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issue one
Trump's Lawless, Insidious Insurrection Continues
Creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate individuals who claim to have been victims of the government’s “weaponization” of law represents the culmination of the president’s six-year effort to claim that he won an election that he so clearly lost.
May 26, 2026
During the past week, the Trump administration announced three separate but connected decisions that are so outrageous they may lead to his comeuppance. Collectively, they reward lawlessness and undermine the very foundations of our democracy.
The first of these was the announcement by the Department of Justice that a $1,776,000,000 fund was being established to compensate “victims” of the previous administration’s “weaponization” of the law by “unfairly investigating and punishing them.” As a quid pro quo, Mr. Trump agreed to drop his questionable $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for what he charged was their role in failing to stop a contractor from leaking one of his tax returns to the media in 2019. To cap off the president’s trifecta, the DOJ added an amendment to the “victims’ fund” stating: “The United States releases, waives, and forever discharges [Trump, his family, his business] and is hereby forever barred and precluded from prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims [that] have been or could have been asserted [by the IRS against them or] related or affiliated individuals.”
As problematic as each of the three may be, it’s the ways they are connected that is most troubling. The Trump lawsuit against the IRS was set to be dismissed by the judge who was hearing the case. She had argued that it was improper for the White House to sue a federal agency it controlled, as this put the administration in the position of being both plaintiff and defendant. The decision was to be announced by May 20th, forcing the White House to act to drop their suit before it was dismissed. It was, therefore, no coincidence that the DOJ announced on May 18th and 19th both the “victims’ fund” and the ban on any future IRS action against the president.
But the story doesn’t end there as serious questions must be asked about the entire IRS affair. The contractor who leaked the document has already been arrested and convicted for his crime. There was no connection between his admittedly criminal act and the IRS as an institution. Therefore, the president’s lawsuit against the institution and the $10 billion award in damages he was seeking was both unwarranted and excessive. Like many of Mr. Trump’s previous suits against media outlets, it was meant to intimidate in order to seek some sort of settlement.
The DOJ’s handling of the matter validated the judge’s concern that the head of government couldn’t sue an agency he oversees (not to speak of trying to secure a massive payout from that agency). It simply didn’t pass the smell test. Finally, the DOJ addendum giving the president, his family, and business a free pass from any further tax audits, investigations, or prosecution for any claims against them raises the obvious question: What tax problems are they covering up?
The creation of the $1.776 billion fund to compensate individuals who claim to have been victims of the government’s “weaponization” of law represents the culmination of the president’s six-year effort to go beyond just defending the violent insurrectionists of January 6th, 2021. This is important to Mr. Trump, because by defending them he is defending his claim that he won the 2020 election and, therefore, the violent mobs that stormed the Congress weren’t lawbreakers. They were heroes and persecuted martyrs who deserve compensation.
In this regard, it’s important to examine what Trump has done.
Just over six years ago we witnessed the horrifying scenes of violent mobs storming the US Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying outcome of the 2020 election. They struck out at Capitol police who were doing their jobs protecting the members of Congress and the building itself. Some were injured; a few died. The scenes of what these rioters did were broadcast to a shocked nation.
Because the president egged on the mob, he was impeached by Congress. Ten Republican members of Congress voted to impeach Trump and seven Republican senators voted to convict and remove him from office.
After Mr. Trump’s relentless campaign mobilizing his supporters to demand loyalty, most of the 17 senators and representatives who voted against him are gone. They either resigned because the heat was too great or were defeated by Trump loyalists.
And the polls tell this story. In 2021, most Republicans were outraged by the mob violence. A poll from January of 2021 found that 78% of Trump supporters disapproved of the insurrection. A more recent poll reveals a dramatic shift that has taken place. When asked to describe the events of January 6th, 2021, 60% of Republicans say they were “people participating in legitimate political discourse.” Only 18% said that it was “people participating in a violent insurrection.”
Believing that he had set the stage to allow for his complete rewriting of history, the president, who had already commuted the sentences and/or pardoned more than 2,000 of the insurrectionists, now felt emboldened to have the government reward them for their blind loyalty to him. But in doing so, he may have pushed too far. Republican senators who consider themselves law-and-order, fiscal conservatives recoiled in horror over what a few called “utterly stupid,” “morally wrong,” and an abuse of power. Instead of acting to pass some of Mr. Trump’s legislative priorities, they criticized the president’s actions and took an early recess.
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In California, Vote Against the Forces Destroying Democracy
Tom Steyer, despite being a billionaire himself, is dedicated to protecting our democracy from the forces that are working overtime to undermine it. The same cannot be said of the other candidates in the race.
May 26, 2026
Like the rest of the country, California is in a hugely consequential fight for the future. Will we protect our democracy and build a sustainable future where we can all afford to live well? Or will victory go to the forces that are undermining democracy to protect their ability to profit from destroying the planet? Will we elect a Governor who supports the forces tearing our country apart? Or will we elect one who is dedicated to protecting democracy and building a world that works for all of us? The stakes could not be higher.
As inequality grows at an unprecedented pace, life is becoming precarious for more and more people. The rich aren’t just getting richer, they are also becoming more powerful. And the fossil fuel and tech sectors are at the leading edge of those devastating changes to our society.
The fossil fuel industry is the single largest funder of right-wing extremism in this country. It supports ultra-right think tanks, including the Heritage foundation which gave us Project 2025. It is also the biggest spender in California politics. As the world moves away from dependence on its products, the industry is in a fight for survival. It is ready to take the whole world, and democracy itself, down to remain profitable. Those are the forces we need to challenge if we want to make our country work for those of us not in the 1%.
There are three pieces of evidence we can use to see which side of that great divide the candidates are on: What is their relationship to fossil fuel money? What is their position on the Billionaire’s Tax? And what is their position on AB 1790 Water’s Edge which would close a $4 billion a year tax loophole that was fought for by the fossil fuel industry in the 1980’s.
Clearly both of the Republicans front runners for the California governorship are ready to undermine democratic institutions to help serve the interests of the fossil fuel industry and tech oligarchs.
There is one Democratic front runner who passes all three tests with flying colors. It is painful that the one person who has spent the past decades aggressively supporting democracy, fighting for immigrant rights, fighting the tendency toward oligarchy in our politics, and challenging the fossil fuel industry is himself a billionaire. But the facts are that Tom Steyer will not veto the billionaire’s tax, has pledged to support closing the Water’s Edge Tax loophole, and has pledged to not take fossil fuel money.
The same cannot be said for the other Democratic contender, Xavier Becerra. Becerra has taken the largest legal contribution from Chevron and he publicly said “I need Chevron. My people of the state of California need Chevron.” He has publicly opposed the Billionaires Tax. He has not publicly declared his support for the Water’s Edge bill. The California Resources Corporation spent $500,000 supporting his campaign
Steyer is dedicated to protecting our democracy from the forces that are working overtime to undermine it. Becerra plans to continue us on the path of business as usual which is heading us for a train wreck with the future of democracy and of the climate. In spite of the fact that he is a billionaire, I am excited to support Tom Steyer for governor.
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Iran Says It Shot Down US Reaper Drone After Trump Admin Launched New Strikes
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it reserves the right to "respond to any ceasefire violation by the aggressor US army."
May 26, 2026
The Iranian military said early Tuesday that it shot down an American Reaper drone after the Trump administration launched what it characterized as "self-defense strikes" on southern Iran, further complicating efforts to secure a diplomatic resolution to the illegal US-Israeli war.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement, carried by Iranian news agencies, that it downed an MQ-9 Reaper drone and "fired upon an RQ-4 drone and an intruding F-35 fighter jet." The IRGC cast its actions as defensive and said it has the right to "respond to any ceasefire violation by the aggressor US army."
Late Monday, shortly after President Donald Trump claimed peace talks were progressing, the US Central Command announced that the American military "conducted self-defense strikes in southern Iran today to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces." The strikes, according to CENTCOM, targeted "missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to emplace mines."
Hamidreza Azizi, a foreign policy expert and visiting fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, noted that the Iranian side provided "a different—and more detailed—account of what happened," saying the "exchange unfolded in several rounds over roughly 24 hours."
"It reportedly began when US forces attacked two IRGC naval boats, killing four Iranian military personnel," Azizi said, citing Iranian sources. "Iran responded with anti-ship missiles targeting US vessels. Iranian air defense systems then shot down at least one—some reports say three—US drones operating in the area."
Azizi continued:
The US subsequently struck Iranian anti-ship missile launch sites and air defense systems. Iran responded again, firing multiple anti-ship missiles at U.S. vessels in the Arabian Sea.
Independent verification of these claims—including the casualty figures and the extent of damage on both sides—remains limited. The competing narratives follow the familiar pattern in which each side frames its actions as a response to the other’s aggression.
The more significant point is that the exchange has now moved through multiple rounds of attack and counter-attack within a single 24-hour period. That pattern is harder to contain than a single incident. It also raises the question of how this cycle interacts with the indirect negotiations currently underway.
Iran has publicly pushed back against Trump's claim of an imminent peace deal, though a spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry told reporters on Monday that "it is correct to say that we have reached a conclusion on a large portion of the issues under discussion."
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that "the two sides are working toward a memorandum of understanding that would end the fighting and lift constraints on shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz over 30 days while setting the stage for talks about Iran’s nuclear program in a second phase."
"Relief from sanctions would depend on progress, a senior U.S. administration official said Sunday," the Journal added. "The US is seeking clearer commitments from Iran about its nuclear program up front, while Iranian negotiators are pressing for details from the US about relief from sanctions and asset freezes, mediators said."
Trump declared in a social media post Monday evening that Iran's enriched uranium "will either be immediately turned over to the United States to be brought home and destroyed or, preferably, in conjunction and coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran, destroyed in place or, at another acceptable location, with the Atomic Energy Commission, or its equivalent, being witness to this process and event."
Iran has not formally agreed to such terms.
Samir Puri, a visiting lecturer in war studies at Kings College London, told Al Jazeera that the new US strikes on Iran create an “extremely precarious situation" for negotiators.
“Fighting and talking at the same time is quite a common thing in a negotiation at the end of a conflict that has been very intense and hasn’t been resolved,” said Puri. "The key... is to keep talking and to not allow the talks to collapse by these escalations—because these may not be the last escalations.
“What we don’t know is whether this is the storm before the calm or the calm before the storm,” he continued. "We don’t know whether these negotiations need to be sustained and to absorb these sorts of escalations for days, for weeks, for months. It could be a very long negotiation process still to come."
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Purchased With Blood and Lies
May 26, 2026
Another Memorial Day: boasts, insults, "self-defense strikes," cheap clichés from a "Secretary of War" prattling about dead boys "delivered from the battlefield into the arms of a loving Lord and savior." Spare us. And maybe revisit the war to end all wars, which didn't - its "infinity of waste" and trenches with skulls in the sides where "he who had a corpse to stand on was lucky." Pat Barker: “A society that devours its own young deserves (no) unquestioning allegiance.”
"Happy Memorial Day to all," babbled our ever-unseemly Idiot-In-Chief, "including the Dumocrats, who disrespect our Military and all of the tremendous success that it has had over the last year," because obviously the best way to honor the dead is to not acknowledge their sacrifice but to denigrate half the ravaged country they died defending. Also, at Arlington National Cemetery, the infinitely hollow, "Wherever the American soldier (falls), he does it for the destiny of a nation like no other - there’s never been anybody like you." Also, noted Private Bone Spurs, 18,000 Williams, over 20,000 Johns, and other names fell, but "not too many" Donalds. Huh.
Adding to the day's eloquence with a much-needed "monster truck rally vibe" was inexplicably non-veteran, Hegseth bestie, tawdry aging rock star Kid Rock. Because "Tokyo Rose wasn't available," he was chosen by the Pentagon to honor American service members' ultimate sacrifice in a hoodie, fedora, gold chain and sunglasses, looking like "a creature you’d expect to hiss at you from the dank depths of a garbage bin" and intoning, "We are remembering the sacrifice and service of so many who are not with us today...It’s a special day. We’re thinking of them... Keep on Kid Rocking in the free world."
Then there was bombastic, dime-store-cliché-spouting Christo-fascist Pete Hegseth urging we "remember our republic was forged and purchased with blood, American blood," evidently only male according to his pronouns. Ever a fatuous buffoon, he declaimed "the sacred names of bygone eras to the 13 souls of Epic Fury (who) answered the call when it mattered the most (and) gave the last full measure of devotion," even when he failed them in an Iranian strike in Yemen: "They stood against the darkness of the world wearing the breastplate of righteousness (and) raced to the brink so we could walk in freedom and prosperity (and) may almighty God bless our warriors." Jesus weeps.
It remains unclear how many of the up to 22 million dead, both military and civilian, and over 20 million wounded, "the butcher's bill" of World War One, came to be blessed by almighty God, especially in its Western Front's godforsaken trenches teeming with sludge, rats, mud, blood, water and disease. The war's "inconceivable loss" and "purposeless waste of a generation" is perhaps best exemplified by the Battle of Verdun, where the French, set upon by German forces, adopted a "They Shall Not Pass” mantra that in the end saw over 700,000 dead on both sides - ultimately, vast "heaps of bones."
For many, the horrors of "the greatest conflagration the world had seen" live on through the searing literature, both prose and poetry, that emerged from them. Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est epitomizes the bitter, bloody tone that often prevailed amidst its "guttering, choking, drowning" victims - Hegseth's benighted "warriors." "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks/ Knock-kneed, coughing like hags," cursing, gargling, limping bootless through sludge, "blood-shod...deaf even to the hoots/Of gas-shells dropping softly behind," they reject, "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori."
Siegfried Sassoon lived the privileged life of a British country gentleman, writing poetry and fox hunting, until the start of World War 1, when he served as an officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in France. He was awarded a Military Cross, was later wounded in action, and refused to fight any longer to protest "a senseless slaughter." On June 15, 1917, he wrote "A Soldier's Declaration" as "an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those how have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers."
"I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolonging those sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust," he wrote. He was protesting, he made clear, "against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed...against the deception which is being practiced on them. Also I believe that it may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise."
His letter was read before the House of Commons and printed in The London Times. He expected to be court-martialed; instead, he was declared "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Dr. William Rivers was charged with restoring Sassoon’s “sanity” and sending him back to the trenches. The story of their real-life encounter, wherein Rivers came to diagnose war's "shell-shock" and share Sassoon's view, is powerfully told in Pat Barker's historical novel Regeneration, the first in a trilogy about the psychological carnage of war. "It (was) the Great White God de-throned. We assumed we were the measure of all things," Rivers says. "(But) nothing justifies this. Nothing nothing nothing."
Siegfried Sassoon's 1918 Suicide in the Trenches mourns "a simple soldier boy/Who grinned at life in empty joy" until he goes to war: "In winter trenches, cowed and glum/With crumps and lice and lack of rum/He put a bullet through his brain./No one spoke of him again./ You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye/Who cheer when soldier lads march by,/Sneak home and pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go." Too many of those young lie in a cemetery near Ypres, where one Inscription stands out in a sea of "For King and Country" headstones. It was written on the grave of Arthur Young by his father, a diplomat wiser than any vacuous Hegseth: "Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war."
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