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Raymundo Gutierrez
Pam Bondi Deserved to Be Fired, But Don't Celebrate Her Departure
Trump is likely to appoint a successor who’s better at covering up his relationship with Epstein, more effective in prosecuting his enemies, and more convincing in pretending they believe what they’re saying in trying to justify Trump’s corruption.
Apr 03, 2026
There’s always a temptation to celebrate when President Donald Trump does something sensible, like firing his Attorney General, Pam Bondi—until you ask yourself why he’s done it.
Not since John Mitchell, who was Richard Nixon’s attorney general, has anyone done more to tarnish that office and damage the Justice Department than has Bondi.
But Trump didn’t fire her because she turned the Justice Department into a cesspool of corruption. Just the opposite. He fired her because she didn’t hide the corruption well enough. She failed to achieve all the corrupt goals he set for her: She didn’t make the Epstein files go away, didn’t fully prosecute his enemies, and wasn’t convincing enough in congressional hearings and on television in advocating for Trump.
Trump has been furious that the Epstein files continue to be a political liability. He’s upset that his MAGA base, and congressional Republicans who are responsive to it, doesn’t believe that the truth has yet been told about what the Justice Department knows about Epstein. He’s angry that so many continue to think there’s a continuing cover-up—which there surely is.
Trump doesn’t simply demand total loyalty from his lackeys. He wants them to convincingly act on the media and before Congress as if they’re motivated by sincere conviction rather than mere loyalty to Trump.
But he doesn’t want the cover lifted. To the contrary—he wants it slammed shut so tightly that the public will forget all about him and Epstein. To Trump, Bondi’s failure was to have left the cover open just enough that the public still demands a full accounting.
Similarly with Trump’s demand that she prosecute his enemies (a demand he mistakenly made public on social media). He’s not angry that she’s tried to do so; he’s angry that she’s bungled it so badly that several courts rejected her prosecutors’ attempts and several grand juries have even turned down her prosecutors’ requests to indict.
The same thing with her appearances on TV and before Congress. Trump doesn’t simply demand total loyalty from his lackeys. He wants them to convincingly act on the media and before Congress as if they’re motivated by sincere conviction rather than mere loyalty to Trump. Bondi failed at this, too.
There’s no cause for celebration in Trump’s firing Bondi because Trump is likely to appoint a successor who’s better at covering up his relationship with Epstein, more effective in prosecuting his enemies, and more convincing in pretending they believe what they’re saying in trying to justify Trump’s corruption.
In other words, someone who will be even worse than Bondi has been, undermining the rule of law.
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The GOP Is Taking Our Healthcare to Fund Bombs and Tax Cuts; We’re Fighting Back
Republicans have decided that they don’t care about what the American people want, only about enabling Trump’s worst impulses. Our job is to make sure they regret that this November.
Apr 03, 2026
Last year, Republicans cut $1 trillion from Medicaid in the same bill that gave billionaires massive tax cuts. They also slashed funding for the Affordable Care Act, making healthcare unaffordable for Americans across the country.
As a result of these cuts, at least 1.5 million Americans have already lost their healthcare coverage, with an estimated 15 million set to lose coverage in the coming years. Nearly 450 hospitals, many of them in rural areas, are at risk of closing or shrinking.
Despite this devastation, Republicans are planning to make even deeper cuts to healthcare. Top Republicans, including House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), want to make even more cuts to the Affordable Care Act—to fund President Donald Trump’s catastrophic war with Iran. Trump himself is threatening cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, saying, “We’re fighting wars… It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”
Republicans have decided that they don’t care about what the American people want, only about enabling Trump’s worst impulses. Our job is to make sure they regret that this November, when every member of the US House and one-third of the US Senate is on the ballot.
The Trump regime and their Republican minions in Congress think they can ignore the people, but when we stand together, when we raise our voices together, we cannot be ignored.
That’s why we are launching the Stop Taking Our Health Care Campaign to hold Republicans accountable. This month, members of Congress are home for recess—and we’ll make sure that they hear from their constituents.
We are holding dozens of events in targeted congressional districts across the country, demanding that Republicans Stop Taking Our Health Care. But, we need your help to host even more. Take a look and see if there is an event near you. If there isn’t one, then please sign up to host one yourself. We will help make it a success.
To kick off the Stop Taking Our Health Care Campaign, we held a live stream with guests including Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas).
Rep. Underwood said: “Donald Trump and Republicans’ failure to address these tax credits has created a healthcare crisis for working families. When premiums go up and help disappears, families are forced to make impossible choices. Do they keep their health insurance, or do they pay their rent? Do they refill their prescriptions, or do they buy groceries?”
Every day, the Trump administration is spending at least a billion dollars of taxpayer money in Iran.The American people do not want this war. They want affordable healthcare. - @underwood.house.gov @unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 12:01 PM
Rep. Casar said: “They’ve already gutted Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, kicking 15 million Americans potentially off of their healthcare. And now they want to kick off hundreds of thousands more everyday working families from their healthcare to pay for Trump’s completely unnecessary war of choice in Iran. We’ve got to put everyday Americans’ lives above more and more profits for the Trump administration and their rich friends.”
The Trump Administration already gutted Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.Now they want to kick off hundreds of thousands more working families from their healthcare to pay for Trump's completely unnecessary war in Iran. - @repcasar.bsky.social @unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 12:05 PM
Theresa Luoni, a New Jersey mom and caregiver whose family relies on Medicaid, said: “Republicans in Washington have worked day and night to raise costs for families like mine and make it harder for us to make ends meet, and now they're doubling down, threatening even deeper cuts to Medicaid so they can pay for their war and continue handing out tax breaks to billionaires.”
Republicans in Washington have worked day and night to raise costs for families like mine.Now they're doubling down, threatening even deeper cuts to Medicaid, so they can pay for their war and continue handing out tax breaks to billionaires. - Theresa Luoni@unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 12:19 PM
Jon “Bowzer” Bauman, senior adviser at Social Security Works, said: “Our campaign and this month of action is designed to hold these people accountable for their vote on things like the Big Ugly Bill, which failed to extend the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act and cut a trillion dollars out of Medicaid. Our message is simple: Stop taking our healthcare.”
During this month of action, we will hold Republicans accountable for the Big Ugly Bill.Rural hospitals and nursing homes are already closing because of them. - @jonbowzerbauman.bsky.social @unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 12:17 PM
Unrig Our Economy Campaign Director Leor Tal said: “Republicans in Congress promised to lower costs, but instead, they cut our healthcare and made life even more expensive for working families. Now Republicans in Congress want to cut healthcare even more to pay for this unnecessary and expensive war that they've started, which is already driving up costs for working families. That's why we’re launching Stop Taking Our Health Care, a nationwide campaign fighting back against Republican efforts to rip healthcare coverage away from working families.”
Republicans in Congress promised to lower costs. Instead they cut our healthcare and made life even more expensive for working families. And now they want to cut health care even more to pay for this unnecessary and expensive war.- Leor Tal, @unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 11:55 AM
The Trump regime and their Republican minions in Congress think they can ignore the people, but when we stand together, when we raise our voices together, we cannot be ignored. It’s time to demand healthcare not warfare!
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Trump Is the Most Dangerous Man in the World
There has never been a bigger sociopathic megalomaniac in Western democratic polities than Donald J. Trump.
Apr 03, 2026
Does President Donald Trump have an endgame in Iran? Are personality traits a factor in Trump’s foreign policy behavior? How different is Trump from his postwar predecessors? Will he end US democracy? Political scientist, political economist, author, and journalist C. J. Polychroniou tackles these questions in an interview with the French-Greek journalist and writer Alexandra Boutri, but does not hesitate to point out that whoever thought that some of the acts associated with mad Roman emperors (like Caligula’s war on Neptune) belong to a bygone era probably hasn’t been paying attention to how crazy and disruptive things are in the Trump era.
Alexandra Boutri: The war in Iran has entered its second month and one cannot rely on the US president for when it might end. Trump refuses to give a clear timeline, although he has boasted on numerous occasions that his war was won. In your view, what is Trump’s endgame in Iran?
C. J. Polychroniou: Let me start with the following statement: The second Trump presidency is far more dangerous than its first but no less incompetent. Whether it’s the economy and his “beautiful” tariffs or world affairs, Trump has no clue what he is doing. His decision-making style is governed by self-interest and a gut-instinct approach. And he has, given who he is, surrounded himself not only with loyalists but with subservient yes-people.
Indeed, it is most unlikely that Trump engaged in a comprehensive review of intelligence reports and military analyses before he initiated military action against Iran. My guess is that he simply became convinced by war-criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the most pro-Israel officials in his administration that the strategy of taking out Iran’s leadership would paralyze the country and lead to regime change. That was a gamble, not a plan. The Iranian regime did not collapse after the decapitation strikes because it is not a one-man dictatorship like Iraq was under Saddam Hussein. The power hierarchy in Iran is very complicated. Power is actually distributed throughout several layers of the government, and there are parallel armies and intelligence services. Of course, the fact that power is not concentrated in the hands of one man does not make the Iranian regime less brutal. But it makes it less likely to collapse because of an attack on the country’s top political and military leaders.
The Trumpian nightmare has a long way to go before it is over, and it’s bound to get much worse.
Incidentally, and this needs to be strongly emphasized, the decapitation of Iran’s top leadership is criminal and illegal. Trump’s war on Iran is in violation of international (and US) law. It’s a war against the United Nations Charter. Israel and the United States don’t give a hoot about international law and human rights, but it doesn’t mean the world should allow them to think that they are being perceived as anything other than rogue states.
We live in dark, perilous times for humanity and the planet as a whole. Whoever thought that the acts of mad Roman emperors (like Caligula’s war on Neptune) belong to a bygone era probably hasn’t been paying attention to how crazy and disruptive things are in the Trump era. The current occupant of the White House is mentally unhinged. He threatens to bomb Iran “back to stone ages” and do whatever he wants with Cuba. I fear he is capable of unbelievable acts of cruelty and madness. In fact, and I said this about his second presidency long before he decided to go to war with Iran, we haven’t seen anything yet. The Trumpian nightmare has a long way to go before it is over, and it’s bound to get much worse.
Alexandra Boutri: How much worse can it get? What is it that you are really worried about Trump and his actions?
C. J. Polychroniou: Trump is a real threat to world peace. That’s already well established. He has unleashed what can be best described as lunacy imperialism. He is also dismantling US democracy at unprecedented rate and has launched an equally unprecedented assault on the environment. He is a wrecking ball, and it’s simply shocking that there is still a sizeable portion of the citizenry that thinks he is doing a great job. But what else can one expect from people who believe that explosive conflict in the Middle East will trigger Christ’s return and see Trump as the man God has chosen to defeat the satanic forces in the United States and Christianize it? No wonder why Trump behaves like a king and views himself as an emperor who can do whatever he pleases. There has never been a bigger sociopathic megalomaniac in Western democratic polities than Donald J. Trump, which is why he lacks self-awareness, lies about everything, all the time, and is so fixated with attaching his name to institutions, buildings, and symbols.
If it was entirely up to Trump, US democracy would be already dead by now.
Imperialist adventuring is standard US foreign policy. But Trump’s foreign policy agenda, I would argue, seems to be less about the advancement of US interests than about his own legacy, his own personal political immortality. The US doesn’t need Greenland for national security; it can access its resources without gaining sovereignty over land. The US doesn’t need Venezuela’s oil (there is a global oil oversupply anyway), and leaders of the industry have shown little interest in making the massive investments needed to revive its outdated infrastructure, despite the fact that Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world. Annexing Canada and making it the 51st state will not make the US necessarily richer or more secure. But there is no doubt that Trump likes the idea of being the president who expanded the country’s borders. This is how he may be remembered by the future generations.
In saying all this, I do not doubt that there are “strategic” rationalizations circulated by Trump’s national security team for the revival of naked US imperialism. Or that these rationalizations are insignificant in the making of foreign policy. But, for Trump, I believe the foreign policy decisions that he ultimately reaches are based on how he thinks they may cement his own legacy. And most of these decisions are as irrational as those driving his domestic agenda. Abstract theorization about the revival of US imperialism under Trump II is fine and well, and much needed, but I think this is one outstanding case where personality becomes an important factor in decision-making and therefore adding to our understanding of both domestic and foreign policy behavior.
Alexandra Boutri: How different is Trump from his recent predecessors? Also, I can conclude from what you have already said that you don’t expect Trump to go down without a fight. But does he really want to end democracy in the United States?
C. J. Polychroniou: Trump is a very different president from all of his postwar predecessors in several critical ways. First, he has monetized the White House. Trump and his family have made huge amounts of money off of the presidency. Second, he views himself above the law and makes everything about his own ego. Third, he suppresses and ignores scientific research and findings like no other president I am aware of and simply doesn’t give a hoot about public health and the environment or the lives and the livelihoods of anyone outside his own family and his rich donors. Fourth, he is a racist, misogynist, and bigot who also hates working class people and the poor. Fifth, he is carrying out an anti-democracy project both inside the United States and across the globe, while also seeking to create “a kind of a Trump world.”
It would be naive and dangerous on the part of anyone to think that Trump will go down without a fight. His numbers are collapsing, and he is terrified of the possibility that the Democrats will flip the House and the Senate while he is still president, which is why he is trying to undermine this year’s midterm elections. If it was entirely up to Trump, US democracy would be already dead by now. But he is trying to rig the 2026 midterm elections, and my fear is that he may succeed. Also, I don’t think it is far-fetched to say that he may declare martial law to keep the Democrats from winning. I hope I am dead wrong, but I am of the view that the worst is yet to come with Trump.
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Trump Spews 'More Threats of War Crimes' as Iran Says It Shot Down US Fighter Jet
"Just pointless forever war, death and destruction—a flailing, furious, rapidly declining superpower," one analyst wrote of the Trump administration's assault.
Apr 03, 2026
US President Donald Trump late Thursday threatened more illegal attacks on Iranian civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants, as Iran's military said it shot down an American fighter jet over Tehran, with state-affiliated media publishing apparent photos from the scene.
An Iranian official told Drop Site's Jeremy Scahill that Iran's forces hit an F-15 warplane, causing the jet to crash and sparking "an intense fire." The unnamed Iranian official said the pilot could not have evacuated due to the "nature of the strike," but "no remains have yet been found."
The US Central Command had not commented on the purported downing of an American fighter jet as of this writing. Last month, a US F-35 was forced to make an emergency landing at an air base in the Middle East after reportedly being struck by Iranian fire.
🚨 BREAKING | An Iranian official told Drop Site News that a U.S. F-15 warplane struck by Iranian forces went down over southern Tehran Province, with intense fire reported at the crash site.
The official said the nature of the strike prevented the pilot[s] from ejecting before… https://t.co/iUKD0AqRQQ pic.twitter.com/BI4TzolmZY
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) April 3, 2026
Iran's claim on Friday came as Trump issued more belligerent threats on his social media platform, declaring that the US military "hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran."
"Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants!" the president wrote, shortly after bragging about the US military's destruction of an Iranian highway bridge. "New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!"
Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, characterized Trump's message as "more threats of war crimes as POTUS flails and seeks to coerce an exit to his own self-inflicted, unnecessary, and ill-conceived war."
Trump's renewed threats came amid reports of US-Israeli attacks on a century-old Iranian medical research center, pharmaceutical facilities, residential buildings, and other civilian infrastructure—and on emergency responders aiding those wounded by the attacks.
"War crime after war crime after war crime," US Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), the lone Iranian American member of Congress, wrote early Friday. "Now’s the time to speak up if you’re against this reckless war of choice. The consequences will be vast and catastrophic."
Ben Rhodes, a political analyst who worked in the Obama administration, wrote that the US military's recent actions have "nothing to do with nuclear or helping Iranians."
"Just pointless forever war, death and destruction—a flailing, furious, rapidly declining superpower," Rhodes added.
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