OK let’s discuss the hidden thing here. A 20 plus year old claims he has never had sex. I remember being a 16 yr old newly inducted into the SDA church. Any touching of your male members was a huge sin they constantly harped on. I did try, but seriously, a teen boy with my history but any normal teen boy is going to do the deed to get off. And for many of them it leaves them with after crippling guilt of not pleasing their god who watched them do it. God is a perv. I can’t tell you the number of boys in that church school I hugged with and they cuddled with me … but we never had sex. Two wanted to but if I got thrown out of the school I had to return to the brutal home I was using the school to escape from. But the idea of just ignoring one’s hormone driven sex drive is not healthy and the religious leaders pushing that all did it when they were teens. But the grift has to be kept up. Hugs
MAGA influencer Nick Shirley speaks during a roundtable discussion on antifa at the White House on Oct. 8, 2025. ( Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Nick Shirley really wants the world to know that he’s never had sex. The YouTuber who moved from “prank” videos to the more lucrative world of creating MAGA disinformation apparently believes that sexual inexperience is an armor against accusations that he’s a liar. “I’m a virgin. I don’t have sex with random girls. You’re not gonna catch me on those sexual allegation charges,” he rambled on “PBD Podcast,” insisting that he is “religious” and doesn’t “have any vices.”
A deeper dig shows even more how ridiculous this situation is. Shirley has a history of dishonesty, which includes paying immigrant laborers to hold pro-Biden signs, clearly hoping voters would think they were self-motivated. In another video, he claimed Portland had “fallen” and “antifa” had taken “control of the city,” an unvarnished lie.
CNN verified that children were being dropped off at a day care center Shirley had targeted. The Minnesota Star Tribune visited the day cares in question and found, when they were allowed access, children playing and napping peacefully. CBS News reviewed security footage showing kids being dropped off at one targeted center. Others were indeed empty; they had gone out of business before Shirley filmed outside the buildings.
Shirley stands accused of lying for racist reasons, so his “but I’m a virgin” defense is irrational — at least on the surface. But it makes more sense, in a psychosexual way, in light of the right’s long-standing fear and loathing of day cares.
Shirley stands accused of lying for racist reasons, so his “but I’m a virgin” defense is irrational — at least on the surface. But it makes more sense, in a psychosexual way, in light of the right’s long-standing fear and loathing of day cares. After all, the scandal Shirley is exploiting isn’t really about day cares. It’s about a larger case in Minnesota of Feeding Our Future, a fraudulent food pantry that was run by Aimee Bock, a white woman who was convicted in March of cheating taxpayers out of nearly $250 million of pandemic funds. While Bock was the mastermind, other defendants in the case are Somali American. On Dec. 30, a federal judge cleared the way for the government to seize $5.2 million in assets from Bock.
If Shirley was only interested in building his hoax on that existing and very real case, he could have targeted anti-hunger charities for his fake sting. Instead, he went after day cares, which are only tangentially related insofar as they are — along with churches, mosques, schools and community centers — sites that were supposed to get assistance from the fraudsters but never received it.
These businesses were picked almost certainly because Shirley and his colleagues have tapped into the long-standing tendency of paranoid reactionaries to make day cares the subject of conspiracy theories. Along with birth control and abortion — whose providers are also smeared constantly with right-wing lies — day care is loathed on the right for allowing women to work instead of being financially dependent on a husband. In the 1980s, day care workers were accused of being Satanists. Now, during the MAGA era, the scapegoat for men’s fears of female independence has shifted from imaginary devil-worshippers to real immigrants. White women are implicitly accused of using immigrant labor as a cheat to avoid their god-given duty to quit work to stay home and raise babies. Vice President JD Vance has been especially loud with his belief that day care is pushing women away from their supposedly inherent desire to be housewives.
Vance almost certainly doesn’t believe his own narrative. For one thing, it’s illogical to believe women would think, “Gosh, I want nothing more than to stay at home, but if there’s a day care down the street, I guess I have to use it.” His own wife has been outspoken about how much she loved working at her law firm that offered on-site childcare — and how much she misses it. But Vance has apparently decided that the bulk of support for his 2028 presidential bid will be rooted in the world of extremely online, sexually dysfunctional misogynists that love shady influencers like Shirley. The vice president’s messaging strategy has long been focused on this loose conglomerate known as the “manosphere”: bitter divorced men, “incels” (involuntarily celibates) and devotees of the “red pill,” an ideology that holds that dating and marriage aren’t about love but about men tricking or forcing women into submission.
The manosphere isn’t just deeply misogynist; it’s also incredibly racist. For liberals taking a cursory glance into that world, it can be very confusing how MAGA men can somehow blame immigrants for their own dating woes. But in the cesspool of incoherent resentment that Vance is clearly absorbing, the alleged evils of feminism and immigration are seen as part of a larger “woke” conspiracy against the white man. Before he died, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk often posted about how “who we actually can’t stand are angry, liberal, white women.” He would portray white women as idiots for not perceiving immigrants as a threat. “If woke is a mind virus,” he posted, “then white college indoctrinated women are the most susceptible hosts.” Influencers like LibsofTikTok hold up white women who resist mass deportations as selfish ninnies who just want to keep their babysitters.
Shirley has engaged in this rhetoric himself. “White liberal women tend to support the people that steal and rob from them,” he claimed in one post. Another was more ominous: “Liberal white womens [sic] logic and empathy will get them killed eventually.”
In this toxic stew of sexual resentment, misogyny and racism, it makes more sense that Shirley thinks his virginity is relevant. Anti-immigrant sentiment is woven into a larger MAGA narrative about expelling allegedly decadent and foreign influences. White male dominance, people like Shirley believe, can be restored by adhering to strict sexual and social mores prescribed by right-wing Christianity. Abstaining from sex until marriage is part of a larger program meant to produce male-dominated marriages, where wives are too busy with large broods of white children to hold jobs. Attacking Black immigrants at a day care center has powerful symbolic resonance; it’s seen as an important front in a war both to make America whiter and to restore white women to a submissive role in the home.
The irony is that Shirley’s diatribe about his sexual status only underscores how much the attack on the day cares is not, contrary to his claims, driven by a nonpartisan, disinterested desire to end fraud. That much was always obvious. Shirley loves Donald Trump, who is himself a convicted fraudster who continues to use his office to enrich himself in blatantly corrupt ways. Shirley has followed the president’s lead — he, too, has a long history of posting racist vitriol about immigrants.
But bringing his sexuality and views on gender relations into the discussion — when no one else has done so — suggests that those issues aren’t far from mind, either. The fixation on “purity” is a common fascist obsession, manifesting in backwards fantasies of racial and sexual purity. None of this has any relation to the real world where people of all races and genders are just trying to do their jobs, raise their children and live their lives.
Trump flags fly as rioters take over the steps of the Capitol on the East Front on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Five years ago today, on January 6, 2021, a violent mob stormed the Capitol building. Following the attack, over a hundred major companies released statements condemning the insurrection and promising to stop donating to the 147 members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election, or to halt all political donations entirely.
Since returning to office, President Trump has continued to push false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged,” “stolen,” and filled with “fraud.” On Trump’s first day as president, he issued sweeping pardons and commutations for some of those involved in the Capitol insurrection. In a presidential action, Trump wrote that the pardons and commutations ended “a grave national injustice.”
The current members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election have embraced Trump’s return to the White House. None has expressed any regret for their vote.
Nevertheless, most companies that pledged to stop donating to these lawmakers have broken their promise.
After January 6, 2021, for example, a Cigna spokesperson gave CNN the following statement:
There is never any justification for violence or the kind of destruction that occurred at the U.S. Capitol last week – a building that stands as a powerful symbol of the very democracy that makes our nation strong. Accordingly, CignaPAC will discontinue support of any elected official who encouraged or supported violence, or otherwise hindered a peaceful transition of power.
Cigna, however, has since donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to lawmakers who voted to overturn the election. In April 2021, a spokesperson for the company told the New York Times that resuming donations to members of Congress who voted to overturn the election did not violate its pledge because congressional voting is “by definition, part of the peaceful transition of power.” Cigna argued that its pledge only applied to “those who incited violence or actively sought to obstruct the peaceful transition of power through words and other efforts.”
Comcast, however, has since broken its pledge and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to lawmakers who voted to overturn the election. Comcast also donated $1 million to Trump’s 2025 inaugural fund and was among the donors to Trump’s new White House ballroom, according to a list released by the White House.
After January 6, 2021, a spokesperson for General Mills said it had “suspended contributions to any member of Congress who voted to override the results of the U.S. presidential election.” In January 2025, Popular Information reported that the company had thus far upheld its pledge. Last year, however, General Mills resumed donations to lawmakers who voted to overturn the election. On March 27, the company donated $1,000 to Representative Kevin Hern (R-OK). On June 12, the company donated $1,000 to Representatives Glenn Thompson (R-PA) and Adrian Smith (R-NE), and an additional $1,000 to Hern.
Popular Information is an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism since 2018. It is made possible by readers who upgrade to a paid subscription.
The promise keepers
While many companies have broken the pledges they made after January 6, 2021, some companies have kept their promises. Popular Information identified 10 companies that have upheld their promise to stop donating to members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election
Farmers Insurance
Following the Capitol insurrection, former Farmers Group CEO Jeff Dailey released a statement promising to suspend political donations. “Like many Americans, we were horrified by the acts of violence that took place in our nation’s capital. While we recognize and support all Americans’ right to peacefully protest and exercise free speech, we strongly condemn acts of violence and hateful rhetoric,” Dailey said in the statement, according to CNN. Since January 6, 2021, the insurance company has kept its promise and has not donated to any members of Congress who voted to overturn the election.
Unlike Farmers Group, several other insurance companies — including Blue Cross Blue Shield and Allstate — broke their promises to withhold their money from those who voted against certifying the 2020 election results.
Airbnb
After January 6, 2021, Airbnb released a statement promising to withhold donations from those who voted against certifying the election. “Airbnb strongly condemns last week’s attack on the US Capitol and the efforts to undermine our democratic process,” the company said. The company also released a safety plan for the 2021 inauguration, including canceling Airbnb reservations in Washington, D.C., made by those associated with a hate group and banning individuals involved in the Capitol insurrection from the platform. Since January 6, 2021, Airbnb has kept its promise and has not donated to any members of Congress who voted to overturn the election.
Expedia Group
While Expedia Group and Airbnb have not given any money to election deniers since 2021, other travel and hospitality companies have reneged on their vows to do the same. Marriott International and Hilton Worldwide, for example, both donated to former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Nike
In January 2021, Nike released a statement promising to halt donations to members of Congress who voted to overturn the election. “Nike’s Political Action Committee (PAC) helps our employees support elected officials who understand our business and whose values align with our mission of serving athletes. These nonpartisan values rely upon upholding the principles of democracy,” the statement said. “Nike’s PAC will not support any member of Congress who ignores these principles, including those who voted to decertify the Electoral College results.” Since the Capitol insurrection, Nike has kept its promise and has not donated to any members of Congress who voted to overturn the election.
Clorox
Since 2021, Clorox has not donated any money to election deniers’ campaigns. Ecolab, a company selling similar products to Clorox’s, promised to stop donating to all congressional candidates, according to CNN. But during the 2024 election cycle, Ecolab donated thousands of dollars to Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA), Hern, and other members of Congress who tried to overturn the 2020 election.
Eversource Energy
On January 13, 2021, Eversource Energy, a large electricity provider in the Northeast, announced that it would not donate to any of the members of Congress who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. In a statement, Eversource’s Chief Communications Officer Jim Hunt said, “at Eversource, we were deeply disturbed by the intentional disruption of our democratic process and the violence that occurred at the Capitol last week.”
Eversource has kept its promise not to donate to any election deniers and has made few political contributions in general. NRG Energy, a competing electricity provider serving some of the same states as Eversource, also promised not to donate to any election deniers, but has since reneged.
Holland & Hart LLP
Holland & Hart, among the top 200 earning law firms in the world, has not donated to anyone who voted to overturn the 2020 elections. In contrast, Cozen O’Connor, an even bigger firm, reneged on its promise.
Qurate Retail
Unlike other retail brands like Amazon and Walmart that have not followed through on their vows not to give money to election deniers, Qurate Retail — which has since been rebranded as QVC Group — has kept its promise.
Lyft
Lyft has kept its promise to withhold donations to election deniers after January 6. While Uber never made such a promise, the company and its CEO donated $2 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
Whirlpool
Whirlpool has not given any money to people who voted to overturn the 2020 election. The company terminated its political action committee in 2023.
In some places in the US cops are maga not enforcers of public peace and honoring the constitution. We have the right in the constitution to address the government with protests of their actions. How far have we moved to a fascist nation where the rule of law is simply might be delivered by thugs makes right. Agree with us or else … A horrible place we are in. Hugs
WATCH: Woman Arrested Mid-Interview After Protesting Against Trump’s Venezuela Strike
A Michigan protest organizer was arrested on camera while giving a TV interview criticizing President Donald Trump’s actions in Venezuela on Saturday.
Jessica Plichta, a 22-year-old preschool teacher and Grand Rapids Opponents of War organizer, was speaking to local ABC affiliate WZZM about a weekend protest condemning the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro when police officers moved in behind her and placed her in handcuffs. The patrol car had been visible in the background moments earlier, its presence unremarked upon until the interview abruptly ended.
“It’s not just a foreign issue, it’s our tax dollars that are being used to commit these war crimes,” Plichta said on camera. “It is also the duty of us, the people, to stand against the Trump regime, the Trump administration, that are committing crimes both here in the U.S. and against people in Venezuela.”
As she was escorted to the police vehicle, she could be heard saying, “I am not resisting arrest.”
The clip quickly went viral, with WZZM later reporting that police said Plichta was arrested for “obstructing a roadway and failure to obey a lawful command from a police officer.”
Prior to her detention, Plichta told WZZM she had recently returned from Venezuela, where she attended the People’s Assembly for Peace and Sovereignty of Our America summit.
A police department spokesperson issued the following statement to AlterNet following the arrest:
A group was marching in the roadway. Over 25 announcements were made from the PA system of a marked police cruiser for the group to leave the roadway and relocate their activities to the sidewalk. Blocking traffic in this manner is a direct violation of city and state law,” the spokesperson stated. “The group refused lawful orders to move this free speech event to the sidewalk and instead began blocking intersections until the march ended. Patrol officers consulted with their sergeant and the watch commander who informed the officers that if the individuals could be located, they were subject to arrest. The adult woman who was arrested was positively identified by officers, and the lawful arrest was made.
After her release from jail, Plichta spoke with Zeteo about the incident.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as soon as I finished an interview speaking on Venezuela, I was arrested – the only person arrested out of 200 people,” she told the outlet.
No healthcare subsidies, no money to feed poor people or kids who need government help to have lunch. As a kid often the only meal I got was lunch at school. No one monitored if I paid or not I was given food to eat like every other kid. In Jr / Senior high school, say from 13 to 18 again my only meal was lunch or snacks at school. But yes the tRump admin was cutting every safety net program and even halting child care so it hurts Walz, and stopping FEMA funds to states run by democrats among other cuts to already congress approved funding. All illegally I will add but the republicans in congress are too scared of tRump to object to his being a tyrant. But we have plenty of money for companies and businesses to extract oil.
On The Majority Report I am listening to an oil person saying that the price of oil has fallen below $50 a barrel because of a glut on the market, and that Venezuelan oil is “sour oil” meaning it is hard to refine. He says that to make a profit on that prices have to be over $80 dollars a barrel. Which means this demented daydream of Rubio’s and Miller’s is not about oil so much as territorial control over other countries and Rubio has long wanted Cuba to fall to the US so his parent’s lands and money can be claimed from the rightful owners of it now. Rubio’s family fled Cuba as refugees and lost all their holdings in Cuba, he has made a career of wanting it all back and toppling Castro. But … well Rubio and the neocons claim that if we can make Venzualia fall into line then all the other Latin American countries will fall in line also and Cuba’s government will be destroyed. Just like if we take out Saddam Hussein then the entire Middle East will embrace democracy. Same story different location. And it is all lies. Just an excuse to use the US military might and have a reason to deny any public relief or safety nets at home. Hugs
President Donald Trump said he believes the U.S. oil industry could get expanded operations in Venezuela “up and running” in fewer than 18 months.
“I think we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money,” Trump told NBC News in an interview Monday.
“A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through revenue,” he said.
Whether the U.S. government ultimately agrees to reimburse the oil industry’s costs in Venezuela, or alternatively, decides that future revenue is sufficient repayment, will likely be a key factor for the oil companies as they consider their options.
Trump declined to say how much money he believes it would cost companies to repair and upgrade Venezuela’s aging oil infrastructure.
“It’ll be a very substantial amount of money will be spent” by the oil companies, Trump said. “But they’ll do very well.”
“And the country will do well,” he added.
Despite Trump’s optimism, oil companies have appeared skeptical of quickly entering, expanding or investing in Venezuela. A history of state asset seizures, the ongoing U.S. sanctions and the latest political instability all feed into this caution.
Gas prices are already at multiyear lows. The average retail gas price on Monday was $2.81, according to AAA. That’s the lowest since March 2021.
“Having a Venezuela that’s an oil producer is good for the United States because it keeps the price of oil down,” Trump also added.
While lower oil prices could make gas cheaper at the pump, it would likely also mean lower revenues for the same big oil companies that Trump is counting on to bankroll the rebuilding of Venezuela’s oil industry to the tune of billions of dollars in foreign investment.
Asked if the administration had briefed any oil companies ahead of Saturday’s military operation to capture deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Trump said, “No. But we’ve been talking to the concept of, ‘what if we did it?'”
“The oil companies were absolutely aware that we were thinking about doing something,” Trump said. “But we didn’t tell them we were going to do it.”
Trump told NBC News it was “too soon” to say whether he had personally spoken to top executives at America’s three largest oil producers, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips.
“I speak to everybody,” he said.
ConocoPhillips declined to comment Monday on Trump’s plans for Venezuela’s oil reserves. Chevron told NBC News it does not comment “on commercial matters or speculate on future investments.” Exxon did not immediately respond to questions.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright plans to meet with executives from Exxon and ConocoPhillips this week about Venezuela’s oil industry, Bloomberg News reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Wright will be a point person for the Trump administration’s broader campaign to rebuild Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, a White House official said Monday.
The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. oil industry is eager to return to Venezuela, nearly two decades after the country last nationalized billions of dollars’ worth of oil company assets.
“They want to go in so badly,” Trump told reporters Sunday evening.
Despite Venezuela’s massive reserves of crude oil, large U.S. oil firms have a good reason to pause before committing to expand operations in Venezuela.
In the 1970s, the Venezuelan government nationalized energy assets there, including those owned by Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips. In the years since, the companies have tried unsuccessfully to recover billions of dollars.
In 2006 and 2007, the Venezuelan government nationalized even more assets. Then-President Hugo Chávez allowed foreign oil firms to remain, but on less favorable terms, leading to the full departure of Exxon and Conoco.
Chevron, however accepted the terms and remains to this day, thanks in large part to a limited waiver exempting it from U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan oil.
Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods recently expressed caution about re-entering Venezuela.
“We’ve been expropriated from Venezuela two different times,” he told Bloomberg News in November, replying to a question about whether Exxon would be interested in Venezuela’s oil or gas. “We’d have to see what the economics look like.”
What is Donald Trump running away from so hard? Is it the fifth anniversary of his January 6 insurrection, which we will mark on Tuesday? It should be.
It could be Jack Smith’s newly released testimony, which is damning and damaging—and we haven’t even gotten the release date of Volume II of his special counsel report, due sometime in February unless Trump manages to hang it up in court. On balance, Congressman Jim Jordan’s “Weaponization” work is backfiring.
It could also be the Epstein Files. DOJ missed its reporting date to Congress over the weekend, and the full release of the files is still nowhere in sight.
Donald Trump has a lot to try to hide from. It could be all of the above, and it’s all closing in on him this week. In the past, he has always been able to delay or distract just long enough for the public to forget. But this week, the past seems to be catching up with the lame duck president.
That may be at least a partial explanation for Trump’s strike on Venezuela—distract, distract, distract. It’s a better explanation than Trump as a committed warrior against narcoterrorism. That one doesn’t work particularly well for Donald Trump, who pardoned Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández, a man who former National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in our Substack Live on Sunday morning, “personally trafficked tons of cocaine into the United States and actually said at one point he wanted to shove cocaine up the noses of the gringos.” When Trump pardoned Hernández, he said, “If somebody sells drugs in that country, that doesn’t mean you arrest the president and put him in jail for the rest of his life.” As Jake pointed out, and I agree, “the drugs excuse holds no water.”
This week, we’ll be watching Congress—and watching Trump watch Congress, which has been showing a few signs of life lately. I don’t want to oversell that, but this is definitely a week that warrants paying attention, particularly with the privileged War Powers Resolution I mentioned in last night’s post coming to the Senate floor this week. The ball is in Congress’ court.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, as well as to “make rules concerning captures on land and water.” Presidents before and including Trump, as experts at the Brennan Center explain, have tried to claim some of that authority for themselves, using “outdated and overstretched war authorizations like the 2001 and 2002 authorizations for use of military force.” Multiple presidents have also “asserted an inherent authority to undertake airstrikes, raids, and other military interventions without prior congressional authorization. When Congress has authorized conflict, such as the War in Afghanistan and Iraq War, presidents have overread Congress’s approval and expanded U.S. military involvement into countries that Congress never contemplated. Compounding the problem, presidents often fail to give Congress the information it needs to oversee these conflicts.” This is not a Trump problem—presidents since at least George H.W. Bush have claimed a share of Congress’ power. But Trump, who is uniquely interested in amassing presidential power, has the potential to move on from Venezuela and keep going, if Congress doesn’t step in and assert itself.
It’s possible for two things to be true at once: it’s possible that Maduro was a corrupt, dangerous leader and also, that our Constitution and the separation of powers demand preserving. Our country does not, and indeed cannot, remove every dangerous leader around the globe from office with in-country strikes. We could strengthen local populations with stability-enhancing programs like USAID (which the Trump administration, of course, has cut) to increase the ability of local populations to act on their own impulses. We can engage in vigorous law enforcement, like the prosecution of Honduras’ former president. But we can do so without permitting our president to freelance as a warlord, especially one with dubious motives. So don’t buy into the false equivalency that says the smash and grab in Venezuela that resulted in Maduro’s arrest was a righteous exercise of the president’s power.
The constitutional prescription for fixing this problem of presidential overreach is Congress. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker had something to say about that over the weekend, in light of the Trump administration’s strike on Venezuela.
Cory Booker@CoryBooker
Today, many leaders will rightly condemn President Donald Trump’s unlawful and unjust actions in Venezuela, and I join them. But just as glaring, and far more damning, is Congress’ ongoing abdication of its constitutional duty. For almost a year now, the legislative branch has
4:40 PM · Jan 3, 2026 · 70.8K Views
415 Replies · 523 Reposts · 1.93K Likes
“Today,” he wrote, “many leaders will rightly condemn President Donald Trump’s unlawful and unjust actions in Venezuela, and I join them.
But then, Senator Booker put the blame precisely where it is due. He continued, “just as glaring, and far more damning, is Congress’ ongoing abdication of its constitutional duty. For almost a year now, the legislative branch has failed to check a president who repeatedly violates his oath, disregards the law, and endangers American interests at home and abroad.”
He called out the Republican-led Congress for choosing “spineless complicity over its sworn responsibilities.” He condemned its inaction in the face of Signalgate, with Trump’s “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth escaping any censure for “the reckless leaking of classified information that put American troops at risk.” The senator also pointed to the “stunning absence of accountability” for the administration’s “illegal use of military force destroying vessels and killing people in the Caribbean and the Pacific without congressional authorization.”
Booker cited a litany of Congressional failures:
No hearings. No serious investigations. No enforcement of checks and balances. No accountability.
He called Congress cowardly and submissive.
We are long past due for someone to speak so plainly to the country about the Republican-led Congress’ failure to do its constitutional duty. The question is, who is listening, and will it lead to action this week? As my good friend Norm Eisen like to say, I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful.
Booker writes that “Republicans in Congress own this corrosive collapse of our constitutional order” and that their submission to Trump’s will “now stands as one of the greatest dangers to our nation and to the global order America claims to defend.” The fact that Maduro is “a brutal dictator who has committed grave abuses” does not, Booker concludes, suspend the Constitution. And so, he drives home the point of what must come next:
“The Constitution is unambiguous: Congress has the power and responsibility to authorize the use of military force and declare war. Congress has a duty of oversight. Congress must serve as a check, not a rubber stamp, to the President.”
“We face an authoritarian-minded president who acts with dangerous growing impunity. He has shown a willingness to defy court orders, violate the law, ignore congressional intent, and shred basic norms of decency and democracy. This pattern will continue unless the Article I branch of government, especially Republican congressional leadership, finds the courage to act.”
“What happened today [in Venezuela] is wrong. Congressional Republicans would say so immediately if a Democratic president had done the same. Their silence is surrender. And in that surrender lie the seeds of our democratic unraveling.”
“Enough is enough,” Booker concludes. With three years left in this administration, it’s time to stop the (constitutional) bleeding.
Senator Booker wrote at length at a time when many Americans have lost the will or the ability to take in an argument laid out like this. For some people, it’s easier to ignore common sense and stay in the fold of the cult. But Booker’s words are well worth our time and well worth sharing with others. His argument is not subtle or nuanced, and it’s accessible to anyone who has taken a fourth-grade civics class: Congress should do its job, not Donald Trump’s bidding. The future of the Republic depends upon it. They would demand it if a Democratic president had done what Donald Trump did—something that has been true over and over, but is all the more poignant with the anniversary of January 6 staring us in the face. Maybe Congress will remember what that day felt like and how they reacted. Maybe enough of them can muster some courage—if for no other reason than that the history books, and likely voters at the midterms, will condemn them if they don’t.
Make sure you share Senator Booker’s message with your elected officials this week. They need to hear it. They need to know you heard it.
A final note: a development we won’t be following this week, because it won’t be happening, is the federal criminal trial of former FBI Director Jim Comey, which was slated to start on Monday. This trial will not take place because the case was dismissed, in a serious blow to the credibility of Pam Bondi’s Justice Department. There are, in fact, some guardrails that remain in place. And this year, we’re going to rebuild more of them. Get ready to vote.
Where you get your news and analysis is a choice. I’m very appreciative that you’re here, with me, at Civil Discourse. Your subscriptions make it possible for me to devote the time and resources it takes to research and write the newsletter, and I’m very grateful for all of you. This is what community looks like.
As our income shrank Ron and I found ourselves cutting back on buying books to read and movies to watch. Then one day I read about how many libraries offer these things for free if you just sign up. I was like what is the catch? But Ron and I went to our local library, got new cards, and told them what we really wanted was the online stuff. The person behind the desk was so excited to explain it to us. They were happy even though we only wanted to online stuff. Ron and I have watched movies, read a bunch of books including new ones, and it doesn’t cost us anything but time. When Ron’s sister’s husband was in the hospital before he died he complained of being bored. She set him up with a local library online account and he was happy while in the hospital. If you have a family member who is a shut in please think of this for them. I love it. Hugs
Everyone in tRump’s admin can see him failing and each one is pushing hard to get their personal desire / goal / profit done before he gets so bad the public can see he is not really making the decisions. This is one of these. Plus tRump is driven to put his name on every thing, every building, every aspect of government because he is terrified that people will realize how failing / stupid / bad / and scared he is of being forgotten because he never really accomplished anything naming worthy. But we have to remember that each member of his cabinet and inner circle have their own goals and things they want to do under tRump’s name. They realize they are fast running out of time. Hugs
The Trump administration is extending its wrecking ball to yet more historic buildings in Washington as the president’s pet projects — including his golden ballroom and triumphal arch — press forward.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appears before the House Committee on Homeland Security on Capitol Hill on Dec. 11, 2025.Mark Schiefelbein / AP Photo
The Trump administration is looking to tear down more historic buildings in Washington as the president, nearly a year into his final term, looks for ways to leave his mark on the District of Columbia.
This includes the destruction of the East Wing of the White House to make way for the president’s grand ballroom, which he now says will cost some $400 million, as well as a massive so-called arc de Trump.
But a memo uncovered by The Washington Post on Tuesday shows the administration using a new justification (that is, other than Trump’s vanity) to explain its latest effort to raze a part of D.C.’s history: a so-called emergency.
The Post reports Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose agency has engaged in some rather lavish spending on her behalf this year, issued a memo earlier this month “seeking to fast-track the demolition of more than a dozen historic buildings at St. Elizabeths in Southeast Washington,” which officials have been converting into a sprawling headquarters for DHS over more than a decade in accordance with historic preservation of treasured landmarks.
Per The Post:
‘Demolition is the only permanent measure that resolves the emergency conditions,’ Noem wrote in the memo. A risk assessment report undertaken by her agency ‘supports immediate corrective action,’ she wrote. The assessment report, which Noem included with her memo, concludes the vacant buildings ‘may be accessed by unauthorized individuals seeking to cause harm to personnel.’ The structures ‘provide a tactical advantage for carrying out small arms or active shooter scenarios,’ the report states.
MS NOW has not independently confirmed the memo. A spokesperson for the General Services Administration, which is overseeing development of the St. Elizabeths campus, confirmed to The Post that the agency had been alerted by the DHS about “a present security risk to life and property” at the campus “that may require us to demolish buildings.”
The report notes the push is being opposed by multiple preservationist groups, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has also sought to thwart Trump’s ballroom project.
It’s yet to be seen whether there’s any true risk in need of being resolved by Trump’s demolition of yet more historic buildings. But if past is prologue, there’s certainly reason to doubt the administration’s “emergency” claims here: namely, the president’s obvious desire to remake the nation’s capital and his administration’s tendency to use claims of “emergencies” to impose a slew of radical policies.
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