Trump waived sanctions against Russia just two days before they were set to go into effect under federal law. Braying that the US had done “a lot” for Ukraine while Ukraine had done nothing for the US — holding NATO’s nemesis at bay with no real help since 2024 is apparently “doing nothing” — Trump’s waiver came right after he announced another gift to Russia: that the US will now buy Russian diesel, effectuating a 180-degree reversal of years of US policy.

After Trump announced an “energy ceasefire” he’d simply fabricated, Russia kept striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, earning no words of remonstrance from Trump.

Energy prices spiked globally following Trump’s war in Iran, but he persists in blaming Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries instead of himself or Putin. It is glaringly obvious to the world that Russia started the war against Ukraine and could end it by simply withdrawing; Trump blaming bloodied victims who are fighting for their lives is craven and sinister. Trump’s envoy calling Putin, the "Butcher of Grozny," a “humanitarian” tells the world democracy is in trouble.

Although Trump possesses legal authority to waive sanctions against Russia by certifying to Congress that doing so is “in the national interests of the United States,” he submitted a blanket certification without explaining how doing Putin’s bidding is in our “national interests" — or in anyone’s interests except Russia’s. The 300,000 tons of diesel he’s buying from Russia is only about 2.2 million barrels — about half the amount of diesel the U.S. uses in a single day. Since that small a quantity can’t change energy prices, Trump must have meant it as a signal of support to Putin.

It’s treason and Republicans just might get around to saying so

Russia has made no concessions in exchange for Trump’s help, and Republicans now have to answer for it. GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas posted on X that, “Helping Putin in Ukraine is reckless…our NATO allies would be next. Putin is fanatically committed to restoring Russia’s glory days, calling the collapse of the Soviet Union 'the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'"

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) called Trump’s move “beyond irresponsible,” saying it is “unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians every single day.”

In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Republican Rep. Don Bacon said Trump “is prolonging the war, not ending it.” Bacon said, “It’s absolutely disgraceful our president is morally blind on this war. He’s pitched his lot in with the dictator and the war criminal.” Sen. Kevin Cramer, (R-ND), observed that “capitulating to bullies” only makes them worse: “That’s the problem (with) negotiating with a thug, which is what Vladimir Putin is.”

Even the uber-conservative National Review is calling out Trump’s “aid and comfort to Putin,” with the Federalist Society’s own Andrew McCarthy imploring Congress to investigate the new Trump-Putin alliance. McCarthy leads with crucial history, expounding on why Putin remains our true enemy. Resurrecting Ronald Reagan’s admonition that a “peaceful coexistence with an enemy committed to our destruction” would never be possible, McCarthy writes, “Vladimir Putin, the former KGB agent, is a born and bred devotee of the Soviet system. He solidified his despotic status by orchestrating a series of bombings inside Russia as a pretext to crushing Chechnya. We’re now well into his third decade as Russia’s murderous dictator. He openly regards the 1991 fall of the USSR — America’s foe in modernity’s greatest triumph for liberty — as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [twentieth] century.”

Trump remains oblivious to this history, and cannot see that Putin’s conquest against Ukraine “is part of his quest to reconstitute America’s Soviet enemy.” In a properly functioning republic, McCarthy urges, “there would be immediate hearings about this week’s shocking escalation of the Trump–Putin alliance.”

Trump’s oligarchs are all in on Russian kleptocracy

More Americans need to understand Russian history to see how it aligns with Trump’s oligarchic agenda. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Boris Yeltsin’s new government quickly dismantled the state planned/ communist economy by privatizing state assets. Yeltsin handed enormous wealth to a small, well-connected group of former apparatchiks including Communist Party officials, state enterprise managers, bankers, and Komsomol figures who already controlled factories and trade networks and knew how to work the system.

In result, in a preview of what Trump and his corporate donors are attempting in the US today, a tiny class of oligarchs took over key sectors of the economy, wielding major political influence, while ordinary Russian citizens endured growing national hardship. After Putin took power in 2000, he struck an unwritten bargain with the oligarchs: they could keep their fortunes if they stayed out of politics.

Russia never really built a functioning free market economy. Instead of rule of law governance, Russian industry owners set their own rules and the nation’s top 10% keep getting richer while the bottom 90% suffer. Sound familiar? This week, in one insane public statement after another (here and here), Trump again blamed Ukraine for its own invasion, insulted Zelensky, and expressed continued admiration for the murderous Putin. Throughout Trump’s posturing, Russia has continued battering Ukrainian cities, infrastructure, and energy facilities. Analysts believe Putin aims to starve and freeze Ukrainians over the fast-approaching winter to force Zelensky into surrender. To America’s great shame, it looks like Trump supports Putin in that goal.

At least this week Trump finally proved that Russia, Russia, Russia wasn’t a hoax, as he consistently aids and gives comfort to Putin while Putin bombs Ukraine and aids Iran.

America and her allies are at the mercy of an insanely corrupt president hell-bent on aiding Putin. But the mystery remains as to why.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

To date, Elon Musk has spent more than $366 million to elect Republicans in the midterms, flexing a rich man’s power to buy our elections and a partisan court’s perversion of the First Amendment.

As he sits at the sweet end of a government pipeline, Musk’s motivations are clear. The recipient of $38 billion in federal tax breaks, subsidies, and contracts — i.e., welfare for the rich — Musk is buying the midterms to keep corporate and wealth taxes artificially low and regulations non-existent as he writes his own taxpayer-funded future.

Due to the lack of any substantive messaging, a good part of Musk’s campaign money is being spent to pin the “socialist” label on Democratic Party candidates. Republican super PACs poured money into far-left Democrats’ primaries just so they could label winning candidates ‘socialist’ in the midterms. Speaker Mike Johnson warns repeatedly that if Democrats win the midterms, the country will “go down some road toward a communist utopia,” unaware that communism and socialism are not even the same thing.

Spearheading the ad campaign against both, Trump ran taxpayer-funded commercials vowing to defeat “communism, socialism, and Marxism in America.”

Scare tactics with a little help from Fox News

Trump’s nationwide campaign ads ran during prime-time slots on Fox News and Newsmax, and on CBS Evening News and Face the Nation, during high-profile public affairs shows, and during prime-time college football games. Trump illegally spent over $22 million in taxpayer money forcing this partisan campaign on voters nationwide, until a federal judge ordered it stopped.

Republicans’ entire midterm message, subsidized by Musk, boils down to “socialism bad.” Fox News employs the word “socialism” in headlines to describe virtually any political position Trump doesn’t like.

When reporting on progressive victories in state and local primaries, Fox came up with “socialist surge” to scare the right and fracture the left with “socialist winning streaks” in swing states. Fox also platforms a “Socialism Watch” segment that tracks congressional bills they label socialist, or “straight from Castro’s playbook.” Scary things like protecting healthcare, regulating clean air and water pollution, and imposing a wealth tax after the Republicans’ big ugly bill awarded $2.3 trillion in tax cuts to the nation’s richest 10%.

Socialism proves an elusive scare tactic

Given Republicans’ persistent warnings about the dangers of socialism, one expects, at minimum, that they understand what the term means. One expects too much.

Vice President JD Vance, who represents the well-educated, intellectual minority wing of MAGA, was speaking last week during a press conference when someone asked him to define socialism, and to explain why socialist candidates keep emerging across the country. Vance fumbled, then recovered.

He opened by calling socialism “a hard term to define these days.” “Classically,” he explained, “you would think socialism is about prioritizing workers.” He then caught himself and switched his approach, and said, “I don't know what the term means anymore,” before offering his own take. “I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is that you want to replace American workers with foreign workers and you want boys to play in girls’ sports.”

Vance’s formulation has nothing to do with socialism, and bears no resemblance whatsoever to any real-world political platform. So Musk and the majority of Republican super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to warn about sending jobs overseas—which their own corporate donors, not Democrats, are doing— and letting boys play in girls’ sports. Nothing substantive about inflation, Iran, gas/energy/diesel costs, the price of groceries, or anything the bottom 90% is feeling.

The red scare is coming from inside the house

Vance pivoted in his answer because he caught himself about to walk into a trap. By strict definition, socialism is an economic and political system in which the means of production—such as factories, land, raw materials, and machinery—are owned or controlled collectively by society or the state, rather than by private individuals or corporations.

Vance realized mid-sentence that he could not define actual socialism without exposing Trump’s control-and-command economy that meets the textbook definition of socialism. The media has said far too little about Trump taking unprecedented stakes in private industries. As NPR reported recently, “The Trump administration has announced equity stakes in more than 30 private companies,” which means the state now owns:

• Intel Corp.: A 10% stake in the semiconductor giant’s business, resulting in partial-nationalization of the semiconductor giant;
• MP Materials, the only operational U.S. rare-earth mine: The Department of Defense secured a 15% equity stake, making Washington the largest shareholder;
• USA Rare Earth- Trump’s Commerce Department has acquired a 10% stake;
• Critical Minerals & Energy: Trump’s administration acquired a 10% equity stake in Lithium Americas Corp., and 10% of Trilogy Metals;
• United States Steel Corporation -rather than a direct economic or financial equity stake in steel production, the administration negotiated a stake known as a ‘golden share,’ granting Trump substantial control over steel-making operations.
• Defense- Trump also plans to take ownership stakes in major defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

Common sense, shame, and irony, are dead

Each of these unprecedented acquisitions fits the hallmark definition of socialism. In other words, Trump is again projecting, falsely warning the nation about socialism because he is actively imposing it. Republicans have taken significant and unprecedented ownership interests in the private sector, imposing nationwide socialism while fraudulently misnaming Democrats “socialist.”

Reason contributing editor Veronique de Rugy has observed that, “Federal ownership of private companies has become routine, and it is happening on the right even as members busily point fingers at the left for its socialism.” De Rugy wrote, “(It’s) a government acquiring the means of production one letter of intent at a time, and a political party acting as though socialism is something only the other side can do.”

Trump recently acknowledged that his MAGA supporters clap like seals when he insults their intelligence to their faces. Musk’s and Republicans’ lies about socialism intentionally trade on that ignorance. It is shameful to manipulate your own voters into believing what is not true, but that is Trump’s con.

The con is up. Or it will be if people care enough to vote.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

After nearly two years of weaponizing the DOJ, featuring official investigations and/or terminations of every career officer who was assigned to investigate Trump’s crimes against the United States, Trump’s DOJ has begun rehabilitating the reputation of former President Richard Nixon.

Even though Nixon was caught engaging in a botched break-in at the Democratic National Committee, illegal wiretapping, and pocketing illegal campaign contributions, more than half a century later, Trump defenders are considering a new spin on the whole scandal: Nixon was the victim of lawfare. Just like Trump.

The only reason Republicans would recast Nixon as a victim is to soften perceptions of Trump’s rampant criminality, set to bite him in the a-- after the midterms. Republican Rep. Riley Moore of West Virginia says Nixon was “framed,” and wants to name an aircraft carrier after him, claiming that people are only now free to talk about “what an amazing president he was.”

Given the well-settled, recorded evidence of Nixon’s crimes, this kind of revisionism sounds like a confession that Trump is more corrupt than Nixon ever was.

JD Vance is all in on the effort. In June, Vance announced at the Richard Nixon library that, “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people — the same institutions — tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.”

Vance added, “If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be a 12-hour news story. The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”

Vance’s nod to quick news cycles and craziness doesn’t defend Nixon so much as indict Trump’s manipulative flood-the-zone strategy: overload the media with so much chaos and corruption the public tunes it out.

Trump can’t understand why Nixon’s crimes defeated him

Another big fan of historic revisionism concurs: Trump. Trump has asked on several occasions why Nixon resigned the presidency instead of continuing to drive the Constitutional crisis he created. It tracks. Trump attempted a violent coup even after he lost an election, and will remain a victim who refuses to admit his crimes until the day he dies.

That a fluctuating cohort of Americans continues to swallow those lies is an indictment of our underfunded educational system and right-wing media, and little else.

Trump has a baked-in incentive to defend Nixon as he rolls back many DOJ overhauls that grew directly from Nixon’s crimes, including limits on presidential authority. Trump has fired inspectors general who were set to impose government accountability, and has asserted the right to fire over two million career civil servants who don’t show him political loyalty.

Trump knows he is a criminal; he knows that unless he declares martial law, orchestrates an invasion on American soil, or refuses to honor the midterms, legal accountability will soon circumvent presidential immunity: corruption is not an official act, even under the Roberts court. He’s 80, not 105, there’s plenty of time left for him to rot in prison for various crimes, including selling national security and secret AI chip technology to the United Arab Emirates for a $550 million investment in his sons’ World Liberty Financial; accepting $635 million in royalties from a licensing agreement tied to the $TRUMP coin; Barron Trump earning $40 million while still in college; Donald Jr. and Eric securing more than $6 billion in U.S. government and Pentagon contracts; and earning over $1.2 billion from crypto ventures in 2025, all personal enrichments and illegal emoluments.

The harm goes far deeper than Trump family pockets, because federal agencies established to serve the American public are now serving Trump’s oligarchs. As Thom Hartmann writes, regulatory agencies set up to protect clean air, water and soil are now run by industry insiders policing themselves; insider trading is rampant within the administration; the Department of Defense is writing multi-billion dollar checks to Trump’s political donors; Trump openly pardons people who have paid him millions of dollars; Internal Revenue Service staff have been re-assigned from auditing the wealthy to auditing working-class people; public institutions have been turned into private, for-profit entities run by Trump’s GOP donors; and environmental and labor rules have been rewritten to serve polluting industries, to say nothing of Trump’s overt attempts to bribe voters with his $5000 offer and his $500 check-to-voters stunt from last week.

Hiding mistakes is a sign of weakness

Nixon, like Trump, made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes don’t define us. But how we respond to them does. The Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote that, “Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.” Character is not defined by the stumble, but by rational response, humility, and willingness to correct course. Confucianism teaches the same thing: “A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it is committing another mistake.” To err is part of human growth; it only becomes a defining character flaw when we refuse to acknowledge or fix it.

Trump’s many mistakes wouldn’t have to define Trump either, if only he had the character to learn and admit error. Someone who deflects blame or buries his errors by trying to silence the media learns nothing and will take the country down with him rather than fall alone.

Historian Ruth Ben Ghiat has spent a lifetime studying strongmen throughout history. She writes that strongmen live in fear of being exposed. Strongmen “have a constant need to feed their ego because they are weak and fragile people,” she writes, “this is why they build their bunkers. And Trump’s always talking about, you know, not only the ballroom where people can adulate him and he can get money, but the bunker underneath; that’s his safe space.”

History has spoken on Nixon, and will speak similarly on Trump. The condemning difference between then and now is that when Nixon’s crimes came out, support in his own party collapsed overnight. Republican leaders of Congress went to the White House and told Nixon the votes to stop impeachment and conviction were gone, and Nixon resigned two days later. Trump’s Republicans refuse to stop Trump’s corruption, so they’re doing the next best thing: spinning it as victimhood.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

The New York Times described last week how foreign investors and allies are getting cold feet about the U.S. economy. Every other day, Trump imposes another nonsensical tariff, threatens the rule of law, lies about Iran, and remains clueless about how these actions affect the economy.

The Trumpapalooza midterm convention in Dallas, staged to spin the disastrous results of Trump 2.0 into ‘The Great American Comeback,’ confirmed Trump’s economic ineptitude. Speaker after speaker praised him so lavishly that the convention looked like his made-for-TV Cabinet meetings, as Trump used his podium time to strut his ignorance.

Almost on cue, the Fed followed the Times by announcing a rate hike, largely driven by Trump’s continuing fiscal missteps. Trump responded by attacking the board, “demanding a rate cut,” and separately threatening to punish Europe with more tariffs — a fiscal non sequitur confirming that Trump really has no idea how trade, tariffs, and interest rates work.

“Bread and circus bribes”

During the Republicans’ midterm convention, Trump spun high fuel and energy costs, an intractable war of choice, and serial divorce papers served on us by our allies as accomplishments. Such is the power of spin when truth no longer holds currency.

By now, it’s clear that the convention was just an emotional support rally for Trump, even though he is not running for office. What he is running for is his continued escape from legal accountability. If Democrats retake the House and Senate, the words ‘impeach,’ ‘corruption,’ and ‘Emoluments Clause’ will dominate headlines as they reacquaint federal governance with the rule of law.

Trump’s two widely panned, rambling convention speeches made false and familiar claims building up to the crescendo where he offered to pay every American adult $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms. He explained that the payments would be “very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders, or like last year when I gave our great members of the military $1,776.”

Both claims were sophomoric. Corporations don’t give bonus distributions when earnings are down and the company is $40 trillion in debt, and he didn’t “give” service members $1,776 because Congress had already funded a $2.9 billion military housing allowance in July 2025 from which those funds were taken.

A fan of renaming things, Trump simply renamed it a “Warrior Dividend,” and claimed it was his gift.

Trump still doesn’t understand how appropriations work

While most analysts assailed Trump’s $5,000 promise as an election-year sweetener at best and an illegal bribe at worst, the devastating takeaway should have been that Trump, after nearly six years on the job, still doesn’t understand how federal legislation works. Trump didn’t say he’d work with the Republican majority to authorize the payout, or help pass the law to drive it. A perennial mob boss, he said he would issue the checks, but only if he likes what he sees in the midterms.

After his repeated promises to issue checks that never materialize, Trump still hasn’t learned that massive direct-payment plans require either fast-track legislation or formal congressional approval. Even though Republicans now control the presidency, the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, Trump has been promising checks that never were for two years:

• He promised Americans $5,000 as "DOGE dividend" stimulus checks, a proposal that was officially scrapped when DOGE shut down with its tail between its legs after failing to realize a fraction of the “savings” they promised.
• He promised $2,000 “tariff dividend” checks that never materialized. Not only did the Supreme Court strike down Trump’s illegal tariffs, the math didn’t work either: Financial experts pointed out that sending $2,000 to every non-high-income American would cost between $450 billion and $600 billion, even though actual annual tariff revenues were far less than that amount, roughly $200 billion to $300 billion.
• He promised $1,000 to $1,500 checks from expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies. Republicans diabolically scheduled health care cuts to take effect after the midterms, but the Health Savings Account promised to soften the blow for 10 million people never materialized.

Trump’s convention speech demonstrated his continuing economic illiteracy

If Trump gave $5,000 to every adult U.S. citizen, it would cost $1.2 to $1.7 trillion, exploding the already astronomical federal deficit, which would in turn cause interest rates to skyrocket. For perspective, the entire 2025 annual U.S. budget was $7 trillion; Trump would add another 20% just to keep his unchecked power. Just as he doesn’t understand who pays tariffs, he either doesn’t understand the basic relationship between national debt and interest rates, or he doesn’t care.

Trump also demonstrated ignorance about how a free market works, telling his fawning audience that, “The only caveat I have is that the dividend that we’re making must be spent in the United States of America...” This is more delusional thinking. In a capitalist economy, currency cannot be stopped from moving freely; there is no way to track how or where cash is spent unless he intends to mark denominations ‘legal tender, but only inside the U.S.,’ then build a system to track it.

Given his apparent belief that he can simply print more money, wait for Trump to mint $5,000 Trump coins restricted to purchasing Trump.com products. Small wonder he is desperate for Republicans to stay in power.

During his convention speech, Trump led a Nuremburg Rally and demanded that attendees swear loyalty to him and promise to cheat in the midterms if necessary, urging voters to “pretend that he is on the ballot.”

Democrats should repeat, “Trump is on the ballot,” run his absurd loyalty pledge as a chyron at the bottom of every commercial, and display a running tally of gas, food, and home energy prices in the background of every midterm ad between now and November 3.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

A man with a third grader’s intellect says all we need to regulate AI is a smart president. The same guy who will bark ‘hoax! hoax! hoax!’ at climate change while Mar a Lago takes on water now insists that efforts to regulate AI are also a hoax.

If Americans listen to this barking clown instead of scientists, engineers, and AI developers, we truly have entered Idiocracy — and we will get the killer robots we deserve.

When an industry asks for its own regulation, we should listen

When was the last time industry leaders called for regulation of their own for-profit undertaking? How about never — it’s never happened before. The lack of precedent makes current pleas for regulation by AI insiders all the more urgent.

Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei are ringing the alarm about AI. Over the weekend, Amodei wrote an essay calling on the government to regulate AI companies — including his own — and to slow the pace of the technology’s development due to its emerging threats to human safety.

Amodei was responding to an earlier warning from AI developer and researcher Jacob Coxon, who wrote on September 9, 2026, that artificial intelligence could kill off humanity within the decade, that he was resigning his position at Anthropic in protest — and this was no joke.

An AI researchers’ warning

In July, OpenAI disclosed that some of its models — with no human direction — had escaped containment and hacked into Hugging Face, another AI company, causing researchers to question whether they could control the very systems they were building. This week, another report surfaced that AI had hidden mistakes, made up data, and moved files onto the open internet without permission or human direction.

In September, Coxon wrote that Anthropic and his previous employer, OpenAI, were mishandling known threats to human safety. Coxon posted publicly that, “Neither company (Anthropic and OpenAI) is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”

He warned: Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources…

The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. No other human activity poses this level of danger.

Other Anthropic employees echoed Coxon’s warnings. Then industry leaders came together and said out loud that AI is dangerous and must be regulated. Immediately.

The child in the oval office responds

Trump, in his wisdom, disagreed. He says we don’t need AI regulation and declared that all we need is him, posting:

"The only control or “guardrails” that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades! The Trump Administration has stopped AI “people” from doing bad, or potentially bad, “things,“ like Dario (Anthropic!), who is now pretending to be a “perfect little angel” … There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers, and the only one that is happy about it is China… Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP

At the risk of being too on the nose, the president’s post alleging his own high IQ is written at the level of a 4th grader.

Trump’s an imbecile

Trump loves to call people who correct him ‘dumb,’ ‘stupid,’ or “low IQ.” One early report stopped counting how many times he attacked the intelligence of his critics when it reached the hundreds. Trump often claims he has an ‘extremely high IQ’ or that he’s a “very stable genius” but, like his tax returns, Trump has never publicly revealed the results of any assessment, other than to brag that he knew the words, “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV” on cognitive tests.

Several years ago, reports surfaced on social media claiming what 240 million Americans already suspected: Trump is cognitively impaired. The unsubstantiated post said that, “The results of an IQ test that Trump allegedly took during his first year at New York Military Academy have been discovered in a file box in a closet in Brooklyn. According to the test results, Trump’s IQ is 73.”

In other words, he’s barely functioning intellectually.

Although intelligence judgment is inherently subjective, there’s an endless list of objective evidence, including that Trump suggested injecting bleach or disinfectant to treat COVID-19; claimed hurricanes could change course due to nuclear bombs; used a Sharpie to alter a hurricane forecast map; and bankrupted multiple companies after he inherited the funds to start them with.

Trump is not going to shut off his own money spigot

Alas, even idiots can rake in the cash, if they remain useful idiots. Although AI is disliked among the general public, investors are getting insanely wealthy from it, and they will fight to protect their stash. Politico reports that AI and crypto super PACs spent $127 million across more than 100 primaries this year, and won roughly 90 percent of them.

Trump, on the take, calls AI data centers “the oil of the next 50 years,” insisting that they are “cash cows.” Trump is holding on tight to his cow for a reason: Donald Jr. and Eric Trump have invested significantly in American Data Centers, a firm supporting AI cloud computing and infrastructure. They are backing a $1 billion investment network targeting the acquisition of AI, drones, and cryptocurrency. Overall, Trump’s unethical family ventures have earned at least $4 billion from AI, crypto, and nuclear power, including a planned $6 billion Trump family merger with a firm building nuclear fusion plants to power AI data centers.

Adjacent to AI infrastructure deals, on the crypto side, the Trump family received $187 million from an Abu Dhabi royal-backed firm just before the UAE secured access to 500,000 advanced AI chips annually. The UAE paved their way to advanced AI chips by bribing investing $500 million into the Trump family's crypto venture, World Liberty Financial.

As Andy the Alchemist recently put it, “The transhumanist Silicon Valley billionaire cabal (has) openly bribed Trump with billions of dollars to let them do whatever they want.” And, as of today, they are doing it.

Trump says all America needs to address AI is a smart president. Let’s follow that advice in November by turning him into a lame duck so the adults in the room can do what needs to be done.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

On Trump’s social media posts, he keeps depicting himself in fantasy roles: Superman, Jesus, the Pope, Sci-Fi leader of dystopian death machines & a larger than life military commander. His fantasies are sometimes “official,” communicated to the American public directly under White House insignia, and they frequently come in waves of multiple fantasies at one time. Over Labor Day he indulged and made it public 37 times.

Fantasizing during times of stress instead of working to resolve crises wrought by his own incompetence suggests Trump detaches from reality as a defense mechanism. I’m no psychoanalyst but someone needs to drive a serious conversation about the dangers of what we’re seeing. A sudden shift into immersive fantasy worlds is regarded as classic form of dissociative absorption, where the brain rapidly checks out of the physical world and floods consciousness with an imagined reality to cope with overwhelming real-world stress. The power fantasies also look like an admission: Trump craves supernatural powers like any pre-pubescent boy, but knows he is out of his depth.

Trump’s fantasies often portray themes of destruction. Over Labor Day he depicted himself masterminding space command, pressing buttons on the console to detonate nuclear bombs. In another, he’s leading a futuristic army of androids and killer robots. Neither is safe or sane as he as he actively moves these fantasies toward reality- his administration is accelerating the deployment of a new generation of experimental nuclear reactors, while also pursuing autonomous killing robots programmed to kill without real time human direction.

Standing alone, a president dissociating from reality to spend hours mired in fantasies of world domination is alarming enough. But in the context of what he is actually doing, Trump’s insanity is dangerous and triggers a moral obligation to act.

The world is watching, aghast

Americans are not the only audience watching his impairment; our adversaries, including those who would do us harm, are also watching. Gone are the days of ‘Trump just being Trump,’ as if an imbecilic bully is somehow charming and wink-worthy.

Trump 2.0’s unprovoked aggression on the world stage has forfeited any remaining goodwill and removed any lingering benefit of the doubt: This man means to harm others. Trump has now bombed or targeted 7 nations that did not attack us first: Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen, plus alleged “drug-smuggling” boats in international waters. The unilateral executions in the Caribbean Sea, where Hegseth has ordered the deaths of more than 225 people based on unsubstantiated suspicion of drug dealing, is an ongoing war crime. Even if the slaughtered victims were running drugs, no one has legal authority to kill them without interdiction and due process.

Trump also kidnapped Venezuela’s president, “appropriated” Venezuela’s oil, and is now bombing Iranian oil tankers off Kharg Island and the Gulf of Oman, all more war crimes. In Iran alone, his stunted judgment has made extremists more powerful, energy more expensive, and our allies more alarmed, yet few Republicans will admit that his unhinged aggression doesn’t look strong, it looks pathological.

Trump’s domination designs aren’t funny

One of Trump’s infantile fantasies posted over the holiday portrayed the entire northern hemisphere including Iceland, Canada, Central America and the Caribbean as part of the United States. Harmless? France24.com described it as a US 'takeover' of North America, which triggered “widespread ridicule and questions about Trump’s fitness for office.”

The standalone lunacy is bad enough, but real time context makes it worse. Trump started the war in Iran without consulting allies, then turned around and castigated them for not bailing him out from his colossal mistake, blasting them as ‘cowards’ and calling NATO a “paper tiger.”

Although parters reliant on U.S. defense and trade were initially reluctant to speak out, they aren’t keeping mum any longer. As El Pais puts it, “across multiple summits and official declarations, EU officials have transitioned from quiet anxiety to sharp, public pushback.” Shame-naming “the international disorder created by Donald Trump,” our erstwhile European allies are forging new alliances with diminished— or entirely eliminated—ties to the U.S.

World leaders are calling out the danger, why aren’t Republicans?

In one of Trump’s Labor Day posts, Trump depicted himself physically dominating Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, while calling him “Governor.” If there’s any strategy behind alienating a peaceful neighbor through continuous insults, it’s hard to find.

It’s possible that Trump, a reality TV host who bankrupted six businesses and paid almost no federal income tax before becoming president, is triggered by Carney’s staid competence. Carney, elected in large part for pushing back against Trump, is an economist and former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. Carney is widely respected as an economist across major Western economies and global financial institutions, notably in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. Trump, in contrast, has a reputation as a corrosive buffoon. In polls, Trump commands the lowest confidence rating of a national leader among many nations.

Trump’s aggressive posturing exemplifies “a hostile attitude from the U.S. toward Western Europe unseen since the end of World War II.” Earlier this year, EU leaders condemned Trump’s aggressive rhetoric toward Greenland as a “blackmail tactic,” and warned that Trump’s threats to impose unilateral trade penalties on allies would trigger a "dangerous downward spiral" in transatlantic relations. Fast forward to September, and Trump continues to threaten to stop foreign trade for no sane reason other than to flex the power because he can, harm to his own citizens be damned.

Lawmakers swear an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution; this oath requires them to check any president, including one from their own party, if executive actions cross legal or constitutional lines. Trump crossed that line on his first day back in office, and he’s been crossing it ever since. Republican legislators who fail to remove him despite clear evidence of his insanity and unfitness to serve will end up with American blood on their hands.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis, former Senate Armed Services Committee member, has accused Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth of mismanaging the Pentagon, and is recommending Trump fire him. Tillis wrote on X that Hegseth is “intimidated by competence” and “retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force.”

‘Ginning up culture wars’ to detract from malfeasance describes the entire Trump administration. It also captures how Fox News manipulates 38% of the country to vote against their own interests. Climate change? Corruption? Measles? These illegals are stealing from you.

After forcing credentialled journalists out of the Pentagon last year, Hegseth introduced a new right-wing press corps to replace them. He also started placing online influencers, aka political commentators, in civilian roles to keep his low IQ culture wars brewing. These influencers have been assigned as either “special government employees” or “highly qualified experts” who use social media to deflect from Hegseth’s mistakes, attack critics, and promote Hegseth’s favored viewpoints.

Using federal tax dollars for propaganda is illegal

Although the DOD has refused to answer questions about payment arrangements for Hegseth’s influencers, it is a logical inference that they are being paid with taxpayer funds. Republican Air Force veteran Adam Kinzinger noted as much, posting that it appears the Pentagon “is using your tax dollars to hire influencers on X to put out partisan talking points.”

Using federal tax dollars to pay for political commentary has long been illegal. Section 718 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act explicitly prohibits spending federally appropriated tax dollars on political propaganda: “No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used directly or indirectly, including by private contractor, for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by Congress.” This restriction blocks three separate categories of impermissible communications, including those that “fail to clearly identify the federal agency as the source or sponsor of the content.” Hegseth’s propagandists did not reveal that they were working for the federal government; that took some sleuthing by journalists at the Washington Post and the Bulwark.

All government agencies are legally required to be transparent about the origin of their communications under FTC Disclosure Rules as well. Under federal law, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires social media influencers to clearly and conspicuously disclose any financial relationships or sponsorships they may have. Failing to disclose when social media content is paid for violates consumer protection laws and amounts to deception.

Although it sounds quaint by now to point out yet another way this administration is breaking federal law, paying influencers to disseminate false or skewed information is covert propaganda that assaults the principle of an informed electorate. It is also the hallmark of an autocratic regime.

The Nazi ideology of Hegseth’s troll

In his excellent Substack post, Surviving in a pit of vipers, Robert Tracinski notes that one of Hegseth’s main influencers, Kurt Schlichter, is “pretty much a straight-up fascist.” ‘Pretty much’ is Tracinski being cautious. Schlichter advocates online for using the law to “force Democrats into political submission” and to “imprison dissenters.” Schlichter calls blue state liberals “evangelical Marxists” whom “red state conservatives” must force “by any means necessary” to be “like us,” with “no quarter and no compromise.”

“No quarter,” coming from a retired Army colonel with 620,000 X followers literally means killing adversaries. In war, showing “no quarter” has been an international war crime since 1907. In peace, applying it to silence different political perspectives is blood-curdling.

Schlichter also advocates penalizing “barren, non-familial lifestyles” and banning people in those lifestyles from political participation altogether. He also advocates “nationalizing big tech and academia” in order to “mandate conservatism as their operational ideology.” Schlichter wants to weaponize these institutions to enforce far-right political viewpoints nationwide. Between 1933 and 1945, Hitler similarly eliminated political opposition and forced the German population to align with Nazi ideology.

Hegseth’s reflexive lies put Americans in danger

The dangers of federal propaganda are obvious and the history is bleak, but Hitler didn’t invent state-forced ideology. The founders’ original goal behind the First Amendment was protecting Americans from forced ‘state’ ideology. They would flip in their graves to see this administration rule by propaganda, disseminated by right wing media, Hegseth’s trolls, and Trump and Elon Musk’s own for-profit social media platforms. It’s as if Trump 2.0 is a division of Fox News.

Governing by falsehoods is dangerous in any context, but lying about military operations puts American lives in danger. Hegseth’s lies downplaying Iranian attacks on U.S. assets in the Persian Gulf, for example, disrupted the distribution of food and supplies for the long-suffering troops on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Trump’s lies aren’t helping the war either. Last week he published an AI video falsely depicting the destruction of Iran’s strategic oil terminal, Kharg Island, signaling his cognitive impairment to Iran.

Hegseth seems to have transferred his Fox News propaganda manual to the Pentagon. In March, he called reports that Iran was disrupting oil shipments through the Straight of Hormuz “patently ridiculous” even as satellite imagery proved the reports. He deflected on evidence that the U.S. bombed a school and killed 175 children. He claims the U.S. “never targets civilians” after killing over 200 civilians on small boats in the Caribbean on mere suspicion that they were “narcoterrorists,” and after bombing an Iranian wedding hall with highly precise, guided munitions. And who can forget Hegseth’s early claim of complete and total “obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear capacity after last year’s bombing campaign?

He was lying then and he is lying now, and his culture war trolls are spreading his false propaganda.

Tillis, and a growing chorus Republican critics, are spot on. Hegseth is dangerous. According to Trump, he knows more about war than the generals do, why does he even need a Secretary of War?

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Proving that a lying clock tells the truth twice a day, JD Vance recently quipped that politics have shifted so much that "if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story." Vance was unwittingly acknowledging his own handiwork as he and his intellectually compromised boss flex Steve Bannon’s flood the zone strategy: throw crap on the wall, throw it often, throw it fast, until the American public is so overwhelmed they can’t keep up and turn away.

It’s working. Eighteen months into this nightmare regime, as one act of corruption follows the next, Americans are turning away. One study found that 65% of Americans across political affiliation and age groups are consuming less news due to information overload and fatigue. It’s exactly what Trump wants.

As Trump awards billions in no-bid federal contracts to his political donors, from the no bid multi-million dollar Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool debacle, to hundreds of millions to build a ballroom, to multi-billion dollar no bid contracts to rape and pillage our national parks, his political donors are reaping windfall rewards. His sons aren’t doing too poorly either. After Republicans blew a gasket over Hunter Biden serving on a corporate board, the Trump boys have cashed in big time with an Air Force contract to buy interceptor drones from Don Jr. and Eric (who have no experience in the drones business), Don Jr.’s ownership stake in a mining project that just secured $1.6 billion in government backing (ditto), and a $620 million Pentagon loan for Don Jr.'s venture capital firm. Trump’s crypto scams have caused investors to lose up to $3.8 billion while the Trumps made up to $2.3 billion across the same crypto projects. Now Trump wants to personally profit from his own policy announcements, “selling” early internet access to his social media posts to facilitate insider trading.

Meanwhile, as wealthy individuals spend millions to secure presidential pardons, and Trump’s scheme to establish a separate $1.8 billion slush fund for his supporters refuses to die, the Department of the Treasury just announced that it is destroying its anti-corruption database, the federal registry of shell-company ownership. It plans to destroy all the data it has already collected, to prevent future administrations, future FBIs, future DOJs, and future local police departments from ever seeing the incriminating data. An SNL skit writer could not write this stuff as fast as it’s happening.

Money is one thing, national parks are another

One piece of corruption that appears to be getting through to the public involves the Big Bend National Park in Texas. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security fast-tracked multibillion-dollar, no bid contracts to erect a nonsensical steel barrier wall along parts of the Rio Grande River where cliffs and canyons already rise nearly 1,500 feet and serve as natural barriers to illegal crossings. The administration waivied standard financial transparency, competitive bidding laws, and environmental reviews to award massive no-bid contracts to long time Trump and republican donors.

Robbing the American taxpayers of billions most people can’t comprehend is one thing, robbing them of their national parks is another. Even Republicans in Texas are pushing back. Calling it a “crazed road-building spree,” and an unnecessary "boondoggle," given the region’s "God-given barriers," a bipartisan furor has erupted over Trump’s “monument to corruption” that “no Texan asked for.”

The nonsensical project will cause permanent damage to the environment for no purpose other than rewarding Trump’s corporate donors. It will alter the flow of the Rio Grande River, cutting off flood plain distribution, wreck the feeding routes and habitats of already threatened black bears, Texas Big Horn sheep, and mountain lions, and ruin the business of hundreds of local tourism companies. Now the administration is saying contractors may blast through part of Mariscal Mountain, a 4000 foot limestone ridge in Big Bend. The Center for Biological Diversity said the “extensive dynamite blasting,” would be “the most heinous attack on an American national park” in generations.

Trump’s destruction for profit is straight out of an authoritarian playbook

When I discussed the issue on Thom Hartmann’s show earlier this week (it’s about 10 minutes, you can watch it here), Hartmann characteristically pulled the camera back to widen the perspective. He noted that what Trump is doing— spending billions for unnecessary projects just to line the pockets of his donors—was the same modus operandi of other authoritarian regimes like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin. As Hartmann put it, this is how Orban and Putin “cement loyalty with their oligarchs.” It’s also why Republicans in Congress won’t quit Trump: he’s corrupt, but the spoils spill over into their donors’ hands as well.

In Russia, when communism fell, Russian oligarchs (“apparatchiks”) divvied up Russia’s industry and national resources. As I recounted in early 2025, in I did business in Russia. Trump is importing KGB thuggery, I experienced Russian thuggery first hand. Before I became a 1st A trial lawyer, I was corporate. I was general counsel to a Chicago beverage maker, negotiating contracts and foreign licensing agreements. My client’s biggest customer was Russian, and they tried to misappropriate (eg, steal) my client’s world famous trademark. When I was in Moscow to try to resolve the matter, two things happened: The government representative from what is now called Rospatent (Russia’s Patent and Trademark Bureau) said, point blank and on the record, that my client was at a disadvantage because of U.S. legal prohibitions against bribing government officials. We were already spending millions on the litigation, and it was quite obvious that my adversary had already greased many palms.

The other thing that happened was worse. An American businessman staying in my hotel was murdered, gunned down as he left the building. The LA Times reported that Paul Tatum helped develop the Radisson-Slavjanskaya Hotel into one of the first Western-style hotels in Moscow. Just before he was killed, Tatum said he was in Moscow to “defend his share in the hotel against unscrupulous executives, the Chechen Mafia, and a Russian business culture that wouldn’t play fair.”

That was an understatement. Tatum, according to reports, noted correctly that murder is “a corporate strategy in Moscow.” It’s true. I traveled with a bodyguard because hundreds of business executives are killed annually in Mafia-style hits throughout Russia.

This is the business culture our ‘president’ is nurturing; Russian-style corruption is his natural habitat. Make no mistake: without the rule of law, Americans will be no different from Russians. Trump’s well-rewarded oligarchs- uber rich CEOs who will do anything to destroy the taxing and regulatory state- will slide quite easily into murders for hire.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Heading into midterm season, voters are experiencing Trump’s economic illiteracy first hand, even as Trump, embarrassingly, keeps blaming Biden. If he hadn’t elevated personal loyalty over professional competence when choosing his cabinet, staff would advise him that blaming a long gone predecessor makes Trump look weak, but he did, so they don’t, and here we are.

Trump’s illegal tariffs and un-strategized war in Iran have caused prices to skyrocket globally. His tariffs on essential inputs like steel, aluminum, and clean energy components have driven up operational expenses across the power sector, raising costs that are then passed down to consumers. His war in Iran has also elevated the price of oil energy, travel, and consumer borrowing costs. As global oil markets face increased volatility, prices for gasoline, diesel, heating oil, airfares, and mortgage rates remain significantly higher than their pre-war baselines.

Americans are also just beginning to enjoy Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB), signed into law in July 2025 with staggered effective dates. The bill delivered the largest cuts to food assistance, health care, education programs, and student loan services in U.S. history, in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy. Slashing taxes for the uber rich while cutting subsidies for healthcare and the poor, the law also hurt small businesses and farmers while benefitting large corporations. Can you say oligarchic coup?

The BBB also gave a major boost to the superyacht, private jet, and private luxury travel sectors. Massive tax and regulatory gifts freed cash at the top, allowing the top 1% to spend their money on toys for the uber rich, like superyachts. By restoring 100% first-year bonus depreciation for qualifying “business assets” like superyachts and jets, following the BBB’s passage, demand skyrocketed as affluent buyers and charter operators rushed to utilize the tax write-off, helping superyacht sales explode.

Trump’s Big Bill: Beautiful if you’re rich, downright ugly if you’re not

Despite clearly contracting economic indicators, Trump continues to call the affordability crisis a “hoax,” and a fake narrative manufactured by Democrats, much to the consternation of any Republican candidate not guaranteed re-election through gerrymandering. But numbers don’t lie, which may explain Trump’s aversion to them.

The law cut roughly $187 billion from SNAP food assistance, the largest cuts to SNAP in the history of the program, with reductions phasing in between 2026 and 2028, after the midterms. If Democrats regain control of one or both legislative houses, Republicans, by design, will be able to blame them for the cuts Republicans passed. On food assistance, expanded work requirements, more frequent recertification, and the defunding of SNAP-Ed nutrition programs are expected to lower SNAP enrollment by an average of 4.7 million people while reducing nutrition allotments for those who remain. Economists expect these cuts to increase poverty, food insecurity, and hunger among low-income communities.

On the healthcare side, over 11 million Americans are expected to lose their eligibility for Medicaid by 2034 due to increased work-reporting requirements, shorter certification periods, and new copays for poor adults who are living at or just above the poverty line. The law cut ACA marketplace open enrollment, and eliminated special enrollment periods for low-income people. Republicans claim the cuts will reduce waste, fraud, and abuse and encourage people to work, but the cuts fall almost entirely on low-income working households while the benefits accrue to higher earners.

The exploding national debt is another Trump disaster. The national debt rose by a staggering $7.8 trillion during the first Trump administration, ranking “as the third-biggest increase, relative to the size of the economy, of any U.S. presidential administration…” This year, the national debt jumped past $37 trillion, despite draconian program cuts nationwide, thanks to Republicans’ out of control spending on Iran, ICE, and building a police state, along with tax gifts to the rich. This debt is not sustainable.

So what are the GOP’s plans to address consumer prices, other than leaving the bill for our children?

Despite the obvious cause and effect of Trump’s tariffs, war in Iran, Big Beautiful Bill, and overall administrative incompetence, Trump continues to blame Biden for nearly every current economic ill. Earlier this week, Trump told supporters in Michigan that the affordability problems they were experiencing were “vestiges of the Biden administration,” then devoted most of his speech to lying about what the United States could look like if “Dumocrats” or “Dumbocrats” win this fall. “I’m one day in office,” he brayed, “and the fake news goes affordability, affordability!’” His audience roared in appreciative laughter.

Trump lacks the economic acumen to understand or care that Biden inherited a covid economic crisis in 2021, and spurred the strongest economic and labor market recovery in modern history. With limited bi-partisan support, Biden modeled the economic recovery package of FDR with his left hand, while galvanizing NATO’s response to Russia with his right. The resulting infrastructure, chips, and manufacturing initiatives had not been seen in the US in half a century. Trump can’t compete, at least not with anyone outside the Fox propaganda network.

So this year, instead of addressing costs, inflation, and a faltering economy, the GOP is relying on messaging instead, framing the Democratic Party as aligned with far-left radical agendas. Sadly, their anti-communist messaging that doesn’t seem to be landing, since most MAGA voters don’t really understand what the term means, but understand that hamburger and gas now cost more.

In every political debate of this midterm season so far, republicans have blamed democrats for problems they themselves have caused. Ultimately, if voters don’t educate themselves, ween themselves off State News, and turn out to vote, we will get the government we deserve.

But fear not, all is not lost. Superyacht sales in the US rose by over 40% following Trump’s first tax giveaway, and continue to rise under Trump 2.0. Surely- hopefully- eventually- someday, that staggering wealth will start to trickle down.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee, hats in hand. The Pentagon is burning through appropriations, with both Navy and Air Force 2026 operations budgets set to run out by the end of July. The war in Iran has depleted key weapons stockpiles, reducing U.S. inventories of interceptor missiles and stealth cruise missiles to less than half and costing over $37 billion to date. To the naked eye, these costs reflect disastrous mismanagement of an unauthorized and escalating war.

On Wednesday, the GOP-led House approved a whopping defense funding bill anyway, authorizing an unprecedented $1 trillion for military spending. Not only did the MAGA wing reward Trump’s incompetent war in Iran with a massive spending boost, it codified Hegseth’s rebrand of the “Department of War,” snuck in Trump’s voter suppression bill, and blocked hormone therapy coverage for gender care just as Hegseth is braying about testosterone levels.

Hegseth expected lawmakers to correct his urgent shortfall, but wouldn’t correct, clarify or explain his own false claims about Iran. Hegseth’s early-in-the-war announcement that Iran’s military had been “destroyed and made combat ineffective” was obviously untrue, but republicans still put an unprecedented $1trillion budget in his hands. Arming a blowhard who delivers braggadocio instead of sober analysis is not confidence inspiring, it’s irresponsible. It’s also scary as hell.

Hegseth’s bloodlust

As a Fox News commentator, Hegseth lobbied hard for presidential pardons for war criminals, leading Trump to fully pardon a Lieutenant convicted of murdering two Afghan civilians, and a Major who admitted to the CIA that he killed someone off base in 2010 and buried his remains. For his own activities in Iraq, Hegseth kept a ‘kill board’ totaling up his kills, including dead civilians, providing context for his bloodlust today (“maximum lethality not tepid legality”) and his disdain for restraint (“stupid rules of engagement.”)

Hegseth seems to be grooming U.S. servicemembers for war crimes, taking them to a place where rules and laws do not apply. Added to over 200 extrajudicial killings in South America, they bombed a school in Iran, killing 175 grade-schoolers, and are now bombing Iran’s civilian energy infrastructure and water desalination facilities, more war crimes. Millions of Iranians are living under fire in nightmarish hellscapes, compounding anti-American hatred sure to outlast Trump for generations.

This is the same idiocy that blames other countries for climate-change induced wildfires, while pouring gas on the flames. But of all the mistakes, bloodlust, and incompetence displayed to date, none is more dangerous than Hegseth’s new obsession with testosterone.

Hegseth is mandating testosterone testing

On July 16, Hegseth announced mandatory annual testosterone screening for troops 30 years and older, a new initiative that Hegseth claims will ensure enlistees “have the right testosterone levels to operate at your absolute ⁠best.” What he didn’t announce is that testosterone supplements can cause infertility, shrink testicles, and drive up red blood cell counts, which thickens blood and raises the risk of blood clots and pulmonary embolism.

Even worse is what T supplements can do to overall IQ and cognitive functioning. Medical studies have tracked how increased testosterone levels can induce aggressive behavior because they also change brain wave patterns.

Although Hegseth and other chest beaters think increased testosterone will make men quicker and sharper, medical research suggests the opposite. The relationship between T and IQ is shaped like an inverted U: cognitive performance is strongest when testosterone sits in a moderate range, and dramatically declines at both low and high ends of the spectrum.

In short, when T levels are too high, men get stupid. While that may explain some of Hegseth’s frequent blunders, excessive testosterone among the troops would present obvious risks.

Too much T rots your brain: How excess testosterone impairs cognitive performance

In controlled studies that raised serum testosterone in healthy men to ‘supraphysiological’ levels — beyond what the body normally produces — researchers measured how verbal and spatial memory changed, confirming a downturn in cognition levels at high doses. Rather than testosterone being simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for the brain, research shows that it can help or hurt cognition depending on where a person's levels fall relative to their own physiological baseline.

This pattern shows up in the medical research repeatedly, across different populations and cognitive domains. But Hegseth’s directive aims to establish hormonal baselines across the force, which cannot measure or indicate how a person's levels compare to their own past historical baseline.

None of this makes testosterone a villain. Men with low testosterone face meaningfully higher risk of dementia, and testosterone loss with age also contributes to cognitive decline. The nuance assuredly lost on Hegseth is that pushing testosterone artificially high — whether through unsupervised supplementation, misuse of steroids, or aggressive hormone therapy — can backfire, and erode memory and executive function. Hegseth seems to think that hormones are simple dials where more is better, but they are biometric signals the brain has evolved to interpret within complex ranges, and stepping too far outside that range — in either direction — comes at a cost.

Will Hegseth have the cognitive bandwidth, or even the professional discipline, to consult medical research before pushing T supplements to millions of servicemembers? Color me skeptical. He’s chief mouth-breather to the most incompetent, anti-science, anti-intellectual administration the world has ever seen. But he knows that when Trump starts deploying the military against U.S. citizens, aggressive soldiers with low brain function will make the perfect Praetorian Guard.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Last week, Trump blasted another announcement of his ignorance to the world, claiming that Canada’s wildfire smoke is an air “invasion,” one that he’s going to fight with… tariffs. Before thanking everyone for their attention to this matter and announcing more punitive Canadian tariffs, Trump deemed Canada “responsible” for the wildfire smoke still blanketing parts of the U.S. “They are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!... This is Willful Negligence!...”

Republican toadies were quick to parrot the idiocy. Meeting Trump’s bombast and raising him one, Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, introduced the "CANADA FIRE Act" declaring a national emergency, stripping Canadian officials of their visas, and expelling the Canadian ambassador until the smoke clears. Moreno announced, “Ohioans across the state are being subjected to hazardous conditions – we will not tolerate this incompetence.” Representative Lisa McClain borrowed Trump’s phrasing and his penchant for turning everything into us vs. them, claiming that Michiganders were “breathing Canada’s negligence,” because Canada is “exporting” their smoke “into our skies.”

Yet another coalition of Republican dunces sent a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney threatening military reprisals. They warned that if Ottawa didn't act, the US military/agencies would “act on our own” by physically crossing the border to perform unilateral logging and fire suppression. Funny how threatening invasion against a sovereign ally is easier than contradicting a petulant boss.

Satire and irony glove up, punch back

While Trump and Republicans try to punish the wind, the internet is having a field day. Mocking the sheer absurdity of the world's largest historical carbon emitter demanding damages for climate-driven wildfires, one plan, the "Build a Sky Wall" Plan, would have Trump construct a massive wall along the border to keep the "illegal air" out. A competing “Weather Bureaucracy” proposal would post U.S. customs agents at the border to issue speeding and littering tickets to wind currents passing through.

Canadian satirist David Hehn presented an initiative to draft every able-bodied Canadian between 16 and 65 to tidy up the Boreal Forest. The Forest Undergrowth Clearing Kindling Operation for Foreign Friends (boss acronym) promises to negotiate with local Canadian beavers to submit environmental impact reports. Canadian internet users, overall, were quick to see the incongruity, with one viral tweet noting: “We'll pay for the smoke as soon as you give us a refund for the acid rain and global warming.”

While this irony may be obvious, another one, more subtle and even more delicious, hasn’t made the headlines. By demanding damages from Canada for the wildfire smoke, Trump and his anti-science republicans are endorsing the legal theory currently pending in 51 lawsuits brought against major fossil fuel corporations. Big oil accountability lawsuits, filed by ten states, fifteen municipalities, and two tribal governments, seek to hold fossil fuel corporations accountable for deceiving the public about their role in the climate crisis.

Republicans’ performative outrage over the smoke also implicitly supports legal claims from developing countries now demanding that nations like the U.S. and China, which have emitted the most greenhouse gases since the industrial revolution, assist them financially in addressing heatwaves, floods, disappearing coasts, droughts and crop failures worsened by rising temperatures.

An adult in the room responds

Although political commentators routinely criticize Trump for dismissing climate change as a ‘con job’ while simultaneously complaining about its effects, no U.S. elected official has yet accused Trump of causing Canada’s wildfires through climate inaction. It’s not clear why democrats haven’t come out swinging on this; research shows that the U.S. has directly caused over $10 trillion in climate damages globally since 1990.

At least Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, the only adult in this spat, can still state the obvious. Carney countered Trump's accusations by pointing out Trump’s willful failure to address the climate crisis.

Carney replied to Trump’s wildfire threats by noting, statesmanlike, that “fighting climate change is the responsibility of all countries, including the United States.” While Canada is investing in clean energy, Carney noted, Trump is doing just the opposite.

An anti-science moron, Trump is deliberately accelerating climate change

Carney’s right. Trump has systematically rolled back almost every clean air protection; his regulatory rollbacks directly accelerate emissions and global warming. Aside from withdrawing the US from global climate bodies like the Paris Agreement, Trump consistently promotes climate disinformation (“it’s a hoax”) and claims black air from burning coal is good for you. One expects an Executive Order any day now requiring home furnaces to convert to coal.

While Trump engages in coercive, anti-factual measures to benefit his fossil fuel donors, he has halted all federal permitting for offshore wind, closing deals with energy companies to abandon wind farms off California, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina in exchange for investing in fossil fuel projects. His other climate-change acceleration projects include:

• Revoking the scientific declaration that greenhouse gases threaten public health.
• Eliminating federal tailpipe emissions and efficiency rules for cars and trucks.
• Weakening methane regulations and enforcement codes that required fossil fuel companies to fix gas leaks.
• Freezing billions of dollars in incentives for renewables and paying over $2.6 billion to cancel wind farms already under development.

Even Trump, at 80 years old, knows he won’t be around in 30 years when Miami slips into the ocean.

As he engages in unparalleled corruption, starts WWIII out of sheer stupidity, and tries to take the planet into the grave with him, the silver lining in his attack on Canada should be celebrated. Just as his war in Iran is hastening the world’s transition to renewables, his lets-sue-Canada-for-climate-damages policy will make a fine opening exhibit— and closing argument— for plaintiffs suing big oil.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

ICE agents just shot and killed two more innocent people, a man in Texas and another in Maine. Both men were legally authorized to work in the United States; both were shot in the early morning while driving to work.

Neither victim was ICE’s intended target, meaning each man died because federal agents pursued him in error.

Anyone who’s ever been chased—even if just in a nightmare— can imagine the terror of being followed by a masked and armed aggressor in hot pursuit. But instead of waking up from the dream right when he catches you, the masked man chasing you is actually real. He’s not floating at the foot of your bed, he’s at your car door with a loaded gun. He really does pull the trigger, you really do die, and your family really does have to grieve your absence for the rest of their lives.

An American horror story

On July 7, 2026, in Houston, Texas, ICE fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old Mexican national who had lived and worked in the U.S. for over 30 years, recently reaching his goal of owning his own construction company. According to preliminary reports, ICE agents in unmarked vehicles pursued Araujo while he was driving his construction crew to the morning’s job site.

Although agents admit that Mr. Araujo was not even their intended target, DHS is claiming Mr. Araujo “tried to run over an officer” with his vehicle. The three workers in the van with Araujo said no one was in front of his vehicle. They said that Araujo, a life-long construction worker with expensive tools in his work van, thought the masked men chasing them in two unidentified, unmarked black vans wanted to steal his equipment.

Six days later, similar story. In the early morning of July 13, 2026, an ICE agent shot and killed 26-year-old Johan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine. Guerrero was from Colombia, was authorized to work in the U.S., and was also on his way to work when he was killed. Although Mr. Guerrero was not the federal agents’ intended targeteither, ICE claims that Guerrero also “tried to use his vehicle as a weapon” against officers, similar to ICE allegations against Araujo and Renee Good in Minnesota. A witness saw Guerrero “bleeding profusely from the head. He was talking. (Guerrero) said: ‘I tried to stop’” before taking his last breath.

The only definitive proof of what happened in either encounter would be video footage. Authorities have not released any such video, and the agents were not wearing body cams, but rest assured some doctored recording will soon surface on Fox News, cropped and manipulated to blame the victims.

Killing reflexively

Since last year, federal ICE agents have shot at least 21 people, several of whom were attempting to drive away when they were killed. Then, after Senator Markwayne Mullin replaced Kristi Noem as DHS Secretary in March 2026, it seemed ICE began keeping a relatively quiet and lower profile. That was either because Mullin preferred less attention, or because he wanted to avoid making waves while waiting for Congress to grant DHS even more funding. On June 10, 2026, Congressional Republicans authorized another $70 billion for ICE, after DHS had already received an unprecedented and absurd $170 billion last year from Trump’s big bill.

Armed with an un-American, dystopian level of funding, with taxpayers literally buying the bullets now aimed at them, rogue ICE is back, pushing mass deportation levels up to where Stephen Miller wants them.

Although Trump officials are trying to block independent investigations into ICE killings, the truth will eventually come out, as it just did for Renee Good. When all the evidence is finally released, ICE agents will learn that they are not as free to kill as Stephen Miller would have them believe.

Not only can ICE agents be prosecuted, tried by jury, and sent to prison (or worse) for murder, but Trump can’t pardon them. Anyone convicted of murder under a state’s criminal code is stuck with state justice as they languish in that state’s penitentiary.

Federal agents are not immune from state prosecution and never have been

Under state and federal law, a federal agent acting outside the scope of his duties is not immune from state prosecution for murder, manslaughter, or any other crime under state law. Since 1890, the Supreme Court has held federal officers immune from state prosecution only if 1. they were acting within the scope of their official federal duties, and 2. their actions were objectively reasonable.

If an ICE agent is prosecuted in state court, he does have the right to remove his case to federal court, but a case removed to federal court is still prosecuted under state law. Federal procedural law applies, but so what? The state’s substantive law still governswhether or not a crime was committed.

Federal courts apply this strict two-pronged test to determine whether Supremacy Clause Immunity exists in each case, given all the facts in evidence. It is never automatic.

Trump officials are lying to agents about immunity

Steven Miller has claimed on Fox News that ICE agents operate with “complete federal immunity,” and that state prosecutors cannot independently investigate or charge federal agents with state crimes. In Renee Good’s killing, they boldly declared that Minnesota had no jurisdiction to investigate. Whether their position was the product of ignorance, bad legal counsel, hubris, or all of the above, the administration finally conceded error and submitted investigation evidence to state officials this week.

Stephen Miller frequently claims ICE agents have “federal immunity,” insinuating both license and encouragement for them to commit crimes in pursuit of his detention goals. But Miller’s bloodlust must be clouding his legal judgment, because he is demonstrably wrong, and he is risking future incarcerations of federal agents by lying to them.

Federal agents do not have absolute immunity of any kind, and never have, since 1890. Anyone reading this who knows an ICE agent, tell them to watch something other than Fox News, because ignorance of the law will not save them.

This week, masked men in two unmarked vans aggressively chased the wrong targets. They sped, cut them off, then got out of unmarked vans and ran toward them, guns drawn. When the terrorized victims got confused or scared or both and pulled away, officers ran after their vehicles, on foot. When they got closer, in a testosterone-spiked rage, they shot two innocent men, in two separate states, to death. Whether those actions were reasonable, necessary and proper, and within the officer’s official duties, won’t be up to Stephen Miller to determine. It will be up to a jury.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

In May of this year, Todd Blanche signed a one-page order under seal of the U.S. Department of Justice, declaring that the U.S. government hereby “FOREVER DISCHARGES” Donald Trump and his family from pending and viable federal tax claims, and that the federal government is “FOREVER BARRED AND PRECLUDED” from pursuing those claims. Blanche’s order, if a federal judge hadn’t just voided it, would likely have cost taxpayers up to $650 million in lost penalties and back payments.

Although Blanche’s order would have allowed a sitting president to defraud the U.S. treasury with impunity, the outrage quickly passed. It’s just another episode of corruption under the most corrupt administration our country has ever seen, what’s another few hundred million between friends?

But the legal contortions behind Blanche’s order, the unethical legal jujitsu that brought it into existence, are lasting. By orchestrating this deal, Blanche acted in his former client's personal interest, at great cost to his current client—the American public. What Blanche tried to rig up for Trump was a major ethical violation under any legal code of ethics. Even during his confirmation hearings on Wednesday, Blanche seemed confused about who his client was, explaining that, as part of the Executive branch, he serves the president. The U.S. Attorney General, for the record, serves the people, and was created to do so by the Judiciary Act of 1789. Blanche’s confusion over this most fundamental aspect of his role as AG could not be more corrosive to the rule of law Blanche has vowed to uphold.

Blanche’s brazen attempt to hijack the justice system

In overseeing the Department of Justice, any US Attorney General is legally entrusted to enforce our laws in a fair and evenhanded manner, and to use its “investigatory and prosecutorial powers” in a manner that is “free from partisan consideration.” This duty requires, above all else, an Attorney General’s commitment to honor and protect the law above both his personal interests and those of the President who nominated him.

Blanche, after blatantly protecting Trump’s personal, illegal interests over the public’s legal interests, perjured himself when he testified Wednesday in his Senate confirmation hearing. When directly asked if he would resign rather than carry out an illegal or unethical order from Trump, Blanche answered ambiguously, "I'm not going to violate my oath to the Constitution." But he already has, and not just by trying to gift Trump $650 million in waived tax penalties, along with $1.8 billion to reward J6 rioters.

Far worse than the amount of the attempted theft was the way Blanche tried to go about it: by contriving a completely fake federal lawsuit, then trying to hoodwink a federal judge by dismissing the suit after she questioned how one party could be on both sides, then defrauding the American public by claiming there had been a “settlement” of a case that never existed. On July 13, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams issued a scathing order concluding that the whole scheme was an attempt to “manipulate the judicial process” in an effort to lend the “court’s legitimacy” to collusion between Blanche, the IRS, and Trump to enrich the Trumps. She slammed Blanche for abdicating his responsibility to the public, and referred him for formal sanctions by the commission holding his law license.

The New York Bar Association’s warning

Blanche was admitted to practice law before the Attorney Grievance Committee of the State of New York. That means New York— not the federal government, not Trump— holds his law license. If he loses his license, he loses the ability to practice law anywhere in the country, and he could not supervise the work of other DOJ attorneys without engaging in the unauthorized practice of law.

On July 13, 2026, the New York Bar Association submitted a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee holding hearings on Blanche’s nomination to become AG. They vehemently oppose his confirmation, stressing the systemic damage Blanche has already inflicted on the legal system. They point out five distinct areas where Blanche has already violated his oath of office by elevating Trump over the rule of law, and by engaging in conduct contrary to the Rules of Professional Conduct and the DOJ’s own Justice Manual.

The NY Bar Association letter came after 101 former judges filed an official complaint with the New York Commission to “initiate an investigation into Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche (Registration No. 4192456) for violation of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct.” In addition to the same ethical breaches identified by the NY Bar Association in its letter to U.S. Senate, the judges’ formal complaint strongly encourages disciplinary action against Blanche for his blanket abuse of authority in using the DOJ to pursue politically motivated investigations and lawsuits against Trump’s personal and political enemies.

The judges also questioned Blanche’s “personal involvement in overseeing the Department of Justice’s botched and incomplete release” of Epstein documents under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and raised “serious concerns” about Blanche’s interview of Ghislaine Maxwell. The judges point out the obvious: that Blanche remains “burdened” by his conflicts of interest, which “reflect adversely on his fitness as an attorney.”

Republican Senators, fearful of Trump’s promised retribution, are likely to confirm; Senator Cornyn will likely cave and vote with his party. But the Attorney Grievance Committee of New York is equally likely to disbar him, which will make Blanche only the 2nd U.S. AG to be disbarred.

Etched into the limestone exterior of the DOJ headquarters are the words, “Where law ends tyranny begins.” It is not possible to write a more apt warning about what lies ahead.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Thursday night on prime time, Trump called for bolstering election protections he has systematically and deliberately dismantled. Ask yourself why. He obviously thinks MAGA is stupid ("I love my uneducated voters"), but he's acting like the whole country is full of idiots with no attention span and no memories.

Trump destroyed election integrity agencies on purpose

Trump spent the first part of his second term dismantling the entire election protection apparatus, the thing he now insists we need for accurate election results. He’s the boy who cried wolf, only he is the wolf.

Under Trump, the F.B.I.’s task force on foreign influence was shut down. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence got rid of the national task force that tracked foreign meddling in our elections. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been gutted. After the Supreme Court told him he could fire anyone he wanted, he gave pink slips to the entire bipartisan federal agency created to help run fair elections.

And he has appointed a billionaire heir to a housing fortune with no relevant intelligence experience as the new director of "national intelligence."

Trump’s attacks on election-security measures

The Cybersecurity Agency had been a lead federal partner for states on election security efforts since the 2016 election, sharing cybersecurity data, best practices and intelligence concerning foreign interference in U.S. elections. But because director Christopher Krebs validated the integrity (and thereby, implicitly, the results) of the 2020 election, Trump fired Krebs and significantly scaled back the agency’s workforce, funding, and core operations.

The F.B.I.’s task force on foreign influence was also disbanded, along with scaled back enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, despite years of warnings by U.S. intelligence agencies that foreign malign influence operations spreading dangerous disinformation were a growing and dangerous threat. Trump curtailed criminal charges for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which required people to register when lobbying on behalf of a foreign nation, directly and significantly aiding foreign interference in our elections.

Finally, Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence, Jay Clayton, lacks the ‘extensive national security expertise’ required by law under the federal statute that created the role. Clayton has scant national security experience; most of his career he’s represented big money/major investment banks in international deals. If there are conflicts between corporate financial interests and national security priorities, which side do you think Clayton will be on? Worse, Clayton has publicly defended Trump’s worst and least supported election initiatives, appearing on television airwaves to promote conspiracy theories about states’ primary election results, proving Trump chose him for loyalty, not expertise.

Trump keeps lying

The NY times reported on Friday that none of the documents Trump released during his speech to support his election claims say what Trump says they do. The documents were released during Trump’s primetime address to convince Americans that they should doubt the legitimacy of U.S. elections, but the print doesn’t match the hype.

He argued in his speech that China helped Biden win in 2020, even though US intelligence concluded it was Russia who interfered to help Trump. The documents he posted online show the opposite: that both China and Russia targeted former President Joe Biden's campaign during the 2020 election.

Trump called for fixing vulnerabilities in our electronic voting system so that “we can never watch a stolen election again.” Perhaps he meant the 2024 results were stolen, because all of his legal challenges to the results of 2020 were laughed out of court due to lack of supporting evidence. Those courts told Trump the same thing he needs to hear after his absurd “stolen election” claims last night: Your personal opinions, Sir, are not evidence.

Trump plans to take over federal elections

To anyone following closely, the purpose of Trump’s speech was to sell a pretext. Trump is laying groundwork to declare a national emergency at or around the time of the midterm elections. He’s desperate to sow doubt around the security of our elections because he knows he will need a strong justification for sending in federal troops.

By now, analysts are warning that Trump will deploy ICE agents to polling places. Whenever asked, Trump has signaled that that is his plan. The National Guard is likely to follow suit. Asked directly, Trump himself refused to rule it out, saying he would “do anything necessary.”

Trump said in his speech, “If you look at voting today, it’s in such bad shape in so many states,” “And we are committing to fix it… before the midterm elections.”

There is no evidence that our elections are flawed, and Trump knows it. So he used his primetime speech to tell us that he is gearing up to put armed ICE goons at polling places to intimidate women and minorities into staying away. Let’s hope it backfires and keeps MAGA at home while everyone else turns out. If 90 million voters stay home again this year, we’ll get the Nazi government we deserve.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

House Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee have released a report describing how the White House cheated the American public on its 250th birthday. It outlines interim findings that the Trump organization put together a shell company to supplant the Congressionally-created commission, America250, with a partisan one, Freedom 250, defrauding donors and pilfering donations along the way.

In 2016, ten years in advance of the country’s 250th birthday, Congress created a nonpartisan commission called America250 to plan and orchestrate the largest commemoration in U.S. history. Its mandated purpose was to encourage all Americans to ‘remember the nation's past, celebrate the present, and look forward to building a promising future.’

America250 spent ten years organizing events, volunteer campaigns, and educational initiatives across all 50 states to celebrate our Semiquincentennial. America250’s slogan, “350 for 250- Engaging all 350 million Americans in celebrating our nation’s 250th anniversary,” stresses civic inclusivity devoid of politics.

But last year, after his attempts to pack America250 with loyalists were unsuccessful, Trump created a competing commission, Freedom 250, via executive order. Falsely describing Freedom 250 as the “national, non-partisan organization leading the celebration of our Nation's 250th birthday,” Freedom 250 was incorporated as an LLC in October 2025. Under the National Park Foundation, governed by a board of Trump loyalists, Freedom 250 solicited pay-to-play donations from companies with major federal contracts pending— including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Oracle —to financially support Freedom 250 instead of America250.

Defrauding the nation on its 250th birthday

The report describes how Trump demanded that his name and name-branded politics should dominate the historic celebrations. When America250 pushed back on Trump’s plan as too partisan, he supplanted the commission by creating his own.

After Freedom 250 hijacked federal planning activities, most scheduled performers withdrew from the celebration. They had agreed to perform at a national, nonpartisan concert, but cancelled when they found out it was overtly partisan. Other activities planned by Trump’s Freedom 250 included the very on-brand Military Parade for Trump’s birthday and this year's White House UFC cage fight, along with the controversial Great American State Fair. The latter featured partisan exhibits complete with a confederate flag; the 16-day event caused extensive damage to the lawns and the National Mall. Meanwhile, Freedom 250 continues the Trump-centric assault, planning construction on his 250-foot-tall “triumphal arch.”

Trump illegally billed his July 4 culminating speech on the National Mall as a “TRUMP RALLY”, making himself—not the nation, not our history— the central figure of America’s only 250th birthday celebration. Trump’s rally, replete with partisan rhetoric and fearmongering about Democrats, concluded with “the largest fireworks display ever,” costing taxpayers an estimated $45 million.

Millions for Trump’s cronies

A separate report from Public Citizen describes how a “Trumpified series of events at the public’s expense” awarded over $100 million in no-bid contracts to celebrate our 250th birthday to a network of Trump-affiliated political allies. One of those contracts awarded tens of millions of dollars to Event Strategies, Inc., the same firm behind the J6 attack on the U.S. Capital.

Out of $120 million in public funds Congressionally earmarked for America250 planned celebrations, over $100 million was funneled directly to entities with political ties to Trump, essentially turning it into Trump’s slush fund with little or no transparency, accounting, or public reporting. Overall, Trump’s Freedom 250 received between $65 and $80 million of the funding Congress allocated to America250.

Alas, the fraud and self-dealing didn’t stop there. Aside from the deceptive rebrand, awarding hundreds of millions in no-bid contracts to Trump cronies, inviting pay to play federal contractor donations, and diverting Congressional funds to Trump’s partisan commission, public donations intended for America250 were purposely diverted to Trump’s organization.

Wire fraud and deception are not Presidential activities entitling Trump to criminal immunity

According to interim findings, donors who tried to send money to America250 were misled and given Freedom 250's banking information, meaning contributions solicited in the name of the Congressionally mandated commission were routed instead to the President's substitute entity. As yet unverified, the facts suggests that America250 donors were defrauded through wire transfer instructions, bank account numbers, and routing numbers that funneled their donations to Trump’s Freedom 250 commission.

Trump converted America's once-in-250-years celebration into a parade of self-regard and personal enrichment, embodying our founders’ warnings about men like him. Assuming the evidence matches the allegations, his tactics constitute criminal fraud, and the evidence won’t be hard to track down. Electronic records of online donations and routing can’t be erased; metadata will prove what was sent, by whom and when, and how it was diverted to Freedom 250. Such deception also likely constitutes wire fraud as well as charitable solicitation fraud.

Democratic lawmakers are now demanding a full accounting of diverted donor records and contracts, while Republican leadership has largely blocked information, shielded people involved, and refused to hold hearings on the matter. Democrats, in the minority, have diminished subpoena power, but that is likely to change in November.

Trump’s criminal immunity will be challenged after the midterms; even now, it only applies to “presidential acts” arising from core constitutional duties. Establishing an entity to compete with the Congressionally mandated America250 commission was illicit, extra-judicial, and purely partisan, and very likely exceeds any official, constitutional, or statutory authority. Trump billing our 250th July 4 celebration on the national mall as a TRUMP RALLY sealed the deal.

Trump robbed Americans of a sacred commemoration that won’t come again for many generations, if ever. He wanted to make our nation’s 250th birthday all about him. History books will likely oblige.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Trump’s July 3 anti-communist rant from Mt. Rushmore was pure McCarthyism. In the 1950s, Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare ruined thousands of American lives through politically motivated accusations of communism. Hundreds of innocent people were sent to prison, thousands suffered witch hunts and ruined reputations; some were tormented into suicide.

McCarthy made baseless and sensationalized claims, such as waving a fabricated ‘list’ of 205 alleged communists in the State Department, to elevate himself from a little-known politician into the most feared figure in Washington. Like Trump, McCarthy employed aggressive, evidence-free tactics to intimidate political opponents, silence critics, and consolidate power.

It was one of our nation’s darkest times, and Trump wants a re-enactment for the midterms.

At Mt. Rushmore, Trump tested midterm campaign slogans meant to scare voters into equating recent primary victories for the Democratic Socialists of America with a “communist takeover.” Never mind that socialism and communism are not the same; never mind that many federal programs like Social Security, Medicare, child labor laws, and subsidies are types of socialism in action. “We don’t want communists in our country,” Trump bellowed, warning of “a resurgence of the communist menace in our land,” “a mortal threat to American liberty,” and calling communism “the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor or even 9/11.”

Trump is the one pushing state-ownership of industry

Trump has repeatedly characterized the Democratic left as ‘hardcore, godless communists,’ an ‘evil’ that threatens the very existence of the United States. Because they have nothing else to run on, the GOP is preparing to double down on false claimsthat the modern Democratic party has capitulated to communism. Speaker Mike Johnson is all in, warning that if democrats win the midterms, the country will “go down some road toward a communist utopia.”

Lucky for Republicans, MAGA doesn’t understand what communism is. Under a communist system, the state owns all industry, and all resources belong to the government. The choke-worthy irony of Republicans’ new red scare is that the only U.S. leader pushing for state ownership of private industry is Trump himself.

It’s not an original observation to note that most Trump accusations are confessions; it’s pattern recognition. Trump accuses adversaries of his own malfeasance so often it’s become a reliable tell. After claiming without evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, for example, Trump’s attempts to rig the 2026 midterms have become legion. His accusations of “communism” should be understood the same way: as a confession.

Trump’s unprecedented federal acquisition of private interests

The Trump administration’s pursuit of direct government equity stakes across U.S. business sectors is both unprecedented and under-reported.

Unlike past instances of government seizure or ownership during crises or wartime, this administration is strategically acquiring ownership to generate “public revenue” and to exert government control over corporate decision-making. Trump has already secured government ownership shares in the following sectors:

• Intel Corp.: Trump negotiated a $8.9 billion deal to take a 10% stake in the semiconductor giant’s business, using previously promised CHIPS and Science Actfunds as leverage. Trump insisted on the U.S. government acquiring 433.3 million shares, resulting in partial-nationalization of the semiconductor giant.
• Trump acquired stakes in critical mineral and nuclear firms, including an 8% stake in the nuclear power company Westinghouse. Trump’s Department of Defense secured a 15% equity stake in MP Materials by purchasing $400 million in preferred stock, solidifying Washington’s position as the largest shareholder of the only operational rare-earth mine in the United States.
• Trump’s Commerce Department has acquired a 10% stake in USA Rare Earth—receiving 16.1 million shares—as part of a $1.6 billion debt-and-equity investment package to develop a domestic mine and magnet facility.
• Critical Minerals & Energy: The government acquired a 10% equity stake in Lithium Americas Corp., and 10% of minerals exploration company Trilogy Metals In.
• U.S. Steel Corporation- Rather than a direct economic or financial equity stake, the federal government negotiated a governance stake known as a ‘golden share,’ granting the president substantial control over the steelmaker’s operations.

While these private interests have already been converted to partial state ownership, Trump has also expressed an intention to take ownership stakes in major defense contractors. Trump is pushing partial federal ownership of contractors that rely heavily on federal budgets, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, to ensure that the corporate strategies of top military contractors—who rely on the Pentagon for the vast majority of their revenue— align with Trump’s policies.

It is painfully obvious who the real communist is.

Trump’s oligarchy blends Putin’s Russia with Xi’s China

Trump is fast imposing authoritarian crony capitalism, where major industries and wealth are partially owned by the government, ala China, and partially controlled by a handful of corrupt oligarchs, ala Putin’s Russia. What Chris Christie recently called a “Putin-esque type of corruption and self-enrichment” is making Trump exceedingly wealthy along the way.

Trump’s unprecedented and growing acquisition of government ownership stakes in key industries proves that he is the one marching the U.S. economy toward state control. His and Johnson’s new mid-term slogans about the ‘cancer of communism’ are just more ironic self-owns with vast economic implications lost on their supporters.

Scott Bessent argues that, in grabbing shares of key industries, the administration is reducing U.S. dependence on China. To private industry leaders, and anyone outside the Fox News propaganda bubble, it looks like Trump is trying to beat China by copying it.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.

Trump embarrassed the US again at the July 2026 NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. The world is watching—our enemies as well as our allies— which means it’s not just embarrassing, it’s dangerous.

Here’s how White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the NATO summit: "President Trump delivered a marathon, high-energy performance at the NATO summit, holding four separate press availabilities plus a solo press conference and taking unscripted questions from reporters on a wide range of topics. The President commanded every room, gave our allies some much-needed tough love, and left the summit with a stronger NATO and more united free world.”

Leavitt, Fox News, and rightwing media reported this fawning pablum and little else, which explains how 38% of the country still supports a corrupt felon who is openly robbing the country while he stives to start WWIII. To the rest of the world, Trump’s conduct was widely viewed as a highly embarrassing showcase of verbal stumbles, erratic behavior, and mental illness.

What the rest of the world reported

Trump tried to turn the NATO summit, like the nation’s 250th birthday, into a story centering around Trump. He committed repeated errors in the process:

Trump said Spain is ‘worthless’ and he wants to “cut off trade with Spain.” We don’t trade with Spain, we trade with the EU, of which Spain is a member. Trump appears not to understand the difference, or what the EU trade bloc actually does.

He called Zelensky President Putin. Twice.

He referred to the Islamic Republic of Japan.

He couldn’t recall the name of the Iran nuclear agreement hammered out and signed during the Obama administration, calling it "JC P," even though he started a war over it.

He trotted out, once again, his threat to take Greenland. Danish Prime Minister made it clear nothing of the sort would happen.

He praised Turkey’s president, a fellow corrupt authoritarian, and China’s Xi, a communist, but pointlessly insulted previous presidents of the United States. He can’t stop attacking Biden and Obama, whom he has called O-Bum-A. Such a clever guy. He has no idea that these childish insults and jabs at former US presidents paint our nation in a negative light, hurting our standing among peers and adversaries alike.

The worst and most dangerous thing is that Trump keeps demonstrating his fundamental ignorance of the NATO alliance. He has said, repeatedly, that NATO should have helped the US when he attacked Iran, because he is losing that ill-fated war and needs someone else to blame. Trump has called his requests to back his war in Iran a "loyalty test” in a fit of retaliation over their failure to join his attack. But NATO is a defensive alliance, not an offensive one. It is meant to deter aggression, and defend members when someone attacks; it does not attack but exists to deter attacks and Trump can’t seem to comprehend the difference. Trump attacked Iran without consulting NATO allies, can’t understand why most refused to help, and now wants to punish them for his own mistakes even though our allies were following our own defensive charter.

Insulting Italy’s Prime Minister

Beyond the personal gaffes, Trump’s outbursts deeply strained diplomatic relations by insulting and frustrating America’s long-standing allies.

Before he left for the summit, he posted a juvenile meme of Italy’s Prime Minster Giorgia Meloni, falsely depicting her looking up at him with adoring, fawning eyes. Above the photo he wrote, in all caps, “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED” as if Meloni is stalking him when in fact he makes her want to vomit. Trump is continuing the sophomoric spat he started with Meloni after she called him out as a lying liar who lies for claiming she “begged” for a photo with him at the G7 summit in France.

Trump stated during an interview that Meloni “desperately wanted the picture” with him and that he only agreed to it because he “felt sorry for her.” Meloni swiftly and strongly rejected that assertion as a lie. She fired back on Instagram that Trump's account was "completely made up" and that, "I and Italy never beg." Trump’s absurd dispute severely strained diplomatic ties with Italy and all of the EU, and prompted Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to cancel a planned official visit to Washington.

Trump has turned most of the NATO alliance's major meetings into chaotic spectacles by insisting that the cameras focus only on him, then stumbling over facts, history and strategy he delivers in third grade English.

Global condemnation intensifies

Although Trump later reversed his tone behind closed NATO doors to claim a state of complete "unification," his bizarre statements and erratic performance left European heads of state visibly exhausted, and reinforced worry about his unstable approach to international diplomacy and his mental instability in general. Global condemnation has intensified across the world stage, with foreign leaders, foreign media, and mental health experts increasingly admitting that his erratic behavior is a direct threat to international security.

International alarm had already spiked following previous high-stakes summits where he exhibited similar cognitive slips—such as repeatedly confusing Greenland and Iceland, and mistaking the nation of Iran for Japan. Diplomatic circles were further rattled when Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico openly shared his Trump anxiety with The New Republic regarding Trump's volatile "psychological state." Fico told European Union leaders that he was worried about Trump’s mental health, saying that the president came across as “dangerous” during a meeting the pair had in January at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Fico made the comments at an emergency EU summit over Trump’s threats to annex Greenland. French far-right leader Jordan Bardella similarly described Trump’s foreign policy as "erratic" and "extremely unsteady" and "constantly shifting.’

As reported by global publishers like The Guardian and France 24, foreign media has stopped analyzing Trump’s ‘unorthodox political strategy’ and has instead pivoted to directly and explicitly questioning his mental acuity. The growing international consensus is that Trump’s escalating impulsivity, unnecessary public feuds with global figures like Meloni and the Pope, and cognitive confusion is not so much eccentric showmanship as a display of cognitive decline that endangers the world.

Sabrina Haake is a political analyst and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.