Paul Waldman writes: In my years of writing about politics, there’s one question I’ve gotten more than any other from readers, attendees at bookstore events, and my own friends and family: “But what can we do?” It’s an earnest question born of a dilemma faced by every member of a giant democratic polity such as ours. We’re more attuned than ever to the goings-on in politics and government; the average American living 50 or 100 or 150 years ago had…
Paul Krugman writes: Last Saturday’s No Kings Day 2 was awesome to behold. The very best of America shone through. From coast to coast, in big cities and small, in red states as well as blue states, Americans peacefully marched to uphold our humanity as a country and to show our solidarity against autocracy and lawlessness. And also awesome were the right-wing attacks on Kings Day 2 participants in the days before the rallies. They were so extreme and so…
By Andy Kroll This story was originally published by ProPublica On the second day of the federal government shutdown, President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video set to the classic song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” by Blue Öyster Cult. The star of that video, which quickly went viral, was Russell Vought, the president’s top budget adviser. More than that, Vought is the architect of Trump’s broader plan to fire civil servants, freeze government programs and dismantle entire agencies, and he’s…
Politico reports: Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, told a group of fellow Republicans in a text chain the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell” and said he has “a Nazi streak,” according to a text chat viewed by POLITICO. Ingrassia, who has a Senate confirmation hearing scheduled Thursday, made the remarks in a chain with a half-dozen Republican operatives and influencers, according to…
Alan Elrod writes: “The Spanish came to America and had sex with every single woman.” “Sex is gay” “Sex? It was rape.” “Epic” This text exchange is part of the cache of messages sent in a Telegram group chat by Young Republicans. In these messages, exposed by POLITICO reporters Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, hundreds of racial and homophobic slurs are used by leading Young Republicans, including a Kansas state senator, along with joking references to Hitler and the Holocaust….
Yuval Abraham writes: A few months after October 7, I enrolled in an introductory course on genocide at the Open University of Israel. The lecturer began the first class by telling us — about 20 Jewish-Israeli students gathered on Zoom — that by the end of the semester we would understand exactly what genocide entails and be able to explain why Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. In a nutshell, his argument was this: At most, Israel might be…
Julianne McShane writes: Saturday’s “No Kings” protests were, as my colleagues chronicled, about as wholesome as you could imagine. There were inflatable animals. There were American flags galore. Even the New York Police Department admitted that the 100,000 protesters were peaceful and that cops made no arrests; police in Washington, DC and Austin, Texas said the same. But that hasn’t stopped top Republicans from thoroughly melting down over its success. Case in point: On his Truth Social platform on Saturday…
HuffPost reports: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson boldly called for Americans to stage a general strike during his speech at his city’s ‘No Kings’ rally on Saturday. Summoning people of all backgrounds to unite and take a stand against President Donald Trump’s “tyranny,” the “ultra-wealthy” and corporate greed, Johnson said, “We are going to make them pay their fair share in taxes to fund our school, to fund jobs, to fund healthcare, to fund transportation.” “Democracy will live on because of…
Strength In Numbers partnered with independent Atlanta-based science newsroom The Xylom on Oct. 18, 2025, to produce a crowdsourced estimate of turnout for the second “No Kings Day” protests held around the country. This follows our first attempt at crowdsourced crowd-counting for the first protests held in June. Our median estimate is that 5.2 million people participated in a No Kings Day demonstration somewhere in the country on Saturday, with an upper bound of 8.2 million people. We provide an…
Chicago Sun-Times reports: On the morning of Jan. 7, Jesús Ramírez and other day laborers huddled in a Home Depot parking lot in Bakersfield, California, hoping for work. Suddenly, they were surrounded by U.S. Homeland Security vehicles. One agent demanded Ramírez show his papers. When he pulled out his wallet, the agent “snatched” it and took his ID without asking questions, Ramírez said. “It was clear to me the agents did not know who I was,” Ramírez, 64, said in…
Middle East Eye reports: Heavy Israeli bombing rocked the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 15 Palestinians, in a major violation of the ceasefire. More than 100 air strikes were reported in Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north, and parts of central Gaza. Among the sites hit were a cafe, a mobile phone charging station, a group of journalists and a house sheltering displaced people. The Israeli military said the strikes were in response…
Language policing. Cancel culture. Victimhood contests and cultural grievances. Despite attacking the left for partaking in such practices, there’s an emerging set of individuals on the right who have became exactly what they’ve criticized. Meet the woke right.
The Associated Press reports: Protesting the direction of the country under President Donald Trump, people gathered Saturday in the nation’s capital and communities big and small across the U.S. for “No Kings” demonstrations that the president’s Republican Party disparaged as “Hate America” rallies. With signs such as “Nothing is more patriotic than protesting” or “Resist Fascism,” in many places the events looked more like a street party. There were marching bands, a huge banner with the U.S. Constitution’s “We The…
“Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, called these rallies ‘hate America’ events. Boy, does he have it wrong. Millions of Americans are coming out today not because they hate America. We’re here because we love America. We’re here because we’re going to do everything we can to honor the sacrifices of millions of men and women who over the last 250 years fought and sometimes died to defend our democracy and our freedoms.”
“I am a journalist. I am an immigrant and I am a Muslim. I am everything Donald Trump loves. I am the Trump trifecta. I’m also a bit of a socialist. But don’t tell Stephen Miller.”
By J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam This story was originally published by ProPublica When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city’s emergency response system. Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and force them into unmarked cars. In some cases, the men wore plain clothes and refused to identify themselves. There was no way…