News & Politics

After the United States' 2024 presidential election, Democratic strategists spent months asking what went wrong for their party. It was a close election: Donald Trump won the national popular vote by roughly 1.5 percent. But the fact that Trump flipped six states Joe Biden won in 2020 (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona) and made gains among Latinos, Generation Z, independents and swing voters was a source of major frustration for Democrats.

Trump, according to Pew Research, won 48 percent of the Latino vote in 2024 compared to 51 percent for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Biden, in contrast, won 61 percent of the Latino vote in 2020.

But according to The New Republic's Alex Shephard, Trump is rapidly squandering the gains he made in 2024.

"A year ago, Donald Trump was riding high," Shephard recalls in an article published on January 17. "The man who had lost the presidency four years earlier, then led a failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was now about to be inaugurated again after improbably winning a nonconsecutive second term. Almost everyone seemed to agree something seismic had just occurred. Trump was no longer just the leader of a powerful movement. He had 'remade the electorate,' as CNN's Harry Enten said in February: Republicans were surging not only with men — particularly those without college degrees — but also, with young people and Latinos…. What a difference a year makes."

Shephard adds, "Today, that widely accepted consensus about the 2024 election seems absurd. Trump hadn't reshaped the electorate at all — he had simply won another toss-up election. Yes, he narrowly won the popular vote this time, but by a margin — in both popular and Electoral College terms — that was not historically impressive. And now, those new voters he brought in have already abandoned him."

Shephard notes that a CNN poll released on January 16, "found that" Trump "is 29 points underwater with independents and 30 points down with both Latinos and young voters."

"Trump's new coalition is already in tatters," Shephard writes. "And there is no sign that these voters will be coming back to the president or his party anytime soon…. Fifty-eight percent of the electorate already sees his second term as a failure. He receives failing marks from a majority of voters in every policy area, including the two — the economy and immigration — that played the most decisive role in his 2024 victory."

Read Alex Shephard's full article for The New Republic at this link.

During his first presidency, Donald Trump's critics often attacked him as an "isolationist" who was uninformed about the rest of the world. But Trump has taken a much more imperialistic turn since returning to the White House, from capturing leftist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to threatening to take Greenland by force to calling for Canada to become "the 51st state." Libertarian/conservative Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) and MAGA ex-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) believe Trump is betraying the "America First" agenda he once championed.

Trump went from being called an "isolationist" to being called a warmonger with a belligerent foreign policy.

In a scathing opinion column published on January 18, MS NOW's Paul Waldman (formerly of the Washington Post) argues that Trump is waging a "comprehensive war" — only he isn't talking about Venezuela or Greenland. Trump, Waldman stresses, is declaring "war" on Americans who didn't vote for him in 2024.

"Something important and dangerous is happening," Waldman warns. "The Trump Administration is engaged in a comprehensive war, and its enemy is half of America. This war is being waged in rhetoric and regulation, budget cuts and violence. Its aim is to tear the country in two. There is no precedent in modern times for this; one might make an analogy to Reconstruction in the wake of the Civil War, in which the federal government forced the South to accept democracy. But that was for the best of reasons, and Trump's attempt to bend blue states to his will is for the worst. We're seeing the ugliest face of Trump's plan in Minnesota."

Referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Minneapolis, Waldman laments that Minnesota's largest city is "under siege from roving gangs of masked federal thugs."

"Trump promised a 'DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION' against the city and the state of Minnesota, and he is already delivering," Waldman observes. "Even before an ICE officer shot dead Renee Good, ill-trained and overly aggressive agents rampaged through the community, brutalizing people, lobbing tear gas into crowds and spreading an atmosphere of fear that has everyone in the city on edge. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz wrote on social media this week, 'Minnesota voted against him three times and now he's punishing us,' and it's hard to argue, especially since Trump is openly talking about 'retribution'…. Most remarkably — as in the administration's filings in the case on environmental grants — officials in Trump's administration don’t even pretend they should serve all Americans equally. Trump himself certainly doesn't."

Waldman adds, "Every day he makes clear that if you support him he likes you — and if you don't, you’re his enemy."

Paul Waldman's full column for MS NOW is available at this link.

Minneapolis isn't the first city that President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have targeted for aggressive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids; cities ranging from Chicago to Los Angeles have been targeted as well. But Minneapolis has suffered the worst ICE violence, and the fatal shooting of unarmed motorist Renee Nicole Good by agent Jonathan Ross on January 7 continues to generate outrage.

Trump is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the unrest in Minneapolis. And attorney Ty Cobb — who served as a White House lawyer in the first Trump Administration but is now a scathing critic of the president — warned that the tensions in Minneapolis could go from bad to worse if Trump does that.

During a Sunday, January 18 appearance on MS NOW, Cobb compared Trump's two administrations and argued that he is more dangerous now because of the "sycophants and enablers" encouraging his worst ideas.

Cobb explained, "I don't have any recollection of any discussion of the Insurrection Act in my time (with the first Trump Administration). But there were guardrails back then. There were people who could say 'no' to the president. And now, he's surrounded by sycophants and enablers and people who don't say no. I mean, it's just stunning the number of people that have signed on for what's going on in Minnesota and what's going on in Greenland — you know, things that would have never been tolerated in the first 250 years of our democracy."

The attorney continued, "But I do think he wants — desperately wants — to invoke the Insurrection Act. I think it's come upon him a little sooner than he and (White House senior adviser) Stephen Miller and others had planned. I think martial law is definitely in the cards. And it's a way that he'll be able to control the elections."

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New York Times columnist David French examined accountability options in the case of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good, who was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Writing Sunday, French discussed legal barriers to accountability in this case.

French noted that state laws present limited options for prosecution. According to French, there is a doctrine called supremacy clause immunity that prohibits state officials from prosecuting federal officers when they are acting in their official capacity.

"There is a doctrine called supremacy clause immunity that prohibits state officials from prosecuting federal officers when they're reasonably acting in their official capacity. It's not absolute immunity like the administration claims, but it's still a high hurdle for any prosecution to overcome," French wrote.

Civil cases face similar obstacles. While laws allow for suing state and local officers, no equivalent option exists for federal agents.

"And there you have it," French continued, "that's the challenge any citizen faces when he or she tries to hold the federal government responsible for violating the Constitution. The government is defended by a phalanx of immunities and privileges, buttressed by the president's unchecked pardon power — a vestige of royal authority that has been challenged as outdated in constitutional debates."

French characterized this as a test of American law's effectiveness. When multiple checks and balances fail, accountability becomes difficult.

"And so we manufactured doctrine after doctrine, year after year, that insulated the executive branch from legal accountability," wrote French. "This web of immunities — combined with limited congressional oversight — affects legal accountability mechanisms."

French cited Nazi-era legal theorist Ernst Fraenkel's concept of "the dual state."

"The two components of the dual state are the normative state — the seemingly normal world that you and I inhabit, where, as [Aziz Huq, a University of Chicago law professor] writes, the 'ordinary legal system of rules, procedures and precedents' applies — and the prerogative state, which is marked (in Fraenkel's words) by 'unlimited arbitrariness and violence unchecked by any legal guarantees,'" French quoted.

"The key here," Huq said, "is that this prerogative state does not immediately and completely overrun the normative state. Rather, Fraenkel argued, dictatorships create a lawless zone that runs alongside the normative state."

French referenced Federalist No. 51, in which James Madison wrote, "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."

French discussed how checks and balances function when officials are accountable to law. He noted the need for legal frameworks that apply equally to all actors.

French observed that structural legal protections have evolved through doctrine and legislation. He discussed the concept of "Reconstruction" as applied to institutional reform and suggested that legal systems require ongoing examination to maintain effectiveness.

After one year into his second term President Donald Trump is losing support from his voters over economic issues.

Speaking to CNN, Franz Rowland, a Georgia farmer, complained that someone "dropped the ball in Washington." He's bothered by high prices and those not "looking out for us."

The new SSRS poll shows 58 percent of Americans believe that Trump's first year in office has been a "failure."

"Trump says, you know, be patient. The farmers are going to be better than ever. We better hurry up because we can't. We can't stand this much," said Rowland, who supported Trump hoping he would improve the economy.

"When you hear politicians and others in Washington saying the economy is doing great, the country has never been better — they need to come out here. They need to come out here and live in my shoes. The economy may do may be doing better for some people, but on the farm it ain't doing better," said Rowland.

Toy store owner Florence Allen said that her economy isn't "hot," the way Trump seems to think it is, In fact, none of her costs at home or for the store have gone down.

CNN reporter Jeff Zeleny commented, "Allen, a democrat, has owned her toy store for 20 years and tried to navigate a whiplash tariff policy that's impacted much of her inventory. When you've heard the president say, we're making all."

She wants to see Trump give that money back.

"I think for most people he's not fooling people with that line," Allen continued.

Rowland said that he was hoping that things would get a little better once Trump came back in office.

"I thought by now we would have a we'd have some really good trade. I did think there would be better by now. Yeah," he lamented.

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With President Donald Trump suffering low approval ratings in poll after poll, Democratic strategists are felling increasingly optimistic about flipping the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms. And Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) Chair Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) is saying that the U.S. Senate isn't out of reach for Democrats.

But Salon's Chauncey DeVega, in an article published on January 18, warns that Democrats are facing "a coordinated effort by Trump and the anti-democracy right-wing to secure victory before a single ballot has even been counted."

As the Washington Post reported on Monday, (January 12)," DeVega explains, "the events of January 6, 2021 were a trial run. Then, he 'pressured Republican county election officials, state lawmakers, and members of Congress to find him votes after he lost his reelection bid. Now, he's seeking to change the rules before ballots are cast.' These strategies include 'challenging long-established democratic norms' and making 'unprecedented demands that Republican state lawmakers redraw congressional districts before the constitutionally required 10-year schedule, the prosecution of political opponents, a push to toughen voter registration rules and attempts to end the use of voting machines and mail ballots.'"

The Trump Administration, according to DeVega, "has installed election deniers and other conspiracists — believers in the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen — in key positions throughout the FBI, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other parts of the government."

"In short," DeVega argues, "the wolves are watching the chicken coop….. Republicans and other members of the antidemocracy right-wing have repeatedly used language about the 'quality' of voters and 'voter integrity,' and they have made false allegations of widespread fraud in 'urban areas' to signal their belief that the votes of Black and brown people are not legitimate."

The Salon journalist continues, "The ultimate goal is to create a 21st-Century version of Jim and Jane Crow, where Black and brown people are made into second-class citizens…. If Trump and his MAGA forces and the broader right-wing can execute even some of their plans, the integrity and legitimacy of the country's elections will be further undermined. The result will be what political scientists describe as 'competitive authoritarianism.' In such a pseudo-democracy, the United States would be like Putin’s Russia, where there are elections but a victory by the ruling party is all but assured."

Chauncey DeVega's full article for Salon is available at this link.

President Donald Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen, penned a column on Friday that detailed coercion from the New York Attorney General's Office.

Writing on his Substack, Cohen said that he has witnessed firsthand being "leaned on."

"I experienced a similar dynamic in the Attorney General’s civil case. Letitia James made it publicly known during her 2018 campaign for attorney general that, if elected, she would go after President Trump. Her office made clear that the testimony they wanted from me was testimony that would help them do just that. Again, I felt compelled and coerced to deliver what they were seeking," said Cohen.

He added that James and New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg share the same playbook to pressure and coerce witnesses. He was also pushed into providing "information and testimony that would satisfy the government’s desire to build the cases against and secure a judgment and convictions against President Trump."

"Both used their platforms to elevate their profiles, to claim the mantle of the officials who 'took down Trump,'" Cohen continued. "In doing so, they blurred the line between justice and politics; and in that blur, the credibility of both suffered."

He commented that he's speaking out about it now because he's seen that prosecutors pick a target first and then search for the evidence to justify that opinion.

"I have lived inside that process. I have suffered from that process. My family has suffered from that process. And as courts now reconsider where the Bragg and James cases belong, how they were brought and how they were tried; that experience is relevant. More today than ever before," he added.

In November, Cohen noted, the three-judge panel at the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to begin another discussion about Trump's effort to erase the hush-money convictions. If U.S. District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein agrees to revisit the ruling to keep the case in state court. Trump wants the case in federal court because he thinks he could argue he has presidential immunity.

Cohen closed by saying that the most important thing to gather from Hellerstein's decision is that "Justice must be more than effective; it must be credible. When politics and prosecution become indistinguishable, public trust erodes; not just in individual cases, like mine and Trump’s, but in the system itself. That erosion serves no one, regardless of party, personality, or power."

Read the full column here.

President Donald Trump is deploying old-school tactics against some of his enemies: using FBI files to target them.

The New York Times reported Sunday morning that FBI Director Kash Patel is helping Trump target his foes using the information it has collected.

Now, the report said, "the bureau has added payback to its portfolio."

While Trump spent years alleging the “weaponization” of law enforcement against political foes, the new administration is “using federal law enforcement to carry out a partisan opposition research operation.”

The report said that Patel has been poring over files, trying to uncover documents that can “expose and discredit federal law enforcement officials who investigated Mr. Trump and his allies.”

The Times noted that it is currently unknown how “wide-ranging” Patel’s coordination with political appointees and Republican allies has been. The official overseeing the operation was Patel’s deputy, Dan Bongino, who recently left the FBI after a tumultuous year in the post. Internally, they referred to Bongino’s unit as the “director’s advisory team.”

Most of the focus has been on the investigation into the 2020 efforts to overturn the election and stage an attack on the U.S. Capitol. Former special counsel Jack Smith spoke to the House late last year about the findings of the probe and said he had "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" that what Trump did was unlawful.

During Trump’s last administration, the IRS was used to go after former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe.

While President Joe Biden’s administration refused to turn over documents tied to the ongoing investigation, Patel is now claiming that Smith broke the law. Speaking to the House, Smith said that all of the information he gathered was approved by a federal judge, which will make it difficult to argue that he went rogue or violated the law with his probes.

J. Edgar Hoover ran his own operations while overseeing the FBI. Recently released information detailed the way in which the FBI was surveilling civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences detailed, the counterintelligence campaign against MLK involved "illegal wiretaps on his phone and bugging hotel rooms when he traveled."

The FBI also spread misinformation about King being an "immoral communist."

The Times reported that the FBI now claims it is the “most transparent in history,” even as it refuses to release the legally required files on the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The bureau has strategically released batches of anti-Smith material right before he testified behind closed doors.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who once cast himself as a champion of whistleblowers, is now helping funnel FBI leaks through his office. An unnamed FBI whistleblower, for example, alleged that one member of Jack Smith’s team was not “impartial.”

That agent, who no longer works at the FBI, is Walter Giardina, whom Trump has personally attacked for supposedly having “animosity” toward him. “Mr. Giardina vehemently denied those allegations in a meeting with bureau officials last July, two days after the funeral of his wife, who died of adrenal cancer at 49,” the report continued.

Lawyers representing FBI agents who have been fired under the Trump administration’s weaponization effort are calling out the double standard of using the government to attack someone for their politics while accusing others of doing the same. Those making the accusations are granted anonymity, allowing them to hide behind their own partisan protectors.

Read the full report here.

Many economists, from the University of Michigan's Justin Wolfers to former New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and ex-Clinton Administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich, are warning that if President Donald Trump succeeds in compromising the independence of the U.S. Federal Reserve, the results will be disastrous for the American economy. And they typically cite Argentina and Turkey as glaring examples of countries that suffered severe economic crises and devalued currencies when the independence of their central banks was compromised.

In an article published late Saturday night, January 17, the Wall Street Journal's Rory Jones lays out some reasons why chaos with the U.S. Federal Reserve — including a federal criminal investigation of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell — could benefit Mainland China and their currency, the yuan.

"The criminal investigation into Fed Chair Jerome Powell is being viewed globally as an effort by the Trump Administration to wrest control of monetary policy from the central bank," Jones explains. "That, according to some economists, risks damaging investor confidence in the U.S. financial system and the dollar, just as China is expanding use of its own currency around the world…. China's push to globalize its own currency — recently given renewed importance by Beijing in a five-year policy plan — has already alarmed officials in Washington."

The WSJ reporter adds, "Before entering office, President Trump warned about China's push to globalize the yuan and has since threatened tariffs on the Brics bloc of emerging-market countries — which includes China — should they create an alternative to the dollar. Wider use of the yuan could also allow adversaries to avoid the scrutiny of the dollar-based financial system."

One of the people who is sounding the alarm is Bert Hofman, a former World Bank director for China.

Hofman told the Journal, "The institutional setup of the U.S. — through actions like those against the Fed — is being undermined. Holding dollars becomes a relatively less attractive proposition as a form of safety."

Jones notes that the Chinese government is "competing with the U.S. for global influence by chipping away at the dollar's ubiquity in certain areas such as bank payments."

"The dollar reigns in part because countries and companies consider the U.S. political system stable and appreciate having reliable places to park their extra dollars, especially U.S. Treasury's," the WSJ reporter observes. "Political control of central banks in countries such as Turkey has led to high inflation, which, if repeated in the U.S., would undermine the role of U.S. government debt and reduce confidence in the dollar."

Read the full Wall Street Journal article at this link (subscription required).

Liz Oyer, a former Justice Department pardon attorney, told Jim Acosta that the DOJ is participating in a massive cover-up over the shooting of a Minneapolis woman in Minnesota.

Among the revelations reported this week, Renee Nicole Good, who was shot by an ICE agent, still had a pulse when first responders arrived on scene. ICE denied a doctor access to Good who wanted to render her aid.

Oyer said that it may mean that there are other ICE officers who could be culpable in Good's death.

Both she and Acosta agreed that an investigation into the entire situation was warranted. However, the deputy attorney general already decided that there would not be an investigation into the shooting.

"I don't think I'm exaggerating, Jim, when I say that DOJ is effectively participating in a cover-up of any potential crime that may have occurred," said Oyer. "Now, it wouldn't be proper for the deputy attorney general to jump to the conclusion that this officer should be prosecuted. But it would be absolutely expected that the deputy attorney general would be calling for a thorough investigation, so that the Justice Department could determine whether a prosecution is warranted."

She added that the fact that that isn't happening in this case is alarming.

"The fact that prosecutors in the civil rights division have been told that they cannot go to the scene and participate in an investigation — it is really — I cannot overstate how absolutely how shocking and wrong that is to the degree that DOJ is really complicit," she said. "The leadership of DOJ is complicit in covering up what happened during this incident."

Acosta added he wouldn't be surprised if this matter went all the way up to Attorney General Pam Bondi if not Donald Trump himself.

President Donald Trump met with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado this week, who election monitors said was the rightfully elected president in the 2024 election. But after arresting Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, Trump allowed Vice President Delcy Rodríguez take over.

The Associated Press revealed that she has a history of investigations with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), topping nearly a dozen.

Documents obtained show that in 2022, Rodríguez was rated a “priority target,” a level that is typically reserved for suspects the DEA believes have a “significant impact” on the drug trade. Three current and former DEA agents spoke to the AP about the documents.

There is a considerable intelligence file on Rodríguez with details dating back to at least 2018 under Trump's first administration. It lists her "known associates and allegations ranging from drug trafficking to gold smuggling."

A confidential informant told the DEA in 2021 that the now-acting president was using "Caribbean resort of Isla Margarita 'as a front to launder money.'" The records also show that as recently as 2024, she was working with Maduro's accused "bag man" Alex Saab, who was arrested by the U.S. in 2020, also under the Trump administration.

Investigations into Rodríguez have popped up in field offices like Paraguay, Ecuador, Phoenix and New York, the AP reported. However, the documents did not deal the specifics or reasoning behind the probes.

“She was on the rise, so it’s not surprising that she might become a high-priority target with her role,” former federal prosecutor Kurt Lunkenheimer, out of Miami, told the AP. He's handled many cases involving Venezuela. “The issue is when people talk about you and you become a high-priority target, there’s a difference between that and evidence supporting an indictment.”

Trump has referred to Rodríguez as a “terrific person," and said that she's in "close contact" with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials.

Read the full report here.

President Donald Trump continues to repeat the claim that undocumented people are being allowed into the U.S. to vote illegally.

During a panel discussion on CNN Saturday, host Abby Phillip reported that Trump’s apparent hunt for evidence is coming up empty.

"The New York Times reports that a review shows no widespread fraud," she read. "Of the nearly 50 million registrations checked, just 10,000 cases were opened. Now, that is 0.02 percent. And by open, that might not even be evidence of fraud. It could be that the system that they use mistakenly flagged people who are citizens."

Phillip cited one Florida case in which a woman submitted more than 100 names she claimed were fraudulent voters.

"Turned out it was less than a handful that were actually legitimately people who may not have been, may not have been citizens," Phillips said. "There's nothing there.'"

A fight quickly broke out between a conservative commentator and a columnist after the former, Joe Borelli, asked why, if the states have nothing to hide, they aren’t just handing over all of their data. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Solomon Jones explained that it is unconstitutional and that the U.S. Constitution gives the states full control over elections.

"I think that you're talking about things that could happen, things that might happen, things that people have proposed as opposed to what's happening right now," said Jones. "And the evidence says that there aren't people who are undocumented immigrants voting, in these elections in any way that could actually impact the election. That's been a myth that the Republicans have pushed for years."

Commentator Chuck Rocha explained that he was once an election judge in East Texas, and that there have been municipalities where legal immigrants who pay taxes and participate in the community were the subject of ballot measures asking whether citizens agreed they could vote in local elections. He said that some of those small municipal elections, immigrants have been allowed to vote. No immigrants have been given the right to vote in a federal election.

While President Donald Trump is threatening military action to takeover Greenland, he'll be issuing tariffs on items from NATO countries until Denmark agrees to sell the Arctic island to him.

In a very long post to Truth Social, Trump complained the U.S. has been subsidizing Greenland and many other countries in the European Union. He claims that unless Denmark gives over the island then "world peace is at stake."

"Only the United States of America, under PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, can play in this game, and very successfully, at that!" Trump said.

NATO pledges protection for Greenland and the United States is part of NATO.

"Nobody will touch this sacred piece of Land, especially since the National Security of the United States, and the World at large, is at stake," Trump continued with his randomly capitalized words that have become his signature style. "On top of everything else, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Finland have journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown."

Trump claimed their actions were presenting a "very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet. These Countries, who are playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable. Therefore, it is imperative that, in order to protect Global Peace and Security, strong measures be taken so that this potentially perilous situation end quickly, and without question."

Thus he is imposing an additional 10 percent tariff on the countries mentioned on Feb. 1. On June 1, he will raise the tariff to 25 percent.

One of the largest exports from the Germany, France, Denmark and Sweden to the U.S. is pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical products.

"This Tariff will be due and payable until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland," said Trump.

He falsely claimed that the U.S. has tried to buy Greenland for 150 years. In fact, there have been four times in which some in the U.S. advocated for the purchase of Greenland, CNN reported.

Trump claims that his "Golden Dome" project "can only work at its maximum potential and efficiency, because of angles, metes, and bounds, if this Land is included in it. The United States of America is immediately open to negotiation with Denmark and/or any of these Countries that have put so much at risk, despite all that we have done for them, including maximum protection, over so many decades. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"

President Donald Trump's first veto of his second term involved spending to rebuild the infrastructure of a small, predominantly Republican region of Colorado. The funding would have provided fresh and safe drinking water to an area in which the groundwater had been contaminated with salt and radiation.

The project started with a planning process in the 1930s. But it was never completed. The New York Times reported that even years later, Americans can't drink water out of their taps safely. Far-right GOP lawmaker, Lauren Boebert (R-Col.), sponsored a bill that would complete the pipeline that would bring clean water to her district. It was passed by Congress in 2025 but Trump killed it.

Democrats believe Trump's veto is his attempt to punish Democrats who lead the state.

“I can’t believe he would do that to us,” Republican Mayor Shirley Adams told the Times. She oversees the small farming community of Manzanola, which has groundwater poisoned with uranium. While she voted for Trump in 2024, she's hurt by the veto.

But Manzanola wouldn't be the only town to benefit. A total of 39 towns would finally be guaranteed clean drinking water from the tap.

Adams explained that the water project isn't a political issue and a pipeline is the only solution they'll ever have. Local officials want to move forward with it, but without the help of the federal government, the state won't get the best funding available.

Brandi Rivera, another Manzanola resident, said that her family gets cases of bottled water from Walmart each week. They won't wash their faces or brush their teeth with the water from the tap.

“People don’t think about small towns,” she lamented. “We worked so long for this."

"I’m very disappointed,” agreed Benita Gonzales after serving lunch at a senior center in Swink, Colorado, a town not too far from Manzanola. “There are certain things you do not politicize. Water is the most basic thing.”

Dave Esgar, whose family has been in eastern Colorado for five generations told the Times, “Most of us will be dead by the time it ever gets here.”

He called it a "total waste."

Read the full report here.

CNN’s Richard Quest wrote for iPaper that the second iteration of President Donald Trump’s “America First” movement has become synonymous with a sort of modern manifest destiny. However, he now sees some cracks forming in that coalition.

In an extensive interview with the New York Times last week, Trump said, “There is one thing: my own morality, my own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. I don’t need international law.”

Given what Trump has already done with Venezuelan and his escalating threats over Greenland, few believe Trump “is not serious.”

Quest recalled Trump’s past trips to Davos, where the ultra-wealthy fawned over him. “Back then, the WEF rolled out the red carpet more in hope than expectation, and Trump just about concealed his disdain for its elitist, intellectual trappings,” Quest recalled.

Now, the WEF appears to be “creaking under pressure of its own making.” The era of “international niceties” may be over.

"All of this begs an obvious question: if Davos is truly irrelevant, then why is Trump bothering to head up into the Swiss Alps at all? Based on his last visit, there is no doubt that he will get attention, and any long-time observer will tell you that alone can be incentive enough for Mr Trump. He could simply take the opportunity to rub delegates noses in their impotence, expand his 'Donroe doctrine,' and remind everyone that if they want a deal, they must get it on his terms – or else," Quest wrote.

Quest wants to see Trump courting those attendees again. He spoke to Fisher Investments CEO Ken Fisher, who said that 2025 was a better year for businesses outside the U.S. “This is a world where the world’s doing business around America, and sometimes in America,” he told Quest. “But the rest of the world is what’s leading the capital markets, not the United States.”

Yet cracks are forming around the MAGA Republican coalition, particularly when it comes to the Epstein files. Trump’s war against the Federal Reserve is sending traditional Republicans on Wall Street running for cover. Then there is the matter of Trump starting a possible war with Greenland after he invaded Venezuela, and his apparent willingness to contemplate conflict with multiple countries, including Iran. To make matters worse, the 2026 election is shaping up to be painful for Republicans.

Ultimately, Quest wants to see Trump go to Davos and get some deals done, or at the very least present some kind of plan.

Read the full column here.

Thus far, six Justice Department prosecutors resigned in the wake of the decision to go after the family of slain Minneapolis mom, Renee Nicole Good. Now it appears more might be forthcoming.

Of the six prosecutors who quit, three were with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota. The office has been overwhelmed with cases while ICE continues to arrest Americans and take undocumented immigrants into custody.

Mother Jones reported that Minnesota knows more prosecutors will flee.

“I have heard there may be more people leaving, people I would consider senior and respected career prosecutors,” said former acting U.S. attorney Anders Folk.

In an email obtained by the Sahan Journal from Minnesota Federal Defender Katherian Roe, “more resignations are anticipated” at the US Attorney’s Office. “It’s a sign that something is not right,” there. Folk still speaks with old colleagues of the office and is now running for office to become Hennepin County Attorney.

In the mass resignations seen this week, the prosecutors were told to investigate Good's wife for her role in the shooting and many refused.

There were also five resignations this week by those working in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in D.C. The Washington Post reported it was part of a unit that investigated police killings.

In the Minnesota office, there were fewer than 30 prosecutors left, which is less than half of what staffing should be.

Read the full report here.

Legal commentator Allison Gill spoke with Georgetown University Professor Steve Vladeck on her podcast "The Breakdown" about what it means to invoke the Insurrection Act.

On Friday, President Donald Trump's Justice Department subpoenaed Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, claiming they were obstructing law enforcement.

Legal experts reacted to the investigations and subpoenas with contempt. One noted that he feared the move was a pretext to the Insurrection Act. The major part of the law mandates cooperation with the state and local government. Trump doesn't have that. CNN reported that Trump's allies aren't all on board with using the act.

We view military enforcement of domestic law as corrosive to civil society," said Vladeck, characterizing it as "a break-glass situation that we should have only for emergencies."

Leaders have been reluctant to go that far in the past. Even Trump, who nearly invoked the Act after the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis.

In the past, state and local leaders had been eager to be helpful, and the law had been used sparingly. Leaders also "tended to have factual predicates where one of two things was true," Vladack listed.

First, there must be agreement and cooperation between state and federal officials.

Second, Trump appears to be confused about what the law actually does.

"I think he also has in his mind this view that the statute lets him do more than it does. Like, I think to him, invoking the Insurrection Act is tantamount to imposing martial law. And it's not right. It's actually just saying you can have the army next to ICE and the FBI doing the same things. That's problematic enough in its own right, but it's I think there's a disconnect between what Trump thinks he's getting and what it would actually do."

Gill agreed that Trump appears to misunderstand what powers the Insurrection Act gives him.

"The president can't deploy the National Guard unless the regular forces fail, which is the military. And since that hadn't happened, you can't deploy," she said.

After Gill read through the full section of the law, Vladeck explained, "the problem is is that if you read that language literally and out of context, you know, a single private citizen who parks their SUV in front of the garage that the ICE officers are driving their vehicles out of is, you know, maybe impeding the ability of federal law enforcement officers. No one would ever have thought that that was sufficient to justify an invocation of the Insurrection Act."

So, he added, it appears the White House has "a bit of a disconnect between what the statute says in a vacuum and how it's always been understood. And it's always been understood to require much, much more to the point of either local authorities who are overwhelmed or local authorities who are themselves the ones who are doing the obstructing."

Nebraska mom Jamie Bonkiewicz filmed her interaction with Secret Service agents who came to her door because of a tweet.

"The Secret Service came to my door today because of a tweet. No threats. No violence. Just words. That’s where we are now," she wrote on X in a thread about the ordeal.

"For anyone doubting me. Here they are," Bonkiewicz said, posting a photo of a local police officer and the federal agent as she stood with her screen door open.

She was asked about the comments she made online, and she made it clear, "I want to see their trials."

He then asked if she goes to protests, which she refused to answer.

"Why do you want to know that?" Bonkiewicz asked.

"I'm just curious," he responded. "For certain questionnaires, we have to ask."

He asked if there were weapons in the house and she said there were not. Bonkiewicz was also asked if she "traveled to any Democratic functions or rallies."

"I just answered you," she said about the question he'd previously asked.

"Anything else you want to tell me? Any statements at all?" the agent asked.

Her husband, who was filming the incident, asked what is considered crossing the line on social media.

"Something like this, a veiled threat," he said, shrugging. "Is it a threatening nature? Now that I know you didn't mean anything by it, it's basically a non-issue."

He asked her again what she meant by the comment, and she made it clear she was talking about officials having Nuremberg-style tribunals for those who enabled unlawful behavior.