This is the text of a letter Bernie Sanders sent to Democratic Party members of Congress

Last month, the Social Security Administration released a report finding that by 2032 the Social Security Trust Fund will be able to cover just 78 percent of the benefits of more than 70 million Americans who have earned them. In other words, if Congress does not act within the next six years, Social Security benefits will be cut by 22 percent.

We have an obligation to the American people to ensure that never happens. Just as importantly, we have a responsibility to tell the American people exactly where we stand. Americans deserve to know not only how we will extend Social Security’s solvency, but how we will address the retirement crisis facing millions of seniors today.

The United States is the wealthiest nation in the history of the world. Yet, more than 20 percent of our nation’s seniors are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year, and nearly half are struggling to make ends meet on less than $30,000 annually.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has found that the United States has the highest senior poverty rate of almost any major country on earth. Adding insult to injury, nearly half of older workers between the ages of 55 and 64 have no retirement savings and no idea how they will ever be able to retire with any shred of dignity or respect.

Given that reality, the Democratic Caucus must make it abundantly clear that under no circumstances will we support legislation that cuts Social Security benefits, raises the retirement age, reduces Cost-of-Living Adjustments (COLAs), or privatizes this essential program.

Instead, at a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, our position must be simple and straightforward: we will strengthen and expand Social Security by requiring that the wealthiest people in this country finally pay their fair share into the Social Security system.

In 2023, the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration found that we could extend the life of Social Security for 75 years, increase benefits by $2,400 a year, lift millions of seniors out of poverty, and expand COLAs—all without raising taxes by one penny on the bottom 91 percent of Americans who earn less than $250,000 a year.

How? By applying the Social Security payroll tax to all income, including capital gains and dividends, above $250,000 a year. Today, absurdly and unfairly, there is a cap on income subject to Social Security taxes. This year that cap is $184,500. What does that mean?

It means that Elon Musk—the wealthiest man in the world, worth an estimated $690 billion—pays the same amount into Social Security as someone earning $184,500 a year. It means that someone making $184,500 pays 6.2 percent of every dollar they earn into Social Security. But someone making ten times that amount—$1.845 million—pays just 0.6 percent of their income into the system. That is grossly unfair. That has got to change.

At a time when the wealthiest people in America are becoming much wealthier, asking them to pay the same percentage of their income into Social Security as teachers, nurses, firefighters, and construction workers is not a radical idea. It is common sense. It is what the American people want.

A 2023 poll by Data for Progress found that 78 percent of the American people support legislation that would accomplish this goal including 85 percent of Democrats, 75 percent of Independents, and 72 percent of Republicans. Unfortunately, instead of clearly telling the American people how we intend to strengthen Social Security, there are now Members of Congress who are considering legislation that moves us in exactly the wrong direction.

The so-called PROMISE Act would direct four unelected members of the Social Security Advisory Board to produce, in little more than a month, a proposal to make Social Security solvent for the next 50 years—with virtually no transparency, no meaningful public input, and no accountability.

If the Advisory Board reaches an agreement, Congress would be required to vote on their proposal during the lame-duck session after the November elections when Republicans still control the Senate and the House.

If the Board cannot reach an agreement, the PROMISE Act would allow any Member of Congress to force a vote on their own Social Security proposal under expedited procedures without the opportunity to amend it or seek a compromise – also during the lame-duck session.

In other words, Members of Congress who have been defeated at the polls or who have chosen to retire could determine the future of Social Security for the next half century. Even more significantly, a political party that was repudiated by the electorate in the mid-term elections could determine the fate of Social Security. That would be absurd, anti-democratic and unacceptable.

In my view, the Democratic Caucus must strongly oppose the PROMISE Act—or any legislation that fast-tracks fundamental changes to Social Security through an unelected commission. And that is not just my view.

It is the view of the AARP, the nation’s largest senior organization in our country representing 38 million Americans who are at least 50 years of age. In a letter dated July 21, 2026, the AARP wrote:

We strongly object to fast-tracking Social Security changes through Congress, as [the PROMISE Act] would do. Strengthening Social Security should happen through regular order, in full public view, with openness and transparency—rather than through a process that limits the type of amendments and sets arbitrary procedural deadlines to short-circuit the debate. If regular order is the gold standard for routine legislative matters, it certainly should be the standard for something as important as Social Security.

We should stand with the AARP and oppose this legislation.

At a time when the very rich are getting richer while working families struggle, it is no great secret that millions of Americans no longer have faith in the political process or either major party. They see the current political system as rigged and corrupt, benefiting the powerful and wealthy campaign contributors.

If the Democratic Party is ever to regain the faith of ordinary Americans it must stand firm on the issue of Social Security. That means: We will not cut Social Security benefits. We will not raise the retirement age. We will not reduce Cost-of-Living Adjustments. We will not privatize Social Security. We will not support procedural shortcuts that make it easier to reduce earned Social Security benefits behind closed doors while limiting public debate.

Instead, we will strengthen and expand Social Security by requiring the wealthiest Americans to finally pay the same percentage of their income into Social Security as tens of millions of working people do today. That is how we prevent benefit cuts. That is how we expand Social Security. That is how we extend Social Security’s solvency for generations to come. That is how the Democratic Party begins to regain the trust of the American people.

Bernie Sanders is a US Senator, and the ranking member of the Senate budget committee. He represents the state of Vermont, and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress.

This is the text of a letter by Bernie Sanders.

-CounterPunch

 

"Add another chapter to the yearslong feud between Trump and Comey"

The FBI opened an investigation into whether President Trump was acting as a Russian asset after he fired FBI Director James Comey in 2017, newly declassified memos show.

Why it matters: The release of the files on the probe, known as "Oxferd Comma," revives one of the most consequential episodes in the Trump-Comey saga and comes months after Trump's Department of Justice again put the former FBI director under criminal indictment.

The latest: Asked why the Trump administration was releasing memos previously marked as a "sensitive investigative matter" now, an administration official said the president had directed the White House Government Transparency Task Force to identify previously undisclosed evidence of what the administration views as government weaponization.

The official said that as the task force identifies material and declassifies it, it makes the information public and sends it to Congress.

The official said lawmakers' reaction Wednesday to the newly released material showed that even members of Congress who investigated the matter had not been fully aware of what had occurred.

Driving the news: The memos the White House released Wednesday show the FBI opened an investigation in May 2017 into whether there was any collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign during the 2016 election.

Investigators examined whether Trump was "wittingly or unwittingly" involved in activities for or on behalf of Russia, "which may constitute violations of federal criminal law or threats to the national security of the United States," according to one of the declassified memos.

"Based on the facts and circumstances provided to date, the FBI believes that opening this investigation is the least intrusive method to address the serious national security risk posed by the activities alleged," it said.

Context: The case was closed in April 2019, soon after former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation concluded with no charges against Trump.

Mueller's probe resulted in several criminal cases against people in Trump's orbit. However, his report found no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, though it neither implicated nor cleared the president of obstructing justice.

The big picture: The newly released memos add another chapter to the yearslong feud between Trump and Comey that has shaped investigations, court battles and political attacks since Trump fired the former FBI director.

The DOJ had Comey indicted in April in connection with a 2025 social media post by the former FBI chief that featured seashells arranged to display "86 47," which some Republicans at the time interpreted as a threat against Trump.

The charges of making threats against the president and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce came five months after a judge dismissed an earlier DOJ case against Comey on charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing its investigation of the Russia probe.

Comey's legal team declined to comment. The White House did not respond to Axios' request for comment.

Go deeper: James Comey indicted again, this time over "86 47" photo

Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional details throughout.

 

"We get it, Mitch. Paid sick leave for me but never for thee."

 

Welcome to August and the kickoff to Month Three of Sen. Mitch “MIA” McConnell’s taxpayer-funded medical leave. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear recently wrote a letter demanding that McConnell make a public address or issue his immediate resignation. The hypocrisy in collecting a paycheck since June 14, the last date McConnell showed up at work, makes one thing abundantly clear: the Republican Party has zero shame.

When it comes to paid sick leave, the United States is a global outlier in its refusal to require employers to provide it for workers. Of course, this is in large part thanks to McConnell’s decades-long tenure in the Senate. In 1993, he notoriously voted against the landmark Family and Medical Leve Act (FMLA), one of only 27 senators to do so. 

Thanks to the FMLA, most employees are guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, to recover from an illness, or to care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition.

[Personal note: FMLA was the only form of maternity leave I was afforded for my firstborn in 1996, and I was back on the job 12 weeks later; grateful as I was for the legal mandate that my position be held for me, our nation’s inability to ensure universal and paid parental leave is beyond a disgrace. But I digress]. 

McConnell’s FMLA vote to derail even unpaid leave was hardly a career one-off. During the height of the pandemic, he blocked various federal paid sick and family leave extensions in congressional stimulus packages — and then laughed about it. In 2022, he voted against a proposal that would have guaranteed seven days of paid sick leave for freight rail workers.

We get it, Mitch. Paid sick leave for me but never for thee.

The double standard goes even deeper. Conspiracy theories flooded the Internet over a pair of Weekend at Bernie’s-style photos, a response to public speculation as to his whereabouts (which achieved exactly the opposite of assurance that he is alive and kicking). 

But it was his companion written statement crowing about the excellent health care he’s receiving while hospitalized that was so galling — something millions of fellow Americans can barely imagine today thanks to his longstanding effort to repeal and stymie the Affordable Care Act.

McConnell’s written statement was also rife with reminders of his lifelong physical challenges from childhood polio and his fears of being on the receiving end of age discrimination. He’s not been a vaccine-denier, I’ll give him that, but his overall record on supporting truth in science and equal treatment under the law is long, self-serving, and ugly.

Meanwhile, McConnell is not even the only Republican in Congress who has been off the job while collecting a paycheck. Rep. Thomas Kean Jr. also failed to show up for nearly four months, missing every House vote from March 5 to June 30. He, too, has rallied against legislation to require employers provide paid sick leave for workers during his prior stint in the New Jersey state Senate.

When Kean eventually returned to work, he grudgingly shared that he had been receiving inpatient mental health treatment and sought to maintain his privacy. Privacy, ahh, must be nice — now unheard of for any female of reproductive age in this country. 

I dare say McConnell’s singular and most significant contribution to the downward spiral of American democracy is his engineering of the current composition of the U.S. Supreme Court, which made its first order of business decimating a constitutional right to privacy when it overturned Roe v. Wade. 

As for Kean, pro-choice groups uncovered a trove of deceptive statements about abortion he’s made over the course of his political career. Privacy, dignity, and control of one’s healthcare are similarly “me” and not “thee” rights.

[Another presumably missed vote by McConnell will be the confirmation of Todd Blanche as U.S. attorney general; Politico reported yesterday that Blanche was caught on tape pledging he would deploy the Justice Department in concert with Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, and the White House to curtail abortion rights nationwide].

We all surely know that the dysfunction of our democracy means the likes of McConnell and Kean have little incentive to serve, let alone empathize with, their constituents. The way they’ve flouted decency and flaunted their respective leaves-of-absence proves it. 

With fewer than 100 days to go until the midterms, the moment is ripe to make a lesson out of these stories. That entails doing more than calling out the hypocrisy — bald-faced and infuriating as it is — but pointing toward real policies like paid sick (and parental) leave, access to healthcare, and reproductive freedom and dignity, all of which undergird the benefits in which they’ve basked. We all deserve the same.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU School of Law. She also leads strategy and partnerships at Ms. Magazine.

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"We have seen this fascist dance before. We know what comes next. It is not good."

 

The State Department’s 100-page report on Cuba’s “campaign of subversion against the United States,” along with Donald Trump’s assertion that “Americans were blatantly lied to about the security of our election infrastructure,” lays the groundwork for dictatorship. Elections will be sabotaged in the name of “national security.” Left-wing dissent will be criminalized in the name of “combating terrorism.” Democracy will be snuffed out in the name of protecting “freedom.”

Trump, who has lately taken to issuing warnings about a communist plot to take over America, posits that an island of 9.6 million people — nearly 90 percent of whom live in extreme poverty amid extended blackouts due to decades of U.S. economic warfare — is an existential threat.

These accusations are not meant to be rational. They, like the charge that our elections are manipulated, are transparent excuses to go after institutions and individuals that are seen as threatening Trump and the Republican Party’s absolute grip on power. While Cuba has supposedly “carried out one of the most durable and damaging foreign intelligence penetrations in American history” Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, as well as non-state groups, “have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure.” Under the heading “Front Groups and Fellow Travelers,” the report assembles a disparate collection of organizations belonging to Cuba’s “ideological network.”

For example, the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), founded as an ecumenical social justice organization by the Presbyterian Church, is described as part of a Cuba “solidarity network” which “facilitates radical agitation within the United States.” I am an ordained Presbyterian minister. I can assure you the Presbyterian Church is not facilitating “radical agitation.”

The report lists a wide variety of organizations on whose behalf IFCO has acted as an intermediary — perfectly legally — facilitating tax-exempt donations and handling grant management, compliance and reporting. These include The Jericho Movement, Equality for Flatbush, Claudia Jones School, Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, changing Frequencies, Viva Palestina US, and The People’s Forum, which the report describes as “a major activist group in Cuba’s U.S. ideological network.”

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are castigated in the same chapter. The NLG “is one of the most persistently relevant — and insidious — organizations in Cuba’s U.S. network.”

The report continues: The association of extreme-left lawyers and radical street activists has played a key role in a disproportionate share of the far-left terror and violence that has plagued the United States from the 1960s up to today. Throughout its history, it has maintained intimate ties to Cuba and other communist regimes and has explicitly sought to advance the causes of the international far left, including by working to defend and facilitate terrorism and extremist violence — from the Weather Underground of the 1970s to the violent BLM militants and Antifa terror cells of today.

The NLG is labeled a foreign influence operation because it provides assistance to activists, whose right to legal representation is constitutionally enshrined. In 2025, the Trump administration conditioned federal funding to Harvard University on defunding and dissolving the law school’s chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (HLS NLG), which provided legal assistance to individuals and student groups that opposed the genocide.

A subsection in the report is dedicated to the anti-war activists at CODEPINK and their co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans. It notes Evans’ marriage to the wealthy software entrepreneur Neville Roy Singham was attended by a “Who’s Who’ of progressivism” including co-host of Democracy Now! Amy Goodman; Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen and the playwright V (formerly known as Eve Ensler) who wrote “The Vagina Monologues.” Naming guests at a wedding is one of the more bizarre passages.

The report grossly exaggerates the influence of Singham’s support for left-wing organizations — described as “far-left” — while ignoring the massive sums supplied by U.S. corporations, millionaires and billionaires, as well as the Israel lobby, to both major political parties, super PACs, think tanks and advocacy networks. Israel has a far more insidious influence on U.S. politics and foreign policy than Cuba, Russia and China combined.

The State Department attacks the co-founders of The People’s Forum, Manolo De Los Santos and Claudia De la Cruz. It draws on documents that are often decades old and infused with Cold War paranoia. These include a 1966 Senate report claiming there is “overwhelming evidence that the machinery of the Cuban Government has been progressively organized over the years, to carry out its number one task — the export of Communist subversion.”

It ignores more thoughtful assessments, including a 1981 CIA estimate that acknowledged “[m]uch of the turmoil around the world is rooted in regional and local disputes of a political, social, or religious nature and has nothing to do with Communism.”

In a chapter titled “Revolutionary Tourism,” the Venceremos (“We Shall Overcome”) Brigade is characterized as one of the most “extensive and dangerous infiltration operations ever undertaken by a foreign power against the United States.” This assertion libels thousands of individuals and organizations as Cuban assets, offering nothing more than innuendo.

It lists “the founder of Mother Jones,” — although there were four founders —– along with “several other [unnamed] notable magazine editors, leaders of powerful labor unions and advocacy groups, think tank executives, and a suite of professors at top U.S. universities” as Brigade “alumni.”

Transporting humanitarian goods to Cuba is not a crime. Although the Justice Department’s extradition request from Spain of philanthropist Fergie Chambers, who provided funds to humanitarian organizations in Gaza, may see the criminalization of any person or any group that assists those suffering under sanctions and a blockade.

The report attacks members of the March 2026 “Nuestra América Convoy” which transported goods to Cuba “in defiance of U.S. sanctions.” It notes that 120 organizations “from across 33 countries joined the caravan” with “a suite of influential progressives,” including Isra Hirsi — daughter of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, video game live streamer and commentator Hasan Piker — with whom I discussed my book “A Genocide Foretold” last year — former U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and “several other current and former members of European Parliament.” Even the Gaza flotilla activist Thiago Avila — who I interviewed last month after he was tortured by Israeli soldiers — gets a mention.

Those listed in the report did not become “radicals” because of Cuban indoctrination. Their politics are homegrown, formed in opposition to racism, genocide, police violence, the terrorizing and killing of immigrants and U.S. citizens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs and neoliberalism, along with the crimes of U.S. imperialism and militarism.

The report makes passing reference to a wide range of people on grounds so tenuous that it has to be read to be believed. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is mentioned for refusing “to denounce” a “tribute to [Assata] Shakur,” who was almost certainly framed for murder and who fled to Cuba after escaping from a U.S. prison in 1979. It dedicates two paragraphs to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for her “friendliness towards the communist regime.” The evidence provided is her participation in a congressional delegation that joined then President Barack Obama on a visit to the island.

Cuban agents, it charges, “maintain a foothold in hundreds of front groups, activist organizations, solidarity centers, and ideological NGO and nonprofit networks. These groups collectively represent one of the single largest, most sophisticated and dangerous vectors for hostile foreign influence in modern American history.” Cuba has allegedly “infiltrated the highest reaches of the U.S. government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists [and] backed an unprecedented wave of leftwing terrorism [my emphasis] on American soil.”

Note the word terrorism. Note that it makes these individuals and organizations terrorists. Note that it makes them subject to draconian terrorism laws. And note that the Trump administration has committed itself to hunting down and rooting out the “radical left.”

The report charges that Cuba and its allies are mounting “a revolution against western civilization itself — waged, in part, via the novel and insidious method of persuading the children of the West to turn against their own inheritance.” It accuses Havana of “gleeful support of the George Floyd uprisings.” It asserts that “the rise of antifa” and “the explosion of pro-terrorist activism on American college campuses,” can be “linked, in some way, shape, or form, to Cuban influence.”

It characterizes the DSA as serving “as a particularly potent illustration of the ideological victory of Cuba’s effort to position itself as the spiritual capital of Third World List radicalism.” It claims the organization maintains a “fierce, almost religious commitment to the cause of the Cuban regime.” It alleges Cuba has built a “sprawling revolutionary network” that has “shaped America’s most famous and influential extremist movements” including the Black Panthers, the Weather Underground and antifa. These networks include “powerful leftist nonprofits, anti-ICE collectives, socialist groups, and Marxist militant organizations” in the U.S.

Cuba, the report concludes, “has sought to undermine, degrade and destabilize America with spies and soldiers, but also with students and intellectuals; with terrorist cells, but also with solidarity committees and nonprofit networks with intelligence officers operating under diplomatic cover.” The broadside is chilling. It is worse than McCarthyism. It presages a savage purging of American society.

Those named in the report are condemned without evidence. They are denied due process. That the assertions in the report are distorted at best, and often fictitious, is irrelevant. Fascist propaganda is not rooted in truth. It is rooted in a hatred for liberal values, democracy and the left. It is rooted in the belief that once those condemned as human contaminants are removed, there will be a moral, spiritual and economic renaissance. We have seen this fascist dance before. We know what comes next. It is not good.

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-The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.

 

Trump’s ‘thriving economy’ is a disaster.

Trump keeps insisting that the economy under his watch is the “greatest” ever, declaring during a trip to Michigan last week that “Michigan is thriving,” and “America is winning like never before.” This is batty. Last week, two doses of rotten economic news underscored how delusional Trump’s thinking is and provided evidence that Americans should not expect sunny economic times anytime soon.

First, “Mortgage rates jumped to their highest level in a year, dealing another blow to a long-stalled housing market that shows little sign of recovering,” the Wall Street Journal reported. 

“The 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.66% this week, up from 6.58% the week prior, according to Freddie Mac. That marked the fourth consecutive week of rising rates, as intensifying conflict in the Middle East pushed up inflation expectations and a divided Federal Reserve sowed doubt about the path of interest rates.”

Trump’s “sock puppet,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ken Warsh, who Trump moved heaven and earth to install (after firing and attempting to prosecute greatly respected former Fed chairman Jerome Powell) to obtain lower interest rates, not only has failed to deliver, but has triggered the opposite effect. Warsh spooked the markets after his appearance at the latest Federal Open Market Committee meeting, when he failed to convince investors that he is serious about fighting inflation.

Once more, Trump’s preference for sycophancy over merit or experience has come back to haunt him. 

“The verdict from one of the most closely read Fed watchers in the business was blunt. ‘Warsh didn’t convey the message clearly or explicitly, and the bond market puked on him,’” Wall Street Journal reporter Jon Hilsenrath wrote. “The evidence sat right there on the screen: the 30-year Treasury yield jumped as much as 14 basis points to nearly 5.23%, its highest level since 2007. A 19-year high, delivered in the hours after the chairman stepped down from the podium.”

Meanwhile, economic growth has slowed under Trump. 

“Gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services, increased just 1.5% for the April-through June period, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis numbers adjusted for seasonality and inflation,” CNBC reported. “Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a growth rate of 1.8%, following the 2.1% increase in the first quarter.” Separately, “the personal consumption expenditures price index, which is the Federal Reserve’s primary forecasting gauge, fell a seasonally adjusted 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 3.7%.”

Trump’s pathological narcissism — specifically, his insistence on surrounding himself with mediocre flunkies who refuse to challenge his delusional thinking, paired with his inability to admit error or accept any facts that reflect poorly on him — prevents him from taking any measures to change course. He will never acknowledge that his poor economic policies (exacerbated by his inflation-fueling war) have produced results far worse than his Democratic predecessors. 

Instead, he doubles down on the very things that create economic pain (tariffs, extending the war); insults voters by insisting their affordability crisis is fictional; and laughably blames former president Joe Biden, who has not been in office for more than 18 months and produced, on average, over 300,000 jobs per month.

No wonder Trump’s approval ratings have fallen off a cliff, hitting new lows in multiple surveys. 

In poll after poll, voters say Trump is not concerned about the right things. And who can blame them for thinking that Trump is not listening to their concerns, when he spends so much time spinning conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, obsessing over prosecuting enemies, raising prices by implementing new tariffs, making healthcare more expensive, and fixating on an unwinnable forever war that raises fuel prices and accomplishes nothing for the American people?

Republicans, who lack the nerve to challenge Trump’s self-destructive policies, will bear the burden in November of voters’ anger over an economic agenda that has been rubber-stamped. 

Rather than provide relief to millions who have lost healthcare coverage, or restore SNAP benefits to 4 million Americans (including 1 million children), their toadyism to Trump and the billionaire donor class has prompted them to throw tens of billions at rogue, murderous ICE storm troopers and an unprecedented $1.15 trillion on the Pentagon (which the Senate has blocked for now). 

As Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy put it, “This budget tells you everything you need to know about what the Republican Party really stands for: unlimited taxpayer dollars for war and handouts to billionaires, and not a penny left over to help the American families who can’t afford to buy groceries or fill up their gas tank.”

Trump’s unbridled corruption only heightens the accurate perception that Trump views the presidency as his personal money-making operation, the results for ordinary Americans be damned. In refusing to lift a finger to stop the orgy of self-enrichment, Republicans have aggravated the populist anger bubbling over nationwide.

Recall that the same interplay between economic malpractice and corruption spelled the end of Trump’s pal, former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán earlier this year. As in Hungary, Americans are feeling both poor economic performance and revulsion over self-dealing. 

Voters understand that Trump is interested in maximizing his wealth (which he has boosted by more than $2B since returning to office), not improving family finances for the American people. 

By a stunning 49-19 percent margin (the outsized undecided tally likely reflects Republicans too browbeaten to admit their guy is a crook), Americans label Trump “corrupt.” Trump and his right-wing media enablers can no longer conceal the glaring contrast between ordinary Americans’ economic hardship and the unprecedented self-enrichment Trump and his oligarch pals are reaping.

In sum, Trump’s personal economy may be “thriving,” thanks to $2B in ill-gotten gains since returning to office, but Americans are not. 

Republicans have every reason to fear they will pay a political price for this rotten economic record, unmitigated corruption, misguided priorities, and gross incompetence. And they should. In ceding their constitutional obligations and becoming yes-men for a fetid, corrupt, and thoroughly incompetent president, they have proven themselves unworthy of voters’ trust. Voters’ only recourse will be to throw them out of office en masse in November.

-Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian is community-supported. Help fund bold journalism and critical lawsuits to stop Trump’s corruption by becoming a paid subscriber. Join the fight now.

 

"He is harvesting and extorting the organizations he oversees for personal profit, while the rest of us will be left bereft amid the ruins"-Chris Hedges

I visited Donald Trump’s Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City the day before it closed, in October 2016. The casino had two huge white gates flanked by 2-ton white, cast-stone elephants. Its entrance was topped by an array of 70 turquoise and teal fiberglass minarets and a dozen gold-tipped domes. A neon sign with red and gold lettering read: “Trump Taj Mahal Casino and Resort.” A lighted fountain in front of the glass casino doors was decorated with two rows of six white-and-gold urns.

The Trump Taj Mahal, New Jersey’s tallest building and the world’s largest casino, cost $1.2 billion to build. The opulent suites, when they opened, were named after historical personalities — Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Napoleon and Cleopatra. The suites cost around $10,000 per day. Trump, whose name and image were plastered throughout the casino, employed his familiar hyperbole to call it the “eighth wonder of the world.” The casino operators were instructed to answer incoming calls with the words: “Thank you for calling the Trump Taj Mahal, where wonders never cease.” The waitresses wore “harem girl” outfits.

The casino went through bankruptcy five times. Trump is doing to the country what he did to the Taj Mahal. His administration is operating well beyond its means with a budget of $7.4 trillion for fiscal year 2026, against projected revenue of just $5.6 trillion. Trump’s idiocy has embroiled the United States in an endless and unwinnable war with Iran, which may tank the global economy. 

He is set to cut health coverage for 15 million people, along with food assistance and other basic needs programs. He has terminated the jobs of thousands of government employees. He has shut down USAID, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Kennedy Center. He gutted Voice of America and vows to close the Department of Education. He withdrew from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement (twice). He continued the suspension of funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which had begun under the Biden administration. He canceled thousands of U.S.-funded international development projects. He erased government datasets and climate-related web pages. He slashed the budgets for renewable energy initiatives while revoking federal carbon and pollution regulations.

His scorched earth policies, which are dynamiting the foundations of the republic, are accompanied by a culture of corruption and deceit that is unmatched in American history.

Trump, whose officials face accusations of insider trading and whose family has made more than $1.4 billion from crypto-related ventures since taking office, shamelessly profits from the fusion of unregulated cryptocurrency-based prediction markets and politics pioneered by gambling apps, such as Poly-market.

Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, is a major investor in Poly-market, where he sits on the advisory board. He has an estimated net worth of $400 million. He also serves as a strategic advisor at Kalshi, which gave him equity in the company worth some $300,000 — now estimated to be worth millions. Kalshi recently announced it will allow users to bet on whether the FDA will approve individual drugs as “safe and effective.”

Trump’s Truth Social is developing a prediction market called Truth Predict. His administration sued Connecticut, Arizona and Illinois in an attempt to block these states from regulating prediction markets. Truth Social also launched a $100,000 per month service offering quicker access to Trump’s market manipulating posts — a thinly disguised version of insider trading.

The White House, replicating the mob-style shakedowns of Atlantic City’s casino culture, demands huge payouts from corporations and billionaires in exchange for political favors and deregulation. The Wall Street Journal writes that Trump has amassed a slush fund of $800 million for pet projects, including his ballroom, presidential library, super PACs and political issue committees.

Trump’s chief fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, nicknamed “The princess of darkness,” collects the payoffs with the blunt pitch “The boss wants this money.” The nonnegotiable demand is lifted from the playbook of Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo, the head of the Bruno-Scarfo crime family, whose extortion racket collected millions from Atlantic City construction firms, businesses, bars, restaurants, unions – which saw their health and welfare funds looted – and casinos. And, just like the mob, once is never enough for the Trump crime syndicate.

It always comes back for more. Trump, who like most mobsters is accompanied by a much younger goomah — his latest being his executive assistant Natalie Harp — has a long history of mob-like retribution. He issued executive orders targeting law firms that previously employed attorneys who investigated him. The firms lost security clearances and access to federal courthouses. Scrambling to placate Trump, they sheepishly succumbed to his demands.

When I arrived at Trump’s casino, the 22-space tour bus terminal was empty. Most of the 12 restaurants in the casino were closed. The casino’s arena, seating 5,500 people, had shut its doors. The Trump Taj Mahal, like our republic, was about to die.

“When I walked inside the Taj, glittering Austrian crystal chandeliers, which cost $14 million each, dangled over the softly lit interior,” I wrote in America: The Farewell Tour. “Many were missing strings of beads. The walls were covered with mirrors. I looked out at rows of gaming tables, blackjack tables, roulette wheels, and three thousand slot machines that twinkled with colored lights. The slot machines emitted beeps, hums, and dings of various pitches. They stretched over an area the size of three football fields. The gambling floor was almost empty. The dealers stood in front of vacant, felt-covered tables. Most of the gamblers who slumped in the cushioned chairs in front of the slot machines were elderly and haggard. They robotically pulled down levers or pushed square buttons. They stared blankly at the spinning screens in front of them. One slot machine generates between $200 and $300 a day for the casino. The dedicated gamblers are given courtesy drinks. Housekeepers occasionally enter rooms to discover the corpses of elderly men or women who spent hours drinking more alcohol than their bodies could absorb. It is not uncommon for slot players to wet and soil themselves.”

“The seventeen computerized check-in desks near the entrance were empty,” I continued. “A lone clerk stood behind the long counter facing empty rope lines. Toilets in the bathrooms, adorned with Carrera marble, were covered with plastic bags and had signs reading ‘Out of Order.’ I walked along the soiled and worn carpet through long, deserted, and poorly lit corridors on the upper floors. Semicircular beige wall sconces, some of which enclosed burned-out bulbs, were placed every few feet on either side of the hall. The sconces were dirty and cracked. The ceiling had brown water spots. The air smelled of mold. Three quarters of the 1,250 rooms had been mothballed. The casino felt like a ghost ship.”

Gambling, like Trump’s sham university and his $TRUMP meme coin, is about selling escapist fantasies. It is about preying on people’s despair. The spinning reels on the slot machines, for example, are an illusion. They do not slowly run out of momentum. They are programmed to appear that way. Computer chips determine the outcome the moment the button is pushed or the lever pulled. Virtual reel mapping ensures that a jackpot symbol appears above or below the payline. The player has the impression of almost winning, spurring the gambler to bet more money.

Trump from his earliest days as a real estate developer was enmeshed with the mob, including his cutthroat lawyer, Roy Cohen. Cohen represented Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, the boss of the Genovese crime family, and Carmine Galante from the Bananno crime family. Trump was schooled by Cohen and others in the art of extortion, blackmail, threats and graft. He has, throughout his career, surrounded himself with mobsters, grifters and sycophants.

Joseph Weichselbaum, a three-time-convicted felon who was eventually imprisoned for trafficking marijuana and cocaine, managed Trump’s helicopter fleet. The helicopters ferried high rollers to and from Trump casinos. These high rollers could get anything they desired, from sex with escorts to cocaine. Weichselbaum’s easy access to drugs was probably an asset. When Weichselbaum was awaiting sentencing, Trump wrote to the judge that he was “a credit to the community.” The trafficker received a three-year sentence, although he served only 18 months. The couriers who physically delivered the drugs for Weichselbaum got up to 20 years. When he was released from prison, Weichselbaum moved into Trump Tower with his girlfriend.

Trump’s casino opened in 1990 with a concert by Michael Jackson. It was an extravaganza built with $820 million of unsustainable debt, including the issuing of $675 million in junk bonds at a 14 percent interest rate.

Marvin B. Roffman, a casino analyst at the Philadelphia investment firm Janney Montgomery Scott, told The Wall Street Journal that the Taj Mahal would need to make $1.3 million per day to meet its interest payments. No casino had ever brought in that much money.

“The Taj was doomed from the start,” I wrote. “Trump soon had to service interest rates of $95 million a year. He was able to get new loans for a while and then went bust. It was a brief and giddy moment of insane excess. But it was good for his outsized brand, even if it showed an atrocious lack of business sense. Trump had borrowed money at high interest rates and lied about the rates to regulators. Trump dumped the losses on stock and bondholders, who were fleeced for more than $1.5 billion. Numerous local contractors and suppliers, never paid by Trump, went bankrupt.”

Trump made out like a bandit. He put up little of his own money. He shifted personal debts to the casino and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments. His casino employees collectively lost millions of dollars in retirement savings, along with their jobs. His business debts were off-loaded on his investors.

Trump owned three casinos in Atlantic City and one in Gary, Indiana. The Trump Plaza and the Trump Taj Mahal casinos were shut down. The Trump Marina, his third casino, was sold to Texas billionaire Tilman Fertitta. Fertitta, currently Trump’s ambassador to Italy, renamed it The Golden Nugget. Trump’s casino in Indiana, a 340-foot vessel called the Trump Princess, declared bankruptcy in 2004.

All failed because of Trump’s insatiable greed and mismanagement. Trump is doing to the nation what he did to the Taj Mahal. He is harvesting and extorting the organizations he oversees for personal profit, while the rest of us will be left bereft amid the ruins.

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Taj Mahal, the casino owned by Donald Trump in Atlantic City, USA. (Photo by Tony Ward/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

The Death of the Federal Firewall

The dismantling of privacy safeguards is an unprecedented consolidation of domestic surveillance power. In the quiet, behind-the-scenes machinery of American governance in Washington, D.C., there are few things as vital or central — or as invisible — to the average citizen as the firewall. For decades, strict legal and technical barriers have dictated how federal agencies handle our most private information.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) keeps your tax filings sealed from political appointees. The Social Security Administration (SSA) guards your life history, employment records, and benefit eligibility.

These data silos were designed with a clear, bipartisan intent: to prevent any presidential administration from weaponizing the massive apparatus of Americans’ data against the public or political opponents.

Today, those firewalls are being quietly dismantled.

Recent reporting from The Wall Street Journal revealed that the current head of the IRS and the Social Security Administration in the Trump administration built a track record in the private sector of breaching internal firewalls to spy on his own corporate colleagues.

When the leader of Trump’s IRS and SSA who has a habit of workplace spying comes to an administration dismantling personal privacy protections, every American should be alarmed. In truth, that history alone should raise immediate alarms about fitness for public office. But when placed within the broader context of current Trump White House policy, it signals something far more structural and dangerous.

Over the past 18 months, we’ve witnessed a systematic purging of senior career personnel across key civil agencies. These are the very administrators whose professional duty was to uphold regulatory standards and resist unlawful data sharing.

In their place, new initiatives under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Trump White House directives have aggressively pushed to interconnect agency databases, effectively eroding the barriers between federal privacy records.

Having served as deputy commissioner of Social Security in a previous administration, I know firsthand why these separations exist. The personal data held by the SSA and IRS covers virtually every living American. Combined, these records construct a near-complete blueprint of a citizen’s financial health, personal relationships, employment status, and physical location.

When you eliminate the technical and administrative firewalls separating these agency repositories, you create an unmonitored central registry. And when you place that centralized capability in the hands of political operatives with a documented willingness to cross privacy boundaries, you eliminate independent oversight entirely.

This isn’t merely an abstract debate over administrative procedure or bureaucratic efficiency. It is a fundamental shift in the relationship between the citizen and the state.

When personal data can be shared, aggregated, and scrutinized across agency lines without warrants, statutory authorization, or career civil service oversight, the potential for selective enforcement and political retaliation becomes an everyday reality.

A government that can effortlessly link your tax returns, benefit claims, and personal records can target anyone, anytime, for any reason.

The dismantling of federal privacy firewalls represents an unprecedented consolidation of domestic surveillance power. If the public and Congress fail to demand the immediate restoration of these statutory safeguards, the damage to civil liberties will outlast any single administration.

Jeff Nesbit was the deputy commissioner for communications at the Social Security Administration in the Biden-Harris administration.

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-Jeff Nesbit, The Contrarian is community-supported. Help fund bold journalism and critical lawsuits to stop Trump’s corruption by becoming a paid subscriber. Join the fight now.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash