Politics

It’s his first win after narrowly finishing in second place three previous years.

To support this work and receive my weekly newsletter with background on each cartoon, please consider joining the Sorensen Subscription Service! Also on Patreon. Follow me on Bluesky or Mastodon Related | Fox News promotes racist Trump shill who pushed boatloads of BS

House and Senate Democrats have reached a level of sharpness that has been missing for the last few years during the current government shutdown fight. Republicans are already cracking as they divide and look to make a deal. PoliticusUSA is independent news and opinion that belongs to no party or special interest. Please support us by becoming a subscriber. Subscribe now During the White House meeting on Monday, Trump tried a bit of trolling with Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, and it resulted in embarrassment for Vice President JD Vance. Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News posted on X: A few details from Monday’s White House meeting: — President Donald Trump gave Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries “Trump 2028” hats. The two men did not take the caps. Jeffries then turned to Vice President JD Vance and asked how he feels about that — a reference to Vance’s possible presidential ambitions. Vance said, “No comment,” and the room erupted in laughter. We have no indication whether Donald Trump, who hates to be upstaged and out of the spotlight, was one of the people in the room laughing. Read more

The government shutdown that began at 12:01 a.m. is the sixth such closure in the past three decades. It was easily the most foreseeable. That congressional Democrats would force this confrontation became clear almost from the moment they ducked a clash over spending with Republicans in March. Back then, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer convinced just enough of his members that a government shutdown would empower President Donald Trump to govern even more heedlessly and punitively than he already was. The blowback was intense. Rank-and-file Democrats—and even some party leaders—accused Schumer of surrendering one of the party’s only remaining levers in Washington without a fight. The springtime uproar ensured that Democrats would make a tougher stand this time, and now government offices across the country will close and federal employees will stay home without pay. Many could lose their jobs if the Trump administration carries out its threat to use a shutdown to supercharge its slashing of the workforce. But the political outcome for Democrats might be just as disappointing. They have no more power to extract concessions from Trump than they did six months ago. Democrats find themselves in the same unenviable position that Republicans were in during the Obama years, when they routinely took the government’s funding (and, at times, its credit rating) hostage to pick fights that party leaders knew they could not win. The GOP provoked a shutdown in 2013 to deny funding to the Affordable Care Act; a dozen years later, Democrats have forced a shutdown to ensure that it continues. Schumer and his House counterpart, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, are demanding that Republicans agree to extend enhanced ACA subsidies that expire at the end of the year; without congressional action, insurance rates would rise for millions of people. [Read: Trump’s grand plan for a government shutdown] As an issue, focusing the spending debate on health care makes political sense for Democrats. This is favorable terrain for them, and they are trying to prevent a painful spike in costs for consumers across the country. “The fact of the matter is that if we don’t address this, people are going to lose their health insurance,” Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told me. Some congressional Republicans also want to extend the subsidies, both to protect their constituents and because they fear the electoral blowback of a rate increase during next year’s midterms. But GOP leaders correctly point out that the deadline for the health-care funding is not for another three months; the stopgap spending bill they’ve proposed runs for just seven weeks and is designed to buy time for the parties to broker a broader budget deal that could include the ACA subsidies. Democrats want to force Republicans into negotiating a health-care agreement now. (They also want the GOP to roll back the Medicaid cuts that it enacted in Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” this summer, but those demands are considered even less likely to bring results.) “If the Republicans think that we will fold for any [spending bill], then Democrats will have no leverage in trying to push for any of our priorities in government funding,” a senior Senate aide told me, describing the party’s thinking on the condition of anonymity. A final effort to avoid a shutdown yielded no breakthroughs and seemed to be largely for show. Trump convened the bipartisan congressional leadership at the White House on Monday, and afterward both parties retreated to their talking points. Democrats implored Republicans to address a health-care “crisis,” and Republicans, who themselves had voted repeatedly for government shutdowns, denounced Democrats for doing the same. A few hours later, Trump posted on Truth Social a vulgar AI-generated video depicting Jeffries, who is Black, wearing a mustache and sombrero, with fabricated audio of Schumer speaking. [Read: How to end government shutdowns, forever] Congressional Democrats are—for now—mostly unified. Just one of the party’s members in the House, Representative Jared Golden of Maine, broke ranks to vote for a continuing resolution that would have averted a shutdown. In a shift from earlier in the year, lawmakers say they’re done basing their decisions on the fear of how they might embolden or empower the president. “I don’t buy the argument that if the government shuts down, that allows Trump to be a dictator. I just don’t buy that,” Pallone told me. Yet few in the Democratic Party are making confident predictions of success. For some, the decision to make a stand over health care is not so much a smart strategy as it is the only one available. When I asked Jim Manley, a former aide to the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and a veteran of shutdown fights, to assess the Democrats’ chances, he asked if he could be quoted shrugging. “It is what it is,” he said rather glumly. “Sometimes you’ve got to play the card you’re dealt.” How long a shutdown might last is unclear. The government closed twice during Trump’s first term. A shutdown instigated by the president over border-wall funding dragged on for 35 days; the one that Democrats provoked lasted just three. In the final days before this week’s deadline, Schumer reportedly floated a compromise that would have kept the government open for another week or 10 days—rather than the seven weeks proposed by Republicans—to allow for talks about health care. Both Republicans and progressive Democrats quickly panned the idea, but it suggested that, once again, Schumer might not be as dug in as others in his party are. In the Senate, some Democrats seem willing to claim victory as long as Republicans agree to negotiate an extension of the ACA subsidies, but Jeffries and House Democrats are demanding that a renewal be written into legislation before they vote to reopen the government. In an indication of the lingering differences among the party’s caucuses, Democratic Senators John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez-Masto of Nevada, along with Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent

Mark Kaplan, Ann Telnaes, Peter Kuper Trump’s signature approach to Epstein. The post UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY! appeared first on The Nation.

Comedian Bill Maher said in a Wednesday interview that he does not think Republicans will “give up power” if they lose upcoming election cycles. In an appearance on SiriusXM’s “Straight Shooter with Stephen A,” Maher predicted that, as long as Republicans still view Democrats as an “existential threat to this country” in 2026 and 2028,…

Thanks to the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Donald Trump has immunity while in the White House for official acts. However, that immunity does not extend to members of the Trump administration. Since the Republican majorities in the House and Senate have abandoned their oversight responsibilities, the duty of oversight over the Executive Branch will fall to Democrats if they win back the House in 2026. Rep. Eric Swalwell, who serves on the House Oversight Committee, has a message for federal prosecutors who are going along with Trump’s corrupt prosecutions. Swalwell (D-CA) said on CNN:  The president saying he has no control here, he has all of the control here. He’s the one who has been tweeting to the Attorney General that Comey needs to be indicted. He’s the one that fired the US attorney who would not indict Comey. And so this is a very corrupt corrosive act that the president is taking. And what I would just say to any prosecutor. At the Department of Justice is it’s not going away as a member of the Judiciary Committee, I promise you, when Democrats are in the majority, we are going to look at all of this and there will be accountability and bar licenses will be at stake in your local jurisdiction if you are corruptly indicting people where you cannot prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. Video of Swalwell: The appetite for impeaching Trump is growing among many voters, but the real weak spot isn’t Trump. It’s what we will discuss below. Democrats Are Moving To Cut Trump Off At The Knees Read more

As the leader of a young conservative political movement that helped Donald Trump win a second presidential term, Charlie Kirk accomplished a lot in his too-short life. But at Kirk’s packed memorial in Arizona last weekend, his admirers proclaimed that the slain activist now stands to become something even more powerful and potentially lasting: a martyr. A premature and violent death can turn a controversial individual into an object of sympathy and a symbol of a larger movement—one that gains attention with every new headline and eulogy. By evoking both curiosity and compassion, martyrdom can make a polarizing public figure more influential in death than they were in life. To see how such a process can take place, consider the example of Malcolm X, another firebrand who was gunned down while addressing followers, in his case in a packed ballroom in Upper Manhattan 60 years ago, in 1965. In a turbulent decade marred by murderous attacks on powerful men, Malcolm X was one victim among many. But in the decades since, his legacy has only grown—and despite the differences between the two men, that evolution offers some insight into what might become of Kirk’s. [Isaac Stanley-Becker: What Charlie Kirk told me about his legacy] By the time of his death, Kirk had become a prominent voice on the Christian right, and a steadfast advocate for the nationalist MAGA agenda. Malcolm, as a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, made his name preaching Black pride, advocating racial separatism, and criticizing the civil-rights strategy of unconditional nonviolence favored by Martin Luther King Jr. Then, in the year before he died, he broke with the Nation of Islam, converted to Sunni Islam, envisioned a broader-based Black-nationalist movement with supporters from various religious backgrounds, expressed a willingness to accept the financial backing of white allies, and traveled the world seeking support for the Black cause.   Yet the two men had some things in common. Both acquired national reputations for their formidable skill as speakers—forceful and provocative, but also engaging and quick on their feet. Both relished debating critics, all the better if it was broadcast on television or radio, and going to college campuses to try to shape the thinking of young people. Beyond their flamboyance, both were highly effective grassroots organizers with a knack for appealing to the disaffected. Just as Malcolm spoke to Black people in the urban North whose concerns weren’t addressed by the civil-rights battles of the Jim Crow South, Kirk built his political movement, Turning Point USA, on the grievances of young white men who felt sidelined in the age of the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements. The gruesome way that these two figures died caused ordinary Americans who had only a negative or hazy opinion of them to see them in a new light. Malcolm was long portrayed by the white media establishment as a scary, demagogic figure. A New York Times editorial the day after he was murdered described him as “an extraordinary and twisted man, turning many true gifts to evil purpose.” But photos in Life magazine of his wife, Betty Shabazz, leaning over his bullet-ridden body and tearing up at his funeral humanized him as a father who had left behind a grieving and pregnant widow, four young daughters, and two more yet to be born. His murder transformed him from an abstract idea or menace into a man with a loving family who was suddenly, tragically gone. News reports about Kirk’s death tended to avoid highlighting his most inflammatory comments. Most mainstream-media eulogies did not note that Kirk once said that passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was “a huge mistake,” for example, or mention his many attacks on changes brought about by immigrants of color. But even people who knew of and rejected Kirk’s views couldn’t help but be moved by the New York Post’s front-page image of his wife, Erika, the mother of their two young children, weeping over his open casket. “If they thought my husband’s mission was big now..you have no idea,” she declared in a post on Instagram with this photo. “You. All of you. Will never. Ever. Forget my husband @charliekirk1776 I’ll make sure of it.” By taking over as leader of his movement, she stands to play a central role in keeping her husband’s memory alive, just as Shabazz did as a social activist in her own right. In Malcolm’s case, the media establishment grew more respectful once it saw how beloved he was among his followers—“our own Black shining prince,” in the words of the actor Ossie Davis at Malcolm’s funeral. Malcolm had also been working with the journalist Alex Haley on what would become The Autobiography of Malcolm X, a rivetingly personal account of his life and views, which was released posthumously within the year. This nuanced, thoughtful chronicle, which revealed a far more sympathetic and complicated man than earlier headlines had painted, arrived just when the American public was finally reckoning with who Malcolm was and what the country had lost in his death. It went on to sell in the millions and recast him as a self-created hero of literary proportions. Kirk never got to write his own story, but his death has ushered forth validation of his historical importance from respected writers across the political spectrum. George F. Will described Kirk as an heir to William F. Buckley Jr., given his talent for making conservative politics “fun.” On the left, Ezra Klein credited Kirk with being “one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion” and argued that “liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness.” Already, his more controversial views are receding from public memory, and he is instead being memorialized as a man of faith and strong beliefs who loved a good debate. Malcolm X’s legacy has also been shaped by all of the video and audio recordings he managed to leave behind. In the 1960s and ’70s, members of the Black Power generation huddled together

Elie Mystal Those who had nothing to do with the violence against Charlie Kirk are being menaced—just like always. The post Threatening Vulnerable People Is No Way to Mourn Someone Who Was Murdered appeared first on The Nation.

Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano on Friday walked back his remark made earlier in the day that raising the retirement age was among the entitlement reforms being considered by the Trump administration. In an interview with Fox Business, host Maria Bartiromo asked Bisignano if he’d consider increasing the age for full federal retirement benefits, which…