(March 26, 2026)
Few economic indicators hit voters as fast or as visibly as the price of gasoline. Academic research stretching back decades confirms what political operatives have long understood intuitively: when gas prices rise sharply, presidential approval falls, and when approval falls heading into a midterm, the president’s party loses seats. That chain is being tested dramatically right now.
(September 14, 2026)
If Democrats manage to take back the House and Senate in November despite an inhospitable electoral map, the Trump effect on gas prices may well be the reason.
(September 14, 2026)
If Democrats manage to take back the House and Senate in November despite an inhospitable electoral map, the Trump effect on gas prices may well be the reason.
(August 18, 2026)
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!
In July, a YouGov poll found that 49% of Americans believed the US government should arrest Netanyahu under the warrant, 27% said it should not, and 23% were unsure.
President Donald Trump stated earlier this summer that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form” while visiting the US. His administration’s position, as stated in a February 2025 executive order, is that Netanyahu can’t be arrested. The ICC, it says, “has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel” because, unlike most other nations, neither is a party to the Rome Statute, which created the court.
An American Research Group poll published this week found Trump’s approval at just 29 percent — a new low for his presidency and a flashing warning sign for the congressional Republicans being dragged beneath the waves by the president’s plummeting popularity.
Since 2023, the sharpest decline in support for Israel — down at least 20 points — comes from women, Hispanic voters, voters under age 45, voters with a college degree and Democrats. Republican support has fallen 10 points during the same time.
Around 48 percent of voters said they sided more with Israelis in the conflict, compared with 38 percent who said they sided with Palestinians.
The figure marks a decline from 54 percent in June and from a high of 68 percent recorded at the outset of the conflict in October 2023, when 18 percent said they sided more with Palestinians.
Sixty percent said launching military action against Iran was the wrong decision, compared with 37 percent who supported it.
The findings, the news outlet noted, “signal an emerging tech-skeptical realignment of American politics with consequential midterm and presidential elections looming” and arrive just a day after a major symposium in Washington, DC brought together experts and lawmakers who say action must be taken before its too late.
Americans are increasingly concerned about the future of human connection, agency, purpose and critical thinking in the age of artificial intelligence, according to a new survey from Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center.
The “Human Purpose in Peril” report, published Monday, found that while 65 percent of respondents said they had used AI chatbots in the previous week, 50 percent worried about humans maintaining their ability to use the tools effectively and appropriately, and 55 percent worried about humans’ ability to think critically and evaluate information.
A new POLITICO Poll finds that a plurality of Americans favor pausing the development of more advanced AI models, and 63 percent say the technology poses at least a moderate risk of destroying humanity.
Watch Trump‘s remarks in the video player above.
„If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,“ Trump told the crowd at the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas. „It will be called the Trump dividend.“
(August 28, 2026)
(August 31, 2026)
In his address, Merkley outlined the severe consequences of the conflict, saying it has failed to control nuclear materials while at the same time has strengthened Iranian hardliners, fractured alliances, and enriched Russia. He also highlighted the human and military costs, pointing to deaths and injuries among U.S. service members and depleted domestic munitions.
Since the start of the war on February 28th, 18 service members have died and 757 have been wounded. Furthermore, Merkley warned that the war is financially pressing Americans against the wall as skyrocketing gas, diesel, and fertilizer prices hit families and farmers hard.
There is a point in the decline of republics when the problem is no longer that government breaks its own laws. Governments will always behave unlawfully. The deeper problem comes when the constitutional machinery designed to prevent those acts stops functioning — when spending becomes detached from arithmetic, presidential power becomes detached from law and Congress and the courts become detached from the Constitution.
That’s where America is today.
(…)
The twilight of our constitutional republic has not arrived because the sun suddenly disappeared. It has arrived because, little by little, nearly everyone became accustomed to the darkness.
In August 2026, the nation’s gross debt eclipsed $40 trillion. Of that amount, approximately 80 percent was debt held by the public — representing cash borrowed from domestic and foreign investors. The remaining 20 percent was intragovernmental debt, which simply records transactions between one part of the federal government and another.
Wahab, who ran on slashing prescription drug costs and ending forever wars, will represent California’s 14th Congressional District until at least January. In November, Wahab will face Bay Area Rapid Transit board member Melissa Hernandez again in a race for a full two-year term in the US House. Tuesday’s special election was significantly closer than earlier primary contests, signaling a highly competitive race later this year.
Our Revolution, a progressive advocacy organization that backed Wahab, called her win “a national model for how progressives can defeat big-money outside groups and build a Democratic Party rooted in working people.” The United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, spent $2.5 million on the contest in an effort to boost Hernandez.
(August 19, 2026)
The group of volunteers for her underdog Senate campaign sat inside a union office in suburban Broward County, a liberal stronghold in the increasingly Republican-leaning state. It was a small group, maybe a dozen people.
But don’t worry, Ms. Nixon’s political director, Rachel Gilmer, reassured them: “This tiny room is part of many, many tiny rooms” across the state, she said, with more volunteers also ready to knock on Democratic voters’ doors.
(June 17, 2026)
We live in an intensely atomized society, and at no point have we been more alone than today, when the old bonds of community have largely eroded after decades of neoliberalism.
(…)
When this is connected to a project of expanding the electorate instead of only trying to persuade frequent voters, at its best, the result is a feeling of equality and common cause between the canvasser and the voter: you knocked on my door, nobody ever knocked on my door before, and you brought to my attention a vision of politics which I hadn’t before been exposed to. I and others have even on occasion recruited people to DSA in this way, after winning a voter over to our candidates.
A new poll of US voters published on Tuesday offers a warning for congressional lawmakers backing a plan to deepen military ties between the United States and Israel, finding that a clear majority of voters oppose the proposal—which some critics have called “treasonous.”
The Data for Progress survey of 1,217 likely US voters—conducted August 3–7 for Demand Progress and the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project—revealed that 61% of respondents oppose legislation in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2027 that would integrate Israeli weapons companies into the Pentagon at a level exceeding that of any other country. That figure rose to 78% among Democrats and 73% among independents.
Vice President JD Vance discusses how the GOP can combat socialist support on ‘The Will Cain Show.
Vance‘s comments also underscored the growing reality that the war now centers on control of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has forced to the top of the negotiating agenda.
„I know that oil is down today and it‘s way down from the highs in the early days of the conflict,“ Vance said on Fox News. „That‘s goal number one — keep oil and gas cheap for Americans all over our country.“
„And then obviously goal number two is ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon,“ he added.
The vice president has been among the members of the administration most skeptical of the offensive launched against Iran in late February.
Asked about the setbacks in negotiations with Iran, Vance cited two factors: “Number one, the Iranians are extraordinarily difficult people. Number two, they have a fractured system.”
“There are people within their system that want the war to be over and there are also people in their system that are crazy radicals who want the war to continue,” he said.
“Our job is to navigate through that and get the best outcome for the American people and for the President of the United States as well.”
Fox News host Will Cain pressed Vice President JD Vance on Thursday about the war in Iran, arguing that “frustration” is growing over the “seesaw nature” of the ongoing conflict.
“Let’s talk for a minute about Iran. There is frustration, Mr. Vice President, I think, out there on the seesaw nature of what’s going on in Iran,” Cain began, asking:
(May 14, 2025)
The revelation of the intertwined scandals captivated Americans. Between the fall of 1986 and the fall of 1987, more than seven out of 10 Americans watched some of the televised congressional hearings about Iran-Contra. But once it became clear that Democrats would not impeach Reagan, public interest waned. Unlike Watergate, when a smoking gun tape implicated President Richard Nixon, to many, the 1980s scandal seemed a blur of byzantine Cold War diplomacy, opaque Swiss bank accounts, and a large cast of forgettable middlemen. The country boxed up the ugly affair and stored it in the attic of its memory.
It did so even as the scandal persisted and investigators indicted dozens of administration officials. In 1988, Reagan’s vice president, George H.W. Bush, won the presidency, and throughout his entire administration, those responsible for Iran-Contra dodged the political and legal consequences of their actions.