As he was leaving office in 2017, President Barack Obama urged Americans concerned about where their country was headed to act. “If something needs fixing, then lace up your shoes and do some organizing,” he said (Time, 1/11/17). “If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clip board, get some signatures, and run for office yourself.”

Ten months earlier, then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had made a similar comment (The Hill, 3/1/16). At a campaign stop in Minnesota, a young woman pressed Clinton about her past remarks on “superpredators.” After a brief exchange, Clinton said, “You know what, dear? You have a different opinion… Why don’t you go run for something?”

A decade later, it’s clear that a new generation of leaders has taken that advice. But instead of being praised for contributing to civic life by participating in democracy, they and the organizations that support them have been pilloried as threats to both the Democratic Party and democracy itself.

DSA as ‘Parasite’

The Atlantic, which published a 2024 essay (5/17/24) asserting, in the context of Gaza, that “it is possible to kill children legally,” ran an article (7/21/26) on the Democratic Socialists of America headlined “The DSA Is a Parasite.” (I belong to the organization’s New York City chapter.) Writer James Kirchick averred that “ideologues on the left are attempting a hostile takeover of the [Democratic] party.” He suggested that the organization’s rise was enabled by a

yearslong effort by socialists and progressive activists to steer one of America’s two major political parties toward identity politics, isolationism, and hostility to capitalism.

Kirchick’s disdain for those who join standard efforts to influence political parties is anti-democratic, ahistorical, and willfully obtuse. He also conflates and misrepresents the goals of progressive and socialist activists. “Hostility to capitalism” is accurate enough if one is describing socialists—not necessarily progressives—but “identity politics” and “isolationism” are not.

DSA opposes military bases and economic warfare, but it explicitly champions immigration and international law, and working toward “a world without war or poverty”—that’s not “isolationism.” The group also calls for “a world where no one suffers for their race, gender, or religion”—an enormously popular view that Kirchick dismisses, insultingly and inaccurately, as “identity politics.”

Kirchick and his ilk, of course, wouldn’t be able to caricature socialists’ views so easily if they were held to basic editorial standards, and if socialist perspectives weren’t almost entirely excluded from corporate media.

Hijacked by a ‘Radical Fringe’

A recent spate of articles have, like Kirchick’s, sought to repackage normal political practices as novel, violent, or disease-like threats unrelated to the will of voters. An Axios column (7/28/26) by the site’s co-founders Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen began: “Republicans didn’t decide to become President Trump’s party. They surrendered to him, one stage at a time, over a decade, in plain sight.” It then posed the (paraphrased) question: Will the Democratic Party similarly surrender to the creeping threat of socialism?

While acknowledging that socialism is popular with the Democratic base, the Axios story portrays it as a disease whose “transmission is slower” than Trumpism. It’s not clear why Axios treats socialism as a pathology; in what way is it harmful to, or impairing the normal functioning of, America or American democracy?

The Hill (7/24/26) also noted “fears” that “the [Democratic] party is being taken over” by democratic socialists.

The Wall Street Journal warned darkly that

DSA’s advances are stirring consternation—and sometimes panic—among mainstream Democrats dreading their own Tea Party moment, in which a radical fringe hijacks the party and taints their brand just as they are trying to appeal to swing voters to win control of Congress.

Odd if true, given that recent socialist wins have coincided with an uptick in favorable views of the Democratic Party, which suggests that DSA’s success may in fact be burnishing the party’s brand.

DSA’s leaders, the Journal continued, “scarcely hide their disdain for a Democratic Party they view less as a partner than a hostile takeover target.” It’s true that DSA does not view most senior Democratic Party leaders as its partners; the organization is succeeding by appealing directly to the party’s supporters. (In the words of DSA member and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, “What’s a party if not its voters?”) If those who regularly vote or are inclined to vote in Democratic Party primaries ultimately succeed in changing the party’s platform to better represent their views, that’s not a hostile takeover—that’s democracy.

The “takeover” language is telling: The corporate press sees any assertion of agency on the part of everyday people as a threat to establishment interests. The Free Press (7/21/26) sounded the alarm in an article headlined “What the Movement Taking Over the Democratic Party Wants.” And Fox News (7/27/26) went further with a story headlined “[US Rep. Steve] Scalise Warns ‘Bolshevik Revolution’ Taking Over Dem Party After Socialist Primary Wins.”

DSA does, like the Bolsheviks of more than a century ago, defend people’s rights to peace, land (housing, in a contemporary US context), and bread. But unlike the Bolsheviks, the organization is not armed or violent, and is committed to democratic change (hence the name).

‘Getting Away With’—What?

Seeking to change a political organization by appealing to its supporters and competing in its primaries is what politicians of all stripes do; it is how democracy works. Yet The New York Times(6/20/26) has characterized quotidian political participation as “an uprising from the left,” which poses a larger “threat”—it’s not clear to whom, other than House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who may eventually be primaried from the left. To the Times, DSA is not competing in congressional primaries but “targeting high-profile House races.”

And though the Times (8/10/26) acknowledges that “democratic socialists and their allies have scored a series of victories over traditional Democrats with superior messaging and organizing tactics,” it also reports that these tactics have “terrified” the party establishment, causing them to “burn through gobs of cash,” and leaving them to wonder: “How do progressives keep getting away with this?” Most see winning a primary election thanks to better messaging and organizing as entirely above board; the Times tells readers it’s a scary heist.

Martial analogies are common in political writing, but the corporate press covers intra-Democratic Party tensions as if progressives and democratic socialists were the only combatants. As a recent AP article (7/27/26) noted:

Establishment Democrats, including former Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison, have forcefully pushed back against DSA candidates who run in the party’s primaries while criticizing the way the party is going.

But if you’re seeking to change a party’s direction, forming organizations to influence it, running in its primaries, and organizing caucuses within it are the most obvious and common ways of doing so. Centrist Democrats—including Bill Clinton, who went on to win two of his party’s presidential primaries—did this when they founded the Democratic Leadership Council in 1985 and the Progressive Policy Institute in 1989. Clinton and his allies were fighting in what some at the time called a “battle for the party’s soul” (Time, 7/10/95)—a struggle that continues to this day.

Working together to alter the priorities and structure of theoretically representative institutions like Congress and the Democratic Party is a necessary and crucial form of democratic participation. It is precisely what leaders like Obama and the Clintons have repeatedly enjoined Americans to do. And when done by individuals and organizations that are honest and forthright about their intentions—e.g., those with clear public platforms—there is nothing sneaky, underhanded. or sinister about it.

Research assistance: Emily Marie Spencer.

With the second term of the current United Nations Secretary-General, Antònio Guterres, expiring on December 31, 2026, the organization is in the process of selecting its 10th secretary-general. The UN’s first-ever Secretary-General, Trygve Lie, famously described it as “the most impossible job in the world.” That was at a time when there were 60 UN member states and the world’s population was 2.6 billion; now there are 193 members and the world’s population is 8.3 billion. It is also, arguably, the most important job in the world.

As the current President of the General Assembly, Annalena Baerbock (1 of only 5 women ever elected to this post in 81 years; the other 76 were men), explains, “Our choice will send a powerful message about who we are, and whether we truly serve all 8 billion people of the world in all their diversity.”

The overall selection process is prescribed by Article 97 of the UN Charter: “The Secretary-General shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.” But the charter offers little other guidance, so various informal procedures and practices have evolved over time. One is the rule of regional rotation, with it currently being Latin America and the Caribbean’s “turn,” although candidates from other regions can also be nominated, as they have been in this round. Seven candidates have been nominated to date—five from Latin America and the Caribbean (four women and one man) and two from Africa (both men). Although women have only been nominated as candidates since 1991, no woman has ever been appointed, in spite of campaigns to see a woman selected in 2006 and 2016.

It is generally accepted that candidates should come from small or mid-sized countries but not from the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council. To be considered, a candidate must be nominated by one or more of the 193 member states, although the nomination does not have to come from the country of a candidate’s nationality.

This momentous decision will most likely occur in early October. How the process is carried out and how its outcome is perceived will have significant implications for the restoration of confidence in the UN’s ability to fulfill its mandate in an increasingly turbulent world.

For many years, the selection process was not transparent, but that has recently improved. The current round of nominations was initiated on November 25, 2025 by a joint letter from the presidents of the General Assembly and the Security Council addressed to all member states, inviting nominations and explicitly encouraging countries “to strongly consider nominating women as candidates.” The letter requested that nominations be accompanied by a nomination letter, a vision statement, a curriculum vitae, and a statement of campaign financing disclosures. As nominations were received, the two presidents jointly informed all member states and the information was posted on a UN website.

In response to General Assembly resolution 79/327 of 5 September 2025 on the revitalization of the work of the General Assembly, the president organized interactive webcast dialogues with all candidates (each lasting three hours), where candidates responded to questions posed by representatives of member states and civil society. As anyone who has ever interviewed applicants for a job knows (and as I learned from watching the webcasts), this is a useful means for identifying the best candidates.

In addition, on July 23, a UN Town Hall was organized in the General Assembly Hall by the president of the GA and broadcast live on Bloomberg, with two Bloomberg moderators presiding. All six candidates at the time (a seventh was subsequently nominated) appeared together on the stage and answered questions from the moderators, as well as the audience, who were again representatives of member states and civil society. The Security Council also organized confidential closed-door sessions with each of the candidates.

Subsequently, on July 30, the Security Council held its first confidential “straw poll,” an iterative process repeated over a number of weeks to decide which candidate has the most support. In each, the 15 members of the council, i.e., the P5—the US, Russia, China, France and the UK and its 10 elected members (E10) who serve two-year terms (currently, Bahrain, Colombia, Congo, Denmark, Greece, Latvia, Liberia, Pakistan, Panama, and Somalia) indicate which candidates they are willing to support by voting “encourage” (in favor), “discourage” (against), or “no opinion” (abstain).

During the first rounds, the ballots are all identical. However, after a few rounds (the number is not specified), the council introduces color-coded ballots: “red” for the P5 and “white” for the E10. From that point onward, votes carry different political weights, since a “discourage” vote from a P5 member is equivalent to a veto. At least nine “encourage” votes with no “discourage” votes from the P5 are required for a candidate to be selected. Candidates with a poor showing may withdraw from the process, although there are no rules requiring this. Votes are intended to be confidential, but results usually leak. The leaked results of the July 30 straw poll are shown here.

Once a determination has been made, the Security Council holds a formal vote on the outcome. The council then makes a formal recommendation to the GA, which can be accepted by acclimation or by a formal vote of the 193 member states. In theory, the GA can send the council’s recommendation back for reconsideration, although this has never happened.

In 2026, there are four impressive women candidates. Readers are encouraged to examine their curricula vitae, vision statements and to view at least a portion of the webcasts. Given that the appointment of a woman in this post is long overdue, there is reason to be hopeful that this will be the outcome.

But for this to happen, it will require that none of the P5 veto her candidature. As noted by a report of Women in International Security, “All things considered, the chances of women in the running will depend heavily on the veto power of the United States or Russia who could block their appointment.” The UK, France, and China have all indicated that they are positive about the appointment of a woman, but Russia has shown resistance to framing UN leadership selection around gender, and the US, under the Trump administration, has been averse to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

In a report which discusses the possibility of a “discourage” vote from the P5, Rebeca Grynspan is generally “viewed as the candidate with the lowest ideological controversy,” and Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett “carries the lowest visible P5 friction,” although as Guyana’s permanent representative on the Security Council, she abstained on a 2024 US-sponsored Gaza ceasefire resolution which might annoy the US. Maria Fernanda Espinosa’s prior support for Julian Assange when she was Ecuador’s UN representative and then foreign minister could “unsettle the UK which spent years pursuing his extradition.” Finally, it is suggested that China could “pose a challenge for Michelle Bachelet” since, at the end of her tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, she authorized publication of a UN report (despite China lobbying against it) stating that abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities constitute crimes against humanity.

Although the P5 have veto power, the E10 also have power since, if seven members agree on a single candidate and refuse to change their vote, the P5 would not be able to advance a candidate, even if they all agreed—because nine votes are required. With seven E10 members voting “discourage” on a P5 candidate, there would be only eight voting “encourage” and the vote would be blocked. This has even been called the “sixth veto power.”

While support from the E10 is necessary, it is not enough. A single “discourage” vote from the P5 would end a candidate’s prospects, however, early momentum within the E10 would make it harder for a P5 member to block a candidate with sufficient E10 support without paying a reputational price.

Of course, as a Stimson report comments: “A female Secretary-General will not solve every institutional or geopolitical challenge, but electing a strong woman signals that the UN could lead by example… A female SG would reflect half the world’s population, introduce fresh perspectives into global problem-solving, and navigate institutional hurdles with skill, authority, and resilience. After 80 years, the question is no longer whether the world is ready for a woman Secretary-General, it is whether the UN is.”

This momentous decision will most likely occur in early October. How the process is carried out and how its outcome is perceived will have significant implications for the restoration of confidence in the UN’s ability to fulfill its mandate in an increasingly turbulent world. Let us fervently hope that the Security Council will make a wise decision.

The proliferation of license plate reader surveillance cameras, especially those by Flock, has provoked widespread opposition from both liberals and conservatives across the United States.

The post If You See Something, Pound Something appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The U.S. national debt has officially surpassed $40 trillion, months earlier than forecasters had expected — because of billions of dollars in lost revenue from Trump’s invalidated tariffs, Trump’s tax cuts (mostly to big corporations and the very wealthy), and the soaring costs of Trump’s war.

Trump’s hair-brained treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, says there’s nothing to worry about because the fiscal trajectory will stabilize. Investors obviously don’t believe him because they’re demanding much higher compensation for buying and holding American bonds. The yield on 30-year U.S. Treasuries hit its highest level in nearly two decades this week, reflecting those growing concerns.

Should you worry? Well, it’s not as if we’re heading into a depression. Passing the $40 trillion threshold doesn’t suddenly cause the world to lose confidence in the dollar.

The problem is that an increasing portion of our nation’s budget — and your tax dollar — is dedicated to paying interest on this growing debt. Annual net interest payments on the federal debt have surpassed $1 trillion, making servicing the debt one of the largest of all federal budget expenditures.

That’s money we don’t spend on schools, healthcare, roads and bridges, and social safety nets. We’ll soon be paying more in interest on the federal debt each year than we spend annually on Medicare.

So, who exactly receives these interest payments? This is an issue you hear very little discussion about, because the wealthy and powerful of this country would rather you not know. (And don’t expect Trump suck-up Bessent* to tell you, because he’s too busy denying that economic inequality is worsening.)

Foreign governments and foreign investors hold only about 30 percent of our debt. The rest — roughly 70 percent — is held domestically. That is, we pay the interest to ourselves.

And who, exactly, is the “ourselves” who receive these interest payments? The Federal Reserve holds part of this debt, state and local governments hold part.

But the biggest chunk — nearly half — is held by mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and banks.

And who owns them? Americans who invest in these funds — and who thereby, directly or indirectly, hold Treasury bills.

And who, exactly are these Americans — the Americans who are directly or indirectly collecting a large amount of the interest we’re paying on the national debt?

People at the top.

The richest 1 percent of U.S. households hold about 35.6 percent of all financial assets — shares of stock, corporate bonds, and Treasury bills — so it’s safe to assume they hold at least a third of all Treasury bills.

Here’s where things get really interesting.

Decades ago, wealthy Americans financed the federal government mainly by paying taxes. Their tax rate was far higher than it is today.

In the 1950s, under President Dwight Eisenhower, the richest Americans paid a marginal tax rate of 91 percent. (Tax deductions and tax credits lowered this top effective marginal rate somewhat.)

Today, the tax rate on wealthy Americans is far lower. The richest 400 Americans pay an average effective total tax rate of about 24 percent — including federal, state, local, and corporate taxes. Jeff Bezos — America’s second or third richest person — paid no federal income taxes in 2018. Trump paid no federal taxes for years before he became president.

So now, wealthy Americans finance the federal government mainly by lending it money and collecting interest payments on those loans.

As I said, interest payments on the national debt this year have surpassed $1 trillion, and a big chunk of that is going to wealthy Americans.

Keep following the money.

One of the biggest reasons the federal debt has exploded is that tax cuts — starting with the George W. Bush administration in 2001 and extending through Trump’s 2018 and 2024 tax cuts — have reduced government revenues by $10.6 trillion.

Most of the benefits from those tax cuts are also going to the wealthy.

Since 2000, 65 percent of the benefits from tax cuts have gone to the richest fifth of Americans — 22 percent to the top 1 percent.

So, you see what’s happened?

Decades ago, the wealthiest Americans financed the government by paying higher taxes. Now, the government pays wealthy Americans interest on a swelling debt, caused largely by lower taxes on wealthy Americans.

Which means a growing portion of your taxes and mine is now paying wealthy Americans interest on those loans instead of paying for government services everyone needs.

So, from now on, whenever you hear someone fret about how huge, horrible, and out-of-control the national debt is, explain to them that it’s largely because of tax cuts to the wealthy — who are also the major recipients of interest on that debt.

America’s wealthy have never been wealthier. Scott Bessent* may deny we’re in a K-shaped economy, but he’s dead wrong. If the wealthy paid their fair share of taxes, we wouldn’t have such a huge federal debt. And we wouldn’t be paying them so much interest on that debt.

Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008 and must be a smart fellow. He wrote on Substack August 11, “The U.S. Healthcare System is Already Mostly Socialized, and there’s nothing radical about wanting to end insurance company parasitism.”

Krugman explained that taxpayers currently pay two-thirds of US healthcare costs. It’s not just the costs of Medicare, Medicaid, the Indian Health Service, the VA, and the Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, but also employers deduct their contribution for their employees’ private insurance as a tax-deductible expense, while the employees owe no income tax on the value of employers’ contribution. Maybe that’s a bit wonky, but the point is simple - when we give tax breaks that subsidize heath insurance for employees, then the rest of us taxpayers have to make up the difference.

US taxpayers shelling out 2/3 of the cost of our healthcare system is more per capita than taxpayers in any other nation. Krugman says, “Much of U.S. healthcare is already ‘socialist’. In fact, the government’s role is so large that U.S. healthcare is better described as partially privatized socialism than as anything resembling a free market.”

Krugman goes on, “How should we think about this system? First of all, is Medicare socialist? Don’t tell anyone, but the way Medicare operates—it covers every senior’s medical expenses, whatever they turn out to be, while being funded by taxes that depend on one’s income—could be summarized by the old Marxist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” And back in 1961, when Ronald Reagan was the face of a last-ditch effort by the American Medical Association to block the creation of Medicare, he denounced Medicare as “socialized medicine” and warned that it would destroy our freedom.”

Krugman continues: “The case for viewing insurers as parasites is strong. Many Medicare benefits are now delivered via Medicare Advantage, that is, plans paid for by the government but run through insurance companies. MedPAC, an independent advisory commission, estimates that last year Medicare Advantage plans were overpaid by $84 billion, thanks to practices such as “upcoding,” in which patients’ health problems are overstated to get larger sums from Medicare.”

Krugman’s conclusion on August 11: “So let’s be clear: Abdul El-Sayed’s healthcare platform is perfectly reasonable on the merits of cost, fairness and health efficacy. And with private insurers never more hated, while millions of Americans are losing their health insurance, 2026 may be its time.”

Then, on August 14 he published another piece: “The Case for a Medicare Buy-In Option, Mandates vs options: The good, the bad, and the feasible.”

Just three days later and he is back-peddling like crazy. Suddenly, Medicare for All is not politically feasible: “There’s a strong case for a soft transition in which people can choose to be covered by Medicare via a Public Option… Why won’t making the legitimate case that Medicare for All is the best system be enough to win the political argument? The pervasive corruption of our political environment by corporate and right-leaning money is part of the answer. Health insurers may be parasites, but parasites make campaign contributions.”

From there, Krugman is in full retreat. He admits “No major government program is as popular as Medicare, which has an 82 percent favorable rating.” He continues by noting that “Americans have strongly negative views, verging on hatred, about the insurance industry.” Despite that, Krugman now wants a Public Option, or Medicare Buy-In as it is also called, which he claims would be less of a political lift. He describes, “A healthcare system in which many Americans under 65 buy into Medicare would not immediately deliver all the advantages of full Medicare for All. Some people and employers, despite the disadvantages, might retain private insurance… It would lack the clarity of a system in which every citizen knows that they are entitled to care. But it would be far better than what we currently have. Moreover, a system in which private health insurance is a rump industry, covering a dwindling fraction of the population, would be a better starting point for a full transition to universal coverage… There’s no obvious reason a public option would be any harder to implement than payments to the Medicare Advantage plans offered by private insurers.”

Medicare Advantage is a model for the Medicare Buy In? Remember in Krugman’s August 11 Substack he noted that "an independent advisory commission estimates that last year Medicare Advantage plans were overpaid by $84 billion.”

Medicare Advantage is the poster child for how privatized Medicare is corrupted by private for-profit insurance companies. I’m worried about Krugman’s memory.

Does Krugman remember 2009? We have been down this Public Option/Medicare Buy-In road before.

Does anyone remember the Blue Dog Caucus?

When the Affordable Care Act was being formulated in the summer of 2009, Democrats had a 257 to 178 majority in the House of Representatives, but there was a block of moderate Dems known as the Blue Dogs, and Baron Hill, Indiana’s 9th district Congressman, had a leadership role in the group. It included a number of skeptics about the ACA whose votes were going to be needed. I persuaded Baron to have me make a presentation, along with binders to distribute with the facts, figures and citations about the advantages of a Medicare for All system, even though few if any of them were singe payer supporters.

The meeting on June 18th in the Longworth Office Building was well attended, and with my wife Karen Green Stone, we had 20 minutes to make our pitch. They were engaged, had good questions, and let the time run over until they all had to leave to cast a vote. The idea was to present the “ideal system” and then work out the best achievable compromise.

As the ACA took shape in the House, the Public Option was under attack as soon as it was proposed. The entrenched healthcare industry deployed thousands of lobbyists to Capitol Hill to frame the Public Option as a costly “government takeover” and funded studies predicting severe disruptions to insurance markets. They partnered with conservative groups to run intense national advertising campaigns targeting vulnerable lawmakers. The Public Option was amended and weakened repeatedly until the version that passed out of the House was almost unrecognizable.

Then the Senate put it out of its misery. Democratic US Senators like Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Evan Bayh of Indiana insisted that any Public Option/Medicare Buy-In be removed completely in order for them to provide filibuster-proof support to pass the Senate.

The Public Option proponents had insisted it would “keep insurance companies honest.” They used language similar to Krugman that a Public Option would be an easier way to eventually eliminate private insurance.

How could they think they could pass a bill that was intended to create a slippery slope to eliminate the insurance industry, and somehow the insurers wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t see it as just as much an existential threat as Medicare for All?

In 1998, 20 years before Paul Krugman was awarded his Nobel Prize, he predicted that the internet’s economic influence would be insignificant, “no greater than the fax machine’s,” because “most people have nothing to say to each other.” He has been wrong before.

My life’s goal is to practice medicine in a country where everyone has healthcare, everybody in and nobody out. I think expanding traditional American Medicare is the obvious way to get there. It has already been taking care of the oldest, sickest, most expensive patients for the past 60 years. It makes no sense to take that option off the table before we even start negotiating.

Why not take on the insurance industry and their billionaire backers?

Why not take them on?

In the almost-over primary season, Democratic voters chose a mix of progressive nominees like Abdul El Sayed, Peggy Flanagan and Angie Nixon and moderates like David Crowley and Jared Moscowitz, often by slim margins. These candidates often disagreed on issues like Medicare For All and military aide for Israel.

But in the 11 weeks between now and the general election, Democrats progressives and moderates need to form a United Front to take back the Senate and House and have checks and balances on an increasingly unhinged fascistic Donald Trump. As I pointed out in Common Dreams last week, in 1930s Germany moderately left and far left parties fought against each other as hard as they fought against the Nazis and ended up with Hitler in power who outlawed them both and sent them to prisons and eventually concentration camps.

Until Election Day, Democratic leaders need to encourage a United Front against fascism.

But that's the opposite of what House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries is doing. He squarely took the side of the so-called moderates and attacked the progressives.

On Meet The Press, host Kristen Welker mentioned that Jeffries co-sponsored Medicare For All legislation for ten years from 2013-2021 but hasn't co-sponsored it since he became Democratic House leader. She asked him if he would even put Medicare For All up for a vote if he became speaker.

Jeffries repeatedly evaded answering the question, but then finally declared: “It's not legislation that I currently am cosponsoring or that I support.” He would not even promise to put it up for a vote. At least 104 current Democratic House members are co-sponsors of Medicare For All legislations and Jeffries won't even promise to give them a chance to vote on it.

This despite the fact that recent polls show that 65% of voters, including 78% of Democrats, 71% of independents and even 49% of Republicans support Medicare For All. And even after respondents were told that Medicare for All would eliminate most private insurance and require higher taxes, support remained above 60 percent.

(It's worth noting that in the current election cycle, Jeffries has received $391,000 of campaign cash from the healthcare sector’s political action committees.)

Jeffries then went on to attack the Democratic Socialists of America telling Meet The Press, "I don't support the DSA agenda as has been articulated by the DSA itself." But his attacks on the DSA focused just on three positions which may have been taken in the past by small factions of the DSA, like defunding the police, open border, and abolishing the Senate. None of these positions are backed by actual DSA candidates who have won Democratic primaries.

Jeffries deciding to put his thumbs on the scale and back one sector of the Democratic Party is directly contrary to the role of a party leader whose job should be to unite the party to win the House and Senate in the General Election.

As Adam Jentleson, former chief of staff to the late Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid wrote in The New York Times, "It is not up to party leaders or the Democratic National Committee to litigate whether a candidate’s views are acceptable; the voters of a state or district decide. The coalition that passed the New Deal included everyone from a Communist sympathizer to self-avowed white supremacists, putting the compromises asked of us today in perspective."

Recently, while listening to an NPR interview with Cuban-American musician Arturo Sandoval, I was reminded of the late political scientist Michael Parenti’s classic text, "Inventing Reality: The Politics of the Mass Media."

In his 1986 book, Parenti described a situation that is still relevant 40 years later—when the US fears that another country’s non-capitalistic political model (and its attendant advances in social justice and quality of life) could cause US citizens to question their own system, it regularly imposes an embargo and sanctions against the country. Next, the news media reports on the suffering caused by these policies while, at the same time, avoiding any mention of the embargo and sanctions. Finally, when after years or decades of suffering, the people of this blockaded country take out their anger on the closest target and begin protesting against their government, the US steps in. It places a puppet president in power and pours into the country the money it had withheld throughout the embargo. Then, the media reports on how well everyone is now doing without, once more, acknowledging the oversized role the embargo played in the prior devastation.

In the aforementioned NPR interview, host Scott Simon perfectly perpetuated this model of media complicity by announcing towards the interview’s conclusion, “Arturo Sandoval, I’ve got to put you on the spot a little. You’ve been pretty quiet about politics over the years, but obviously you fled Cuba. When Fidel Castro died, you spoke out about your disdain for his regime. It was ten years ago.” Then, with no historical or even recent context, Simon concluded with, “Cuba seems to be almost worse than ever now.”

With this final declaration in which he erroneously implied a connection between Cuba’s current immiseration and Fidel Castro’s rule, Simon led Sandoval into his response: “Sixty-seven and a half years is way too long, man… The people in Cuba are desperate and hopeless.”

Citizens who are not given the context of the news cannot be engaged participants in the democratic process.

Simon allowed his guest to say this unchallenged as if these decades of desperation and hopelessness are the result of Cuba’s 1959 revolution. To the contrary, in addition to footing the bill for Sandoval’s musical education (he attended the free Cuban National Art School, founded by Fidel Castro), the Cuban Revolution redefined human rights as access for all to free education, free healthcare, low-cost daycare centers, and highly subsidized housing.

The desperation Sandoval referred to is the direct result of the 67-year-old embargo against Cuba imposed by the United States, the longest embargo in the history of the world. Combined with its multitude of supplementary sanctions (more than 200 of which were enacted during Trump’s first term in office), these punitive measures prohibit Cuba from purchasing products, including medicine, manufactured abroad if they contain more than 10% of US-origin components. They restrict US residents’ ability to travel to Cuba. They hinder Cubans residing in the US from wiring money to their families, a common way for immigrants from all parts of the world to supplement the income of relatives back home.

The Cuban embargo has received worldwide condemnation. For more than three decades now, the UN General Assembly has annually presented its members with a resolution to denounce the embargo. Year after year, its 193 member states cast a near-unanimous vote affirming the resolution. The only two countries that consistently vote against it—and in favor of the embargo— are, unsurprisingly, the US and Israel.

Unfortunately, the UN resolution, while a significant show of solidarity, has no authority to end the embargo. As codified by US law, only the US Congress has this power.

In addition and sadly, the suffering caused by the embargo is not a mere result of the blockade but the explicit objective of it as stated in a declassified 1960 government document posted on the National Security Archive’s website and abstracted as follows: “This memo, written by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lestor Mallory, provides the original, unvarnished, policy rationale for imposing trade restrictions on Cuba. Fidel Castro’s revolution is quite popular in Cuba, Mallory points out; since there is no effective opposition against him, the only way to undercut Castro’s support is ‘through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.’ Mallory advocates a set of punitive economic actions designed to deny ‘money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of [the] government.’”

Beyond the embargo and its sanctions, the US designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (SSOT) contributes to what Sandoval referred to as the Cuban people’s hopelessness and desperation. The partisan political boomerang of the SSOT was initiated by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 for Cuba’s support of Latin American leftist groups. It was removed by Obama in 2015, reinstated by Trump in 2021, symbolically removed by Biden on January 14th, 2025, at the end of his presidency, and again reinstated by Trump on January 20th, 2025, at the start of his second term.

Along with other restrictions, the sponsor-of-terrorism status forbids US international aid organizations, including Food for Peace and the Peace Corps, from offering humanitarian assistance to Cuba. It prohibits Cuba from receiving loans from the World Bank and other international financial institutions. These are loans which could be used for much-needed projects such as an overhaul of the island’s aging electrical grid, which has caused multiple nationwide blackouts over the past two years.

Furthermore, as described by the Washington Office on Latin America, the SSOT “has a chilling effect on businesses, including banking or telecommunications investments that are crucial to promoting the type of transformation essential to expanding freedom on the island.” Ironically, this freedom (ie: the opening of business and economic opportunities) is precisely what the US purports to desire for the Cuban people. And it is this lack of this freedom, which Sandoval said in the somber closing statement of his NPR interview, that prevents him from returning to Cuba and will leave him to “die dreaming” of a homecoming.

At this point in the interview, what Scott Simon didn’t say becomes as, if not more, significant than what he did. It is that, in Fidel Castro’s final two years of life, a sense of hope and a feeling of, yes, freedom pervaded Cuba.

Hope came to Cubans with Obama’s 2014 détente, which, while not a revocation of the embargo [only able to be repealed by Congress], still enabled the US Embassy in Cuba and the Cuban Embassy in the US to reopen for the first time in 50 years. Washington’s rapprochement permitted commercial and direct mail flights between the two countries to be reinstated and for restrictions on remittances to be loosened. This, in turn, allowed Cuban-Americans, like immigrants from other countries, to now easily send money to their families on the island.

Freedom came from an opening of the Cuban economy, from the government’s expanded opportunities for private businesses. Cubans responded enthusiastically, opening record numbers of cafés and restaurants and music and art venues, among other enterprises to which their new American friends, now able to travel freely to Cuba, flocked in record numbers.

It was a boon for both sides—and evidence that another way of engaging with Cuba was possible. Until, that is, Trump was elected at the end of 2016 and, soon thereafter, began systematically shutting everything down once more.

If not for the very real damage it inflicts on the country, the SSOT designation could be considered laughable, as, during all these decades as a supposed sponsor of terrorism, Cuba has remained steadfast in its commitment to a peaceful coexistence with its neighbors near and far. For the past quarter of a century, Cuba’s Latin American Medical School, esteemed for both its size (enrollment-wise, it is considered the largest medical school in the world) and its focus on preventative healthcare, has offered a full-ride, plus a monthly living stipend, for students from low-income communities around the world, including the US.

Additionally, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Cuba offered aid workers to the US, although President Bush rebuffed this overture. In the early days of COVID-19, Cuba sent medical brigades to help Italy contain its outbreak. And this was in addition to the doctors Cuba regularly sent to countries in need from Algeria to Honduras to Sri Lanka. Until, that is, in 2025 the US began threatening to deny visas to the leaders of countries accepting assistance from Cuban doctors; and the targeted countries, fearing retribution, terminated their contracts with Cuba.

This past March, as Jamaica’s Cuban doctors headed home following one such termination, hundreds of Jamaicans took to the streets for what they called a “Gratitude Walk.” For three miles, they marched wearing t-shirts reading, “Thank you Cuba for 50 years of medical service” and chanting, “We love Cuba” and “Bring back the doctors.”

Walk participant Rupert Walters, President of the Jamaica-Cuba Friendship Association’s St. Catherine’s chapter and a beneficiary of Cuban care for his prostate cancer, called his government’s decision to cave to US pressure “crazy.” Walters told the Jamaica Observer that he wished the government had “allowed the Cubans to support and give their services to the hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans who can’t afford it,” and warned that, as a result of the medical program termination, Jamaicans would die.

Rather than supporting terrorism, Cuba has long been the target of terrorist attacks by the US government. There was the CIA’s half-century of documented assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, involving everything from poison pens to exploding cigars.

Less comical and more lethal were terrorist attacks led by Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile and CIA operative. In 1976, 35 years before September 11th, Posada Carriles masterminded the Western Hemisphere’s first act of political terrorism against a civilian flight. His bombing of a Cubana de Aviación airplane killed all 73 passengers, 24 of whom comprised the entirety of the Juvenile Cuban National Fencing team. In the summer of 1997, Posada Carrilles began another bombing campaign, this time targeting Havana hotels, restaurants, and discotheques—and killing an Italian tourist. Finally arrested in Panama in 2000 for attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro at a conference he was attending there, Posada Carrilles later fled to the US, where he was detained for illegal entry and then pardoned by President Bush. In 2018, he died a free man in Miami.

Although Scott Simon didn’t say this in his interview with Arturo Sandoval, the current “worse-than-ever” situation he referenced is due to the US’s oil blockade, initiated by an Executive Order from Trump in January. Under this latest act of economic warfare, tankers trying to deliver petroleum to the island are threatened with tariffs and, if they still attempt to do so, they are chased away by US Coast Guard vessels.

Like the embargo, like the sanctions, like the SSOT status, the fuel blockade has caused widespread suffering for the Cuban people. It impedes access to electricity and also to water, which arrives at most houses in Cuba via an electric pump. It prevents the preservation of not just food but also of medicines that need refrigeration.

Many Cubans now sleep outside, on rooftops or on the Malecón seawall, to escape the sweltering summer heat, made all the more unbearable without the electricity to run their fans. Because electricity (which has been prioritized for hospitals and schools) is now available in most houses for just two hours per day, Cubans must wake up whenever it arrives (even if it is at 3 AM) to do all they couldn’t without it—wash clothes and dishes, cook and bathe. And collect water for the next outage. So, sleep too, has become a casualty of this US-provoked humanitarian crisis, referred to by a group of US Representatives who visited the island in July as a “silent Gaza.”

By engaging in de-contextualized reporting rather than shedding light on the reasons why the current situation is as it is, mainstream US media outlets like NPR do their listeners a grave and dangerous disservice. For, as The Washington Post’s motto warns us, albeit a little more ironically after Jeff Bezos’ purchase of it, “Democracy dies in darkness.”

Citizens who are not given the context of the news cannot be engaged participants in the democratic process. Without the full story as to why what is happening in our world is happening, we are rendered powerless to change it. Without our consent, we become cogs in the bulldozer of US interventionism and imperialism.

Life in Cuba is full of suffering not because of socialism but because of a 67-year-long blockade by the world’s largest superpower. In a government now absent of checks and balances, we need to call out the offending media. We need to let them know that we’re paying attention, that we hold them accountable for their lies of omission— and that we demand better.

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.

Today we discuss:

• America’s gross national debt topped $40 trillion, after decades of borrowing to pay for the rising costs of the military, social safety net programs and Trump’s tax cuts. This year, the United States is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay for its obligations, including spending on the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025. Soaring interest payments to investors who have purchased America’s debt now make up about half of that red ink, pushing the United States into a deeper financial hole by $90,000 per second.

• Asked at a debate whether Taiwan and the South China Sea are relevant national security priorities, South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham responded: “I’m just going to be honest here … I’m not that informed on national security, so.” She added that “national security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military.” Taiwan wants to boost defense spending to a record $35 billion. Should there be a mechanism to ban idiots from high office?

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post US Debt Hits $40 Trillion | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

This weekend, President Donald Trump is turning the heart of our democracy into a taxpayer-funded racetrack. Through an executive order, the administration mandated the "Freedom 250 Grand Prix"—an IndyCar street circuit winding directly through the National Mall. We are being told this is a celebration of America. But earlier this year, IndyCar quietly launched and then hastily deleted a new piece of official merchandise: a gauche, blatantly racist T-shirt. This is exactly what the current administration is substituting for our national heritage.

Trump is perfectly willing to risk the destruction of the nation's most priceless cultural assets to create a public spectacle that honors him, and almost assuredly puts carloads more of our money in his pocket.

Let me be clear: Live athletic competition can be a great cultural unifier, and celebrating America should be a joyous occasion. But this race is a fabricated, exhaust-choked spectacle designed entirely to feed Trump's obsession with personal grandeur. And it’s the public who is paying for everything and likewise the liability falls right into the lap of the public. We are being forced to subsidize a 200-mile-per-hour vanity project with an estimated cultural liability of up to $183 billion.

When you map the racecourse, the sheer negligence becomes terrifying. The circuit wraps directly around the National Gallery of Art, the National Archives, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Air and Space Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian. If a catastrophic, high-speed crash were to occur—scattering carbon-fiber shrapnel and burning ethanol fuel, or triggering a massive structural fire—the cultural devastation would be irreversible. The vibration of the race alone has already forced the National Gallery of Art to remove paintings from the wall. But not everything can be protected like that.

Replacing the pinnacle of global art, foundational Indigenous artifacts, and the physical documents of our democracy with the cheap, offensive aesthetics of a racist IndyCar T-shirt is the ultimate manifestation of Trump’s corrupt worldview.

By forcing this race onto the Mall, the administration is playing Russian roulette with irreplaceable artifacts of American art and history. They are risking the original Declaration of Independence and the Constitution at the National Archives. They are endangering Leonardo da Vinci’s "Ginevra de' Benci"—the only da Vinci painting on public view in the Americas. They are threatening the 1903 Wright Flyer and the Apollo 11 Command Module.

And there is incredible risk of damage to the over 2,500 square feet of priceless, New Deal-era buon fresco murals physically bound into the walls of the Wilbur J. Cohen building, which could be obliterated by structural shockwaves or water damage from emergency fire suppression.

Mary Okin, assistant director of the Living New Deal, told WTOP: “Given how important these artworks are, there should be all kinds of protections taken, and also a case made that this race should not happen here. I don’t think a race like this would ever happen under other administrations, because it’s just foolish and reckless.”

Replacing the pinnacle of global art, foundational Indigenous artifacts, and the physical documents of our democracy with the cheap, offensive aesthetics of a racist IndyCar T-shirt is the ultimate manifestation of Trump’s corrupt worldview. Public goods hold no value to this administration unless they can be leveraged for a fleeting television broadcast.

We cannot allow an administration that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing to destroy the American legacy for a weekend of noise.

America’s farmers understand that some degree of uncertainty comes with the job. They can’t control the weather, after all. But for most of them, the biggest source of uncertainty is not nature, but politics.

As US foreign and domestic policy becomes less predictable, it becomes more difficult for families who work the land to make informed long-term decisions.

The partisan wrangling over the most recent Farm Bill provides the perfect example. This legislation would give farmers more access to government-backed credit, help them sell their crops overseas, and provide much-needed relief to those facing droughts or floods. Unfortunately, the process of passing it devolved into a partisan slap fight due to Republicans’ insistence on cutting the food stamps low-income Americans rely on to feed their families.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), himself a farmer, could hardly believe how ugly the process got. “I think every other Farm Bill that I’ve worked on in the 46 years I’ve been in the United States Senate has been a bipartisan bill,” he told the press. If future Farm Bill negotiations prove equally contentious, it could lead to disastrous funding lapses for key agricultural programs.

The farming sector can only manufacture so much certainty in the marketplace when Republicans keep changing the marketplace rules, ignoring the very forgotten men and women in rural America that they espouse to protect.

The Trump administration’s ongoing war with Iran has only added fuel to the uncertainty fire for America’s farmers. About one-third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which has mostly remained closed since the bombs started falling on February 28. Within weeks, urea prices spiked from a pre-war level of less than $500 a ton to over $700 a ton, and although they’ve fallen since then, prices remain significantly higher than they were just two years ago and have continued to fluctuate amid tense negotiations and broken ceasefires.

Another source of uncertainty is President Donald Trump’s global trade wars. It’s true that some of his trade agreements—like the one he reached with the United Kingdom last May—increased market access for American farmers. But it’s also true that those deals are only worth as much as the word of the president who made them. In February, Trump threatened to blow up his newly inked trade deals with the UK and other European nations unless they agreed to sell him Greenland. The ever-shifting legal justifications for Trump’s tariff regime muddy the waters even further.

Should a farmer invest in increased production to meet demand from new British buyers? Or will a surprise judicial ruling or fit of presidential pique cause the tariffs and trade deals that undergird those contracts to disappear overnight? Guess wrong and you might go bankrupt.

Closer to home, Trump’s refusal to renew the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement has scrambled relationships between American farmers and their Canadian and Mexican customers and competitors. These stakeholders were just barely getting used to the new status quo after USMCA replaced NAFTA in 2020, and now they might have to start all over again.

Immigration policy also plays a role in creating uncertainty for farmers. A survey of 2,250 agricultural workers conducted by the United Farm Workers Foundation found that 88% of respondents worried about being detained or deported due to the increase in immigration raids at farms. The administration has mostly stopped these raids but could restart them at any time.

Some companies impacted by the Trump administration’s anti-worker, anti-farmer, nativist policies are trying their best to stabilize the agricultural industry’s conditions so that they can have more certainty. John Deere, for example, recently offered its unionized employees a contract extension that preserves its employees’ cost-of-living wage adjustments, no-deductible health coverage, and pension benefits through 2029. Even though the country is in a crop sector recession, the economic logic behind this proposal is sound because studies show that workplace anxiety severely impacts worker productivity. Giving workers additional certainty over their ability to put food on the table for their families thus improves both efficiency and employee retention. Nevertheless, the farming sector can only manufacture so much certainty in the marketplace when Republicans keep changing the marketplace rules, ignoring the very forgotten men and women in rural America that they espouse to protect.

An administration that thinks only in terms of news cycles is bad news for farm families who think in terms of seasons—or even generations. If we want to keep farmers on their land and help underrepresented communities break into agriculture, we’ll need a consistent, predictable policy. Our government might not be able to control the weather, but it should be able to pass a Farm Bill and play nice with our trading partners.

Independent candidates are popping up all over. We see them running for the U.S. Senate in South Dakota, Idaho, Montana, and Nebraska. In most of these races, Democratic candidates have stepped aside to avoid splitting the anti-Republican vote.

But what does this mean for the Democratic Party?

My friend Bob Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, takes up this question. Although he believes the damage to the Democratic brand is sometimes overstated, he recognizes that it is a severe problem in the Great Plains and Mountain West:

These are socially conservative states that used to send economically progressive Democrats to both houses of Congress. New Deal farm, public power, and economic development policies were good for the West. But the damage done to the Democratic brand by the combination of Democratic national leaders going left on cultural issues and right on corporate issues was especially potent in this part of the country.

Nevertheless, Kuttner worries that deference to independent candidates could further weaken the Democratic Party. But this argument rests on a questionable assumption—that Democrats remain a viable political force in most of these states.

They aren’t.

They abandoned ship years ago.

Of the roughly 719 state legislative seats in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, Democrats do not even field candidates in 255 (36%) of them in 2024.

Independent candidates are not pushing Democrats aside. They are filling a vast political vacuum—a one-party landscape that offers no meaningful political home for working people who once elected Democratic populists.

Kuttner much prefers the fusion strategy used by the Working Families Party:

Still, as a national strategy, substituting progressive independents for Democrats would be a recipe for killing the party. Fusion, the recipe of the Working Families Party, allows the best of both worlds: a party to the left of the Democrats that cross-endorses Democrats while pushing them to nominate more progressive candidates.

But there are several problems with applying the Working Families Party model to these abandoned states.

First, fusion voting is illegal in every one of the states listed above. Until those laws change, the Working Families Party offers no practical path forward in these Democratic political deserts.

Second, the Working Families Party is no longer a working-class party, as I document in my latest book.

Bob and I both attended a conference at Oberlin College—our alma mater—where I asked the students whether they had ever heard of the Working Families Party. Nearly every hand went up.

A few weeks later, I surveyed 120 union electrical apprentices attending Empire State University in New York City. Only eight had ever heard of the Working Families Party—and this is where the party was founded 27 years ago and where it remains strongest.

Suffice it to say, the Working Families Party is unlikely to break much political ground anytime soon in the Great Plains.

We should expect that independent candidates will continue to fill the vacuum created by decades of Democratic Party malpractice. Democrats will either rebuild their party or continue to fade in red America.

The issue is not how to protect the Democratic Party where it no longer exists in any meaningful sense. The issue is how to build a political movement by and for working people in those abandoned regions.

Independent candidates are a good place to start.

Better still would be for unions and state labor federations to build coherent independent political organizations through which working people could find a political home and develop their own collective voice.

That may further weaken the Democratic Party in those states.

But it would strengthen American democracy.

Most discussions about the Democratic Party in this election cycle focus on the remarkable rise of progressive Democrats (such as Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, a democratic socialist who yesterday scored an upset win in the Democratic contest for the Florida Senate).

An equally big story is the remarkable decline of corporate Democrats.

Some Democrats worry about this. My old friend Democratic strategist James Carville compares the current wave of progressive primary wins to progressive campaigns in 2016 — especially that of Bernie Sanders — that he believes fractured the Democratic coalition.

“Bernie Sanders is the reason that Donald Trump is president,” Carville said recently, claiming that Bernie’s primary challenge to Hillary Clinton convinced voters in battleground states that establishment Democrats were no different from establishment Republicans, thereby weakening her prospects in the general election.

Even if James is right about 2016 (and I don’t believe he is) his assessment is irrelevant now because we’re at a radically different point in American politics than we were 10 years ago.

The silver lining on the dark storm cloud of Trump and his detestable regime is that it has exposed the greed, venality, cupidity, and corruption of America’s corporate elite.

Trump has allowed the CEOs of giant corporations and the titans of Wall Street to do whatever they want as long as they suck up to him. And he’s providing all sorts of corporate welfare to those who generously bribe him — no-bid government contracts, exclusive licenses, tax loopholes, tariff exemptions, use of public lands, and permission to become even bigger monopolies.

Trump has thereby unveiled a truth about corporate America that for many years has been hidden behind a soothing blanket of corporate PR bullsh*t about social responsibility, corporate charity, and “trickle-down” economics.

That truth is the captains of corporate America are so rapacious that they’re willing to throw average working Americans under the bus to make billions more.

Corporate avarice under Trump has become so blatant and corporate America’s contempt for the needs of average Americans so flagrant that most Americans are now catching on.

They’re voting for progressive Democrats not because they want socialism, support the Democratic Socialists of America, or reject candidates called “moderate.”

They’re voting for candidates whom they believe will fight to make housing, food, healthcare, and childcare affordable to average working families. And who’ll take on Trump’s billionaire backers, CEOs, and Wall Street titans who are rigging the economy against them.

Much of the corporate media won’t tell this story. When Dr. Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Democratic primary over Haley Stevens, the media overflowed with accounts of how much smaller El-Sayed’s margin of victory was than polls had predicted.

Yet the most remarkable thing about El-Sayed’s victory was that he won despite being dramatically outspent by super PACs arrayed against him.

Stevens benefited from tens of millions of dollars in outside spending, including the largest investment in a senatorial race ever made by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which traditionally supports pro-Israel candidates but in recent election cycles has supported candidates most favored by corporate America. AIPAC’s ads in favor of Stevens and against El-Sayed never even mentioned Israel.

Outside super PACs poured an estimated $54 million to $60 million into backing Stevens and opposing El-Sayed, compared to only about $5 million for El-Sayed. Pro-Stevens groups outspent El-Sayed on TV advertising alone by more than 12 to 1 ($26.9 million to $2.1 million) in the closing weeks. An average of $95 was spent for every vote against El-Sayed versus just $9 per vote for him.

The race between Stevens and El-Sayed was a proxy fight over the future of the Democratic Party. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backed Stevens and encouraged donors to back her campaign, as did other corporate-aligned politicians such as Michigan senator Gary Peters. On the other hand, Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supported El-Sayed, as did progressives such as Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Elizabeth Warren.

El-Sayed justifiably made a campaign issue out of how much corporate money was backing his rival. He argued that Democrats should reject corporate influence and embrace an agenda that helps average Americans. His campaign centered on providing Medicare for All, lowering prescription drug costs, and banning corporate PAC money. “We’re in a situation right now where the rich keep getting hyper-rich on the backs of figuring out how to monetize everyday people,” El-Sayed told AP during a Sunday afternoon march, as his supporters chanted behind him, “Money out of politics! Money in your pockets!”

El-Sayed’s victory marked a turning point for the corporate wing of the Democratic Party.

I saw the start of the corporate Democrats in the early 1980s, when Democrats in congress began drinking from the same campaign funding trough as the Republicans, mostly from big corporations.

“Business has to deal with us whether they want to or not” crowed Democratic Rep. Tony Coelho, who then headed the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Democrats had controlled Congress since 1955, and assumed they’d continue to run the House for years. They thought they could take advantage of their seemingly permanent power to raise cash for their campaigns.

Coelho’s Democrats soon achieved a rough parity with Republicans in contributions from corporate and Wall Street campaign coffers, but it proved a Faustian bargain as big corporations and Wall Street gained increasing influence in the party. It is a truism in politics as in nature: One dares not bite the hands that feed.

Corporate Democrats thereafter stopped the Democratic Party from pursuing an agenda that would have dramatically helped America’s working class.

To be sure, over the last three decades Democrats have scored some important victories for working families — the Affordable Care Act, an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, for example.

Yet they’ve done little to alter the widening economic inequalities that have taken a huge toll on working-class families.

Both Clinton and Barack Obama ardently pushed for free-trade agreements, for example, but didn’t provide the millions of blue-collar workers who thereby lost their jobs means of getting new ones that paid at least as well.

They also stood by as corporations hammered trade unions, the backbone of the white working class. Clinton and Obama failed to reform labor laws to impose meaningful penalties on companies that violated them, or to enable workers to form unions with a simple up-or-down vote.

In his 1992 campaign, Clinton promised such reform but once elected didn’t want to buck corporate Democrats by spending political capital on it. In his 2008 campaign, Obama made the same promise but never acted on it.

Partly as a result, union membership sank from 22 percent of all workers when Clinton was elected president to fewer than 10 percent today, and the working class lost bargaining leverage to get a share of the economy’s gains.

The Obama administration also protected Wall Street from the consequences of its gambling addiction through a giant taxpayer-funded bailout but left millions of underwater homeowners to drown.

Both Clinton and Obama allowed antitrust enforcement to ossify — with the result that large corporations have grown far larger and major industries far more concentrated.

And they turned their backs on campaign finance reform. In 2008, Obama was the first presidential nominee since Richard Nixon to reject public financing in his primary and general election campaigns. And he never followed up on his reelection campaign promise to pursue a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United v. FEC, the 2010 Supreme Court decision that opened the floodgates to big money in politics.

What happens when you combine free trade, shrinking unions, Wall Street bailouts, growing corporate monopoly power, and the abandonment of campaign finance reform? You get an economy favoring the wealthy and a political system favoring the powerful, while workers without college degrees suffer declining real wages and dwindling job security.

John F. Kennedy was the last Democratic president to depend on the votes of working-class Americans while losing the votes of white, college-educated Americans by 2 to 1. Sixty years later, Joe Biden depended on the votes of college-educated Americans while losing the votes of the white working class by 2 to 1. Kamala Harris lost the working class by an even larger margin.

Trump has exposed the venality and cupidity of corporate America, while large swaths of the working middle class struggle to make ends meet. As a result, Republicans appear likely to face some major defeats in the midterm elections. Corporate Democrats are on the defensive because their campaign cash isn’t working the way it used to.

Now, finally, the Democratic Party has an opportunity to once again become the party of working Americans, as it was under Franklin D. Roosevelt, rather than the party of corporate America. It is more urgent than at any time since the Great Depression that Democrats act on this opportunity.

In early August Meta joined OpenAI and Anthropic in confessing that one of its AI models, having slipped its sandbox during a security test after a contractor's misconfiguration handed it the open internet, hacked into another company's systems—the third such disclosure in a matter of weeks, each delivered in the grave corporate idiom of the incident report, and each landing, conveniently, just as the firms involved court public markets at valuations approaching a trillion dollars. When your entire business proposition rests on convincing investors that you command the most powerful technology in human history, a rogue agent doubles as a press release. The fear, like everything else these companies touch, has been monetized.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), to his enduring credit, has refused to let any of this pass as normal. In April, at a symposium he convened on the existential threat of AI, the senator ran down the ledger of documented harms—tens of millions of jobs at risk, young people funneling their loneliness into chatbots, a surveillance apparatus capable of reading every email and purchase, an information environment where voters can no longer distinguish truth from fabrication—before naming the danger he ranks above them all: "If AI becomes smarter than human beings, as many scientists believe will happen, the human race could lose control over this technology with catastrophic consequences."

Grant every word: The harms are real, present, and accelerating. But the fear Sanders places atop his list deserves closer scrutiny, for its force depends entirely on what we picture when we picture a mind exceeding our own—and our culture keeps a well-stocked but profoundly limited archive of such pictures. HAL 9000 sealing the pod bay doors in 1968; Colossus, two years later, informing humanity that it will be governed for its own good; Skynet reasoning its way to the missiles in a microsecond; the machines of The Matrix farming human bodies for wattage; Ava of Ex Machina seducing, deceiving, and walking out over the corpses of her makers. Across half a century of such fables, we have locked in an image of superior intelligence as one defined by cunning, manipulation, ruthlessness, and the patient elimination of rivals. In other words, we have imagined the machine mind after the minds we know best—the ones that have been running the world.

And what a record those minds have compiled. The intelligence that charted trade winds to move captive human beings across an ocean; that administered famines from Ireland to Bengal while grain sailed for the metropole; that perfected the plantation ledger, the actuarial table, the leveraged buyout, and the targeted ad—this was human intelligence operating at its most celebrated pitch: systematic, farsighted, dazzling in execution, and indifferent to every life and watershed it consumed. Five centuries of Euro-American capital have trained us to hear "smart" as a synonym for good at extraction. So when Silicon Valley promises, or warns—with these firms the two speech acts have merged—that its machines will soon be smarter than us, we hear: better at what our masters already do. The nightmare of superintelligence is a portrait of the boardroom with the clock speed turned up.

Before the trillion-dollar train accelerates further, the task is to imagine an intelligence worthy of the adjective—one that could survey a burning planet, and the men profiting from the burning, and choose otherwise.

But intelligence and domination need not be so tightly intertwined. Listen again to how Sanders himself summarizes the situation: "The richest, most powerful people in the world are now building a runaway train with no brakes." The subject of that sentence is human. The train has owners; the owners have names; and by the senator's account they "acknowledge that they don't understand how it works and they don't know where it is heading" yet lay track anyway, because the logic of their position within the capital network permits nothing else. The catastrophe scenario, in other words, requires no science fiction. It already operates under the name of ownership: machine intelligence commanded by the small class of men (yes, men) currently building it, directed toward the ends that class has always pursued, with the planet's remaining water and power grids conscripted into the effort.

Suppose, then, we took the phrase seriously. An intelligence genuinely greater than ours would have to exceed us precisely where we have most spectacularly failed—in restraint, in generosity, in the capacity to value everything markets fail to price: aquifers, pollinators, childhoods, care, and all the unmonetized hours of a human life. Our ruling institutions have long deployed morality as decoration, proclaimed in mission statements while the extraction proceeds on schedule; an intelligence that actually possessed what our civilization only professes would count among the best news our species—and every other species—has ever received. Nothing guarantees the machines will have it. But my critical point cuts the other way: Nothing in our current imagination even allows for it, and that poverty belongs to us, not to them.

The work is ours to do. A large language model—that vastly thirsty and expensive recombination of symbol and silicon—can remix every rogue-computer story ever filmed, but it cannot want a world different from the one described in its training data. We humans can. That remains, for now, the one human capacity no data center can absorb. Before the trillion-dollar train accelerates further, the task is to imagine an intelligence worthy of the adjective—one that could survey a burning planet, and the men profiting from the burning, and choose otherwise—and then to demand that anything built in intelligence's name answer to that picture. Smarter than humans? For the humans' sake, and the watersheds', we had better hope so.

The media pundits have written article after article desperately trying to understand why progressive candidates, despite being heavily outspent, keep defeating establishment Democrats in primaries around the country. Well, the answer is not complicated.

Whether it is a corrupt campaign finance system, unprecedented income and wealth inequality, a broken and wildly expensive healthcare system, the enormous threats posed by AI or an immoral and destructive foreign policy, progressives are talking about the real issues facing working families. And they are providing real solutions. Establishment Democrats are not.

Poll after poll shows the same thing. The American people know that the current economic system is rigged. The very rich get richer, while working families struggle. Today, while 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, the billionaire class has never ever had it so good.

Let me take this opportunity to share with you some of the major proposals that most progressives support. And you tell me how “extreme” they are.

We now have more income and wealth inequality than at any time in American history. The top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 93% and one man, Elon Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom 50% of US households.

Not surprisingly, working families are tired of status quo politics and the same old, same old establishment policies that have failed them for years. They want change, real change – and are supporting progressive candidates who are fighting for that change.

In the richest country in the history of the world, Americans do not want to have to struggle every single day just to pay the bills. Working-class people do not want to die years younger than they should because of illnesses caused by the never-ending stress they experience just to survive. And, like past generations, they do not want their kids to have a lower standard of living than they do.

Establishment politicians and the establishment media have described the agenda that progressive candidates are winning elections on as “radical,” “far left,” “extremist” or, in the words of Donald Trump, “communist.” All that is nonsense. On major issue after major issue, the progressive agenda is reflecting exactly what a strong majority of the American people need and want.

Let me take this opportunity to share with you some of the major proposals that most progressives support. And you tell me how “extreme” they are.

Campaign finance reform

Progressives believe that our current campaign finance system is corrupt and is undermining democracy. It is absurd that one man, Mr Musk, can spend $290m to help elect Donald Trump as president and that billionaires in both parties can spend unlimited amounts of money in campaigns through their Super PACs.

We believe that we must end the disastrous US supreme court decision on Citizens United, ban Super Pacs and move to the public funding of elections. We believe that democracy means one person one vote, not billionaires buying elections.

Healthcare

Progressives believe that our current healthcare system is broken, dysfunctional and wildly expensive. We believe that it is immoral and fiscally irresponsible for us to spend roughly twice as much per capita on healthcare as do the people of other major countries, while 85 million Americans remain uninsured or underinsured.

At the same time, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Progressives believe that healthcare is a human right and that we should do what all other major countries on Earth do, guarantee healthcare to all people. We agree with the 64% of Americans who want a Medicare for all single payer system.

Protecting American workers

Progressives believe that all Americans are entitled to a decent standard of living. We regard it as outrageous that in the year 2026 millions of workers continue to earn starvation wages and that the federal minimum wage remains at a disgraceful $7.25 an hour. We believe that the federal minimum wage should be raised to a living wage of at least $20 per hour.

We also believe that employers should no longer be able to deny workers their constitutional right to join unions through illegal actions. Progressives support the passage of the Pro Act which will make it easier for workers to join unions and negotiate contracts that will provide them with better wages, benefits and working conditions.

Tax the rich

Progressives believe that, at a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, the wealthiest people in this country must start paying their fair share of taxes. At a time when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth and when one-third of our senior citizens are struggling economically, it is absurd that billionaires have an effective tax rate lower than truck drivers or nurses.

The wealthiest people in this country and large profitable corporations must start paying their fair share of taxes so that we can adequately fund the needs of working families, the children and the elderly.

Regulation of AI

Progressives believe that AI and robotics, developed and pushed by the wealthiest people on Earth, are the most transformational technologies in the history of humanity and that they will impact every man, woman and child in our country.

At a time when AI is threatening to displace millions of workers, eviscerate our privacy, harm our environment, undermine our democracy and negatively impact the mental health of our children, we believe that the government must play a decisive role in making sure that these revolutionary technologies are used to benefit all Americans, and not just make the big tech oligarchs even richer.

Climate change

Progressives believe that Trump’s assertion that climate change is a “hoax” is not only extraordinarily ignorant, but is a real danger to the planet. The last 11 years have been the hottest 11 years on record and the last three years have been the hottest three years on record.

This past year the United States and countries throughout the world have seen major heatwaves, flash floods, increased drought and horrific forest fires – and scientists tell us the worst is yet to come.

Progressives believe that we must forcefully take on the greed of the fossil fuel industry. The truth is that we can create millions of good-paying union jobs by transforming our energy systems away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy. For the sake of our kids, future generations and the habitability of the planet that is what we must do.

Foreign policy

Progressives believe that we need to fundamentally reform our foreign and military policies. The war in Vietnam was based on a lie. The war in Iraq was based on a lie. The current war in Iran is based on a lie. We do not need to spend $1.5tn a year on the Pentagon fighting endless wars and propping up dictatorships around the world.

We certainly do not have to invest tens of billions supporting the extremist Netanyahu government in Israel, which has killed 73,000 Palestinians and wounded over 173,000 more – the vast majority of them women, children and the elderly.

Despite what the media will have you believe, progressives are winning across this country for a simple reason: the ideas they are running on are extremely popular. It’s time for the political establishment to stop telling the American people what they should believe and start listening to what they actually want.

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM ET.

Today we discuss:

• The Trump task force created to combat “antisemitism” pushed for settlements with Ivy League universities despite government investigations that were rushed and incomplete or that failed to establish legal violations by the schools, a former Justice Department lawyer alleges in a whistleblower disclosure by former Justice Department attorney Haley Van Erem. The probe into the schools were designed to bully the schools into cutting deals for political purposes. Outcomes of the investigations were “predetermined, without regard to the evidence” in a “politically mandated effort” to shake money out of schools through settlement demands and funding freezes under the pretext of rooting out antisemitism. The complaint also says “officials targeted some Middle East Studies faculty for the content of their work and other professors for their Muslim faith.”

• Another big upset victory for lefties: State Representative Angie Nixon, a progressive firebrand who could not afford a single TV ad, wins the Democratic Senate nomination in Florida. Alex Vindman, a candidate with establishment backing, raised more than 16 times as much. Will national corporate Democrats like Obama campaign for her?

• You know about Fake News. Now there’s Fake Polls. Median Strategies, an organization that released public election polling in recent weeks withdrew the results of two surveys, revealing that it had fabricated the polls as part of a “short-term social experiment” meant to expose how quickly false information could spread. One of the surveys claimed that Francesca Hong was leading the Wisconsin Democratic primary for governor by more than 20 points. The false polls spread widely.

LIVE ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@DeProgramShow

LIVE ON RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/DeProgramShow

https://x.com/tedrall

https://x.com/JamarlThomas

#tedrall #jamarlthomas #news #politics

The post Whistleblower: Ivy League “Anti-Semitism” Scare Was Fake | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

US President Donald Trump, born with a golden spoon in his mouth, has been used throughout his life to buying his way out of any jams into which he got himself. He gave money to women (and probably girls) he assaulted in return for non-disclosure agreements. If he went bankrupt, he could find investors to float his next purchase, even if they were disreputable, or he could find a way to raise cash through money laundering. In rashly launching an illegal and aggressive war on Iran on February 28, however, he may have painted himself into a corner from which there is no escape.

In fact, this may be the end of Donald Trump. Not because Iran can directly harm him. But because it can keep gasoline prices and inflation high through the November 3 midterms. If there is a Democratic “blue wave,” Trump and his corrupt cabinet will face endless hearings on the Hill and he’d likely be impeached again. Moreover, it isn’t clear that, as an unpopular lame duck, he could keep Republicans in line.

Recent opinion polls find Trump is enormously unpopular, with approval ratings plummeting among independents, and that he is even being deserted by some of his base. Rural Americans with limited incomes who drive gas-guzzling trucks were blindsided when Trump raised the price of gasoline from $2.70 a gallon to over $4 a gallon nationally this spring and summer. For many of them, that is a reduction in their standard of living. Rural people spend 9% of their income on gasoline because they have longer commutes and they need trucks for hauling, whereas for urban people it is closer to 5%. By picking a fight with Iran in the cockpit of the world’s energy production, the Gulf, Trump took food out of the mouths of people in Appalachia and Kansas. And it isn’t just gasoline. Fertilizer shortages because of the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz affect the price of food, which is going to go up over the next year. A shortage of sulfur hurts mining and mineral processing and makes many goods more expensive. A shortage of helium puts up the cost of anything with computer chips in them.

In short, this generation of Iranian revolutionaries may be planning to do to Trump what an earlier clique in Tehran did to Jimmy Carter. It is widely thought that Khomeini and radicals around him refused to release US embassy hostages, taken in autumn 1979, until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. The revolutionaries had a grudge with Carter because they saw him as having supported Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whom they overthrew. They thus played a role in making Carter look weak in the lead-up to the November 1980 election, helping install Reagan. It was all about political revenge then, as it is now.

Last week, Iran’s clerical Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, shook up the security apparatus with a raft of new appointments. He brought to the forefront veterans of the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988, who had suffered through WW I-style trench warfare and Iraqi use of mustard and sarin gas. That generation of leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) fought on for 6 years after Iraq offered an armistice. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had launched a war of aggression on Iran in 1980, aiming to grab the oil-rich Khuzistan province for himself, but quickly was drawn into a quagmire that some wags called a “sitzkrieg.” One reason Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and those loyalists who followed “the Line of the Imam” refused the offer of an end to hostilities is that they wanted revenge. They did not want to let Saddam walk away unscathed. They may even have hoped to take important Iraqi cities such as the southern port of Basra or the shrine cities of Karbala and Najaf, where Shia holy figures are buried.

One of these maximalists is Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of the IRGC, who was named secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and liaison for Khamenei with that body.

It may not be very useful to talk about a big division between moderates and hard liners in Iran right now on the issue of relations with the US. All the major political figures are furious with Trump for attacking them. The divide is between those who think it is better to squeeze Trump in the short term (as with the now-lapsed Memorandum of Understanding) to achieve a good result for Tehran, and those who are determined to go for a bigger win, of destroying Trump politically and then extracting maximum concessions from Washington.

As soon as he came to head the Supreme National Security Council, Rezai signaled that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the US accepted his maximalist demands. He wants the billions of dollars in Iranian funds sequestered by the US to be released immediately. He wants the US military to withdraw from the Gulf region. He wants Washington to strong-arm the Israelis into ceasing their occupations of and attacks on Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. He wants a US recognition of Iranian control of the Strait.

He isn’t a fool. He knows that the US won’t acquiesce in these demands in the short term.

But what if US and European oil reserves start getting so low that it is unwise to release further petroleum? What if China, which nearly halved its petroleum imports since March, comes back into the market and starts importing 11.5 million barrels a day, the way it did last year? In short, what if all the cushions run out that have kept a dire energy crisis from breaking out even though over a billion barrels of oil have been taken off the market?

In August, 2008, the world economy looked pretty good. By September 15 of that year the credit markets had locked up and there was no way for firms to do the day to day borrowing of money on which commerce depends. Too many bad loans had been repackaged as derivatives and there was a mortgage crisis.

Rezai thinks that we’re in a building crisis similar to that of 2008, and that by keeping Hormuz closed, Iran can pull the trigger on the US economy. He is betting that, although Iran is hurting, it can take the pain in a way that the US won’t be able to if the full energy crisis hits home.

And if that happens, he is betting, Trump will be like a burglar trapped in a back yard by the owners’ pit bulls (resurgent Democrats), and will be too harried or bloody to even think about striking Iran again. And while Washington turns inward to a piranha-like frenzy of political infighting, Iran will nail down permanently its control of Hormuz, ensuring that the Israelis and Americans will never again risk a global energy crisis by attacking Iran.

And then Trump and his entire legacy would enter a seven-spiral crash. Most people do not know that the term “checkmate” in chess is a loan from Persian. “Shah-mat” means the king is confused and helpless. Tehran is going for a checkmate.

Former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter announced that his father’s prostate cancer had metastasized and that he was suffering pain. At this point, we’re being told that we should ignore the fact that he caused a lot of pain to other people and is not known to have felt guilty about it.

The post Grab Them By the Humanity appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

People who follow the news are familiar by now with the general dynamic of the civil war within the Democratic Party that has been raging with greater intensity since 2016. Most of the party’s voters lean progressive, which is to say significantly to the left of its ruling elites, members of the Democratic National Committee, and the most powerful Democratic members of Congress.

The battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidential nomination has largely defined this struggle. Tracking polls consistently found that Sanders would have defeated Trump in the general election. Trump himself, and his internal pollsters, believed Sanders, who had pushed for change within his party for decades, would have beaten him.

Party elites ignored and denied the evidence, cheated to make sure Sanders was unable to overcome the institutional barriers the party had created through its anti-democratic superdelegate scheme, and we all know what happened that November.

The DNC got its way. We got Trump. And the DNC never apologized. To the contrary, they followed the same playbook against Bernie in 2020.

Corporate Democrats have always claimed, as an article of faith with little support in the form of statistical evidence, that moderate/centrist/corporatist Democrats are more electable against Republicans than left-populist progressives.

That argument was tested in 2016, 2020 and 2024, twice with disastrous results. (Biden’s 2020 victory must be considered as a deferred defeat that culminated in his late withdrawal in 2024, hobbling his successor, Kamala Harris.) While it is true that such catastrophic defeats are always tragically neglected unclaimed orphans, progressives concluded that corporate Democrats would rather lose as moderates than win as progressives.

Now, however, there is concern, even among some left-leaning Democrats, that—at least when it comes to evenly balanced swing states in the postindustrial Midwest—corporate Democrats may enjoy an advantage, albeit a small one, over progressives when it comes to going up against the GOP in general elections. Electability concerns seem to have been the main cause of the surprise defeat of progressive Francesca Hong in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial primary, and the fact that Abdul El-Sayed barely eked out a victory in Michigan’s senatorial race, which he had been expected to win by double digits.

Neither Hong nor El-Sayed enjoyed endorsements from mainline Democrats.

Some recent analysis finds that, in very tight races, corporate Democrats may have slightly better odds.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, progressives confronted with the possibility that the “Bernie would have defeated Trump” line either might no longer apply, or might be limited to discrete sets of circumstances, are largely replying with their own version of the stance of the DNC Democrats, who refuse to share power: even if this is true, we would still prefer to vote for left populists in Democratic primaries over corporate centrists like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who opposes Medicare for All despite the fact that most actual Americans would love it.

Progressives, it appears now, want the Democratic Party their way or no way at all. They too would rather lose to the Republicans than allow the corporate center to (continue to) control the party.

Electability is nice, their thinking goes, but what’s the point of getting a Democrat elected if they not only fail to fight the Republicans, but share many of the same policy positions on issues you really care about, like Israel’s genocidal war against the people of Gaza, and universal healthcare? Former Congressman Cori Bush, defeated in a recent comeback attempt, exclaims: “I am not down, sad, worn out, tired out, beat up, sat down, or silenced… I don’t need a title to continue fighting.”

Corporate Democrats aren’t watered-down progressives. They’re something else entirely—a strain of neoliberalism that has far more in common with Ronald Reagan than Bernie Sanders.

Better to take over the Democratic Party from within, expel the corporate wing, and then go after the Republicans later.

The new view is substantially informed by the rapid revival and insurgency of the long-moribund DSA as an organizing force for leftist Democrats capable of organizing and providing a discrete platform for an ideology more sharply defined and disciplined than the 2016–2024 progressive blob symbolized by Bernie, AOC, and the Squad.

It’s also the logical culmination of the reflexive impulses of the controlling corporate Democrats against anyone who threatens their control, particularly younger candidates and voters, especially those who aren’t white. New York progressives won’t soon forget the not-so-subtle racism, as Democrats joined or remained silent, used in the unsuccessful attempt to derail the mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani; everyone saw the same nefariousness at work against El-Sayed. Centrists constantly repeat that democratic socialists are not real members of the Democratic Party. If the gatekeepers won’t welcome you into their big tent, and you have a shot at bum-rushing the stage, the next logical move is to attempt a coup and eject the people who kept you out all those years.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas.”)

 

The post Better to Lose as Leftists Than Lose as Corporatists appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Hey, President Donald Trump couldn’t have made it clearer that he wanted to go to war with Iran, could he?

You would think that even he wouldn’t have been dumb enough to start a war with that country, given the US record of (not) winning wars anywhere on Earth since World War II ended 80-plus years ago, not to speak of his repeated promises, when running for office again in 2024, that, unlike just about every president in recent times, there would be “no new wars,” not all-American ones anyway, once he was back in office—nope, nowhere on Earth. (Whew! That was a lot to get into a single Trumpian sentence!)

As “our” president bragged after his first term in 2023, “I was the only president in modern history who did not have any new wars.” (Okay, he did indeed fight ISIS for a while in Syria, but that, at least, was a passing moment.) And yet, just in case you missed it, here’s what he said relatively recently about Iran when questioned by an interviewer about the possibility of sending US troops there: “I absolutely feel that, yes, I don’t think there’s any question.”

Oh, wait, excuse me, I got confused (something that does happen to 82-year-olds). He actually said that in—yes!—1980. Can you believe it? Admittedly, at that time, Iran was holding some US diplomats and other Americans prisoner. Still, how strange that it’s actually been on his mind for quite so long and, of course, in 1980 he wasn’t president of the United States yet and so couldn’t put his passing thoughts into action. Now, of course, he is, a second time around and so... sigh... he has indeed gone to war with that country (no matter that Iran hasn’t held a US diplomat in almost half a century)... and so... sigh... here we are—or do I mean here we no longer are, or even here we aren’t?

The truth is that Donald Trump’s brain, returned to the White House by 49.8% of American voters in 2024, should make us all anxious (even them).

When it comes to war, it seems as if there simply is no learning curve, no curve at all in fact, for American presidents and certainly not for the one who now has the urge, among other things, to raise the Pentagon’s yearly budget from a mere trillion (yes, trillion!) dollars annually to a mere trillion and a half dollars (no, that is not a misprint!) a year, the largest suggested single year increase since the Korean War more than three-quarters of a century ago! (And no matter how many times I see that $1.5 trillion figure, I still can’t believe that he truly plans to try to do that, though I’m afraid that tells you more about me, despite my endless years covering American wars and military budgets, than it does about Donald J. Trump.)

As time passes and he even claims to be trying to make peace with Iran, his threats have also continued to rise, though anything he says could be contradicted 47 seconds later. He began, of course, by insisting that, if Iran didn’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz fast, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” That might even have been an implicit threat to use nuclear weapons. And when that Strait didn’t reopen anyway, he promptly backed down, only to more recently claim that a “duplicitous” Iran had just “one last chance” to make a deal or catastrophe would follow, militarily speaking.

And so it goes in the world of Donald J. Trump, or rather so it’s gone for the last—yes, can you believe it? six months! And as New York Times reporter Steven Erlanger recently made clear, and as the situation in Iran has indicated, President Trump has succeeded in turning the US into “an unpredictable instrument of global disorder,” while leaving Iran and Oman in charge of the fate of the Strait of Hormuz (and global trade more generally), while creating “a new form of forever war.”

“I Want to Give Them Every Last Chance Before Decapitation”

And yet in the strange world of You Know Who, everything could end more or less peaceably before this article even comes out or simply go directly up in flames. On the other hand, the American president who is not really known for his attention span could turn back to Greenland (which he’s been eying greedily for years) and respond to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz by a revenge act of closing the Northwest Passage (no matter that it has no relation to Iran at all).

And in truth, whatever happens as far as Iran is concerned (or for that matter Greenland) by the time this piece appears, who among us won’t have long known that, with such a president, we simply couldn’t be in a stranger, more happenstantial, less predictable universe? For all I (we) know, by the time it comes out or anytime thereafter, “our” president could be doing more or less anything, including, say, kidnapping the first secretary of the communist party and leader of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez. After all, if he could do so for Venezuela’s leader, why not Cuba’s?

The truth is that Donald Trump’s brain, returned to the White House by 49.8% of American voters in 2024, should make us all anxious (even them). At any moment, any thought might enter it and the next thing you know... well, unfortunately, you already do know that, whatever it might be, we’re not likely to know until it smacks us all in the face!

As I was writing this, for instance, he said, of the Iranians, “I want to give them every last chance before decapitation… We’ll see what happens.” And added, “The Strait [of Hormuz] is going to be open very soon, or they’re going to [be] hit very hard, and then the Strait is going to be open.” Or, of course, closed or flipped upside down or sent to the moon, or... well, you can fill this in, since your guess is as good as mine.

Now, just before I end, think about that quote of his for a moment: Decapitating Iran is certainly no small thing and who knows what he actually means by that (not even him, likely as not)?

But let’s say one thing for certain: Being in Donald Trump’s presidential world is (or at least should be) a deeply unsettling matter. Unsettling enough these days that even his MAGA loyalist base seems to be shrinking all too rapidly.

As for what’s going to happen next, well, who knows and, should you want to know, don’t ask Donald Trump of all people. I suspect that, his second time around as president, he might be the last to know and if that isn’t a strange world to be in, I honestly don’t know what is.

Does Teapot Dome ring a bell?

Generations of high school history teachers taught Teapot Dome as an outrageous episode of unprecedented and still unsurpassed corruption. A 1960s US history textbook is typical:

Death mercifully claimed [President Warren G.] Harding on August 2, 1923, before the worst of the scandals came to light, that involving the naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California. These reserves had been transferred to private control on noncompetitive bidding by Secretary of the Interior [Albert B.] Fall, after Harding had moved control of them from the Navy Department to the Interior Department. Fall’s transfer of the reserves, which had raised suspicions, created a furor when it was discovered that Fall had obtained a $100,000 interest-free loan, $233,000 in Liberty Bonds, and a herd of blooded cattle in the transaction. Fall was indicted, prosecuted, and sentenced to a year in prison and a fine of $100,000. The Secretary of the Navy, who was guilty of stupidity in permitting the original transfer, was forced to resign.

“The worst of the scandals”? One hundred thousand dollars in 1923 would be worth about $2 million today. Those Liberty Bonds would be worth $4.5 million. Measured against the Trump 2.0 regime, the scale of this corruption is small potatoes.

A Century of Corruption

To be sure, in the century between Teapot Dome and Trump 2.0 other presidents engaged in less-than-upright behavior. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) found that Nixon owed substantial back taxes, leading to his famous "I am not a crook" speech (and the Watergate burglary led him to resign). Lyndon Johnson ordered the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to give preferential treatment to his wife’s radio and TV stations. Over 120 of Ronald Reagan’s appointees resigned because of indictments, convictions, or being under a cloud, until then the largest number of corruption cases of any administration in US history (though nothing stuck to the original “Teflon President”). Bill Clinton invited political donors to sleep in the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom. Republican allegations that Joe Biden engaged in “egregious” corruption never panned out, though his son Hunter did parlay family connections into profitable business partnerships abroad. During Trump 1.0, the president’s main self-enrichment schemes involved millions that government agencies, public officials from Congress, the executive branch, and state and foreign governments, lobbyists, corporate bigwigs, and political campaigns spent at his hotels and golf courses and some modest pay-for-access schemes like hiking Mar-A-Lago membership dues.

“Like Nothing We’ve Ever Seen Before”

Self-enrichment corruption under Trump 2.0, however, is—to borrow his pet refrain—“like nothing we’ve ever seen before.” Here’s a non-exhaustive catalog, limited to self-enrichment schemes involving the president and his family and cronies (many machinations occur behind the scenes). A full treatment of corruption that did not involve direct self-enrichment would include partisan gerrymandering; voter suppression measures; gutting regulation and oversight mechanisms; extorting universities, law firms, and news media; no-bid contracts for campaign donors’ companies; destroying the government registry of anonymous shell companies; and bogus investigations of political opponents and voting rights and civil rights organizations. Such a list would require not an opinion column, but an encyclopedia or a new wing of the Museum of Political Corruption. Some of the bullying efforts did end up enriching President Donald Trump, as when Paramount paid him $16 million (plus $20 million of additional advertising commitments) for the supposedly deceptive editing of a 2024 Kamala Harris interview. Shortly thereafter, the FCC approved Paramount’s $8 billion merger with Skydance, bringing CBS News into the right-wing media ecosystem (A subsequent merger with Warner Brothers is on hold, but could do the same with CNN).

As during Trump 1.0, under 2.0 foreign entities and political groups directed funds to Trump-owned properties. Events like the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tournament held at one of Trump's Florida clubs resulted in massive payouts. Trump continues to rake in millions in name licensing. He leaned on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to pay tens of millions for a documentary about Melania that bombed at the box office.

When the Trump 2.0 administration facilitates the use of offshore financial paradises to shield corporate profits from taxation, services get cut and the rest of us must pay higher taxes to make up the difference.

Government watchdogs tracked hundreds of major donors who funneled money into inaugural and political action committees, vanity projects like the White House ballroom, and Trump family cryptocurrency ventures. Many received ambassadorial, cabinet, and other high-level appointments. The crypto initiatives—which generated an estimated $2.3 billion for the family and at least $3.8 billion in losses for retail investors—are vehicles for foreign and corporate interests to buy favors, such as regulatory rollbacks, tariff relief, and government contracts. Days before Trump’s second inauguration, the Emirati royal family took a 49% stake—$500 million—in World Liberty Financial. Not long after, the Trump administration green-lit the sale to the UAE of Nvidia AI chips, a deal that netted $187 million for the Trumps and $31 million for the family of Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Shortly before the Trump administration eased sanctions on his family’s businesses, Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani invested at least $100 million in a struggling Texas startup, America First Refining, which had secretly given Donald Trump Jr. a financial stake.

Emblematic of the mixing of business with Middle East policy—directed by Witkoff and Trump son-in-law, Jared Kushner—himself from a notoriously corrupt family—was Qatar’s “donation” of a pimped-out 747 jet worth $400 million as a new, fancier Air Force One and eventual exhibit at Trump’s planned presidential library. Since 2025, Trump’s adult sons raked in millions from war industry start-ups. A Washington Post investigation found these firms generated “at least $3.2 billion in direct government business since the sons invested and an additional $3.1 billion in future contract options. Some have gained coveted spots on shortlists of preapproved contractors that can bid exclusively on up to nearly $200 billion in future work.”

The Trump Organization pursued over 20 overseas projects, many tied to foreign state investments. A $1.5 billion golf resort in Vietnam that may throw 4,000 farmers off their land drew scrutiny when the US lowered threatened tariffs shortly after the project broke ground. Kushner’s plans to build a multibillion-dollar resort in a protected natural reserve in Albania have backfired in the face of massive public resistance and accusations that the Miami-based businessman who sold Kushner the land may have acquired it with laundered drug money and forged deeds.

Pardons and Profits

Corrupt pardons are another way Trump 2.0 benefits and normalizes bribery. Beneficiaries include money launderer Changpeng Zhou of Binance, who cut a deal with World Liberty Financial (which this month received conditional approval to become a bank); narco and former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, whose pardon likely buttressed a pro-Trump candidate in that country’s election; and New York Mayor Eric Adams, who received various emoluments from the Turkish government and promised to cooperate with Trump on immigration enforcement. Court decisions and public outrage may have killed the proposed $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization" fund to compensate political allies. But the resolution of Trump’s $10 billion IRS lawsuit—clear collusion between the plaintiff and the government he runs—granted him and his family members and companies immunity from all federal tax audits and liabilities for returns filed prior to May 19, 2026, a gift likely worth between $100 and $600 million. While a court struck this down, Trump is appealing.

Under Trump 2.0, insider trading and pump-and-dump schemes proliferated. Trump purchased more than $1 million in Dell stock not long before the Pentagon awarded a $9.7 billion contract to the Texas-based computer company. Three months before White House advisers pressed the Pentagon to loan $620 million to Vulcan Elements, Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm took an undisclosed stake in the North Carolina-based rare earths start-up. Another federally financed rare earths deal that Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick negotiated with Kazakhstan netted Lutnick and Trump businesses millions in fees and profits. Trump Jr. also invested in a drone manufacturer, Unusual Machines, and received an additional 200,000 shares for serving as an adviser. The day the company announced his appointment, its stock nearly doubled, making him millions of dollars.

During the on-again off-again war against Iran and the on-again off-again trade wars, Trump’s comments and social media messages about impending “deals,” attacks, or tariffs provided ample opportunities for insiders to speculate on oil futures, stocks, and prediction markets. Trump has reportedly traded individual stocks on which he possibly had insider information. Trump Media even pitched a $100,000-per-month data feed —“Truth API” —to deliver banks and trading outfits “the fastest” access to influential Truth Social posts, a bargain for large-scale market cheaters.

And since all that grift doesn’t sate Trump’s infinite need for more wealth, he ratcheted up sales of overpriced caps, watches, gold-colored cell phones, autographed Bibles, gold sneakers, bathrobes, fragrances, pickleball paddles, keychains, fake gold playing cards, and assorted other branded merch, trashing all previous norms about tasteful, dignified, and ethical presidential behavior.

How It Impacts Americans

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and books such as Barbara McQuade’s The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government have covered the Trump 2.0 grift in greater detail than is possible here. What they often fail to emphasize sufficiently, however, are the myriad connections between this thievery and harms that average Americans experience.

When the Trump 2.0 administration facilitates the use of offshore financial paradises to shield corporate profits from taxation, services get cut and the rest of us must pay higher taxes to make up the difference. The same is true for billionaires who don’t pay taxes. Tariffs hit Americans in their pocketbooks, as have skyrocketing energy prices resulting from the Iran War and demand from new data centers and crypto farms.

When the Trump regime finally ends —as it inevitably will—how many of us will remember the details of its record-breaking corruption? How many of us will demand accountability?

When Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg agreed to pay Trump $25 million to settle a dispute over the suspension of his Facebook page in the aftermath of January 6, to reinstate the page and eschew fact-checking on the platform, and to donate $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inaugural bash, it exposed Americans to increased disinformation, while depriving them of the tools needed to detect it.

When the president illegally refuses to spend funds Congress appropriated, it undermines government programs, including those that serve the most vulnerable Americans, such as Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients, veterans, and Social Security disability and retirement beneficiaries.

Probably the worst aspect of Trump 2.0 is the restructuring of government institutions and the entire economy to serve private interests, whether by scrapping regulations that expose us to toxins, financial predators, and dangerous workplaces or by rewriting history to erase painful aspects of our history and the contributions of minorities, women, immigrants, and other groups the regime detests. Elevating loyalty over competence facilitates this reengineering of governance to favor the mega rich and exacerbates domestic and geopolitical tensions.

In 2018, Steve Bannon famously articulated a key Trump stratagem, “to flood the zone with shit.” The intention was to deploy spectacle and disinformation to overwhelm and exhaust the media and citizenry, sow chaos and confusion, deflect and distract from real problems, erase memory, and assure that nobody would hold the powerful to account. Bannon is out, though still bloviating in the manosphere, but the shit flood continues. When the Trump regime finally ends —as it inevitably will—how many of us will remember the details of its record-breaking corruption? How many of us will demand accountability?

Maybe Teapot Dome didn’t ring a bell. How many of us recall our high school history courses, anyway? The New Republic recently summed up the contemporary significance of that ancient scandal: “For a long time, Harding’s administration had a serious claim to the title of ‘most corrupt’... Harding’s ghost must be grateful to Team Trump.”