, and I hope like hell that comes through in my writing.

These are some tough, soul-sucking, lonely and scary times we are living in, and community has never been more important. Thanks to this Internet I don’t trust I am able to connect with people like you I do trust all over the world, and that’s pretty cool.

Your readership and camaraderie helps keep me sane and hopeful. Your paid support means everything, and helps to deal with the never-ending bills that only increase with age, because America has decided older people aren’t worth as much as they are owed.

As I put a holiday bow on this piece, it has occurred to me that I started my life slinging words at people’s doorsteps, and I’m now on my way to ending it by slinging words into a computer and along an invisible information highway.

Such discovery …

Such a wonderful life …

Happy holidays, good people. I have a journalist’s hunch that 2026 is going to be a great damn year. In fact, you have my word.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

I will never get over the attack on my country January 6, 2021, by the anti-American lowlife, Donald J. Trump.

I will never move on until the man who spearheaded that attack is brought to justice.

Trump is the most dangerous man in the world, and if this has somehow escaped you until this point, he made the case yet again Wednesday night when he assaulted a podium, a microphone and our senses on primetime TV, telling approximately four lies every minute.

It was an unhinged performance worthy of one of history’s most notorious dictators.

Just six hours earlier, we had learned that former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith privately testified in front of a closed House Judiciary Committee hearing that his legal team had “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that the convicted felon, Trump, conspired to overturn the 2020 election.

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Can we stop for a minute and consider what another day in America looked like Wednesday?

First, you have Smith telling a closed hearing that his team had “powerful evidence” on the morally dead Trump, who only hours later would claim he had the goods on America, and we better like the beating he is giving her or else.

A closed hearing …

Of course the damn thing was closed, because Republicans know good and damn well that if Smith were to take his testimony public, we all would have been forced to reckon with the worst attack on our Capitol since the War of 1812.

We would have been reminded that the traitor, Trump, did nothing but root for the attack’s success for hours while he sequestered himself in a room and punished ketchup bottles.

We would have been reminded that when the beatings and the threats, and the fires and the damage to our Capitol and worldwide reputation were finally over that gruesome day, the belligerent Trump stumbled in front of a camera and told his anti-American thugs who had attacked us that “he loved them.”

We would have been reminded how little Republicans did to safeguard this country from the worst possible outcome: The return to office of the man who is hellbent on destroying our Democracy and turning America into an authoritarian cesspool ruled by the very worst among us.

Finally, we would have been reminded in the wake of all THAT, how damn little Joe Biden’s Attorney General, the feckless Merrick Garland, did to bring America’s greatest enemy to justice.

Well, I am not moving on from this, dammit.

Ever.

We all watched in horror as America was being murdered in cold blood, hour after hour that day, and nothing was being done to stop it.

WE KNOW HE DID IT.
HIS FAMILY KNOWS HE DID IT.
HE KNOWS HE DID IT.

It was one of the most appalling days in American history, and everything should have been done to make sure it never, ever happened again.

Instead, nothing was done.

NOTHING.

I say again: I am NOT done with this, and I NEVER will be.

As a U.S. Navy veteran who served this country, and a man who cares deeply for her, I am demanding we get to the bottom of just what-in-the-hell happened January 6, 2021.

I will not be shutting up about it until I am dead and gone, because if there really are going to be no consequences for an assault on our country, the idea of America is as hollow as the tiny heart of the lowlife who attacked us.

Jack Smith testified in so many words Wednesday that the man who is currently taking a bulldozer to our White House and our human rights is a traitor.

Just what-in-the-hell is anybody who REALLY cares for his or her country supposed to do with this kind of information?

Let it go?

And what about Garland, this deplorable and gutless loser, who catastrophically failed in his greatest responsibility: PROTECTING AMERICA.

Where is this so-called man? Why wasn’t he on Capitol Hill with Smith on Wednesday?

I remind you: We are paying for his quiet retirement.

So I ask again: Just what in the hell is going on here?

For close to the past five years, I have lived in a constant state of trying to make sense of it all.

Why isn’t Trump rotting in jail right now?

Here is a part of one of the many pieces I wrote about all this following Trump’s attack. I spun this one in March 2023, in the weeks after the man who attacked us announced he was running for president so that he could finish us off.

Re-reading it again this morning, I began to shake with anger:

Just 10 weeks ago, the traitor, Donald J. Trump, announced he was once again running for the most powerful office in the world, the President of the United States of America.

This immediately made the disgusting man the Republicans’ frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election, and elevated the stakes in this contest to a sky-high level. If Trump wins, there’s every reason to believe it will be the last presidential election in American history.

The only person in America who seemed genuinely surprised by Trump’s terrifying and completely predictable announcement was our unflappable Attorney General Merrick Garland, who after nearly two years of doing nothing to punish Trump for his attack on our country, was finally forced out of his malaise and into making a move.

After careful consideration, the three-dimensional grandmaster judicial chess player studied the board, and outdid himself by actually putting himself in check when he pawned off his responsibility to somebody else to take care of this monumental threat to America.

Watching Garland glide to the podium, raise his voice to a thundering whisper, and haul out some unwritten rule to the game that actually tied both his hands behind his back was pretty galling, and plenty pathetic.
Essentially, he took out an empty gun, held himself up, and surrendered.

Grandmaster Crash told us that because Trump was now shockingly a candidate for president, he had been forced to appoint a special counsel to look into the former president’s violent attempt to overturn a free and fair election that he lost by more than seven millions votes.

Brilliant, eh?

Before moving onto Garland’s willing accomplices in our race toward fascism, let’s once and for all dispense with the stupid argument that even had he done his damn job and charged the treasonous Trump with some semblance of alacrity, it wouldn’t have prevented the rotten bastard from running for office while he was on trial.
Technically that’s true. Realistically, it’s laughable.

Had Garland charged Trump in a reasonable timeframe, say, ‘only’ one year after his coup attempt, there’s every reason to believe his gutless party, now provided the necessary political cover by the AG, would have long since abandoned Trump, and moved onto nominating far more qualified and cunning fascists like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president.

As bad as that would be, at least Trump would have been finished as a candidate, law and order would have prevailed, and the rotten, orange bastard would be staring at prison where he most certainly belongs.
Most important, there would actually be consequences for disgusting actions like the traitor, Trump’s, which would serve to prevent further attacks like this on our country.

There would be justice.

Except we never did get that justice, and because of that America has never been in this kind of danger.

Trump is every bit as guilty this morning as he was January 6, 2021, and far more dangerous. Predictably, he is failing catastrophically at his job, and lashing out at anybody who dares blame him for it.

He will own none of this, and warm his stubby, bandaged hands on the fires he has kindled.

That unhinged, unfit primetime performance on Wednesday night won’t be the last time he commandeers our TV networks (which one by one are falling at his fat feet and swollen ankles), and relentlessly lies to America, and threatens patriots who stand in his way.

We are in a battle for our survival.

If Jack Smith has “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that ties Trump to the attack on America then everything must be done to make sure that everybody sees this evidence just as soon as possible.

Because if we are OK with the man who violently attacked our country now leading it, Democracy is dead.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

I want to pour you a shot of good news, with a stiff chaser.

It won’t wipe away all your troubles, but it might make you feel warm and fuzzy for about 30 minutes — maybe longer if you just allow yourself to go with the buzz …

(BARTENDER’S TIP: Allow yourself to go with the buzz. It’s been a hard damn decade.)

All’s not well in MAGA land, my friends.

It seems there are hardcore members of the most destructive cult in American history, who believe their fearful, orange leader is outdoing himself in the Department of B-------, as he undoes our democracy.

It’s actually starting to look like Donald Trump can go too far for at least a few of his ardent supporters, who have been known to see homegrown terrorists stomping on police officers and destroying our Capitol as “tourists,” and view the poisoning of our air and water as “healthy.”

The list of terrible things these morally busted people have endorsed by helping elect this garbage can of a man, is longer than a summer day in Alaska, but might not be limitless.

It could be there are actually lines they prefer not to be crossed — even by their vulgar idol, who has done the heroic work of battering our government, our benefits, and his spineless party into submission.

In the past week, I have heard from two old friends in the business community here in Madison, Wisconsin, and in my hometown haunts of New Jersey.

These gents deal with a lot of MAGA bros in their day-to-day work, which takes them deep inside the American staples of sales and finance. They interact with these people because they have mountains of patience, and those dreaded bills to pay. Like myself, they are both old-to-middle-aged white men, and as such have been afforded a lifetime of privilege to do just about anything they want in America (including attack it) without any serious ramifications.

Here’s one of those messages I received:

“I’ve had a couple of MAGA folks confide in me the last couple of weeks that they are officially off the Trump train. It seems like based on the posturing that’s happening and his recent losses that they will be cannibalizing him soon.”

He cited Epstein, the “Kash/Bongino obvious lying” and the “pro-billionaire s----” as some of the reasons for their sudden discontent with the orange and appalling man, as well as their desire to be more public with their upset.

Another message I received said this, among a lot of other “stuff”:

“He’s losing MAGA. This is not what they voted for, and the Epstein stuff is killing him. I’m telling you, he’s in trouble.”

Reports like this are hardly scientific, but they are meaningful, and the numbers back them up. Trump’s approval ratings are at historic lows for a president (and I use that term loosely) in his first year in office, where honeymoon periods, and “benefit of the doubts” can extend well into a second or third season.

The speed in which Trump has lost support is breathtaking.

Recent election results that have gone heavily Democratic, and some skirmishes in the Republican ranks point to a presidency that is beginning to wear thin on the majority of America, including more than a few of his once loyal foot soldiers.

Look, I’m not even remotely insinuating we are out of danger here. In fact, if there is any validity to the growing anti-Trump movement in the Republican ranks, and I think there is, Trump will only become more unhinged and dangerous, as the golden walls close in around him, and he becomes more isolated.

He will lash out like a snot-nosed baby with a loaded machine gun, and before he is through, the January 6th insurrection will look like a minor skirmish.

The rest of one of the above messages from my buddy, reads like this:

“Hopefully this doesn't lead to some wild outburst when he (Trump) realizes this is happening (his cratering support), but it most certainly will ...”

Yes it will.

One morning this week, he rolled out of his steel-enforced rack, grabbed his nuclear-powered cell phone and went into full, unhinged, bro-mode by launching this beauty on his state-run social media channel.

This is the President of the United States of America at work on a Monday morning.

And let me answer your question, before finishing up:

“No, I don’t know how ANYBODY can support this grotesque, unhinged thug ...”

We’ll never survive three more years of this madness, and I have been of the opinion that Trump and his failing physical and mental health likely won’t either.

Rather than bet on the natural order of things, though, we are better off cautiously hoping that enough people in his revolting base will start to pull the plug on this failed regime, which will help release some of the hot air in a country that is ready to blow sky-high.

It’s worth keeping on eye on Republicans in Congress as we swing into the midterms and they hear from angry constituents who are fed up with Trump and his billionaires’ money-grab, while their costs increase and they discover they are literally paying for this authoritarian takeover.

We must continue to fight like never before, while expecting the absolute worst from a maniac, who has the singular talent of always going lower.

We still have a long road ahead of us, my friends, but for just today, why not pull off to the side of that road, and enjoy the buzz?

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

On Tuesday, the President of the United States chaired a meeting of his busted cabinet that would have been impossible to believe just 10 years ago. I had no intention of watching this North Korea-like, state-run propaganda, but once I’d bumped into it, I found I couldn't take my eyes off it.

It was a train wreck wrapped in a dumpster fire, and in a normal time and place would have ended this appalling presidency.

Who could watch even five minutes of that tragedy without knowing that it simply had to be cancelled? Who could watch a man who is so obviously rotting from the inside out, and not flag the absurdity and danger of it all?

Those questions are chiefly for you, corporate media. But more on you in a moment …

Whatever was happening inside that room was not normal, and it certainly isn’t working.

The 142-year-old 79-year-old Donald Trump was adorned in a pink tie and stuffed in a white shirt and dark jacket that clashed badly with his burnt-orange face and the straw-colored wig puffed over his wrinkled head just so. When does he decide that this is the preposterous costume he wants to wear on a given day?

“Less combover, more fluff … A little less brown, and more white around the eyes … More orange in the cheeks, less around the chin … Hand me that pink tie …”

He looks absolutely ridiculous.

In the meeting, he did everything he could to stay awake, his head bobbing up and down and side to side. He pawed at his orange face as he drifted off to the fairways of Mar-a-Lago. It was hard to tell if he'd skipped one of the drug cocktails he pounds throughout the day, or just had one too many in anticipation of his big meeting with his crooked staff.

While he fought sleep, his grotesque collection of anti-vaxxers, stone-cold bigots, crooks, and multi-millionaires and billionaires showered him with praise for the stellar job he is doing heaping all his hate on the world, while stuffing his bottomless pockets with millions and millions in kickbacks and blood money.

One of them, the racist, puppy-shooting Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, preposterously thanked him for keeping the hurricanes away from the United States this year.

This kind of absurd praise would normally get an affirmative rise from Sleepy Rider.

Not this time.

No, this time Trump was barely alive, almost unresponsive to the sort of firehose of putrid adulation that used to inject him with life.

I’m really not sure whether to laugh or cry at this theater of the completely absurd — but I’m pretty sure indifference can’t be a viable option.

A drunk is at the wheel and for some horrible reason nobody is taking away his keys.

On Tuesday, after the praise finally stopped, the media was semi-free to ask this wreck of a man and his gathered assemblage of dangerous clowns questions about the abomination they just witnessed.

Except not one of these so-called journalists asked the most obvious question:

“Do you demand that these people ridiculously fawn over you like some tin-pot dictator, and shower you with this disgusting praise, or do they actually lower themselves into your trash can, and just stink up the entire place on their own?”

Instead, the assembled press ignored the fire that was burning out of control inside that room, and addressed a few of the myriad blazes that have been gleefully started by these arsonists outside the room.

Then, Trump finally rose to the bizarre occasion — triggered by a press he has spent a lifetime both needing and hating.

Scratching the sleep from his puffy eyes, he sat up in full harrumph. You could almost see the hate pouring from his chapped, pursed lips. Even his chubby, little hands were doing that weird accordion thing, as he holds everything and everybody in contempt.

He woke up in a bad mood.

He attacked Somalis, saying, “I don’t want them in our country.”

He doubled down: “We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.”

He tripled down, calling Rep Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “garbage.”

In full attack mode, the bile rising up out of him, he relieved his pain by inflicting it on anything or anybody that came across his short-circuiting mind:

“Countries were ripping us off for years, including allies. I won’t use the names. I won’t mention Japan. I will refuse to mention South Korea. I will not mention names.”

Of course, even when he is seeing red, and raging like a complete maniac, he never mentions names like Russia and Saudi Arabia in this context.

Such control …

Look, it’s sickening when he gets like this, but sicker yet that nobody points it out. He’s crashing, and intent on making sure everybody else goes up in smoke.

We can’t go on like this.

Finally, Trump addressed his obviously failing health, and never-ending “perfect” visits to the doctor, as only he can:

“I took my physical. I got all As. Everything. But they [the doctors] said to me, ‘Would you like to take a cognitive test?’ So I said, ‘Is it hard?’ And they said, ‘Yes.’ So I said, ‘Well, I’m a very smart person. Who was the last president to take one?’ So they said, ‘No president has ever agreed to take one’ ... I aced it.”

Nobody said a word.

The demented voices inside the man’s fat, orange head were doing all the talking …

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

I have cut back on the time I spend on social media since last year’s terrible elections. It might be the only good that’s come from one of the worst days in American history.

A once thriving Twitter account is now dead and buried. I simply can’t be anywhere the ghastly Elon Musk and his phony hate-mongers. The place is an overflowing trashcan full of so many lies, and awful things, it’s a wonder it hasn’t self-combusted.

These days, I kick around Bluesky, and Substack’s Notes when I feel like I need to get something off my chest in a hurry.

Last week, white people’s support for Donald Trump and his revolting Republican Party was eating away at me as it often does, so I let go the this blast:

The very direct point, of course, was that without white people, there’d be no President Trump.

“Most white people” got that point, but too many didn’t for my taste, and were indignant that I would type such a thing. Many white commenters made it clear that they didn't vote for Trump, and/or scolded me for scapegoating them.

Here’s a few examples:

“Wow. What a massive generalization. Lots of brown and black people voted for him too but it’s really irrelevant because it’s not a race thing. It’s a stupid thing. There are lots of dumb people in this country who have zero critical thinking skills. That’s the problem. Not all the bad white people.”

“Uh, I don’t know where you got your stats from … but I’m not so sure. Certainly not this white person …”

“It is not most white people. It’s a select few f------ idiots.”

Thankfully, more got it, than didn’t. This one wins a trophy:

“As white people who *personally* did not vote for him, let’s acknowledge that OUR DEMOGRAPHIC did vote for him. The collective “We” must OWN that, and work harder to engage those who voted for him, or who didn’t vote at all.”

Listen to me: You don’t get credit for simply doing the right thing by not voting for a bigot. It’s the very least that should be expected of you. Voting against a vulgar racist like Trump should be as easy and reflexive as putting on a warm jacket to ward off the bitter cold.

The terrible fact is that in all three elections that the appalling Trump was on the ballot, a majority (most) of white people in America voted for him.

Is everybody a racist who supports Trump? Maybe not, but everybody who did vote for him is a hardcore racist, or best case, ignored his long history of hate, to knowingly put a racist in our White House.

Many of these morally bankrupt people are probably some of your friends and family, or in my case, and as I made clear, ex-friends and family.

Here’s the breakdown of the last three presidential elections from the Pew Research Center. I am not sure why the 2016 numbers are incomplete, but you’ll want to concentrate on the white men and white women columns.

In all three elections that Trump was on the ballot, “most” white men and women voted for him. Hence, my post above.

Now that you’ve had a chance to look at these dreadful numbers, let’s also acknowledge that America mostly has a terrible white man problem, and that there is still a mountain of work to do scouring out the terrible misogyny that still pervades too many households, workplaces and the current White House.

Misogyny goes hand in hand with racism, and is a destructive disease eating away at millions of weak, impressionable minds.

This past week or so alone, Trump, who is rotting from the inside out right in front of our eyes, has called female reporters, “Piggy” and “stupid, horrible and ugly.” This follows a long pattern over his morbid lifetime of disparaging women, and mostly their appearance.

HE, an orange mess of a man, who tapes a dead ferret to his head each morning, is mocking other people’s looks.

But back to the eyesore of a graphic above …

Please take a hard look what Black voters did. I have typed before, and will type until my last breath, that they are America’s true patriots, and the only voting bloc that overwhelmingly and consistently gets it right.

I make it a point of walking in their shoes and at least trying to see things through their eyes whenever I can. How incredibly sad it must be to see white people fail so catastrophically at the polls each year, by electing lowlifes who see white supremacy in America as a virtue, instead of a plague.

I try to imagine how many people would have been shot dead on the spot Jan. 6, 2021, if Black people had dared attack our Capitol and beat and stomped law enforcement officials into the curb, as all those lawless, violent white people did on one of America’s darkest days.

Would Trump have told these thugs that he loved them after that horrific day?

It defies logic that anybody could have watched what happened at our Capitol, and what has happened to the criminals who attacked us since, and not see the rampant, odious white privilege in this country.

I try to imagine how Black people must feel as schools, universities, and corporations recklessly abandoned their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in the terrible wake of Trump’s win last year.

These important initiatives, many, decades in the making, now lay in the rubble because of the weak, submissive white people, who either never believed in what they were doing, or worse, are too cowardice to stand up for what is most certainly good … and right … and FAIR.

Because DEI has never once been about favoritism, it is about fairness. If you think Black people have gotten a fair shake in this country, then in addition to your bout with bigotry, you have a terrible case of lying to yourself.

As a white man, who has had every advantage in life, I will not stop hammering these points home. I will not surrender to bigots like Trump, and the horrible people who support him, and like the commenter said above, will “work harder to engage those who voted for him, or who didn’t vote at all.”

This is my core issue — the one that courses through my veins and gives my life real meaning.

I cannot think of men like Martin Luther King Jr. or John Lewis without getting a lump in my throat. These were giants, who endured beatings and even death to take America to a better place. We honor them, by standing on their broad shoulders and rising ever higher.

I will continue to speak up about racial equity, and down against people who do everything possible to prevent it. I will never stop talking about it, because that is exactly what these racists want.

Everything must be done to eradicate racism in America, because until it is dead and gone, we can never dare to say or believe that all men and women are created equal.

Right now, that is simply another lie, and shame on us for not doing everything in our power as caring humans beings to finally correct it.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

I'm not writing to you today about all the things I am thankful for as our 2025 holiday season visits us, because I am too damn busy with what makes me furious to type otherwise.

We are a country at war against fascism, and its racist, evil residue. We are at war against a dark, lawless, centralized force that does not believe all men and women are created equal, and do the bidding of soulless billionaires who fund all this hell to pad their absurd fortunes.

You can say I don’t have my priorities straight, and in return I will do you the courtesy of suggesting you quit reading now, to save you your precious time. Hopefully, we can catch up again next week.

To the brave who have stayed, I will endeavor to put down words of molten steel that do you justice, and send my gratitude for your heart and soul. You are what is needed in abundance right now as we stare down the most dangerous time in America since the 1860s.

So thank you for your fight.

I have always loved the notion of Thanksgiving and hope to celebrate it with vigor again someday. It was a time for friends, food, football and family. It was a break from school, and later the chaos of working a 50-hour-a-week job, that never seemed to love me as much as I loved it. Journalism always called, and I always listened, but Thanksgiving was my day to try to tune it all out.

Now I refuse to tune anything out, because there is danger everywhere. It is in our streets and in our homes. In our churches and our government. In our workplaces and in our personal business.

This Thanksgiving, I did not invite anybody into my home who I know supports the grotesque, anti-American Donald Trump, nor did I accept any invitation to be anyplace where I might find people who do.

And you can save the high-minded, snooty lecturing that goes something like this: “Come on, Earl, can’t you just let it go one day, and drop the politics?”

No. No I can’t. And I don’t understand how anybody can. We aren’t dealing with a difference of politics in 2025 America, we are dealing with a difference in human decency and monstrous vulgarity.

Democracy vs. monarchy.

I have my lines, and I won’t be crossing them. Ever.

Besides, I don’t trust myself not to haul off and belt a Trump supporter at some gathering, because I unabashedly hate these people and the tiny, no-good things they stand for with a blistering rage. I hate them for enabling this hell, and the hurt they are unnecessarily bringing to millions of lives here and around the world.

They are heartless, thoughtless bullies, who only look after themselves, because they are too weak in mind and body to carry anything else besides what they stuff in their big mouths and bottomless pockets.

Look, I tried for the better part of eight years to reason with these people, but I’m done with that. Old friendships, are now dead and gone. If Trump appeals to you, then you’ll want no part of me, because it turns out we have nothing in common.

You go your way, and just keep on going …

Our democracy is hanging by a thread, and I will not surround myself with people who make excuses for racists, and make it harder, not easier, for people to feed themselves, clothe themselves, and get the medical care they deserve.

And I have lost every inch of patience I might have had in the reserve for the selfish and willingly ignorant who don’t have the decency to care either way. They are the ones who really fry my ass.

You know the type. They’ll tell you how tired of it all they are, and that they have enough problems in their lives without having to deal with the rest.

How nice for them that they can concentrate only on themselves at the expense of the millions who are less fortunate. Turns out, they are the reason we are here, and how Nazi Germany happened so many decades ago.

Indifference is nothing but appeasement wrapped in a suffocating cloak of willing ignorance. It’s weak, and lifeless.

Believe me, I wish more than anything it wasn’t this way. I wish I could wake up and sit down with my cup of coffee, devour my newspapers, and then write about beautiful things. I know they are out there, and I endeavor to be among them whenever possible. But these days I see these things as needing our protection from bloodthirsty Republican politicians, and the corporate raiders who fill their overflowing bank accounts, who are coming after them.

Our air, our water and our animals are all under steady attack by these corporate heathens who worship guns, and killing above all, and then have the gall to tell us how important life is.

Just this week, it was announced Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency will be abandoning air pollution rules that save thousands of lives a year. What kind of sick ghoul would support such a thing? Hundreds of thousands of children with asthma will now be at risk, because some fat cat loser believes in profits over breath.

As I climb toward the end of my life, I want it known that I stood for what is good and right — on Thanksgiving and every day. I want it known that I stood for an America that I served in the Navy back in the ‘70s when we knew oppressive places like fascist Russia were the enemy, instead of the strong arms of the cowardice Republican Party.

I want it known I stood for voting rights, equal rights, and women’s rights.

I want it known I stood for our environment and its air, water and wildlife that make life truly worth living.

I want it known I stood for democracy and against fascism.

I want it known that if you can’t stand for at least this much then you are my enemy, not my friend, and I will work tirelessly to defeat you and your morbid kind.

Because if these anti-American fascists will come after a patriot’s patriot like Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), they’ll damn sure come after us.

They are desperate, have no ideas for improving America, and stand with a woman-abusing, draft-dodging, America-attacking goon, who is rotting from the inside out.

They must be stopped, because they are traitors. All of 'em.

This might not be the message you wanted to read as we steam through the holidays, but I am mad and indignant. I am giving more than I get.

I am not standing for this s---.

We beat this rotten son of a bitch fair and square once, and then didn't do all we could to make sure he stayed beaten. I am furious about this, and will never let it go.

I’ll give plenty of thanks when he and his terrible kind are gone.

Until then, I will rage.

I will fight.

I will resist.

And I will never give up the ship.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

This was always going to be one of the most dangerous junctures of Donald Trump’s godawful second term, though I admit it arrived a bit earlier than expected.

How would the dangerous, ill-bred lout, who’s never seen a lie he didn’t like, handle it when the truth about him and his failed policies were dragged into the unfiltered light of hundreds of sunny days for all of us to see?

How would the man who stalked America’s countryside last year, the grotesque billionaire Elon Musk in tow, bombastically floating empty promises and plenty of hate during his profitable, one-after-another hate rallies, handle it when he was found out?

How would the man who promised to release the list of Jeffrey Epstein’s vulgar cohorts deal with the blowback from many in his racist cult, when it was clear all he was really prepared to give them was yet another song and dance, instead of a list of the repugnant headliners behind these horrible assaults on our children.

How would the man handle it when his vile name was used by Democrats all over the map to warn against more of the poison he was dealing, while sweeping to landslide victories in places like New Jersey and Virginia in the first significants elections since America chose so spectacularly wrong a year earlier ...

Well, we got our answer last Thursday, when the unfit Trump took to his caustic, state-run social media channel and threatened to hang politicians who he doesn’t like.

It should matter little what set off this nuclear-powered temper tantrum from our sick king, only that he is now on the record making it clear just how far he is willing to go to quiet the opposition, as well as the dark, vindictive voices that are eating away at what’s left of his decaying brain.

He should be removed from office just as soon as possible, of course, but won’t be because he still has the corrupt, cowardly Republican Party and its mealy-mouthed sinners like House Speaker Mike Johnson under his fat little thumb.

Trump will kill to keep power, and now Johnson and his worthless party can never pretend otherwise.

Trump’s second term has been a bonfire catalyzed by greed, fear and retribution. The terrible man is governing this country in his horrid image. Rather than building, he is breaking. Rather than unifying, he is splitting. Rather than rising up, he is tearing down. Rather than helping the most needy among us, he is going out of his way to hurt them …

He doing all these horrid, vindictive things because he just wants to be loved, you see, and if we are all too stupid to get that, then he will use the enormous power his office grants him to shake us all until it hurts.

We will bend the knee, or else ...

Can’t we understand that he is demolishing the White House for our own good? Can’t we see he is fixing our health-care system, government, and decades-long global alliances by taking a sledgehammer to them first? Can’t we see that prices are actually lower, even though we the buyers can plainly see they are going up?

Trump is failing everywhere and is doing so in spectacular fashion.

When six of my fellow veterans in Congress produced a 90-second video, Don’t Give Up The Ship, reminding our troops that they are obligated to refuse illegal orders, the unhinged Trump wasted no time illustrating why this video was so necessary.

“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Trump wrote in one post. And just to make sure his bloodlust was crystal clear to everybody he shared a different post, written by another person, that said: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!!”

This madman doesn’t belong in our White House. He belongs in a straitjacket.

I knew this day was coming last November, the minute the election was called for Trump in the wee hours of one of America’s darkest nights.

I wrote Warning Shot just two weeks later, because I understood that at some point things were going to get so bad for Trump that he was going to do what every murderous fascist of note has done before him, and hide behind the military for protection.

I’m not sure I have written anything that got more readership.

From that piece:

Once you understand that Trump will use his presidency and whatever is left of his miserable life to settle scores and return the favors of the crooked dictators, and slobbery weaklings in his political party, who helped put him back in office, you can better prepare for the hell that’s most assuredly coming.

By words and by deed it is clear as day that Trump has absolutely no respect for the United States of America he violently assaulted, nor our men and women who wear the uniform, because like any authoritarian leader he sees them as servants to him, and not our country.

I went on to explain:

Remember: Trump, and his Supreme Court see his power as absolute. There is NOTHING that applies, or restricts him from doing whatever the hell it is he thinks needs doing in the interest of national security, which as of January 20, 2025, will mean his security.

So now we are counting on our military not to obey unlawful orders and defend a Constitution their Commander in Chief could care less about. That’s a mighty big ask.

I quoted an official in the Pentagon at the time, who chillingly said this:

“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders. But the question is what happens then — do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?”

I hope everybody now understands why Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former C.I.A. analyst who served in Iraq, organized this important, timely video.

Slotkin was joined by Reps. Jason Crow (D-CO), Chris DeLuzio (D-PA), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA), and Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).

These patriots and public servants are staying true to their oaths, and their duty to warn. They have watched as Trump has bastardized our military this past year for his political gain. He has taken to our bases to sell his gross MAGA merchandise, and called out Democrats, including past presidents, by name. He has called on these troops to use our cities as their “training grounds.” He has belittled true heroes like John McCain, and disgraced Arlington National Cemetery more times than I can count.

He doesn’t know a single, damn thing about army values, navy values, or ANY values, because the only thing he truly values — the only thing he has EVER valued — is himself.

So now he has proven himself again to be dangerous as hell, as his regime fails on all fronts. He is now looking for others to pay for his mistakes, and there isn’t a single thing he won’t do, including kill opponents, to give himself the vindication he thinks he deserves.

He’s lost his mind, and it is never coming back.

I typed Warning Shot one year ago lat Wednesday. I ended it this way, and so I will again with this piece:

This is not a story of hope, my friends, but words of warning.

Like it or not, and as tired as we are, we must be vigilant and NEVER accept this as anything approaching normal in this country.

A repulsive coward who never had the guts to serve will do everything he can to get our armed forces to serve only him.

WE must be the resistance.

Almost lost among Donald Trump’s latest assault on America, has been his utter disdain for our democracy, and love for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Amid Trump’s attack on our government, White House, health-care, food benefits, vote, the arts, environment, our economy, and peace and quiet, the Russia-Ukraine War has raged on.

Defying all odds, the Ukrainians and their gutsy, charismatic leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have held off the once-feared Russian army for nearly four years. This should be celebrated as one the most inspirational events of a 21st Century that has been sorely lacking inspiration or good.

Putin and his vaunted army were supposed to cut through Ukraine like a knife through butter when they launched their attack on Feb. 24, 2022. When Putin’s army amassed on the Ukrainian border it was estimated by many experts that Ukraine would fall in mere hours.

Except that never happened because the Ukrainians proved themselves more feisty and prepared, and Russia weaker and more clumsy, than all these experts expected.

By the third day of fighting Zelenskyy was proving himself more than ready for what feeble Russia was bringing him, and produced a video watched my millions that turned down the United State’s invitation to evacuate him, saying:

“The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride!”

Something wonderful was happening on the eastern front, as a small, upstart and proud nation was smacking the murderous Putin and his army right in the mouth.

It was scary, thrilling and good news to everybody it seems except for Putin and his puppet, Trump, who wasted no time alerting the world to what side he was on, calling Putin’s attack, “savvy” and “genius.”

Just three days later, when he saw what was happening, as the valiant Ukrainians stood up to the bully, and “savvy genius,” Putin, the carnival-barking Trump changed his tone at a CPAC gathering in Florida, on February 27, 2022, and slobbered this:

“The Russian attack on Ukraine is appalling. We are praying for the proud people of Ukraine. God bless them all.”

After surviving this anti-democratic whiplash, instead of apologizing for his grotesque words praising Putin, Trump did what he always did, and has always done: He attacked the United States, and let Putin off the hook, saying:

“The real problem is that our leaders are dumb, dumb. So dumb.”

But Trump’s phony reversal, and attack on America, was only the subhead of that event in Florida, because he used that never-ending speech to hint loudly at another run for office by taking a swipe at America and its President, Joe Biden:

“As everyone understands, this horrific disaster would never have happened if our election was not rigged and if I was the president …”

He went on:

“In November 2024, Democrats will find out like never before. We did it twice, and we’ll do it again. We’re going to be doing it again, a third time.”

Here’s where I will always point out with precision and rage that this anti-American, no-good monster should have been on his way to rotting in jail by now for his attack on our country that had occurred just one year earlier, on Jan. 6, 2021. Except Attorney General Merrick Garland still hadn’t even laid a glove on the traitor, Trump, and allowed him to reclaim his hold over a party that had proven itself morally busted, and incapable of standing up against Trump or Putin, and for America.

Now four very painful years later, the proud Ukrainians are still holding off Russia, and Trump is still doing everything he can to make sure Russia prevails.

As I type this, Trump has rolled out a U.S. peace plan this is so absurd even the cowards who helped enable him in the Republican Party are speaking out against it, saying it is nothing but a Russian wish list.

Here is Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC):

“Putin is a murderer a rapist and an assassin. We should not do anything that makes him feel like he has a win here.”

Here is Sen. Mitch McConnell, (R-KY):

“If administration officials are more concerned with appeasing Putin than securing real peace, then the president ought to find new advisors.”

I am aware that both of these men are not seeking reelection, which is why you can be assured they are both finally telling the truth.

On Sunday, Trump was right back where he was four years ago, despite all the heroics of the Ukrainians since, blaming the United States, Ukraine and our allies for the attack, by blasting this out on his state-run social media channel:

“With strong and proper U.S. and Ukrainian LEADERSHIP, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would have NEVER HAPPENED.”

“UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA.”

Read that again, and try to tell me that Trump is not a traitor.

Not a single word of condemnation at the aggressor and murderer, Putin. Only disdain for America, Ukraine, and our NATO allies whose relationship over the decades has been forged in blood and honor.

Russia helped install Trump into office in 2016. We know this. In fact, nobody knows it better than his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who chaired the Republican-led bipartisan committee who rendered these findings in August, 2020, which stated:

The Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat.

This is from a PBS story that went into the 1,000-page report. It was the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation:

“The findings, including unflinching characterizations of furtive interactions between Trump associates and Russian operatives, echo to a large degree those of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and appear to repudiate the Republican president’s claims that the FBI had no basis to investigate whether his campaign was conspiring with Russia. Trump has called the Russia investigations a “hoax.”

Cold irony then that it is the feckless Rubio who seems to be caught in the middle of unfriendly fire right now between Trump and the rest of the free world as his boss attacks the United States and makes excuses for Putin with his pathetic excuse for a “peace plan.”

From AP reporting:

Lawmakers critical of President Donald Trump’s approach to ending the Russia-Ukraine war said Saturday they spoke with Secretary of State Marco Rubio who told them that the peace plan Trump is pushing Kyiv to accept is a “wish list” of the Russians and not the actual proposal offering Washington’s positions.

A State Department spokesperson denied their account, calling it “blatantly false.”

Rubio himself then took the extraordinary step of suggesting online that the senators were mistaken, even though they said he was their source for the information. The secretary of state doubled down on the assertion that Washington was responsible for a proposal that had surprised many from the beginning for being so favorable to Moscow.

“For being so favorable to Moscow …”

Shocking, eh?

So here we are again. Donald Trump is doing everything in his seemingly unlimited power to make sure Putin gets what he wants after starting this illegal and immoral war against Ukraine.

He is clearly in the tank FOR Russia and AGAINST America.

Just what in the hell is going here????

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

I am going to type something you are not going to like, folks, but it’s for our own good, so here goes:

We are never going to see the Epstein files.

I know, I know, there I go, harshing your mellow again, but I am done playing these silly, tiresome games where our corporate media spends 278 consecutive news cycles chasing the crumbs Donald Trump and his lawless Department of Justice tosses them about Jeffrey Epstein, until all of a sudden everybody wakes up one day and have completely lost the thread, which is this:

The man has had one of the single-worst years of any president in history. More than that? He knows it. Even more than that?

The voters know it.

Prices are rising, and jobs are evaporating. The rich are getting richer, and everybody else is getting poorer. Americans are sick and tired, at a time their health-care premiums are going through the roof.

There is a complete chaos in Washington, where the only thing Trump has accomplished of note is bulldozing our White House into one of his tasteless, cheap, and failing golden casinos, just five years removed from his destructive alterations to our Capitol Building after losing the 2020 election by more than 7 million votes.

He is a professional arsonist and ripoff artist who has assembled a submissive, appalling cabinet whose single job is to bow in unison to their king, while keeping the matches and gasoline coming.

Through all the blood and smoke, Left-leaning voters have taken to the streets, kept their tired eyes on the prize, and just two weeks ago, elected Democratic candidates to office at a stunning 2-to-1 clip. If this keeps up (and it will if we stay focused) Democrats might just flip the Senate next year, in addition to taking the House with a sizable margin.

Look, I am not saying everything and anything associated with Epstein isn’t important, but I am saying it can’t become the thing.

I am saying we believe the women, who were victimized by these monsters. I am saying we keep calling for the release of everything to do with Epstein, and we keep asking the woman-abusing Trump one question, and one question only, as it pertains to this abominable affair:

“Why won’t you, Mr. Trump, use all this power you relentlessly remind us you have to release the Epstein Files RIGHT NOW?”

Because if Trump really wanted the Epstein Files in the general vicinity of the public he could make that happen with a single snap of his fat little fingers.

But he’s not going to do that. Ever.

Anybody who thinks Trump is going to allow the Epstein Files — or even a semi-close approximation of them — to come out is completely delusional and has been in a blissful slumber the past 12 years. Trump didn’t surround himself with that corrupt cabinet, and build a lawless Supreme Court in his revolting image just so he can turn around and detonate a bomb that could blow him to smithereens.

Instead, he’s going to do that special thing he did Sunday night, when he assaulted his nuclear-powered cell phone with those fat, little fingers and took to his state-run social media account to type out this low-grade slop:

“House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax perpetrated by Radical Left Lunatics in order to deflect from the Great Success of the Republican Party.”

The Epstein files will be the blunt object Trump uses to beat on the Democrats and the press. This is all sport to him. Dangle whatever is left of the files out there as the shiny object that distracts us from the complete mess he has created since he stomped back into office 10 months ago, then play the victim of all of it.

“It’s another hoax — a witch hunt! Everybody is so, so mean to me …”

What it is, is a cover-up and that’s the only word that should be used going forward.

Sunday night, King Trump grudgingly gave his Republican congressional serfs the cover they need to tell their voters that they voted to release the files. Now they can wash their hands of the whole thing, before dirtying them again as they try to fend off Democratic challengers who are coming for their jobs next year.

Meantime, Trump can do what he does best, and spin our corporate media like a top. He can play that pathetic victim card, while he gaslights, deflects, and offends.

As I was researching this piece, I came across a clip in which Trump tells the press, “All of Epstein’s friends were Democrats.”

That is called a lie, but like so many of the tens of thousands of lies before it, went unchallenged, and was barely a part of the record. Trump’s too good at telling lies, and our media is too bad at exposing them and giving them the heft they deserve.

Worse, they have become far too accepting of the abuse this ill-bred yacht club bully and convicted felon directs at them on an hourly basis. As a career journalist it has become almost impossible to watch.

On Air Force One on Friday, Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey asked Trump about the Epstein case.

He shoved his chubby finger in her face, and snarled: “Quiet, quiet piggy!”

Lovely, eh?

By Tuesday he was brushing off the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Seated cozily next to Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, whose dirty regime ordered the killing, the dead-eyed Trump said, “Things happen.”

There’s no newsroom guidance I’m aware of anywhere that says journalists have to just sit there and take it when a slob, and convicted felon calls them “piggy” and shrugs off the brutal killing of one of their colleagues by simply saying, “Things happen.”

It is very hard to respect a press corp which won’t respect itself. Trump works for their readers, viewers, and listeners, and I’m not sure when exactly they forgot that.

For now, I will continue to fervently hope that in addition to pressing for an answer to the one and only question about the Epstein Files that truly matters, Democrats take this far more important question to the nation as a whole as we head toward the midterms:

“Are you better off now than you were two years ago?”

The answer to that will go a long way toward determining the balance of power in America, and just how much more crap we will all have to take from this lying, orange, abusive loudmouth.

Two days after her beloved Democratic Party showed it still has plenty of fight left by battering Donald Trump’s Republicans at the polls all over the country, Nancy Pelosi, 85, announced her retirement from Congress Thursday.

There ought to be monuments erected in Washington D.C., to honor this great woman. You can wipe the damn smirk off your face.

I’m dead serious about this.

After raising her five children to adulthood, because the children — ALL children — always came first with Pelosi, she served in Congress for 38 years where she would become the first woman ever to ascend to Speaker of the House.

She was without a doubt the most powerful person to ever hold this lofty position, and if you don’t believe me, let former Republican Speaker John Boehner tell it:

“Nancy Pelosi had a killer instinct and may be the most powerful Speaker ever. She understands power, knows how to use it, and rarely leaves fingerprints.”

Can somebody point to one person like Pelosi in our nation’s history who has book-ended and deftly turned the pages on two ugly chapters of Republican filth, incompetence and destruction?

Can somebody point to just one person who hung in for America’s sake and led the charge to help rescue her not once, not twice, but three times from the abyss?

In 2006, George Bush, the Far, Far Stupider One, was in the middle of his patented, daily drooling while hundreds and thousands of our nation’s finest were being killed and wounded every month in Iraq thanks to a war predicated by his singular ability to lie through his crooked teeth.

As caskets draped in flags were brought back to our country and hidden from plain sight by the Cheneys, Roves and Rumsfelds, we were quietly steaming toward what would be the most horrific financial crisis since the Great Depression. Making matters potentially worse, just moments away from hundreds of thousands losing their homes and jobs, Bush was snorting and cackling about Social Security reform, because, well, shouldn’t everybody have the ability to invest in the stock market? Yes, had that ghastly GOP reform gone through, the Great Recession could have actually been far, far worse.

Imagine that.

Well, not a moment too soon, the 2006 Midterms happened and the Democrats seized control of the House and Senate and set about restoring order to Bush’s odious, corrupt Republican animal House.

And, say, is this ringing any bells …?

Anyway, in the Democrats’ wisdom back in ’07 they nominated Pelosi, the firebrand from San Francisco, to become the face of the party and the first woman ever to grab the Speaker’s gavel.

And an aside: I still get chills down my spine and a lump in my throat typing about this. I was not prepared for that moment. To see a woman finally rise to these new heights in American politics meant my daughters and other daughters could do it, too. In short, I became a blubbering fool and my love and respect for Nancy Pelosi started.

Because I am telling you again: Nobody has ever done her job better.

From 2007 to 2011, Pelosi ran the House with style, integrity and a champion arm-wrestler’s strength. She was key in helping elect the first Black man to the U.S. presidency. And when you think about it, have we ever been better off than with Barack Obama and Pelosi at the helm of our government?

Sigh …

Pelosi’s 111th Congress was one of the most productive ever. Some say it was the most productive. Who am I to quibble? She tirelessly rammed through life-changing and -saving legislation. She didn’t suffer fools lightly, but really she was just smarter and savvier then what she was messing with — and she wasn’t messing around.

Pelosi’s Congress passed Wall Street reforms, got rid of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” committed our country on a course toward clean energy, and twisted enough arms to get something called the Affordable Care Act passed by a whisker. Hell, those are just a few headlines. I could type 30 more column inches on what this titan accomplished during her historic, four-year term.

In short: SHE-HANDLED-THIS.

So with order restored and our nation on its way back from the abyss, the Democrats did what they absolutely do best: took a big, damn nap.

The Radical Right Tea Party blew a hole through truth and decency in the 2010 Midterms, and after four years of restoring order to the House, Pelosi was done as Speaker.

Six years later, the Democrats still in a Van Winkle slumber sat out the 2016 elections and the repulsive Trump, replete with a Republican Senate and Congress, was elected president.

The Democrats awoke from their nap in a panic and started sifting through the rubble for answers while tripping all over themselves in the darkness.

Again, is this ringing any bells?

It was going to be a long, terrifying two years.

In fact, it was a long, terrifying two years. But something magic was happening … While the orange beast terrorized the countryside, he was being met with real resistance. I’m talking get-out-on-the-street-and-do-something resistance.

If the Democrats were completely outraged by Trump and his GOP, they were even more outraged at themselves for letting it happen in the first place. A resolve to clean up that mess gripped the Left.

Then, just like in 2006, the 2018 Midterms came along and hopefully in the nick of time.

The Democrats demolished the GOP at the polls that year, casting nearly nine millions more votes. Despite being gerrymandered to the point of suffocation, the Dems seized 40 seats in Congress. They were back in charge, but who would lead them?

What?! Are you kidding?! Who would lead them?!?!

Nancy Pelosi would lead them, that’s who, dammit.

You got a mess to clean up? You need order restored? You need a titan to stand up to a bully? You need strength and honor staring down the crooked face of evil and corruption?

You call on the strongest leader in the world.

Pelosi rebuilt committees brick by brick, tore in to the ghastly Trump and tore up his slobbery speeches. Nobody, I mean NOBODY publicly took it to Trump like she did. He had no idea what to do with a strong woman, who was half his size, and better than him in every, single way.

Pelosi and her Democratic Congress put the brakes on Trump and his odious presidency, and helped Joe Biden run the madman out of office in 2020 — but not before his appalling attack on America just months after that election. Pelosi, of course, was in our Capitol that day, while Trump’s anti-America MAGA filth were hunting her down.

She took charge, and was caught on camera saying of Trump:

“I want to punch him out, and I’m going to go to jail, and I’m going to be happy.”

Instead, and unfortunately, Trump slithered away from his violent attack because Biden’s Justice Department lacked even half of Pelosi’s strength and resolve.

With Biden in office, Pelosi did what she does best and got the votes to pass the historic Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS bill and the bipartisan infrastructure law.

In 2022, Republicans reclaimed the House and Pelosi stepped aside from formal leadership, tossing the baton to New York’s Hakeem Jeffries.

These days, the weak and grotesque Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has rammed through one bill of significance and it helps only the billionaires in this country, who helped install his rancid party in office.

Johnson replacing Pelosi as Speaker is the flea replacing the lion.

And if you are reading all this, and still have the inclination, to start with some, “Yeah, buts …,” concerning Pelosi you’ve missed the entire point of this column and her career.

You can attach “yeah buts” to Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, King, or Kennedy … but they are all recognized as iconic figures.

Like these men, Nancy Pelosi is a singular person in American history. Her tirelessly work in service to this country, has made it a better, safer, healthier, and smarter place to live.

So how do you honor this woman’s sacrifice and leadership?

You thank her.

You build monuments to her.

Lately, I’m hearing way too damn much about the anti-American Donald Trump running for a third term in the office he disgraces on an hourly basis — and it needs to stop right now.

We are not even 10 months into this second reign of terror, and have more than enough to worry about without spending needless energy on a fever dream pouring from a madman’s sick and quickly diminishing mind.

Getting hung up on this third-term nonsense is not only stupid but self-defeating and dangerous. So let’s talk about reality for the next five minutes or so, instead of overheated conjecture.

I want to type with some precision about what the grotesque, 79-year-old Trump is, and what he is not.

Donald John Trump is provably an America-attacking, uncouth, convicted felon and bigoted slob who is both sick in mind and physical health. He drags his heavy left leg around with him like so many of his failed relationships. He visits the doctor more often than he goes to church, and lately has had more screenings than a 150-year-old house in a mosquito-infested swamp in Louisiana.

He is terminally ill, and second-term challenged.

He’s a morbidly obese mountain of hate, whose swollen ankles should hire one of the 1,200 lawyers he has in his employ, and sue for lack of support.

Just Monday, this lumbering lout casually bragged to a bunch of fawning reporters, “I got an MRI, it was perfect.”

This was significant news that as usual didn’t get the attention it deserved by an incompetent corporate media that has been brought to heel by their abuser with the short leash.

MRIs aren’t handed out at alleged routine medical checkups like lollipops.

“OK, Mr. Trump, let’s take your height, weight, and a MRI …”

Magnetic Resonance Imaging is used to detect and/or monitor potentially serious issues inside our bodies. The deteriorating Trump is a walking, talking medical crisis, and you don’t need a doctor to detect that.

I’ve typed for some time now that maybe instead of wondering if our country will survive these next three-plus years of Trump, this question should be asked instead: Will Trump survive these next three-plus years?

In Japan Tuesday, he spent part of the afternoon aimlessly wandering around Akasaka Palace like Frankenstein after an all-night bender at the biergarten. It has to be seen to be believed, as newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi does her best to keep Orange Frankenstein in her general vicinity.

This is where I feel obligated to tell you that if Joe Biden had been seen doing this, it would have been headline news for several months — the things bulletins are made of. With Trump it gets little to no mention at all, before attention is turned back to the 73 other circus events he has loosely choreographed, including insane talk of a third term.

Trump is in obvious failing health, so yapping about anything past next month, much less 2028, is a massive waste of everybody’s time. But that’s exactly what Trump did right after breathlessly breaking the news of his “perfect” MRI.

That’s when he said he “would love” a third term because of his “popularity with supporters,” who just can’t get enough of a guy who is about to end SNAP benefits for 42 million Americans, many of whom are THEM.

And oblige me while I stop here to remind you of this, before continuing:

Every bill to help feed people in my long lifetime has been passed by Democrats. Every bill to starve them has been passed by Republicans.

Look, in the next year or so, as the evidence mounts that Trump is deteriorating faster than a snowball in the Arizona desert, his health will finally grudgingly be flagged by the very so-called media experts, who are now fixated on this fictional third term.

So let me step to the head of the line and type this: He should resign immediately, and go off to spend whatever little time he has left on some golf course, dragging that leg around, stiffing caddies, and punishing golf carts and playing companions.

Meantime, there is something else that bothers me about these busted, cloudy forecasters who warn of another term despite the feeble, wandering old man who is right in front of their damn eyes: They are giving this 350-pound pile of sludge some form of inevitability and power he simply doesn’t have.

I understand Republicans have spent decades and billions of dollars turning our Constitution into some perverted document with optional wording, but the 22nd Amendment clearly spells out, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”

Stop normalizing something that should have never even been a thing.

Finally, by talking of this fictional third term, we are distracting from his myriad failings as both a president and a man. There’s a better-than-average chance this monster abused children with his dead buddy, Jeffrey Epstein. The list of Epstein’s worshippers that Trump’s bought-and-paid-for attorney general said was on her desk has allegedly gone missing, and with it evidence that would potentially tie him to absolutely unthinkable crimes.

Just a month ago, there was significant bipartisan steam behind getting these Epstein documents released. Every minute wasted talking about third terms sprinkled with fairy dust dissuades us from talking about how unfit for life this appalling man is.

But if you can’t get enough of worrying about things that will never happen, I’ll give you something pleasant to fixate on that most certainly will:

In the next 20 years or so, there will in fact be big talk of a Trump third term — maybe even a fourth or fifth one. History’s worst will convene, and Trump and his beady red eyes, will elbow his way further downward and make it clear in his special way that only he can handle the heat of yet another term in his new home.

That’s when I reckon, Lucifer will be only too happy to oblige …

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

The mysterious Jack Smith is emerging from the shadows that keep him.

The one-time special counsel who was tasked at looking into the worst attack on our Capitol since the War of 1812, has lately indicated he has a reputation to protect, even if thanks to the feeble man who appointed him, his protection of the United States of America came far too late.

Brazen Republicans led by the foolish, loudmouth, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), have indicated they want a word with Smith, and this just might be the break millions of us have been waiting for.

Be careful what you ask for, Jimbo, because you might just get it.

Our justice system’s inability and/or refusal to jail the people who masterminded the violent attack on our country on Jan. 6, 2021, is the single greatest failure of the rule of law I have witnessed in my lifetime, and I am NOT done with it.

Read that again.

NOT DONE WITH IT.

So you’re damn right I want the whole story told about what went down that gruesome January day, and who was behind it. I want a damn accounting of all the days that led up to it.

I want to know who was behind the attack on America, and I know for sure I am not alone.

Jan. 6, 2021, was the day we found out for sure that there isn’t a single terrible thing that white, male privilege can’t afford to buy in the United States of America. That’s the day we found out for sure, that there are millions of people who have it out for this country and what, and who, it is supposed to stand for.

This wasn’t a random deplorable act, it was far worse than that. It was the gruesome act of a racist, cultist political movement rooted in the notion of white power and spearheaded by an orange devil.

If we don’t know that for sure by now with troops in our streets, our White House being demolished, masked marauders sweeping innocent people away to God know where, and an entire party covering for an alleged child rapist, to hell with all of us.

We all watched the attack that terrible January afternoon. We know what we saw. Just as the orange devil knew what it is he saw through those empty, red eyes.

He loved it.

He loved it so much in fact, that while the attack was in full froth, he did nothing but sequester himself in front of a TV and spent three full hours rooting for its success.

We know this.

When it was finally clear America’s defenses would hold against his assault on Lady Liberty, he harrumphed in front of a camera on the White House lawn and told the enemies of America that he had invited to our Capitol to simply go home. Oh, and he told them that he loved them.

HE TOLD THEM THAT HE LOVED THEM.

Don’t you DARE tell us there should be no accounting for that terrible day — a day that followed a night which proved just how great America really could be, when Georgians went to the polls and voted a Black man and a Jewish man into office to give the Democrats control of the United States Senate.

Just 14 hours after freedom rang in Georgia, Trump and his Republicans’ attack on America commenced …

We will never forget this, even if that’s exactly what an entire corrupt, morally bankrupt political party would like us to do. They’d rather we didn’t learn from it, and that future generations are told some perverted version of the truth, instead of what really went down that day. Rewriting, or ignoring history has become just one of their their specialties. They ban books they don’t like, and the odious billionaires who foot their bills, have successfully bought off large chunks of our toothless, cowardice corporate media to protect us from the truth, instead of reporting it.

Truth is getting harder and harder to find these days, so it’s best we go with what we know, and believe what is right in front of our eyes.

So here’s some truth:

Trump and the people who stood up the violent attack on our country belong in jail for the rest of their miserable lives, and I swear to God I won’t stop typing that EVER.

Our government is now run by the people who attacked us, because I am telling you again: There isn’t a single terrible thing that white privilege can’t afford.

So how did this happen …

My contempt for Joe Biden’s worthless attorney general, Merrick Garland, has been wrapped in many hard words the past four years, so here’s a just a few more — and directly this time:

Justice delayed, is justice denied. Worse, you knew that, sport. You were timid in the face of horror. Completely adequate. Weak. So now you hide after failing to protect the one thing you were charged with protecting. And that’s just pathetic.

No, my friends, I don’t feel much better, either, but some things need saying. This has been an extraordinarily sad chapter in our history, and Garland was on the wrong side of it.

Thanks to his dithering, or worse, calculated, dereliction of duty, Jack Smith came along far too late, but he has a story to tell, and facts to let loose, and everybody in the world needs to hear them.

I’ll end with words I typed seven weeks after last year’s terrible election, and this time wrap them in steel:

I don’t much care how this report on January 6th is released, or leaked, or served up cold on a platter, just as long as we see it. We paid for the damn investigation, and have a right to see just how close we are to losing everything right now, because of the criminal incompetence of Attorney General Merrick Garland the past three-plus years, and the incomprehensible stupidity and recklessness of so many American voters just 52 short days ago.

Everybody who watched that heinous attack on our country has a right to know who and what was behind it. You don’t get to just quit, wash your hands of the whole damn thing, and go off into a comfortable retirement in the countryside made possible by taxpayer money, while the nation you roundly ignored slowly burns.
I cannot stop being angrier than hell about this, and for the life of me, can’t believe more people who profess to love this country aren’t every bit as furious as I am.

So let’s hear what you have to say, Jack Smith. The entire world is waiting …

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

Every time, I am ready to write a column that essentially says, “Yes, the Democrats have some issues, but I will not be beating up on them just as long as these fascist Republicans are around,” the stubborn, tone-deaf Chuck Schumer-led Democratic establishment does something so blindingly stupid it demands comment.

deep sigh

Last Tuesday, we learned that after negligible arm-twisting from what passes as leadership of her party, Maine Gov. Janet Mills is running for the Democratic nomination in next year’s U.S. senate race to unseat the incumbent Republican, Sen. Susan Collins.

By convincing Mills, 77, to run next year, Schumer and the squeaky, rusted, antiquated Democratic Machine somehow spit somebody out who will make the stodgy, 72-year-old Collins seem young, vibrant and energetic.

So a question: Just what is going on here?

Go ahead and call me ageist if you like — I’ve been called far worse — but how is it that a party suffering with all-time low approval ratings, and is hemorrhaging younger voters (especially men), think running a candidate who was born just two years after the end of World War II makes any damn sense in this crucial race?

Worse, there is already a fine Democratic candidate in place that the party should embrace with both arms, who I will touch on in a minute after typing this:

I like Mills fine.

This is not an attack on her or her record, only what reeks of incredible hubris by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which will now sink tons of money into the state to get rid of any would-be challengers to Mills, and set the party up for yet another fall. Democrats have not won a U.S. Senate race in Maine since 1988, when George Mitchell was reelected.

I thank Mills for her service to a state and people that I truly love, but rather than hoping to become the oldest freshman senator in U.S. history, it’s time to step aside, and open the door to the future.

Better yet, why not use your experience to help transition your party toward a worthwhile, necessary quest to reconnect with a new generation of voters?

I worked as the sports editor of the Lewiston (Maine) Sun-Journal between 1992-98, and loved the job and the place. Mainers are a hearty, independent lot, who take great pride in not falling in lockstep with the other 49 states in our rattled union. From their rooftop perch in the north-east corner of the country they literally look down on the rest of the United States. This doesn’t make them haughty, it makes them properly suspicious.

You really can’t get they-uh from he-yuh, and they like it just fine that way.

Ironically, I was a resident of the Pine Tree State when Collins won her first term in the Senate in 1996 as an up-and-coming 43-year-old. If you told me back then that she’d still be there now, I wouldn't have believed you.

I’ve now lived in three different states, and three different countries since Collins was first elected. For all my moving, it’s become all too clear that our Capitol is the hill our United States Senators go to die on. Knocking off a sitting senator is like trying to show the drunken Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth the door at a strip club.

In announcing her bid, Mills trumpeted that she “stood up to Trump once, and will do it again!”

Good God, I’d hope so. This shouldn’t be the answer to a test, but the minimal qualification needed to even take the test, because if you aren’t standing up to the revolting Trump, you aren’t standing up for America.

By announcing her bid, Mills joins a crowded field of candidates featuring a person I believe to be a future star in the Democratic Party, if only it would get out of its own way and help him run like hell.

I will vigorously be supporting Graham Platner to take on the two-faced Collins two Novembers from now in an election Democrats simply must flip if they are to have any hope of taking back the senate.

Platner, 41, is an oysterman, harbormaster and Marine veteran with four infantry tours to Iraq and Afghanistan under his belt.

Since announcing his candidacy in August, Platner has proven himself a gifted campaigner and packed the house during scores of speaking engagements. He also raised an astonishing $500,000 in the 24 hours after Mills announced her candidacy, which should send a message to the all-knowing DSCC that they would be wise to listen to, if only they could see past their noses.

He is positioning himself as “the enemy of the oligarchy” and has repeatedly refused to be baited into positioning himself as a “progressive” Democratic, preferring instead to let his positions themselves do the talking.

“I think it’s silly that thinking people deserve health care, that makes you some kind of lefty. But I do think those working-class policies are necessary.”

More of this, please.

It’s way past time we stopped roping people into this progressive-moderate fight in the party. It’s counterproductive, and serves only the ghastly Republicans. Personally, I like, and have supported, the more moderate Abigail Spanberger in Virginia’s governor race, and the more liberal Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral contest.

They are both positioned to win their races in less than three weeks because they are the right candidates, in the right races, at the right time.

Platner has proven he can connect with people, many of whom are sick and tired of machine politics in this country, where gobs of money, instead of policies, charisma and the ability to lead is king.

I’ll let Platner tell it:

“There’s an anti-establishment angst in the country that I think is well-founded. People think that the system does not represent them, and they’re not wrong at all. And I think that sending or choosing candidates who come from the establishment, come from politics — regardless of who they are as people, regardless of what they’ve pushed — is, in many ways right now, I think, a real liability.”

Again: I am not making the case that no political experience is always an advantage, but when you are running against a wishy-washy establishment candidate like Collins who has bathed herself in Washington’s riches, and has already served five terms in the Senate, a message like this will resonate on the campaign trail.

Platner:

“I have held over 20 town halls in every corner of Maine, from Rumford to Madawaska to Portland. Everywhere I hear the same thing: People are ready for change. They know the system is broken and they know that politicians who have been working in the system for years, like Susan Collins, are not going to fix it.”

If you know Maine at all you will also know that Rumford, Madawaska and Portland could not be any more different. Rumford is an old paper mill town, Madawaska is in far-reaches of the rooftop of the state, and Portland is the state’s biggest city, sitting hard on the coast.

The people in these areas couldn’t be any more different, but their independence and just being proud Mainers is what binds them together. They won’t agree on everything, except that they live in what they believe to be our greatest state.

It occurs to me that Maine should serve as a metaphor for the Democrats and Left-leaners in America. Sure we are different, but if you come for one of us, you come for all of us.

First, though, we have to get out of our own way and learn some hard lessons.

If Democrats think running a 78-year-old candidate for a seat with a six-year term, after what happened to another WWII-era candidate last year, they haven’t learned a thing.

This isn’t looking toward a brighter future, it’s looking back on a dark past.

Right now the party doesn’t seem capable of making the necessary changes to inspire confidence among an American voting electorate that is scared, suspicious, and uninspired by the status quo.

And, man, I’m getting sick and tired of typing that.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

rAs I was finally kicking my feet up and settling into a football game Monday night, to get lost in some meaningless diversion from the relentless madness overrunning America, my phone buzzed.

Good God, what now, I thought?

When I grudgingly reached for the overheated troublemaker, this is what confronted me.

Collapse imminent? Desperate call? Emergency sirens? What the …?

THIS is what I am being accosted with at 10 p.m., while trying to wind down from another insane day?

I slapped my phone down, and went into a slow boil …

To be honest, I had a lousy Monday, so maybe this message set me off more than it should have, but when I woke up this morning from a semi-sleepless night, I found I was still in a mood, and figured at least this much needed writing:

STOP IT WITH THESE LOADED MESSAGES, DEMOCRATS

Anybody who cares enough to pay attention to what is happening in (and to) the United States is to the point of being scared to death right now. Not an hour goes by that Trump and his nauseating Republicans aren’t terrorizing America.

We are dealing with a lot.

Preying on our emotions like this late at night by sending urgent missives designed to empty our pockets is insensitive at best, and abusive at worst.

Too often, it’s even worse than that, because a lot of the crap in all these damn messages — and last night’s in particular — is just plain nonsense.

That makes them insulting, and dangerous, because there are already more than enough political lies and misinformation destabilizing America.

To start, this election in Pennsylvania is nothing like what went down in Georgia, four-plus years ago. In fact, this election on Nov. 4, is like few others anywhere, and many Pennsylvanians don’t even know that.

Here’s what they do need to know: Vote YES to retain the three Supreme Court justices currently on the bench. You’d think a loud, obnoxious message like the one I was bombarded with above would at least say that much.

By voting to retain the three justices in this election, liberals will hold onto a 5-2 majority on that court, and protect Pennsylvanians from the evil machinations of the no-good Republicans in that battleground state.

If you want more, I encourage you to have a look at this tremendous article I found from Spotlight PA that gets into the particulars of the race: Pa. election 2025: What is judicial retention, and why does it matter for Supreme Court balance? Among other things, it does a thorough job of breaking down how Pennsylvania conducts its whacky Supreme Court elections.

(NOTE: I sent this piece, along with a few of my own choice words, to the devils at ActBlue, who accosted me with their fundraising message. They either have no idea how these elections are run, or worse, really don’t give a damn just as long as they can scare the hell out of everybody by screaming about some damn fictional, “imminent collapse.”)

The Spotlight PA write is lengthy, but I encourage you to read it. For now, though, here are some important bits I extracted from the piece, with passages I highlighted for emphasis:

• These yes-or-no retention elections are a big deal, and if Republicans succeed in their stated goal of getting Pennsylvanians to vote “no,” they could set the stage for a total remaking of the court. But the process is also very different from a traditional election, and Republicans won’t automatically win a majority even if they get “no” votes.
• Retention elections are not partisan, so when a judge appears on the ballot to be retained, their name won’t have a party next to it. These elections also don’t involve an opposing candidate. Voters are simply asked to say yes or no to giving a judge another decade on the bench. If the vote is yes, the judge stays on. If it is no, the governor can appoint a temporary replacement subject to the approval of the state Senate. An election for a replacement to serve a full 10-year term is then held in the next odd year, which means that if a judge isn’t retained this year, voters won’t pick a long-term replacement until 2027. The judges appointed as replacements traditionally don’t stand for full-term elections, though nothing actually prevents them from doing so.
• Is a ‘no’ vote on retention the norm? Nope. It’s extremely unusual. Most judges up for retention win new terms by comfortable margins. Just one statewide judge has lost retention since 1968, when the state constitution was last updated — Supreme Court Justice Russell Nigro.

OK, me again.

From an historical standpoint, things look pretty good for the Left-leaning justices in this race. I should also add that recent polling has “yes” leading by double-digits. Democrats have also spent more than three times as much money as Republicans on the race according to the tracking service AdImpact.

All that, despite the bombastic claims in that loud fundraising message designed to get your heart beating and your head screaming.

Look, the Supreme Court race in Pennsylvania is important as hell. EVERY election in the United States of America is as important as hell, and should be treated as such.

From now until Nov. 4, we should all do what we can within reason to help our fellow patriots in Pennsylvania prevail at the voting booth. We do that by spreading the truth, and offering a hand up, not a punch in the face with late-night scare tactics.

I believe this constant assault on our senses is having a negative effect on voters right now. I believe we are in danger of burning people out who have been running hot for the better part of a decade trying to stand up for Democrats by putting down this Republican fascism that is overrunning this country.

Since last November’s nightmare, Democrats have fared incredibly well in elections all over the country, including the battleground state of Wisconsin, where the liberal justice running for that Supreme Court won by a whopping 10 points in April.

You’ll remember that election because it is the one the grotesque Elon Musk used to bribe voters with all his blood money. Turns out, it takes more than just money to win elections ...

I’ve had enough of all this repellent fundraising, and these offensive scare tactics.

I say we could stand a pat on the back, instead of a kick in the ass.

I say we give each other a break, before we are broken for good.

I say thank you for all you are doing.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

We are just a few days removed from the most toxic, anti-American speech ever given by a sitting President of the United States, and I am not letting it go.

And neither should you.

While addressing a gathering of military leadership from across the globe at Marine Corp Base Quantico in Northern Virginia Tuesday, the vile, America-attacking Donald Trump called on our generals and admirals to “… use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” so that he can attack us again.

There’s no sense being cute about it, or trying to sanitize it. The President of the United States is intent on using our military against us. And because I am one of the few in media — or the Democratic or Republican Party for that matter — who refuse to just merrily skip to the next Trump-made catastrophe, I want to repeat this again, until everybody hears it and understands it:

NOTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect the citizens of the United States of America. EVERYTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect himself from the citizens of the United States of America.

By words and by deed it is clear as day that Trump has absolutely no respect for the country he violently assaulted, nor our men and women who wear the uniform, because like any authoritarian leader he sees them as servants to him, and not our country.

And just so there was no misunderstanding about his objectives, Trump went on to say that the people who protest against him in America and disagree with his policies are, “The enemy within.”

Can you please read that again?

Look, while these words might pour out of his dirty mouth like contaminated water from an overflowing toilet because he is such a dreadful public speaker, they are nevertheless scripted and tested for affect before he ever harrumphs upon some poor, unsuspecting stage to use them.

The President of the United States was very intentionally telling us he will use our military against any American he doesn't like, which we all know is a very long list.

I suggest we take this very seriously.

Just a decade ago, if you heard the leader of any country say these things, you would have rightfully said, “Thank God I live in the United States where these kinds of terrible things never happen.”

Trump’s vile speech should have triggered a national discussion that would be reaching a fever pitch right now. Instead, we’ve just moved on to more drama: the predictable Trump/Republican shutdown of our United States Government that they so clearly hate.

We have dealt with shutdowns before, but never a president who is so intent on using our military to attack us.

All pressure should be brought to bear on these military leaders that this kind of thing is not remotely OK in America. As a veteran and journalist who worked closely with military leadership during my professional career, I would like to think that the vast majority of these men and women understand this.

Don’t get me wrong, I dealt with a few screwy, power-drunk flag officers during both my time at Stars & Stripes, and as a sailor way back when, but for the most part, I have confidence that most of these people understand nuclear-grade fascism when they see it and hear it.

I’d think they also know when they are being insulted by their punk of a secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who can’t hold his liquor, his tongue, or handle a tricky communications platform like Signal.

So a suggestion: Locate the nearest military base to your home and contact the commanding officer (CO). Tell him or her how outraged you are by the commander in chief’s unbecoming conduct. If you can’t get to the CO directly make sure you are in contact with a base public affairs officer.

These folks are generally very responsive, and if I have this at all right, will be relieved by your concern. As I typed Tuesday after Trump’s grotesque speech: “Any flag officer who wasn’t deeply disturbed and insulted watching this unhinged rant isn’t worth the uniform she or he is wearing, and should apply for a job cleaning Trump’s pool.”

We have entered the most dangerous time in America history since our Civil War.

We may yet be able to solve this terrible mess politically, but if Trump continues to succeed in militarizing our troops against us, we are finished.

Done.

This is not the time to move on to the next thing, just because Trump and his odious Republicans want you to.

This is the time to fight back, because we have to.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

I had intended to write today about a video the repulsive President of the United States loaded up on his odious social media account Monday night. I had intended to warn you (again) that the normalization of terrible things like this by our worthless corporate media was even worse than the repellent videos themselves.

By allowing an obviously mentally unstable man to send out these sickening images to tens of millions of people around the world, without framing in 100-pt. type how grotesque and phony they are, our media was once again abdicating its singular responsibility of holding power accountable to the truth.

They are no longer even bothering to pretend they are up to the job.

I had intended to tell you as I have in the past, to find the truth wherever you can and share it everywhere. I hope this is one of those places, but in the case of this damn video, I’ll let one of America’s national treasures, Heather Cox Richardson, tell it, because I saw it first in one of her “Letters from an American” missives in the early-morning hours Tuesday.

(And if you aren’t subscribing to Richardson’s work you are missing what I believe to be the definitive snapshots of these worrisome times.)

From Richardson’s piece:

Tonight, Trump’s social media account posted a deepfake video of (Chuck) Schumer and (Hakeem) Jeffries speaking to reporters. In the doctored video, Schumer talks with Mexican music playing in the background, while Jeffries stands beside him wearing what appears to be a colorful Mexican sombrero and sporting a mustache with the ends waxed and turned up.

In the video, Schumer’s image is made to say: “There’s no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke, trans bull----. Not even Black people want to vote for us anymore, even Latinos hate us. So we need new voters. And if we give all these illegal aliens free healthcare, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us. They can’t even speak English, so they won’t realize we’re just a bunch of woke pieces of ---- you know? At least for a while, until they learn English and they realize they hate us too.”

Here is an image from Trump’s childish, racist, and repugnant post.

THIS is how the sickly President of the United States is spending his time. Snotty, spoiled five-year-olds behave with more class …

Because we have never had a president who constantly shares disgusting things like this, it should be the very definition of NEWS. Right now I am looking at the lead stories on The New York Times, The Washington Post and Associated Press websites and there is no mention of this video.

It is as if it never happened.

Well, millions saw it, and we should all be outraged by both the madman who shared it, and our worthless press, which can’t see the danger of it.

In her piece, Richardson also set the stage for what did rightfully get plenty of press on Tuesday: our joke of a Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, speaking to a gathering of our military leadership at Marine Corp Base Quantico in Northern Virginia.

Hegseth, an alleged stone-cold drunk and liar, finished with his foul speech, but not before predictably being upstaged by his repugnant, orange boss, who projectile-vomited all over room, and fully half the citizens of the country he hates.

It is also worth pointing out because they were too damn stupid to consider it, that gathering all our nation’s top generals, admirals and their commander in chief in one room might be the single greatest threat to national and operational security I have ever seen — even stupider than texting war plans to a reporter.

But who cares about little things like that when you have a president who is a pathetic showoff and malignant narcissist, and lives only to feed his insatiable, bloated ego. Acting the tough guy in a roomful of tough guys, was just too much for this low-class coward to pass up.

I could fill 50 column inches with the stench emitted from Trump’s big mouth on Tuesday, so I’ll share just this stained nugget:

“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

These “dangerous cities” he was talking about, of course, are in the country he governs, because nothing excites him more than attacking America.

He lives for it.

He also called people who protest against him and disagree with his policies: “The enemy within.”

Again, he is talking about U.S. citizens. WE are the enemy.

So let me just duck this in before I forget, because I am furious: I served my country, you draft-dodging candy----, and you can kiss my ---, sport.

Thanks.

As always, Trump came off as a complete moron today as he crashed from one subject to another, head cocked like Stupid Mussolini.

Any flag officer who wasn’t deeply disturbed and insulted watching this unhinged rant isn’t worth the uniform she or he is wearing, and should apply for a job cleaning Trump’s pool.

And while this nauseating gathering allowed Trump to feel like a real man for about an hour, the real reason for the event was to put military leadership on notice yet again that they, and mostly their troops, are to be loyal to HIM and not the United States of America.

From Day One of this regime, I warned you that the very first thing Trump was going to do was use the military for his evil devices.

Keeping our military loyal to him is an essential ingredient of authoritarian leadership.

In WARNING SHOT: The America-attacking Trump is coming for our military, and then US ... I typed:

“Once you understand that Trump will use his presidency and whatever is left of his miserable life to settle scores and return the favors of the crooked dictators, and slobbery weaklings in his political party, who helped put him back in office, you can better prepare for the hell that’s most assuredly coming.You can never say you weren’t warned, because if you believe nothing else I type today, you damn well better believe this:
NOTHING Trump does with our military will be to protect the citizens of the United States of America.
EVERYTHING
Trump does with our military will be to protect himself from the citizens of the United States of America.

Trump’s true enemy is the truth and anybody who dares speak it, or report it.

As I put this piece to bed, Republicans are in the process of shutting down our government, our military is in our streets, perceived enemies of the crown are being prosecuted, our FBI is firing “disloyal” people at will, and the bedrock of any Democracy, our vote, is under attack.

Fascism is here.

Just don’t expect it to be reported that way.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

As the anti-science Republican Party urgently tries to turn out the lights to the lab of the great American experiment, I want to remind you again that there are patriots and truth-tellers everywhere fighting them, and we should all take heart …

Like you, these good people are leaning in hard and spending their time and treasure to protect us from the most anti-American regime this country has seen since the racist, traitorous Robert E. Lee was leading armies against our country 165 years ago.

I ran into two of these good folks on Saturday, and I want to tell you about it.

My wife and I were shaking off the last of the grisly road grime from a long journey that started in the Battleground State of Wisconsin, and 1,200 miles later ended hard on the coast of the Battleground State of North Carolina.

We were busy settling into temporary housing that should shelter us nicely for the next few months, as the state that stretches out to the north of us, Virginia, readies for crucial elections Nov. 4. Democratic victories in that state could radically change the battlefield for the forces defending America against the odious, fascist Republicans who mean to end us.

On the way to our car, I spotted a white Subaru in the parking lot with a handsome, bright blue Abigail Spanberger sticker on the car.

Spanberger is the Democrat running to replace the grotesque, book-banning, Glenn Youngkin, in Virginia as the state’s governor in just six, short weeks.

I told my wife that I endeavored to meet the fine people who would fly this flag in a N.C. county that isn’t shy about touting their anti-American ignorance by supporting the orange, convicted felon who violently attacks us …

There are plenty of pro-American, pro-environment patriots out here in the Outer Banks, but we don’t carry guns or wear our ignorance on stupid, childish cammies. We’re more inclined to go about our work with a quiet purpose, while picking up their trash on the beach.

Just after lunch, and on my way to the hardware store to grab some much-needed supplies, I got the opportunity to meet these people who wore their hearts on their sleeves.

A man and woman were piling into the Subaru, when I approached them. Here is how that encounter went:

ME: “Howdy!”

THEM: “Howdy!”

ME: “I was hoping to meet the people with that Spanberger sticker on their car.”

THE MAN: “Why? Are you going to punch me in the nose?”

I laughed out loud …

Such times we live in …

I told the man, named Joe, that I actually wanted to hug him, because Spanberger was bada--, and anybody who would support her must be some kind of bada-- themselves.

That’s when they laughed.

The wife, Carol, asked where I was from in Virginia, and I told her I was just a loudmouth activist lately stationed in Wisconsin, where we are fighting the good fight from the rooftop of the country.

She said, “Oh!! You guys are killing it up there!”

I agreed, of course, because since 2018 it’s hard to point to another state that has altered its political landscape as dramatically as Wisconsin.

We’ve kicked out Republican governors, flipped our Supreme Court from dark red to middling blue, put fair-ish maps in place, and basically restored order to a state that had gone mad thanks to the poison the billionaire Koch Bros. had been ladling out to the mouth-breathing Republicans, who were led by Scott Walker, perhaps the stupidest man alive.

Yeah, we fell short last November, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Kamala Harris actually got more votes than Joe Biden did in 2020, but just enough Republicans and dummies in the middle helped put the woman-abusing felon back in our White House. We did keep the steady Tammy Baldwin in the Senate for six more years, so there was that.

So now I was talking to a couple of patriots who knew the importance of every election going forward, and were dug in on the frontlines of Virginia.

I told Joe that Spanberger was going to win big, because she was made for the moment, and so, too, were he and his wife.

He said, “I sure hope so,” before Carol interrupted and said, “She’s great. Yer damn right she’s gonna win!”

I gave her a high-five, smiled big, walked off, climbed into my car, and headed for the store.

There are patriots everywhere, my friends, and this is the time to be loud, proud and purposeful. You need to search these people out. Lean on them … If necessary, help show them the way.

There is great power in connection, because connection brings power.

It’s time to take that power back.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.