Panic spread through New York City’s Penn Station on Sunday evening after a stabbing attack left six people injured inside one of the nation’s busiest transit hubs.

The attack unfolded around 7 p.m. near the West 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue entrance, when the New York City Fire Department received a call reporting multiple stabbing victims.

Authorities said six people were injured. One victim sustained serious injuries, while four others suffered moderate or minor injuries. Those five victims were transported to Bellevue Hospital. According to a law enforcement official, none suffered life-threatening injuries. A sixth victim was transported to another hospital. Officials did not disclose the person’s condition or explain why they were taken elsewhere for treatment.

Witnesses described chaos inside the station as police moved in on the suspect. One witness told WCBS, “He was just screaming, waving his head around,” adding that they had seen him once before but did not believe he was capable of such an act.

Another witness said she was sitting with her father on the steps of Madison Square Garden when she heard a scream nearby. She said police cars and ambulances arrived shortly after, and she saw a food truck worker holding what appeared to be a bloodied towel to his head. “We feel scared … because today my dad came to drop me off from my job to the train station, but who knows, it could happen again,” Subul Sadaq told Spectrum News NY1.

Amtrak’s communications director told CNN that Amtrak police responded to the stabbing and that an investigation is underway. City officials said there was no disruption to rail service.

The attack comes one day before Monday, when the NBA Finals are set to be held at Madison Square Garden for the first time since 1999, prompting heightened security measures across the area.

Officials said extra deployments, increased camera monitoring, expanded intelligence sharing, and drone use are part of intensified security efforts in an elevated threat environment.

Federal authorities had already been developing a detailed security plan ahead of President Donald Trump’s expected appearance at Game 3 on Monday.

Penn Station serves as a major transit hub connecting subway lines and rail service to New Jersey and Long Island, and operates as New York City’s primary Amtrak station.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued a statement expressing sympathy for the victims and their families.

“My heart is with everyone who was injured, their loved ones, and all those shaken by this unacceptable violence. I’m wishing each of the victims a full and speedy recovery,” he said. He also expressed gratitude to Amtrak police and first responders for their rapid response.

The post Panic at Penn Station After Stabbing Leaves Six Injured appeared first on The Moderate Voice.

I am not a wine connoisseur. The last time I ventured into this cultured milieu, I made that abundantly clear.

Writing about China’s burgeoning wine industry a few years ago, I asserted my wine naivety at length.

Among my disclaimers: “I can’t tell the difference between a $7.95 and a $27.95 bottle of wine. I often buy and drink screwcap-bottled wine and even sniff the screw cap…” (I understand that many high end wines are now equipped with screw caps, “Stelvin closures.”)

I must admit, however, that I have slightly refined my palate as now I will splurge $17.99 for my favorite wine, a Meiomi Pinot Noir. Alas, I still cannot detect the promised “lush aromas of black cherry and toasty oak…followed by notes of dark berry, juicy strawberry, and toasty mocha.”

Now, about the title of this piece.

This writing is not about finding that great Meiomi. Rather, it is about the historical backdrop to a recent unsealing of a massive collection of approximately 40,000 bottles of rare and historic wine, some dating back to the early 19th century, many “once part of the collection of the Romanov dynasty, the last imperial family of Russia.”

The vast trove of wines, once belonging to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, is in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, now an independent country in the Caucasus region.

The wines are stored in a vault located deep beneath the streets of Tbilisi “covered in thick cobwebs and dust” and variously described as a “time capsule” and a “Pantheon of Wine.”

The story of how these wines ended up in Tbilisi is intriguing and offers a fascinating glimpse into Russian viniculture and wine tradition, including Georgia’s 8,000 years of winemaking heritage and the Tsars’ and Stalin’s passion for wine.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the newly established Bolshevik state seized the large and prized imperial Romanov wine holdings. Joseph Stalin, a native of Georgia and himself a fervent wine drinker and collector, took custody of the collection and augmented it with his favorite Georgian wines, establishing several wine caches across the former Soviet Union.

During World War II, concerned that the Nazis might occupy Russia and loot his precious wines, Stalin ordered the evacuation of his oldest and most valuable wines, some 60,000 bottles – including prized wines from the legendary Massandra Winery in Crimea — to secure locations across the former Soviet Union.

One of these is the Tbilisi vault, a wine treasure that includes some of the rarest Georgian and French wines, many over two centuries old, some believed to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte.

The collection was recently opened to the public by the Georgian government which now plans to auction part of the collection and dedicate the proceeds to funding a state-of-the-art wine education and research center in Georgia. An institution that will train future generations of viticulturists, winemakers, and wine professionals.

Vinetur, a digital publication focused on the wine industry, reports:

For collectors, the cellar offers an opportunity to acquire wines with extraordinary provenance. For historians, it provides insight into how wine has intersected with power, politics, and cultural identity across centuries. For Georgia, however, the collection represents something even more important: a bridge between its rich winemaking past and its ambitions for the future.

While each of the more than 40,000 wines is priceless, some of the wines, especially those more than a century old, may have deteriorated over time despite careful storage.

I asked my young nephew Wallace Colyer, a Level 3 Sommelier, about it.

His answer is both interesting and – to this octogenarian – evocative, as it reminds me of life itself, how some people age well, some not so well…

My nephew explains the chemistry of wine — acidity, tannins, etc. — and how, over the years the compounds can transform the wine, sometimes for the better, sometimes for worse.

For example, he found a 1979 wine (below) he tried a couple of years ago (below) to be “absolutely fabulous.” “Ironically,” he adds, “part of the reason it was so good today is that it was not at all drinkable when it was young…What seems austere or even harsh at five years old can become elegant and complex after decades in the bottle…”

On the other hand, he points out, “A 100-year-old wine should not be expected to taste like the grape variety from which it was made…Dried fruits replace fresh fruits. Tobacco, tea leaf, leather, forest floor, mushroom, spice, and earthy notes emerge. The tannins soften…What makes a great old wine fascinating is not that it preserves youth, but that it reveals what remains after youth disappears.”

He concludes:

The real achievement is survival. If properly stored, a wine can evolve from an expression of fruit into an expression of time itself. At that point, you are tasting the cumulative effects of decades of aging, the decisions of the winemaker, the quality of the storage, and the remarkable resilience of a wine that managed to stay alive long enough to tell its story.

It reminds one of life itself and, indeed, many articles have been written comparing the ageing of wine to human life, “one of literature’s most enduring metaphors.”

Here is one, “Mastering Midlife Change: What can Wine teach us about Ageing.”

And here is an excellent one on all aspects of wine ageing,“Why Do Some Wines Get better with Age While Others Don’t?”

The post On Wine, a Wine Find, and on (Wine) Ageing appeared first on The Moderate Voice.

FUNDING GOAL $700 TOTAL as of 6/7/26 $233TOTAL. AMOUNT NOW NEEDED $517

The Moderate Voice is now dealing with a legal issue and has to raise $700. TMV has been around since 2003 and now has a wider reach since Google News has picked it up as a news source and also the SmartNews phone app also runs some of its posts. This current crisis came out of the blue.

$50 was donated to our last fundraiser so I’m deducting that from the $750 that must be paid for a goal of $700. No amount is too small and certainly no amount up to $700 is too big:)

If you know of someone who might want to donate to TMV please spread the word. Since it’s inception The Moderate Voice has been 100 percent independent and has no very big donor, no corporate support. It operates on donations from readers and quite modest ad revenue which is paid quarterly.

Donations can be made on the right on the Go Fund Me link.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

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I don’t have a lot of memories of the nation’s bicentennial; I spent that summer in northern Europe. But I do know that President Nixon was accused of putting on a “buycentennial” because of the corporate money spent on the celebration.

President Trump is once again making Nixon look like a choir boy.

One of the first executive orders Trump signed in 2025, Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday, promised a “grand celebration” and set up a White House task force to make that happen.

The task force does not include a representative from the bipartisan United States Semiquincentennial Commission, created by Congress in 2016 to “provide for the observance and commemoration of the 250^th founding of the United States.” Instead, all members represent the executive branch.

That, by itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is bad when the National Park Service (NPS) says on its website that the task force event, Freedom 250, is the “official national commemoration of America’s 250^th anniversary.” Because it’s not. The official Congressional event is America250, established by the bipartisan Semiquincentennial Commission.

Freedom 250 is an LLC set up by the National Park Foundation (NPF), the official nonprofit partner of the NPS, in December to manage fundraising and branding for the White House task force. The NPS is directly represented on Trump’s task force via the Secretary of the Interior. And Freedom 250, LLC, is overseen by that same White House, partisan task force.

Got a headache yet? It gets more complicated.

Freedom 250 was in the news this week because of a series of planned concerts at the Great American State Fair on the National Mall June 25 – July 10. Musical guests rushed to renege after they learned that the event was a partisan one closely tied to the president.

And the president’s response? Replace the concerts with a political rally “instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain.” Earlier he had claimed to be more popular than Elvis Presley while pitching himself as the keynote speaker for the fair.

Why did most musicians run away from Freedom 250? It’s a moneymaking scheme that grants donors access to the president. Donate $1,000,000 (or more), for example, and get, in return, an invitation to a private reception hosted by the president. All donors and donations are hidden from public view under the LLC umbrella.

Let’s return to the organizations for a moment. Congress allocated $150 million to America250; it has received $25 million. Somehow, $10 million was siphoned off for a Freedom 250 fleet of six “Freedom Trucks” (double-wide 18-wheelers) modified into mobile museums. Where is the remaining $115 million?

The museums are not without controversy. This Administration has a documented history of removing exhibits from national parks. For example, in January, NPS removed an outdoor exhibit from Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. The topic? President Washington’s ownership of slaves. With the moving museums, the challenge isn’t simply whitewashing and pablum. It’s putting words in the mouths of founders using AI.

That $10 million was a present to conservative PragerU (not a real university) and Hillsdale College, a Michigan-based Christian liberal arts college. So it’s no surprise that “America is depicted as a white Christian nation.” As The Guardian continues, one placard states: “The truth that each person is made in the image and likeness of God is the basis of human equality.”

I’d like to remind you of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which makes it clear that the federal government can neither be hostile to religion nor can it promote one religion over others. Freedom 250 is a public-private partnership run through the White House. As such, it is subject to the Constitution, in this non-lawyer’s opinion.

Then there are fake AI quotes that PragerU created for the Founders Museum, a partnership with the White House and the U.S. Department of Education. Dennis Prager, 77, has John Adams say: “Facts do not care about your feelings.” Adams did not say this. Contemporary conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, a PragerU presenter, is the owner of that phrase.

You won’t find out much about the Freedom Trucks or the Great American State Fair on the Freedom250.org website. The site doesn’t link out to PragerU, for example, which has a much easier to read list of dates and locations than Freedom 250.

And the website provides no details about the states and organizations it claims are participating in the Great American State Fair. Axios was able to get some details about Arizona and Florida; John Deere and Northrop Grumman will also be there, they say. Contrast that with America250, which has a comprehensive calendar of events by date or state and links out to each state’s website.

Then there’s the Freedom 250 UFC fight on the south lawn of the White House slated for June 14, Trump’s birthday. The $80 million event is being fully sponsored by TKO Holdings Group, which owns UFC. Politics has leaked through, reportedly. Sean Strickland, the reigning middleweight champion, says he’s been banned from the event for being critical of Trump.

In case you’re wondering what a mixed martial arts event put on by the UFC has to do with Independence Day … you won’t find an answer at Freedom250.org. If you frame it as spectacle, though, it’s on brand. After all, Trump himself admitted it is “a gimmick.”

Speaking of Freedom250.org, that website was developed by the National Design Studio (NDS), a three-year temporary agency created by an August 2025 executive order and run through the White House. That quasi-independent LLC looks very connected to the White House, doesn’t it?

The website includes events that do not appear to be affiliated with Freedom 250. For example, it lists the opening of the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library as a Freedom 250 event. There is no mention of Freedom 250 or its logo on the library website. Freedom 250 also gets the date wrong and doesn’t link out to the library.

The website also claims the 4^th of July celebration at Mount Rushmore. There is nothing about Freedom 250 on the NPS website promoting the event. Freedom 250 says there is only one day of events; there are three. (No link out to the event, as expected.) The NPS page acknowledges its partnership with the State of South Dakota, however. Mount Rushmore has 4^th of July events every year.

Somehow, the International Naval Review & Sail4^th 250 at the Port of New York and New Jersey is affiliated with both America250 and Freedom 250 but is certainly not unique to either. Sail4th got its start under President Kennedy. It held July 4^th celebrations during the 1976 Bicentennial, the 1986 Statue of Liberty centennial, the 1992 Columbus Quincentennial, the Millennium celebration of 2000 and the 2012 Bicentennial of The Star-Spangled Banner.

Freedom 250 is also co-opting the annual Independence Day fireworks display on the National Mall.

So there’s questionable content on the NDS-designed website. There is more razzmatazz that has an enigmatic connection to the Declaration of Independence. First up, an INDYCAR race, the Freedom 250 Grand Prix. Next, the group announced plans for a Patriot Games National Competition (page is 404 not found) for high school athletes this fall; it has drawn comparisons to the Hunger Games.

Let’s look at the website designer bona fides. The temporary head of NDS is Joe Gebbia, the DOGE alumnus and cofounder of Airbnb. As you know, DOGE is the subject of numerous federal lawsuits related to their controversial access to Social Security data. Given DOGE’s documented record on data access, his appointment warrants close scrutiny.

At least one security analyst has critiqued apparent data privacy issues associated with NDS built sites. It’s noteworthy that Congress established a web design system that resides in the General Services Administration. Yet the White House developed its own.

The more you investigate semiquincentennial events sponsored by the White House, the more you see it as a tangled and disjointed mess. The White House has sucked oxygen (and financing) away from the Congressionally created America250. It promotes opaque donations to curry favor with Trump. Most events have little if any connection to 250 years of American democracy.

If there is one thread, it’s all about Trump. His is the last video in the Freedom Truck museums. And a placard alongside reads: “My fellow Americans, get ready for an incredible future, because the golden age of America has only just begun.”

With him at the helm, of course.

First published at Substack.

The post The nation turns 250. One man is making sure it’s about him. appeared first on The Moderate Voice.

The post CBS NEWS (CARTOON) appeared first on The Moderate Voice.

Adam Eichen, UMass Amherst; Jesse Rhodes, UMass Amherst, and Tatishe Nteta, UMass Amherst

During a Washington Nationals baseball game on May 17, 2026, three people unfurled a large banner from the upper deck of Nationals Park displaying a link to a white nationalist website.

The website, warning of the replacement of whites by people of color, called for the deportation of 100 million people from the United States.

The disturbing incident reflects the broader ascendance of the “great replacement theory,” the xenophobic conspiracy theory asserting that shadowy elites are embracing permissive immigration policies to replace native-born white Americans with immigrants of color.

Prominent Republicans, including President Donald Trump, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson, have echoed ideas associated with the great replacement theory. And conservative media outlets, such as Fox News, have disseminated them to millions of viewers.

But are the xenophobic ideas recently expressed at Nationals Park limited to a small number of extremists, or are they also endorsed by the broader public? If the latter, how do political and media elites contribute to their spread?

To answer these questions, our team has conducted several nationally representative surveys that ask Americans about their support for key tenets of the great replacement theory.

New immigrants as a threat

We consistently found that a substantial minority of Americans agree with the sentiment that new immigrants threaten the political, cultural and economic power of white Americans. In our latest poll of 1,000 Americans fielded in March 2026, 36% agreed with the statement: “Native-born Americans are losing their economic, political, and cultural influence in this country because of the growing population of immigrants.”

A notable number of Americans – 26% – also believed political elites are trying to “replace” the existing white population, agreeing with the statement: “There are people who secretly work to make sure immigrants will eventually replace real Americans.”

Support for these beliefs is concentrated most heavily among white Americans, Republicans, conservatives and self-identifying members of Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. Indeed, more than 3 in 4 members of the MAGA movement and close to 6 in 10 Republicans agreed with the statement: “Immigrants invade and colonize the United States.”

But what explains this spread of the great replacement theory?

In our newly published, peer-reviewed study, we used nationally representative panel survey data that tracked over 500 white Americans over time to attempt to answer this question.

We found that white Americans who identified as Republican, who are conservatives and who have negative views of people from other racial backgrounds are all more likely to express support for key tenets of the great replacement theory. Moreover, we uncovered clear evidence that white Americans who watch Fox News are also more likely to agree with the conspiracy theory.

Given the popularity of Fox News, we believe this latter point deserved further investigation. As detailed in our paper, while 39% of all white Americans agree that immigrants invade and colonize the U.S., 61% of white Americans who watch Fox News agree with this view. Even when taking into account partisan identification, ideology, racial attitudes and demographic characteristics, Fox News viewership remains significantly associated with more support for the great replacement theory.

Additionally, because we tracked white Americans over time, we could observe changes in their support for the conspiracy theory in response to variations in their viewership of Fox News. Simply put, the more Fox News programming that a white American watches, the more likely they are to adopt the conspiracy theory.

Links to political violence

Our research builds on decades of work showing that public opinion is strongly influenced by media consumption. Recent scholarship, in particular, highlights the influence of Fox News on public opinion. It shows how exposure to Fox News leads Americans to express more conservative attitudes about the COVID-19 pandemic, immigration policies and criminal justice issues.

Given the attention that Fox News hosts, elected officials and pundits dedicate to the great replacement theory, our results suggest that this coverage has indeed influenced the views of white Americans. The great replacement theory is no longer purely on the fringes of society.

In our view, this is troubling, not only because the conspiracy theory treats immigration as an existential issue — where the stakes are framed as the very preservation of one’s self and country — but also because the theory is also linked to numerous instances of political violence directed at people of color and religious minorities.

As America approaches its 250th birthday, the nation will no doubt continue to grapple with the topic of immigration, race and what it means to be an American.

While there’s plenty of room for disagreement over immigration policy, conspiracy theories make it much harder to find common ground or craft political compromises. What we’ve found is that when prominent media embrace conspiracy theorizing, increased public endorsement of conspiracies will follow.

Adam Eichen, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science, UMass Amherst; Jesse Rhodes, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass Amherst, and Tatishe Nteta, Provost Professor of Political Science, UMass Amherst

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post How Fox News viewership increases belief in the anti-immigrant great replacement theory appeared first on The Moderate Voice.

by Brad Reed
Common Dreams

President Donald Trump shocked many observers on Tuesday when he appointed Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte to be his acting director of national intelligence, weeks after Tulsi Gabbard stepped down from the role.

In a Tuesday morning social media post, Trump announced that Pulte would be taking over as DNI while also remaining at his current post at the FHFA, which regulates government-sponsored housing enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

As noted by a Tuesday CNBC report, Pulte “has no prior experience in an intelligence role. His tenure at FHFA has been marked by his criminal referrals for mortgage fraud against Trump’s political foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, whom the president has been trying to fire in an effort to stack the US central bank with political loyalists.

James was targeted for prosecution after she won a $450 million judgment against the president and his business in a civil fraud case.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairperson of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, delivered a scathing response to Trump’s announcement.

“This appointment speaks volumes about what this president expects from the nation’s top intelligence official,” he said. “Rather than selecting a respected national security professional capable of delivering independent judgments, the president has chosen an official who has demonstrated not just willingness but eagerness to use the authorities of government to pursue political retribution.”

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) also denounced the president’s decision.

“Bill Pulte led Donald Trump’s efforts to charge and jail his political enemies, now he’s being rewarded with a job he has no business doing,” Cortez Masto said. “Putting Pulte at the helm of the intelligence community risks American lives just so Trump can keep going after his political opponents.”

Sean Vitka, executive director of Demand Progress, argued that Pulte’s appointment was yet another reason for Democrats to oppose further extension of warrantless spying powers under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

“Congress must not sign away unchecked spying powers to the government,” said Vitka, “when Donald Trump’s top spy is a man whose primary qualification is his willingness to weaponize sensitive information held by the government against the president’s political enemies.”

Vitka specifically urged Warner to change course on his push to renew Section 702, particularly in light of Pulte’s appointment.

“By supporting a FISA extension without any independent checks like warrant protections, Sen. Warner is putting the entire country at serious risk and enabling perhaps the greatest threat to American democracy we have seen in modern history,” he said.

Journalist James Surowiecki expressed horror at Pulte’s elevation to acting DNI.

“Even for Trump, this is nuts,” Surowiecki wrote. “Bill Pulte, who’s a [private equity] guy/real-estate developer with exactly zero intelligence experience, is going to be the new Director of National Intelligence—while also continuing to run FHFA and Fannie Mae/Fredde Mac!”

Don Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, issued a dire warning about Pulte potentially abusing US intelligence services to target Trump opponents.

“F— me, this is Bill Pulte,” Moynihan wrote. “The guy who was using mortgage data to launch DOJ investigations against Lisa Cook, Letitia James, and [US Sen.] Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). He is being put in charge of national intelligence because of his track record of being willing to manufacture false allegations to target Trump’s enemies.”

Political commentator Keith Boykin described Pulte as Trump’s “personal henchman” who “abused his position as chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to send baseless criminal referrals against Letitia James and Lisa Cook.”

National security attorney Bradley Moss, meanwhile, could not hide his disgust at Pulte’s appointment in an all-caps social media post.

“WHAT THE… I QUIT,” Moss wrote. “I GIVE UP. BILL PULTE??”

TMV EDITOR’S NOTE: The appointment is not being well received. Twitter:

BREAKING: Trump taps Pulte as new intel chief.

Be appalled. But also be alarmed. Be very alarmed.https://t.co/yJv2Ohlikq

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 2, 2026

Love to have been a fly on the wall when Republicans in Congress, already confounded by ballroom, slush funds and other antics, received word that Trump appointed a poltical hatchet man as the nation's Intel chief.

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) June 2, 2026

With many people now seeing the headlines that Bill Pulte, a man with zero years of military or intelligence experience, will now be the Acting Director of National Intelligence, outrage is the immediate response.

But it’s deeper than that, and far more concerning.

In normal…

— Brett Erickson (@BrettErickson28) June 2, 2026

Trump says he is appointing his ally and loyalist Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte has no national intelligence experience, but he has used his current role as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to pursue phony mortgage fraud allegations… pic.twitter.com/8wMqm68hT1

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) June 2, 2026

I will be a hard NO on FISA Section 702 reauthorization.

Whether or not the totally unqualified and corrupt Bill Pulte gets confirmed, trump’s nomination of Pulte has already shown trump would have no problem with weaponizing intelligence against Americans he doesn’t like. https://t.co/M3hkmh6wCj

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 2, 2026

BREAKING: Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune enrages MAGA by saying that "we don't need a weaponized" Director of National Intelligence after Trump nominated a total "nut" for the crucial job.

This is Trump's worst pick to date and everyone knows it…

"Bill Pulte is… pic.twitter.com/yCMvHHnkxT

— Occupy Democrats (@OccupyDemocrats) June 2, 2026

Sen. Mark Warner, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Bill Pulte’s nominating to serve as acting DNI:

“I thought I’d gotten to the stage where I could no longer be shocked by Donald Trump’s choices, but this may be the most outrageous of all,” he told me. pic.twitter.com/UJu1HAr1tJ

— Mychael Schnell (@mychaelschnell) June 2, 2026

Bill Pulte — who took charge at FHFA/Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac then accused Trump opponents (Schiff, NYAG James, Fed Board’s Cook) of alleged mortgage fraud — to now be entrusted with nation’s most closely held secrets and most intrusive surveillance abilities. pic.twitter.com/2xBgJ71s6T

— Jake Tapper ? (@jaketapper) June 2, 2026

At a time when the U.S. is at war and the threats to national security loom large, we need a Director of National Intelligence who is knowledgeable, experienced, and respected.

Bill Pulte is none of these things.

He politicized and weaponized the housing agencies and will do… https://t.co/b2kVazcRrU

— Adam Schiff (@SenAdamSchiff) June 2, 2026

Jaw droppingly unqualified—Bill Pulte is a danger to national security as DNI. His knee bending sycophancy to Trump only adds insult to injury, mocking & degrading our intelligence community. https://t.co/BglWdSkM6O

— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) June 2, 2026

Democrats were very skeptical of voting to extend FISA because they thought the intelligence community could weaponize wiretapping under Trump.

Extending FISA with @pulte as DNI will be very hard.

FISA deadline is June 12. 10 days from now.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 2, 2026

Sen Angus King (Maine-Independent) who serves on Senate Intell Committee reacts to President Trump’s choice of Bill Pulte to serve as Director of National Intelligence:
Sen Angus King, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee:

“The Director of National Intelligence is an…

— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) June 2, 2026

MacFarlane: Do you have any reservations about Pulte being DNI?

Welch: Absolutely. He knows nothing about intelligence. His number one qualification is that he is totally devoted to Donald Trump, and he will do whatever Trump wants. Does that mean intelligence will be by the… pic.twitter.com/acZ804vDrN

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 2, 2026

Trump’s choice for acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, is both terrifying and predictable, @davidfrum argues. https://t.co/Mzs74nUFC8

— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) June 2, 2026

Bill Pulte is about as qualified do be DNI as some random hobo pulled from behind a bus station.

(Which, ironically, is where Stephen Miller feeds.)

— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 2, 2026

GO HERE for more press coverage and discussion of this story.

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=165341063

The post ‘This is Nuts’: Critics Aghast as Trump Appoints ‘Personal Henchman’ as Acting DNI appeared first on The Moderate Voice.

The near legendary elementary school teacher sighed.

“I’ve been teaching more than 23 years and I love the kids,” he said. “But it’s getting harder and harder and I think I’m going to hang it up at the end of this year.”

What’s getting harder?

“There’s so little support at home when the kids act up. There’s so much stress in the classroom. There are some nights when I can’t get to sleep. I love what I do but I think it’s time. I have to take care of myself.”

This teacher isn’t alone. There is a teacher shortage and it isn’t just a number problem, it’s a working-conditions problem. Teachers are not merely leaving because they found better jobs. Many are leaving because the classroom has become a pressure-cooker: more disruptive behavior, more student anxiety, more parental hostility or absence, more political second-guessing, and less backup from administrators who fear complaints, lawsuits or bad publicity.

The result: a profession built on idealism now running on fumes. The facts give a clue why.

According to Learning Policy Institute, about 1 in 7 public school teachers either moved to other schools or left teaching between 2020-21 and 2022. About 7.1% left the profession entirely. Rand Corporation says turnover stabilized after the pandemic, but there’s still a big problem, especially in high-poverty, urban, special education, math, science and rural positions.

A 2025 national scan estimated 1 in 8 teaching positions is either vacant or filled by someone not fully certified, affecting more than 6 million students. Another estimated 56,000 vacant positions and 350,000 unqualified teachers for 2025-2026.

What’s going on? The core issue is attrition. Learning Policy Institute says it accounts for some 90% of annual teacher demand, and less than one-fifth of those leaving are simply retiring. Many cite other careers, low salary and dissatisfaction.

Behavior and support are key reasons why some teachers are heading for the exits. The National Education found Association found more than 75% of educators surveyed cited lack of parental support in student discipline, and 60% cited lack of administrator support. Rand found 44% named behavior as their top job stressor while Pew found 80% of teachers deal with behavioral problems at least a few times a week.

In the past, when a teacher called home, parents often asked, “what did my child do?” Today, the questions at times would be “What did you to my child?…My child couldn’t have done that!…Well, he says he didn’t do it so you’re wrong.”

At first glance, it would seem kids are more violent. From 2019 to 2026 there are several incidents of kids in middle schools who were either in fights or sucker punched, fell, hit their heads and died. But it’s risky to claim that school violence is statically “worse than ever” because data are mixed.

However, it isn’t risky to say teachers’ experience schools as more volatile. The smartphone age has turned hallway fights into viral entertainment, and isolated brutal incidents – body slams, stabbings, knockout punches—now ricochet across TikTok, You Tube and X before the school district can issue its first statement. That magnifies fear, but it also reflects something real: many educators feel they’re being asked to teach, parent, counsel and police and absorb abuse — all at once.

Teachers can change lives, and I was fortunate to have two great ones. Seymour Schonberger at Amity High School in Woodridge, Ct. and Professor Marcus Franda at Colgate University totally changed my life. They gave me confidence, encouragement, and motivation that still fuels me. They also became surrogate fathers.

Somewhere tonight, an exhausted teacher is sitting at a kitchen table, thinking back to why he or she went into teaching, and wondering whether this is the year to quit. That should alarm all of us — because long after students forget test scores and homework, they remember the teachers who believed in them, challenged them, rescued them, or changed the direction of their lives.

America doesn’t just have a teacher shortage. It has a shortage of grown-ups willing to let teachers teach.

Copyright 2026 Joe Gandelman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

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I’m old enough to remember when conservatives routinely preached a good game about the importance of morality in politics.

This was back in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was known to… how shall I say this… fancy the ladies. His behavior prompted many on the Republican right to furrow their brows and insist our leaders possess the virtues of “good character.”

In the words of Bill Bennett, a former Reagan Cabinet secretary and vocal virtue maven, “moral anchors and moorings have never been more necessary.” In the words of Gary Bauer, an evangelical Christian leader, “Character counts – in a people, in the institutions of our society, and in our national leadership.”

I hardly need remind you of what has since transpired at the national level – namely, the 2024 hiring of a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist and proven financial fraudster, thanks in no small part to a conservative base that once lauded the virtues of moral character. Therefore, it’s no surprise a Trump mini-me, a poster child for moral and financial depravity, has romped to a Senate Republican nomination down in Texas.

The rise of Ken Paxton is the latest symptom of our national decline, and it would not shock me one iota if he triumphs in November and helps to cement the party’s Senate majority.

Is it possible that Democrat James Talarico, the Bible-quoting Presbyterian seminarian, can turn the seat blue? Theoretically, sure. But this is Texas we’re talking about. The last time a Texas Democrat won an open Senate seat, it was so long ago that the Jackson 5 topped the Billboard charts with “I’ll Be There.” That was November of 1970. As Casey Stengel liked to say, “You can look it up.”

So any Republican candidate starts with an enormous advantage – even a lowlife like Paxton, the state attorney general, who was impeached by his own party in the Texas state House, indicted on felony securities fraud charges, and dimed out to the FBI by his own staffers. He wife has filed for divorce, citing “biblical grounds,” namely adultery. Despite all that, Republican primary voters decided he’s precisely the kind of guy they want in Washington.

Trump endorsed Paxton and that’s all they needed to know. They want the vice. They want the criminality. They want the reverse of what they worship on Sundays and preach to their kids.

The grim truth these days is mindless tribalism usually trumps any notion of right and wrong. The acquisition and retention of power takes holy precedence. That’s how it works in a cult. Moral values are a luxury, as worthless as yesterday’s soiled Kleenex.

Which is why Paxton is already doing what MAGAts do best, smearing the opposition 24/7. Cue the garbage: “Some people know him as tofu Talarico. Some people call him six-gender Jimmy. I’ve even heard some people call him James Talafreako.” (Talarico has referred to himself as “cis gender,” which literally means he knows he’s a male. Paxton and Trump have twisted “cis” into “six.”)

Some pro-Talarico optimists insist these scurrilous attacks are proof Paxton and his MAGA overlord are “terrified.” I disagree. I think they’re emboldened. They’re just doing what has worked so well so often these last 10 years. And even if Paxton is pond scum, he’s their pond scum – and that’s better than a guy who will team up with Chuck Schumer and the rest of those “woke” libs.

So it’s no surprise that the Republicans in Washington have duly fallen in goosestep.

Before the Texas primary, they pledged fealty to their brother in arms, John Cornyn. They hammered away at Paxton, citing the “20 articles of impeachment…over alleged bribery, abuse of power and obstruction of justice.” They spotlighted Paxton’s adulterous behavior, “using secret emails and burner phones to try and cover his tracks,” and inventing an alias “for a fake Uber account that he used to secretly see his mistress.”

Those quotes, and more, were emblazoned on the website of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The other day they were all deleted, flushed down the Orwellian memory hole.

There shall be no more talk of Paxton’s moral failings. And for sure there shall be no further talk of Paxton’s recent decision to go easy on a Republican attorney who’d been charged with repeated sexual abuse of a boy. Paxton brokered a plea deal. The offender served 30 days in jail, with no need to register as a sex offender.

Cornyn had highlighted this pedophilia case during the primary campaign, but don’t expect Republicans – who once prided themselves as the champions of moral values – to mention the case again.

And rest assured if Paxton lands in the Senate, he will join his colleagues every October in proclaiming National Character Counts Week – an annual chamber tradition since the 1990s. Last year’s version lauded the importance of “trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.” Wow. The hypocrisy is so thick you can’t cut it with a chainsaw.

Six years without Paxton’s signature would be a small blessing.

Copyright 2026 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes the Subject to Change newsletter. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com

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When the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan last year to a small North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr., defense officials and the company tried to tamp down suspicions of cronyism.

The president’s eldest son said through a spokesperson that he wasn’t involved. The Pentagon said Trump Jr. played no role in the record-setting deal. And the startup’s founder told reporters that his company, Vulcan Elements, received no political favoritism.

But interviews and Defense Department records reviewed by ProPublica show that the request to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the firm linked to Trump Jr. was made by Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to President Donald Trump and a friend of Trump Jr.’s.

Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was considering funding at the time, Vulcan’s was the only deal initiated by a top aide to the president, said an official at the Pentagon who was not authorized to speak publicly.

After defense officials got the White House request, they asked Pentagon staff to move at an unusually rapid pace, said another person who was involved in the deal at the Pentagon but not authorized to speak about it. The staff worked late nights and with little sleep to get the loan through in a matter of weeks, the source said.

“The call came from the White House: We have to get this done,” the person said.

The deal is one of many actions by the Trump administration that have helped companies in which the Trump family holds stakes. Government contracts and other benefits have gone to various Trump-linked companies, prompting allegations of self-dealing by Democratic lawmakers and good government experts. But ProPublica’s reporting on the Vulcan loan represents the first time the awarding of a contract from a federal agency has been directly linked to White House intervention.

The loan was a massive financial commitment from the Pentagon in its effort to fund companies that could help the U.S. reduce dependence on China’s critical mineral supply chains. The deal was a dramatic win for Vulcan, a North Carolina rare-earth magnet company launched just two years earlier. Estimates of its valuation grew tenfold after the deal was announced. It was also a win for Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, which took a stake of undisclosed size in Vulcan about three months before the Pentagon announced the deal.

And there may be more good news on the way for the president’s eldest son. Among other companies under review for a Pentagon loan was a drone parts manufacturer that Trump Jr. advises and owns a stake in, according to one of the defense officials who spoke to ProPublica.

Navarro, who served as trade adviser in Trump’s first term, and Trump Jr. have formed a close bond in recent years. The president’s son visited Navarro in prison while he served time for defying a subpoena from lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Trump Jr. was one of the small group of people Navarro dedicated his latest book to for having “my back when it was against the wall.” And a week before the Vulcan deal was announced, Trump Jr. hosted Navarro — now the president’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing — on his streaming show, encouraging his nearly 2 million subscribers to buy Navarro’s book. That interview was not long after word came down from Navarro to Pentagon staff to make the massive loan to Vulcan, one of the defense officials involved in the deal said.

Navarro did not respond to questions from ProPublica sent to him directly. Neither did Vulcan. A White House spokesperson said in a statement that the administration is working “in the best interest of the American people,” adding, “The President’s entire team, including Senior Counselor Navarro and officials at the Department of War, is working together and with private industry to secure America’s critical mineral supply chain at Trump Speed.” Trump Jr.’s spokesperson said the president’s son does not discuss companies he has invested in with federal government officials and did not speak to Navarro about Vulcan. He “has no knowledge about how this deal came together,” the spokesperson said. A spokesperson for 1789 Capital, the venture firm where Trump Jr. is a partner, said it also played no role in Vulcan getting the loan and did not learn about the deal before it was public.

“No company receives preferential treatment,” a Pentagon spokesperson said. “Outside affiliations, investors, or political connections play absolutely no role in the Department’s funding decisions.”

Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, said aides to the president should not be intervening in contracting and lending decisions by agencies, particularly in matters that financially benefit the president’s family.

“This is our money they’re spending,” Painter said. “This is corruption we pay for.”

The Office of Strategic Capital, the Pentagon division that made the deal with Vulcan, aims to address a bipartisan concern: that China’s grip on rare-earth elements and other critical minerals threatens national security.

It is hard to overstate the country’s dominance in this arena. As of last year, for example, China produced the world’s entire supply of samarium, an obscure rare-earth metal that is an essential component of magnets that help guide Tomahawk missiles and start the engines in F-35 fighter jets. Other rare earths are central to the manufacturing of a vast array of commercial and military products, from car parts and semiconductors to drones.

Finding the raw materials is generally not hard, but separating them from other materials they’re bonded to is, and it’s that process that China largely dominates. Virtually every advanced military in the world depends directly or indirectly on the country’s supply chain of rare earths. The danger of relying so heavily on a single supplier for these essential materials was underscored last year when China announced it was restricting exports of some rare-earth metals.

The Office of Strategic Capital, started under the Biden administration, funds private companies that are working in this space or developing certain military technologies so that the U.S. can stop relying on its top rival to equip its own military.

The Trump administration supersized the effort, expanding its lending authority from about $1 billion to $200 billion. It also radically changed how the office operated, according to interviews with more than a dozen people who worked there or interacted with it from the private sector or other parts of the government.

The Biden administration had set up an open application process for interested companies, with each firm to be vetted methodically, a process meant to ensure good bets — but one that people involved acknowledged was set up to be slow and bureaucratic.

“The Trump administration is more interested in going out into the market and finding what it wants. We’re not going to wait for people to apply to us,” said one former Office of Strategic Capital official.

The Trump Pentagon handed the reins to hard-charging former Wall Street executives, who have been recruiting others to make the leap from finance to government. A leaked presentation from a headhunter seemed to suggest they could parlay their tour in government into future riches: “If you ever want to raise your own fund, you will gain access to fundraising channels that include royal families and foreign sovereign contacts.” (It’s unclear whether the Pentagon approved the presentation.)

The office’s new leaders aim to make as many deals as possible, including loans and investments in exchange for ownership stakes, people who have worked with the office say. They said the new officials are relying more on their own personal networks, not applications, to choose companies to fund. So far, outside of Vulcan, a small number of other companies have been selected, including Korea Zinc, a metal refiner; MP Materials, a Nevada rare-earth mining company; and ReElement Technologies, an Indiana producer of rare-earth elements and battery metals that partners with Vulcan. The Pentagon’s announcement said the loans to Vulcan and ReElement were conditional on the firms fulfilling certain legal and financial requirements but did not detail them.

Last week, Bloomberg reported that the Pentagon may ultimately not lend to ReElement because of concerns over the company’s revenue projections and ability to scale up its technology that were discovered after the conditional loan was announced.

Because of its size and connection to Trump Jr., the Vulcan deal has drawn the most scrutiny. A group of Democratic senators demanded that the Pentagon provide an accounting of how the company was awarded the loan, writing that the Trump family’s conflicts of interest could be “resulting in a waste of taxpayer dollars and a threat to national security.” (The Pentagon’s response did not address how Vulcan was selected, explaining only how the department addresses conflicts that arise from its employees’ financial holdings, not those of the president’s family.) Democrats in the House tried to subpoena Trump Jr. to testify on the Vulcan deal but were blocked by Republicans. “Donald Trump Jr. must be made to answer whether the president’s son illegally profited from his father’s presidency,” Oregon Rep. Maxine Dexter said earlier this year.

Vulcan was launched in 2023 by a student at Harvard Business School. The private company quickly began securing a series of relatively small defense contracts, beginning during the Biden administration. Its first manufacturing facility opened in March 2025; according to an interview with its founder published that month, the firm’s funding around that time was less than $10 million. The kind of rare-earth magnets the company focuses on are needed for critical military technologies, including drones and satellites.

In August 2025, Vulcan announced $65 million in investments, including from 1789 Capital, the venture firm that Trump Jr. joined as a partner after his father was elected to a second term. Neither 1789 nor Vulcan has publicly disclosed how much of a stake the venture firm has taken.  

Staff in the Office of Strategic Capital learned of the White House request to give a loan to Vulcan around September or October, an official involved said. It’s unclear how the White House request was delivered or if it was presented as an order or a recommendation. Companies considered for funding are generally vetted for many months, the person said, but this deal was completed in a matter of weeks because they were told it was a White House priority.

Asked about the Vulcan deal being expedited, the Pentagon spokesperson said defense officials balance “lightning speed with rigorous diligence to close high-impact deals that directly strengthen America’s defense and empower our warfighters.”

In November, the Pentagon announced its plans to lend $620 million to the company and another $80 million to its partner, ReElement. The company would also get $50 million in incentives from the Commerce Department. In exchange, the government would take a $50 million stake in Vulcan with the right to buy more later.

Vulcan, which at the time had fewer than 50 employees, said it would use the windfall to build a large new facility that would churn out thousands of tons of magnets a year. It said it planned to ramp up in the coming years, adding hundreds of new jobs.

The deal was good news for Vulcan’s investors, including Trump Jr.’s firm. Estimates of Vulcan’s valuation went from around $200 million near the time 1789 Capital first invested, according to Bloomberg, to around $2 billion.  

Navarro’s role in initiating the deal was not publicly disclosed. Even if he didn’t discuss it with Trump Jr., the loan represented a win for someone Navarro considered a dear friend. In an October episode of Trump Jr.’s streaming show, “Triggered,” the two showed a close bond. The president’s son called Navarro “my boy” and complimented him on the “jacked” physique he developed while in prison. Navarro called Trump Jr. “brother” and thanked him for his support “in my hardest of times.” (Navarro had argued he was wrongly imprisoned for not complying with a congressional subpoena because he was protected by executive privilege.)

Although Vulcan was not mentioned, the two spoke about rare earths, a topic Navarro has frequently discussed publicly. “China has revealed itself with this rare-earth issue as a country which is using the weaponization of their manufacturing floor, their supply chains, to exert pressure, not just on the United States, but to every other country that might do something that gets in the way of the Chinese dream of world domination,” Navarro said. “That’s what we’re fighting now.”

The Office of Strategic Capital is expected to deploy billions more in loans in the coming months to critical mineral and military technology companies.

Among the companies under review was Unusual Machines, a Florida drone parts maker, a Defense official said. Trump Jr. sits on the company’s advisory board and holds millions of dollars worth of shares. The Pentagon was accused of cronyism last year when it awarded the company a contract to make drone engines for the Army.

Executives at other companies hoping for Pentagon loans or other types of investments are scrambling to figure out how to get in front of the right people.      

Brodie Sutherland, CEO of Nevada-based tungsten mining company Patriot Critical Minerals, said his firm hired a lobbyist. That person knew someone who was previously connected to the Office of Strategic Capital and was able to introduce the company to a current staffer.

“It’s like any industry: A lot of what it is,” Sutherland said, “is who you know.”

Speaking to ProPublica last month, he said his company had had conversations with Pentagon staff and he was optimistic the firm could get funding.

“Whether you need someone on the inside track to get it across the line I don’t know,” he said. “We’re hopeful you don’t need to be chums with Trump Jr. to get a project across.”

Defense Department records reviewed recently by ProPublica show Sutherland’s company had already been considered for a loan but was rejected. The records did not say why. Sutherland said he still hoped his company could secure some kind of Pentagon funding in the future.

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From one indicted, impeached, adultering, corrupt individual to another

I have been drawing cartoons about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton since at least 2020, as you can see here, when he filed a lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s electoral vote for Joe Biden. Did I mention that he’s the Attorney General for Texas, not Pennsylvania?

I did a cartoon about him in 2022 when he hid behind his wife from process servers. The reason he’s being served so much is that he is a criminal. Of course, this was before he was caught cheating on his wife.

One of my favorite cartoons about Paxton was drawn during his impeachment trial in 2023. Yes, he was impeached because of his corruption, but the Texas Senate saved his tiny corrupt balls. The party that impeached him was his own, Republicans.

I mentioned Ken Paxton in another cartoon from 2023 and pointed out the irony of corrupt goons like him accusing Joe Biden of corruption.

I got to draw another cartoon about Ken Paxton in 2023 when he was rounding up a posse to catch women trying to leave Texas to get an abortion. I hope none of them was his girlfriend.

I titled my 2024 cartoon about Paxton going after supposed Latino voter fraud, Pendejo Supreme.

You know the Attorney General for Texas is a ridiculous and corrupt individual when a cartoonist in Virginia is drawing about him a lot, though, to be fair, I was born in Texas. Maybe there’s a subconscious part of me that’s defensive of Texas, but I don’t really think that’s the case.

Now the impeached, indicted, adultering, corrupt, and lying Attorney General is the Republican nominee for the US Senate after crushing Senator John Cornyn last night (despite being outspent by roughly $80 million), all thanks to an endorsement from the impeached, indicted, adultering, corrupt, and lying Donald Trump. Paxton beat Cornyn by over 25% points.

Proving once again that he does not return the loyalty that he demands, Trump abandoned Cornyn despite voting with him 92.2% of the time. Trump went with the corrupt and scandal-plagued Paxton because they are kindred spirits in corruption. Paxton supported Donald Trump’s election lies and sued the Biden administration over 100 times, with many of those suits based on hate, dogma, and conspiracy theories. Republicans hope this turns out better than the time Trump endorsed a pedophile for the Alabama Senate seat.

This also proves once again that Republicans are nothing more than a cult, going with Trump’s endorsement instead of the loyal senator who has been representing them for over two decades. John Cornyn is the ninth Republican Trump has ousted this year. Trump and his cult praise his power when it comes to endorsements, and in 2025, he had a 100% success rate in primaries, according to Ballotpedia. However, he only had a 33% success rate in general elections in 2025. I don’t look for those numbers to improve when Trump’s approval ratings are around 33%.

Democrats have been looking to pick up Senate seats in Alaska, North Carolina, Maine, and Ohio, but now they can add Texas. A candidate like Ken Paxton makes the seat extremely vulnerable, even in deep-red Texas. Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball from the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia has changed the rating of Texas from likely Republican to leans Republican. The GOP should look at that as if they just went from a tornado warning to a tornado watch (I used to get those two confused when I was a kid. Which one means we are about to die?). And if Republicans want to keep the seat, they will have to spend millions in the state that would have been better spent elsewhere, such as Alaska, North Carolina, Maine, and Ohio. Paxton is not a great fundraiser, while Talarico, his Democratic opponent, has raised over $27 million so far.

Senate Republicans spent $90 million on saving Cornyn, and now are looking at a $250 million hole in their Senate map to save the seat for Ken Paxton. That’s $250 million they could have spent on flipping Democratic seats in places like Georgia, Michigan, and New Hampshire. Even if Democrats can’t flip Texas, Paxton’s nomination means the GOP can’t go after Democratic seats as vigorously as they had planned.

Democrats have not felt this hopeful since Beto O’Rourke, which they probably do not want to be reminded of. The Republican talking point against Talarico so far is that he is too woke and a vegan, which isn’t even true. Fox News is still using the vegan lie in its descriptions of James Talerico despite it not being true. Vegans do not put eggs and cheese on their breakfast tacos. Before you accuse someone of being a vegan, maybe you should understand what a vegan is.

Another takeaway is that there is now one more senator who does not need to fear Donald Trump.

GO HERE TO READ THE REST.

Visit Clay Jones’ website and email him at Claytoonz@gmail.com.

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Daryl Lim, Penn State

As one of the most popular celebrities in the world, Taylor Swift has already endured her share of AI-related abuse.

Fake nudes of the singer have spread widely online. Her voice and likeness have also been used to create fabricated political messages and bogus product endorsements.

In April 2026, Swift pushed back. Her intellectual property and brand management company, TAS Rights Management, filed trademark applications covering short audio clips of her voice and her visual likeness.

As a law professor, I was struck by Swift’s filings because they highlight a new legal frontier in artificial intelligence.

Most AI-related litigation has centered on copyright law, which protects creative works such as songs, books, photographs and recordings from being copied, distributed, adapted or publicly performed without permission.

But TAS Rights Management’s recent move involves trademark law, not copyright. The filings aren’t really about protecting Swift’s lyrics or albums. Instead, they’re about preventing AI-generated voices and images from misleading people into believing she has endorsed a product, political message or cause.

Copyright is about creative works

Most AI-related lawsuits have been tied to whether copyright violations have taken place – specifically, whether AI companies used copyrighted works to train their systems, or whether their chatbots have produced outputs that too closely resemble protected material.

For example, The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, alleging that the companies used the outlet’s journalism to train their AI systems, which then went on to generate outputs that have competed with or reproduced New York Times articles. Authors, publishers, photo agencies and music publishers have sued other AI companies for the same reason.

But copyright violations are only one part of the legal issues raised by generative AI.

Copyright doesn’t necessarily protect a person’s identity. It does not give Swift a general right to control anything that sounds like her, looks like her or evokes her in the minds of audiences.

If an AI-generated voice imitates Swift without copying a particular recording, song or lyric, copyright may not address the real issue, which is that people are being led to believe she said, sang or endorsed something she never approved.

Trademarks are about trust

Trademark law starts from a different concern. It protects names, images, sounds and other markers that help consumers identify who or what is behind a product or service.

A trademark can be a word, phrase, symbol, design or combination of these things. Familiar examples include brand names such as Coca-Cola, logos like the Nike swoosh, slogans like Subway’s “Eat Fresh” and even distinctive sounds, such as the MGM lion roar.

A trademark is not a general ownership right over a word, phrase, voice or image. It is a way of helping consumers know who stands behind what they are buying, hearing or seeing.

That difference becomes crucial once AI can mimic a person’s voice or face. Suppose a company uses an AI-generated Swift-like voice to sell perfume or cryptocurrency. The concern is that listeners may think Swift approved of the product or message.

That is a trademark problem. Trademark law asks whether the use misleads consumers about whether a company or person has produced or endorsed something. Swift’s filings appear aimed at that danger. They suggest a concern beyond copied songs: fake endorsements, fake appearances and fake signals of approval.

Swift’s concerns also bleed into what are known as “publicity rights,” which generally protect against unauthorized commercial use of a person’s identity, such as a name, image, likeness or voice.

A classic publicity rights case involves a company using a celebrity’s face in an advertisement without permission to mislead consumers into believing the celebrity endorses the product.

AI’s ability to clone voices and images makes publicity law especially relevant. But in the United States, publicity rights are mostly governed by state law, and the rules vary widely from one state to another. That patchwork helped inspire the bipartisan NO FAKES Act, introduced in 2025, which would create a national standard that would prohibit unauthorized AI-generated replicas of a person’s voice or visual likeness. The bill, still in its early stages, has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee for consideration.

The untested part

Swift is not alone: Actor Matthew McConaughey trademarked “alright alright alright,” his memorable line from “Dazed and Confused,” to protect it from being used in AI-generated content.

The courts have already affirmed that sounds can function as trademarks. But it isn’t clear whether trademark law can police AI-generated replicas of a person’s voice or image when the issue is not counterfeiting but a manufactured endorsement.

A person’s voice or likeness is not automatically a trademark. In order to qualify as one, it must be used help consumers identify who is behind a product or service.

One existing limit on trademark protection is especially important. Federal law protects certain uses of a celebrity’s image and likeness in cases involving parody, criticism, commentary and news reporting. Not every imitation is a form of deception.

Courts will have to draw that line on a case-by-case basis. A fake ad that makes consumers think Swift endorsed a product is different from a parody that comments on celebrity culture. A scam using her voice is different from a news story about AI deepfakes.

That said, Swift’s filings reflect a real problem: AI has allowed fake endorsements to look and sound real enough to spread before anyone has time to set the record straight.

Major AI copyright cases will continue to focus on copied works. But when AI is used to manufacture identity, endorsement or trust, copyright alone is no longer enough. Swift’s filings suggest that AI law will increasingly focus not only on protecting the work of musicians, writers, journalists and artists, but also on protecting the signals that tell audiences who is really speaking.

Daryl Lim, Associate Dean for Research and Strategic Partnerships, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Younger Americans have soured on the second Donald Trump presidency, but they are not protesting it.

Despite an unpopular Iran war and an even more unpopular Trump administration, college campus protests nationwide have gone silent. And at many schools, student activism is virtually nonexistent.

This silence comes in the wake of a relentless Trump administration war on campus speech that has involved lawsuits, arrests, deportations and expulsions.

Reports cite a range of complicated factors for the restraint, from apathy to technology-induced incapacity. But as public policy and law and social science experts, we believe students aren’t protesting for a very simple reason: They are afraid. They are self-censoring and disengaging from campaign activism to avoid punitive measures.

In law and social science, we call this impact a chilling effect – the behavioral tendency for people in face of a threat to self-censor and restrain their activities for self-protection.

It’s increasingly clear to us that these impacts are not incidental or ancillary to Trump administration policy. Rather, the chilling effects are the point. This is the closest thing to a consistent governing strategy in Trump’s second term.

The broader chill of Trump threats

Chilling effects can be subtle, but today they are everywhere. And it’s not just students who are chilled by Trump administration threats.

Professors are censoring themselves in lectures and rewriting syllabuses. Researchers are stripping grant applications of words that might attract federal scrutiny, or abandoning the topics entirely. Media outlets are modifying their news coverage to avoid Trump lawsuits or sanctions.

Law enforcement and regulatory agencies are refusing to investigate Trump-aligned actors inside or outside government, and major national law firms are declining cases challenging Trump administration policies.

Publishers are “stepping back” from LGBTQ+ books and other progressive subjects. Many in targeted immigrant communities are afraid to leave home to go to work or school.

In most cases, these people and institutions are not being specifically targeted or threatened by Trump. But they are afraid, and their fear is doing the administration’s work for it. They stay silent, avoid attention and confrontation, and look the other way. In other cases, they change their speech and behavior to accommodate or conform to the administration’s worldview.

Of course, there are counterexamples, such as the winter protests in Minneapolis in response to brutality by agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the recent “No Kings” rallies. But even here, the broader but less visible trend – chilling effects – is evident.

For instance, in recent reporting on the latest No Kings rallies, many media outlets observed that students were noticeably missing, despite the Trump administration’s unpopularity among younger Americans.

A persistent strategy

We believe none of this is by accident.

In a new book, “Chilling Effects: Repression, Conformity, and Power in the Digital Age,” one of us – Jon Penney – explains how law, technology, and state and corporate power are weaponized to chill and repress, and the dangers this poses for the United States and other democratic societies. The other – Bruce Schneier – has extensively studied the security infrastructure enabling this.

What we see isn’t gratuitous government cruelty, chaos or vengeance. Instead, we see a persistent strategy to maximize fear and chilling effects in ways that are corrosive to freedom and democracy.

Research suggests that surveillance, personal threats, uncertainty and abuse of power are key factors in doing so. The federal government has a clear and systematic pattern of employing these very mechanisms across a number of domains far beyond campuses.

They are evident in militarized raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and in journalists being arrested and indicted for reporting on protests. They are made clear in the long list of political enemies the Trump administration has investigated or threatened, including the Federal Reserve chairman. And they can also be seen in the weaponization of technology, including ramping up surveillance to target critics and protestors.

Corrosive to freedom and democracy

History offers some guidance on impacts.

During the McCarthy era, overreaching laws, surveillance, and public and private sector reprisals ostensibly targeted alleged communists. But the real aim was often to suppress progressive journalists, trade unions and political opposition.

In the 1960s, these same tactics were reused by Southern states to chill the Civil Rights Movement. Historians have written about how the widespread fear and conformity of these periods reshaped American society in enduring ways, including the destruction of progressive political movements and both delaying and muting the Civil Rights Movement itself.

When such state threats are systematized, they can foment a broader climate of fear, self-censorship and conformity. In that climate, dissenting speech, political opposition, democratic mobilization and other checks on power become increasingly difficult, even dangerous. It is no surprise, for instance, that Trump critics regularly admit to self-censorship, fearing for their safety.

Chilling effects are thus not only repressive – causing self-censorship – but productive. They produce conforming and compliant speech and behavior, which can have longer-term social impacts. They not only undermine protected rights and suppress accountability but can promote social change – even without a popular mandate to do so.

This latter point is often missed. It explains Trump’s assaults on universities and cultural institutions such as the Kennedy Center for the Arts and the Smithsonian. Often dismissed as peculiar Trump obsessions, they are fully consistent with Project 2025 – the sweeping policy blueprint for Trump’s second term authored by a coalition of conservative groups and its call to target the “institutions of American civil society” and “wield federal power” to “reverse” decades of progressive cultural advancements.

In the near term, this means an increasingly weakened democratic society, with the government and its patrons enjoying freedom to pursue their objectives. Over the long term, this can mean a changed society as more conformist and compliant speech and culture become more widely accepted and entrenched.

Not inevitable

In our view, this future is not inevitable, just as the McCarthy era “Red Scare” and violent civil rights era repression were not. In both cases, fear and chilling effects were resisted in law and civil society, as they can be today.

But the central mechanisms – surveillance, uncertainty, personal threats and abuse of power – would need to be addressed. For instance, new legislation could ensure justice for lawless government actors and constrain surveillance. Courts can block abuses of federal power, including illegal arrests, detentions and mass citizen databases.

The media, lawyers and civil society can hold the government accountable. And students, teachers, universities and cultural institutions can resist the tendency to self-censor and conform.

The citizen mobilization in Minnesota and the No Kings rallies are examples of that. But to resist chilling effects and their dangers over the long term, this would have to be the norm, not the exception.

Bruce Schneier, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and Jon Penney, Fellow / Faculty Associate, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University; York University, Canada

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Despite national approval ratings below 40 percent, President Trump maintains a stronghold on his core supporters, at least within GOP primary contests. Last night, Ken Paxton, the Trump-backed state attorney general, won the Republican primary, unseating incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. Cornyn has served four Senate terms.

Attorney General Paxton defeated Cornyn by over twenty-seven points. During his victory speech, Paxton credited Trump for his win, calling Trump’s endorsement “the most powerful force in politics.” Paxton is expected to run against Democratic nominee James Talarico. A campaign source said Talarico raised $600,000 in the first two hours after Paxton secured the GOP Senate primary, adding that it was the campaign’s strongest two fundraising hours.

>However, while Trump has demonstrated a powerful influence over GOP primary voters, it is unclear whether that influence will extend to general elections.

Retiring Republican Congressman Don Bacon said in comments to USA Today, “One can have a totally loyal minority or a majority. I prefer a majority.” Bacon was not the only Republican expressing concerns about Trump-backed candidates costing general elections.

Some Republicans have pointed to recent races in which Trump-backed candidates won Republican primaries but went on to lose general elections

In Georgia, Trump-backed Herschel Walker secured the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate but lost a close general election and subsequent runoff to incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. In Arizona, Trump-backed Kari Lake won the Republican gubernatorial primary before losing the general election to Democrat Katie Hobbs. Blake Masters, also endorsed by Trump, won the Republican Senate nomination but lost the general election to Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. In Pennsylvania, Trump-backed Mehmet Oz secured the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate before losing the general election to Democrat John Fetterman.

Other Republicans have also pointed to races in which candidates not backed by Trump won general elections. In Colorado, Jeff Crank defeated Trump-backed state GOP chair Dave Williams in a Republican primary and later went on to win the general election in the safely Republican seat formerly held by retiring Rep. Doug Lamborn.

The longer-term impact of Paxton’s victory on other Republican primaries and on Trump-backed candidates more broadly remains uncertain, particularly if he falls short in the general election.

Caricature: DonkeyHotey/Flickr

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