The Blue Wave

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Donald Trump asked voters to pretend his name was on the ballot and vote accordingly.

They did.

He got shellacked. It only took a few hours once returns began to come in to recognize that Trump and his MAGA cohorts were drowning in a blue wave. It would rise through the night to reach tsunami proportions.

Pre-election polls have not done well in the last few cycles. My personal theory is that a lot of people who planned to vote for Trump were embarrassed to admit it and so hid from pollsters or lied outright. This time the truth was told and the polls pretty much got it right.

The Trump Republicans not only lost majority control of the House and Senate. They also lost up and down the ballot, tipping governors and state legislatures from red to blue.

Republicans dropped from 53 in the Senate to no more than 46, with losses in Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas as well as Georgia, North Carolina and Maine. In the House, Democrats are expected to have around 258 seats, a pickup of at least 43. Many Republicans in supposedly safe districts narrowly escaped defeat.

Democrats flipped more than 500 state legislative seats. They took control of at least a dozen legislative chambers. They gained control of House, Senate, and Governor mansion in Michigan, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Nevada. They captured legislative chambers in Texas, Georgia and North Carolina, and increased their majorities in blue strongholds like New York, California and Illinois.

The exit polls contained some interesting surprises. While the bread-and-butter issue of affordability was a top concern, so too was the issue of government corruption and the war with Iran. The social issues which have been a focus of Republican campaign strategy were not as much of a factor this year.

The new Republican coalition, young people and working-class white men, who played such a major part of Trump’s 2024 campaign, proved to be a fickle friend, not the sign of a long-term conservative trend. These groups changed sides in record proportions, switching by as much as forty percent from red to blue.

The most prominent of these losers was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. His Senate campaign cost nearly $500 million, and it wasn’t even close. He lost by 12 points and became the first Republican nominee to lose a Texas US Senate seat since 1988. Paxton outspent 38-year-old winner James Talarico, spending nearly half a billion dollars on his campaign. Much of that money came from Elon Musk, who famously moved his Tesla and SpaceX companies from California to Texas because he didn’t want to be in a blue state. Surprise, surprise.

Democrat Adam Hamilton, a minister, unseated Republican incumbent Roger Marshall, securing Kansas‘s first Democratic Senate seat since 1932. In North Carolina, former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper flipped an open seat previously held by retiring Republican Thom Tillis, defeating Republican Michael Whatley by double digits.

In South Carolina Annie Andrews pulled off a major upset by defeating appointed Republican Senator Darline Graham in a state traditionally considered safely conservative. In Iowa Democrat Josh Turek defeated Representative Ashley Hinson to flip the seat blue, making history as the first Paralympian elected to the Senate.

In Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed won an open-seat contest, making history as the first Muslim U.S. senator. In Ohio, incumbent Jon Husted (Ohio) lost to the returning former Senator Sherrod Brown.

In Maine, the election delivered one of the biggest upsets of the cycle. Democratic challenger Troy Jackson defeated longtime Republican incumbent Susan Collins to flip the seat blue. Collins was a six-termer. That’s 30 years. A self-proclaimed centrist, I never saw her vote against Trump unless her vote didn’t make a difference. She famously expressed disappointment that some of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees mislead her, telling her one thing when she interviewed them prior to confirmation. Then voting the other way once on the Court. The people of Maine finally had enough of this. I haven’t heard her reaction to her defeat. I’m sure she is disappointed.

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We Are the Guardrail

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The men who wrote the Constitution, ratified 238 years ago, had a lot on their minds. There had never before been a complete, written national constitution anywhere. They were not sure a government which derived its authority from the people it governed could succeed. Some would have gladly declared George Washington King of the United States were he willing to accept the position.

Some feared the people were not qualified to govern. They believed there was a natural ruling class who should be in charge. Some wanted a strong central government. Others wanted power to remain with the individual states, as it had been since the revolution twelve years earlier.

The result was a document in many ways a revolution itself, describing a government of the people, but one purposedly designed to contain the compromise, confusion, and purposeful ambiguity that reflected the debate between the authors. With the addition of 27 amendments, it has survived all this time.

For those who slept through civics class, the Constitution separated the central government into three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. Each had a list of powers. Each had a method of checking the operation of the other two branches. There were important omissions. Items on which the authors could not agree and so left for future generations to sort out. But it has held together for all these years. That says something.

What the authors feared most was that power would corrupt. That malevolent leaders would destroy the nation in search of personal advantage. This was John Adams’ nightmare. In my lifetime, I have never seen anything as corrupt as the current administration. Nor have I found one this corrupt in my study of American history. I mean corrupt not just in a monetary sense, although the avarice of Donald Trump and his family is astounding. I mean also corrupt in what Trump has done to the institutions of government and the rule of law.

That one man could be so misguided is not surprising, although the fact that 77 million voters cast their ballots for him in 2024 is. What is surprising is the degree to which the checks and balances have collapsed. The guardrails have failed.

This is due to the abdication on the part of the legislative branch, which has ceased to provide any meaningful oversight of the executive, failed to enforce its decisions on taxation and spending, and consented to the appointment of some of the most unqualified and actually destructive individuals to positions of power throughout government. There have been 306 calendar days in the year to date. The House of Representatives has been in session for 133 of them. Nice work if you can get it.

The judicial branch has not just abandoned its responsibilities. It has openly ceded its authority to the executive branch. While many lower court judges have blocked Trump’s unlawful excesses, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has more often than not knocked down those guardrails, allowing Trump to proceed with his executive power grab. With those actions, the Court has greatly tipped the balance of power in the government, allowing for an autocracy at the helm.

The outlook is bleak. But there is one last hope.

We are that hope. We, the people. We, the voters, have now an opportunity to change the direction of the nation. But only if we get off our rears and go out and vote. In the United States, voter turnout for true “off-year” elections (held in odd-numbered years for local and municipal offices) typically falls between 25% and 40% of eligible voters. There are indications this year the turnout will be much greater.

That is a good sign. If you are happy with the way things are going, by all means go out and vote Republican, ensuring that Trump will be unfettered in the next two year. But if you are unhappy with the current state of affairs, vote for Democrats who will raise the guardrails. They will not have the power to reverse the current state of affairs. That decision comes in 2028. But Democratic majorities in Congress will slow down the Trump onslaught and place a spotlight on the abuses of the administration.

We are the final guardrail.

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Evicting the Press

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Donald Trump has talked about replacing the press briefing room with an indoor swimming pool. That scoop comes from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, White House reporters for The New York Times. These two have written a terrific and at the same time depressing book about the first year and a half of the second Trump administration, Regime Change, and they appear to have pretty good sources. At least, while Trump complains about their writing, he rarely says their information is wrong.

None of this is surprising. Trump’s hatred for members of the press who fail to toe the party line is well known. What you might find surprising is that I think this would be a great idea.

I have not been in that press room for many years. I visited several times when the relationship between press and president was one of respectful tolerance. Each party knew the other had a job to do, even if they didn’t like how it was being done.

While working for Chicago’s WBBM-TV I produced a profile of Illinois native James Brady. Brady was President Ronald Reagan’s Press Secretary. I got to follow him around the West Wing, record a photo event as Reagan opened his first cabinet meeting, and even got to meet and talk briefly with the president. I saw the cabinet room and the Oval Office.

A few weeks later I rushed from Chicago back to Washington. As I got on the airplane, I was pretty sure the President had been shot but was still alive but that Brady was dead, having been fatally hit in the attempt to assassinate Reagan. Brady did survive, although crippled by a shot to the head.

I mention all that to let you know what while I haven’t been there for many years, I know the space fairly well. The entire West Wing is small, the offices are small, and while some members of the press might gloat that working out of the White House press room has a particular cachet, the proximity to the Oval Office is really meaningless. The president’s press staff is on the other side of the door off the stage of the briefing room, now named for Brady. And yes, the Oval Office is only about 30 feet away. But there are plenty of guards between the press and that office. You don’t go through that door without an appointment and an escort.

The first reporters assigned to cover the president did so from outside the gates. President William McKinley allowed some work indoors at a designated table in a second-floor corridor, and presidential secretaries began regular routines of communicating with journalists. President Theodore Roosevelt moved executive offices out of the main residence into the newly erected Temporary Executive Offices. Those temporary spaces are now known as the West Wing. Removing the press would allow for expansion and modernization of the president’s offices.

The truth is you don’t get important information by sitting in the briefing room and being spoon fed by press secretaries. Many press groups have their own offices elsewhere in Washington. The National Press Club Building, just a short walk from the White House, houses several. The best journalists cover the president without hanging around the White House.

In 2006 the briefing room was shut down for a year for remodeling. The press worked out of the White House Conference Center. This is a secure government facility within the White House security parameter. There was some grumbling, but the press survived. A little remodeling, and the press and the communication’s staff will have a modern facility with more space.

There is also the possibility of moving the press into what is now called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. That is where most of the president’s staff actually works. That building is just across a small, private street separating it from the West Wing entrance. It is also within the security zone.

I did a quick survey. Truthfully, I asked my AI to do it.

In the United Kingdom, the prime minister’s residence, 10 Downing Street, has no media office. Press briefings are held next door at the 9 Downing Street’s Press Briefing Room. In France, the president is in the Élysée Palace; No media office; press service manages access and briefings. In Russia, the Presidential Administration has no media office; press service manages access and briefings. Of course, in Russia the press prints what Putin wants it to print. Trump wishes he could do that too.

I actually think it is kind of cute that Trump wants to replace the press area with a swimming pool, because that’s exactly what it was. President Franklin Roosevelt added it in 1933 as therapy for his polio-afflicted legs. President Richard Nixon later covered it over to make room for the news media. The briefing room is next door to the small workspace.

As recently as last month, Trump shared a pair of images on Truth Social showing the briefing room as it is now, captioned “Fake News,” alongside another that shows the space reimagined as a gilded swimming pool, captioned “FDR Pool.” The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump had repeatedly discussed getting the press out of the White House.

Although I think it is a good idea for the press to move, I doubt Trump will go through with it. He relishes his little public battles with the press too much. He wants the press near for a quick gaggle when he is headed to his car or helicopter. Move them out, and he’ll lose his captive audience. I don’t think so.

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Oyez! Oyez!

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The Supreme Court began its 2026–27 term on October 5, 2026. Although the justices probably saw it as just a return to the office. They really did not get their customary three-month vacation, mainly due to the Trump administration’s endless barrage of “emergency motions” begging the conservative majority to stop a nearly unanimous string to lower court orders that Trump stop doing something he was doing that they found to be illegal, unconstitutional, or both. With his posse of six conservatives squarely in his corner, he won most of those emeergency appeals.

The central controversy is whether the Supreme Court is acting as an independent check on President Trump or helping him concentrate power in the presidency. Since his second term began in January 2025, the Court has substantially strengthened his control over government and repeatedly lifted lower-court restrictions on his policies. But it has also rejected some of his initiatives, making the record more complicated than “the Court always sides with Trump.”

We reviewed those cases several times during the last session. Let’s look today on the major cases to watch in the session which has just begun. The Supremes in this session will chime in on climate change, the Second Amendment, voting laws, and religious freedom, among others.

1. Climate Change & Corporate Liability
  • Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County
    • The Issue: The Court kicked off the term by hearing this case on opening day. It decides whether local governments can use state laws to sue oil companies for billions in infrastructure damages caused by climate change, or if federal laws (like the Clean Air Act) preclude those state-level lawsuits.
2. Second Amendment (Assault Weapon Bans)

Viramontes v. Cook County

  • The Issue: This case directly challenges an Illinois county’s ban on AR-15 rifles and high-capacity magazines. The ruling could redefine Second Amendment protections for semi-automatic firearms and impact similar restrictions enacted across 11 different states.
3. Voting Rights & Proof of Citizenship
  • Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota
    • The Issue: Set for argument in December 2026, this case considers the legality of Arizona laws requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, and whether states can cancel registrations close to election day under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
4. Religious Freedom vs. LGBTQ Nondiscrimination
  • St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy
    • The Issue: The justices will explore whether religious preschools can be barred from receiving state public funds if they refuse to admit children from LGBTQ families. This tests the boundary between the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and state anti-discrimination policies.
5. Immigration & Executive Authority
  • The docket features highly scrutinized challenges to federal immigration policies. Key questions include whether the administration has the authority to implement third-country deportations (sending migrants to a nation they have no ties to) and whether it can mandate the detention of certain immigrants rather than releasing them while their cases are pending.

All that plus whatever Trump throws at them. It is a full docket. And it will be a busy year.

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Indigenous v Columbus v ?

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With all the issues facing humanity these days you’d think we would not be coming to blows over a holiday. Think again.

Today we fight over the meaning of a day. This day. Is it Columbus Day? Indigenous People’s Day? Or just any other day. Pick a side and prepare to do battle.

Since 1971, Columbus Day has been observed on the second Monday in October. This year, Columbus Day falls on October 12, 2026, which is today. So here we are, celebrating Christopher Columbus, who is historically credited with “discovering” America, even though indigenous people already inhabited the land. To further complicate the Columbus claim, there is strong historical and archaeological evidence that Europeans reached North America nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus.

The most widely accepted example is Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer from Greenland, who is believed to have reached Vinland (likely in present‑day Newfoundland) around 1000 CE. There have been calls to commemorate a Leif Erikson Day. They have never found much traction.

As the nursery rhyme goes, in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue thanks to funding by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, with orders to find a trade route to Asia. That is the same Ferdinand and Isabella who, in the very same year, issued the Alhambra Decree, ordering all Jews to leave their kingdoms and territories by the end of July that year, unless they converted to Christianity.

So much for lionizing Ferdinand and Isabella.

As for Columbus, his expedition aboard the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria landed not in what would eventually become the United States of America but in the Bahamas, then known as Hispaniola. His mistake helped Spain establish the first American colony in the Caribbean.

As governor of Hispaniola, Columbus enslaved the Taino and Arawak people and forced his Catholic faith on native people using brutal methods. His discovery also kicked off a race of exploration among European nations. These settlers brought new diseases to the Americas, which decimated native populations.

So much for lionizing Columbus.

Nonetheless, Columbus Day became a permanent national holiday in 1934 when Congress, after lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, authorized President Franklin D. Roosevelt to declare Oct. 12 as the designated date. In 1971, Columbus Day was made a federal holiday on the second Monday in October.

Indigenous American groups have pointed out Columbus’s role in the unethical treatment of their ancestors, and protested his celebration. Indigenous Peoples’ Day has been presented as a Columbus Day alternative since 1991. This observance is meant to celebrate the legacy and contributions of Native Americans. Despite President Joe Biden’s proclamation in 2021, it is not a federal holiday, although many states, such as California, formally recognize it. The debate has joined the culture wars, like so much in America these days. Last year Donald Trump announced that he would not recognize Indigenous Peoples Day alongside Columbus Day, marking a departure from the dual observance initiated by former President Joe Biden.

Mail is not delivered on Columbus Day because it is a federal holiday. Physical post office locations will be closed. The U.S. Postal Service does not operate on federal holidays.

The Federal Reserve is closed, which typically means most national banks follow suit, but some may choose to remain open. Both the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq are be open for buying and selling.

Public schools are run by local and state governments, which means they are not required to automatically take federal holidays off. Private schools can make their own decision. Check in with your students’ institution to know how it handles the holiday.

Groceries, drug stores, and restaurants are open. So, if you have the day off, enjoy.

I’m not going to take sides. What, me worry?

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Genocide Libel

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I could never have imagined, three years ago, as I listened to the horrific news coming out of Israel, that I would be writing a post such as this.

For the many who seem to have forgotten, On the morning of October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists broke through the fence separating Gaza and Israel and killed roughly 1,200 people, many teenagers attending a music festival, and dragged 251 hostages back into Gaza. There they were met by cheering crowds of Gazans. It was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. By the next day, Israel was already being accused of “genocide” on social media and in the streets, even though Israel’s ground operation into Gaza had not yet started.

The “Gaza Genocide” is one of the biggest lies of the 21st century. It was generated and promoted by anti-Zionist and antisemitic networks following the October 7 Massacre to prevent Israel from saving its hostages, to delegitimize the Jewish state, and to fuel global antisemitism. Three years after their murderous attack, the people of Gaza claim to be the victims.

Try watching some of the footage from Hamas GoPro videos which they shared with pride, so the world would see the barbaric genocide they committed against Israelis and non-Jews in Israel. Victims don’t take hostages and start wars. Hamas did exactly that. The videos have been vetted. They are horrific. Israel is showing an extended edit of the Hamas generated videos in a documentary titled, Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre. Excerpts and reports from people who have viewed it are on YouTube although, as of this writing, the entire video is not.

The word “genocide” means to deliberately and systematically kill or persecute a large number of people from a particular national or ethnic group, with the aim of destroying that nation. But Gaza officials themselves report a population decline of about 10% since the start of the war in 2023, mostly through displacement. More than two million remain. That’s not a genocide.

And there are nearly two million Arab Palestinian Muslims who are Israeli citizens, descendants of those Arabs who stayed when the United Nations created the Jewish state in 1947. These citizens of Israel live, work, practice their religion, raise families, hold government positions, serve in law enforcement, serve in the military, and vote in Israel. To accuse Israel of genocide is absurd.

Has there been death and destruction in Gaza since October 7? Of course. Is that tragic? Yes. But this is as willed by Hamas, the duly elected government of Gaza. This is war. Hamas knew their slaughter of Israelis on October 7 would provoke a massive response. What, if you were running Israel, would you have done? The greatest trick Hamas pulled was to build 500 km of bomb shelters, provoke a war, refuse to let Gaza civilians take shelter, and convince the world to blame Israel for their deaths.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, says, “The scale of killing in Gaza is unlike anything I’ve witnessed in my years as Secretary-General.” Really? Since he took office in 2017 120,000 have been killed in Syria, 150,000 killed in Sudan, 162,000 killed in Ethiopia, and 200,000 killed in Yemen. In Gaza, according to Hamas’s own reports, there have been about 70,000 deaths. More than half of the dead were Hamas fighters. That is what happens when you start a war. But different standards apply to Israel at the UN.

In sum, 3% of Gaza’s population, mostly male combatants, have died in a war they started. That is not genocide. 96% of Jews in Poland were murdered by the Nazis. That is a genocide.

If Israel wanted to kill every single Palestinian, it could have. It is a nuclear power. Why did it distribute polio vaccines to the children of Gaza? Why did it allow any food in at all? (The food is frequently stolen by Hamas fighters). Why does Israel continue to supply water and electric power to Gaza? Why did Israel drop leaflets in different neighborhoods, repeatedly saying please get out of this neighborhood because Hamas solders are operating there and we are going to attack?

Of course, Israel’s actions can be questioned. Israel will consider these issues itself when it votes for its legislature at the end of this month. But to call its actions in Gaza a genocide is a libel. It runs along with the claim that Israel is intentionally starving Palestinians (the famine libel, disproven by the UN’s own reports) or deliberately murdering Palestinian children (the child-killer libel, from a UN document with no evidence or source). I will not forget politicians or others in the public square who equivocate, justify, or excuse Hamas.

The genocide charge fails from its sheer implausibility, combined with the moral offense of accusing Jews of the very crime that had been inflicted upon them in the Holocaust, as well as a still-resilient Western cultural memory and a robust liberal consensus. It must not become established as fact now.

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Trump’s Obsession

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Mental health practitioners, of which I am not, tell me it’s called Megalomania: An obsession with the exercise of power, especially in the domination of others. Plastering a country with one’s face is a direct manifestation of grandiosity, an inflated belief in one’s supreme importance, omnipotence, and unique historical destiny.

Reporters who have spent decades reporting on the activities of Donald Trump, of which I am, know it has been one of his most visible traits throughout his career. New York is replete with examples of the Trump name on projects from one end of the city to the other. Most of these, and I inspected most of them in my Manhattan apartment hunting days, are mediocre at best and overpriced without exception.

Trump has also plastered his name on a wide variety of companies selling everything from steaks to vodka. He put his brand on a casino, an airline, and a university, among others. In my role as a reporter, I joined him at many a ribbon cutting for these various ventures. I also attended, while he was conspicuously absent, many of the bankruptcies of these projects.

The president’s obsession with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is in keeping with his desire to remake the nation’s capital, the White House, the parks, the wide boulevards and open spaces, to his own gilded, ostentatious, self-serving taste.

While it hasn’t drawn nearly as much attention as the destruction of much of the White House, the US Institute of Peace, wreck of the reflecting pool, and the plans for a triumphal arch, I find the picture above to be the most frightening of all.

The banner shows Trump, he of the woeful countenance, scowling down on everyone who enters the building generally known as “Main Justice.” That’s the Washington headquarters of the US Department of Justice. This is the part of the national government most involved with the protection of the laws and the Constitution. The message of the banner is clear. This is Trump’s DOJ now, run by Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche, now Attorney General of the United States. Similar banners have appeared at other government buildings in Washington.

When I see that picture, all I can think about is “Big Brother.” That’s a reference to the all-powerful, intrusive authority or government that constantly monitors and controls its citizens featured in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, “1984.” In the book, Big Brother is the leader, the supreme dictator of the totalitarian state of Oceania. Public posters display his face alongside the warning: “Big Brother is watching you”.

I am also told an obsession with naming things after oneself is called toponymic narcissism. In political behavior and history, this practice is also associated with building a cult of personality, where a leader uses omnipresent branding, imagery, and naming to achieve cognitive saturation and project total control over the state.

Trump is now appearing in television commercials featuring his image and voice and cheering on his supposed achievements. The ads say they are paid for by the US government. This is the mark of one sick cookie.

In China, Mao Zedong‘s image became a permanent institutional fixture. His massive portrait famously overlooks Tiananmen Square on the Tiananmen Gate, and during the Cultural Revolution, his likeness was mandated across all public infrastructure, factory floors, and schools.

In Russia, Lenin’s image remains a permanent fixture in all public buildings. However, the portraits of current leaders, like President Vdlamir Putin, are relegated to standard, framed photos inside administrative offices and schools rather than dominating public building exteriors.

And perhaps most infamously, there was Adolf Hitler. Hitler’s portrait was explicitly required and heavily displayed on public and state buildings throughout Nazi Germany. While the Nazi regime did not pass a formal law forcing private citizens to hang his picture at home, state regulations mandated that government offices, schools, and state-run facilities prominently display his likeness.

The Trump administration used at least $50,000 in taxpayer dollars to create the large banners featuring the president’s face or policies, according to a new report released by Senator Adam Schiff’s (D-Calif.) office. Schiff calls the move illegal, saying the banners amount to “propaganda” mirroring “totalitarian dictators.” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told Axios the “report would only be valuable as toilet paper” and declined to comment on the specific claims Schiff’s office made.

After thinking of Big Brother, I move on to thinking of “Fearless Leader.” That was the dictator from the fictional country Pottsylvania, and the employer of the inept spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. These were all comedic characters who appeared in many television and film projects featuring Jay Ward creations Rocky and Bullwinkle.

The difference is Rocky and Bullwinkle were meant to be amusing. Trump is no laughing matter.

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