Tag: politics

Stars and Stripes sacked by Trump big mouth Def Sec Hegseth

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 9.6.2026 UPDATED

Stars and Stripes has been essential reading for the troops since World War II and the several American involvements since then: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and now Iran to name several

Its tabloid style complete with graphic photos, hard news, gossip and sports provides entertainment to the servicemen and women. Thin skinned Defense Secretary (oops, War Secretary) and Vietnam War (1961-1975) draft dodger Trump want nothing but mindless patriotism on its pages. Not seeing that the editor has been fired for “insubordination”.

Stars and Stripes (stylized in all caps) is a daily American military newspaper reporting on matters concerning the members of the United States Armed Forces and their communities, with an emphasis on those serving outside the United States.[2] It operates from inside the Department of Defense, but is editorially separate from it, and its First Amendment protection is safeguarded by the United States Congress, to whom an independent ombudsman, who serves the readers’ interests, regularly reports.[3] As well as a website, Stars and Stripes publishes a global daily print edition for U.S. military service members serving overseas Monday through Friday.[4] This global edition is also available as a free download in electronic format.[5] The newspaper’s headquarters is in Washington, D.C.[6] Stars and Stripes (newspaper) – Wikipedia

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 8.22.2026

The US Pentagon has sacked the editor, publisher and a reporter of military newspaper Stars and Stripes after they publicly objected to potential editorial interference, they said on Friday.

The newspaper, which has been publishing since World War II, is partially funded by the Defense Department but has remained editorially independent.

Stars and Stripes – June 6th and 7th 1968

“According to the notice, I am being fired ‌for stating in ⁠a CBS ⁠interview that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a personal red line,” Stars and Stripes Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin said in a statement on Friday.

Blowhard ex Fox News talking head Pete Hegseth doesn’t think Stars and Stripes is sufficiently war like. Barb wire Peace symbol from Jeanette Rankin Peace Center in Missoula, Montana – Photo Lee Heidhues

Slavin received a notice of separation for insubordination, as did Publisher Max Lederer and Middle East reporter Lara Korte, Slavin was cited by the Associated Press as saying.

Lederer, who has served as the newspaper’s publisher since 2007, had announced his intention to retire from his position in September.

In an email announcing his retirement, Lederer had said it was clear that the Pentagon had a new vision for the newspaper which differed from his own.

Stars and Stripes May 8th 1945

It came a few weeks after the Pentagon installed Navy Captain William Urban, an active duty serviceman, as the outlet’s deputy editor, without Lederer’s prior knowledge.

Meanwhile, Korte said on social media she was being fired for insubordination “after I told a CBS reporter that I work for Stars and Stripes – not the Pentagon, not any administration, and not any policy maker.”

Stars and Stripes May 1st 1975

Stars and Stripes sacked by Trump big mouth Def Sec Hegseth

https://www.dw.com/en/pentagon-fires-military-newspaper-leadership-for-insubordination/a-78466373

Pentagon cuts access to classified information amid Iran war concerns

Documents associated with the Secretary of Defense Orders Book were removed from an internal Pentagon web portal after The Washington Post’s reporting, three people familiar with the matter said.

https://wapo.st/4x5NQIr

Germany’s far right AfD on the cusp of major electoral victory

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.31.2026

Who would have imagined a far right immigrant bashing German political party could rise from the ashes of Nazism in less than 15 years and be on the verge of seizing power in a German State? It could happen this weekend in the German State of Saxony-Anhalt (see below).

STOPPT DIE AFD – May 2017 – Photo Lee Heidhues

Nearly 10 years ago the blogger was in Germany.

At that time the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) was simply another newly formed political entity trying to gain traction. The AfD immigrant bashing received a lukewarm reception. Now, after nearly 10 years the AfD  is on the precipice of a major victory. Achieving a majority in a German State election on September 6th.

During the last German election Trump’s comrade Elon Musk actively campaigned for the AfD.

Alternative for Germany (German: Alternative für Deutschland, AfD [aːʔɛfˈdeː] ⓘ) is a far-right,[18] right-wing populist,[19] national conservative,[20][21] and in parts völkisch nationalist[nb 3] political party in Germany. It has 151 members of the Bundestag and 15 members of the European Parliament. It is the largest opposition party in the Bundestag and a member of the Europe of Sovereign Nations Group in the European Parliament.[22] Alternative for Germany – Wikipedia

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle – 8.31.2026

The AfD is polling above 40% ahead of Saxony-Anhalt’s election on September 6. What is driving support for the far right in this predominantly rural eastern German state?

Just before the election, the AfD is polling at more than 40% in Saxony-Anhalt. The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which has been the dominant governing party in the state since German reunification in 1990, trails far behind, with support ranging between 23% and 26%.

The state office for the protection of the constitution has classified the AfD as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” organization, but this has done little to dent its popularity among voters. The Left Party is polling at 13%, while support for the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) stands at between 6% and 7%. It remains uncertain whether the Greens and the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) will succeed in returning to the state parliament.

https://www.dw.com/en/saxony-anhalt-election-afd-far-right-germany/a-78482588

https://www.dw.com/en/saxony-anhalt-election-can-the-cdu-stop-the-afd/video-78579766

Saxony-Anhalt (/ … ˈɑːnhɑːlt/ ⓘ … AHN-hahlt;[5][6] German: Sachsen-Anhalt [ˌzaksn̩ ˈʔanhalt] ⓘ; Low German: Sassen-Anholt) is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of 20,555 square kilometres (7,936 sq mi)[7] and has a population of about 2.14 million inhabitants,[2] making it the 8th-largest state in Germany by area and the 11th-largest by population. Its capital is Magdeburg.[8] Saxony-Anhalt – Wikipedia

Cheeseburger lover Trump has a beef with the cattle industry

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.26.2026

Full disclosure. The blogger admits he eats an occasional cheeseburger.

The treatment of cattle is cruel and unusual.

The average consumer does not see the cruelty of the slaughterhouse when shopping for beef at the neighborhood supermarket. The beef is nicely packaged in plastic or served up by the ‘butcher’ behind the counter.

Now Donald Trump, a notorious consumer of McDonald’s cheeseburgers, has signed an Order to permit more beef imports. He expects sky high consumer beef prices to drop. The beef industry is in an uproar. It’s just a ploy to boost his floundering presidency before the November 3rd midterm election. Just 69 days away.

The beef is nicely packaged in plastic or served up by the ‘butcher’ behind the counter.
Donald Trump, a notorious consumer of McDonald’s cheeseburgers

Excerpted from Wisconsin State Farmer 8.26.2026

Beef prices have inched upward near record highs, with cattle numbers in their lowest in 75 years due to ranchers culling herds due to years-long droughts that dried up grazing lands and drove up feed prices. The advance of the New World screwworm forced U.S. officials to close the border to Mexican beef, further tightening supplies. Reuters reported that U.S. meatpackers have been shuttering processing plants in response to soaring cattle costs.

Cattle futures fell to eight-month lows shortly after President Donald Trump announced on Aug. 21 plans to allow up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef imports into the United States at reduced tariff rates in an effort to lower consumer prices.

The Oklahoma Farm Report noted that live cattle futures fell $3 to $4 per hundredweight and feeder cattle futures dropped $3 to $6 per hundredweight Friday morning, immediately following Trump’s declaration on Truth Social that beef imports would be “sold at 25% below current market prices”. By market close, however, many contracts had recovered much of those losses.

At a time when U.S. cattle numbers are at historic lows and ranchers are slowly rebuilding herds after years of drought, high input costs, and disease-related trade disruptions, the administration’s move has triggered pushback from farm and ranch groups and Republican lawmakers who are often aligned with the president on agricultural policy. Many warned that the move could weaken cattle markets, slow herd rebuilding, and benefit meatpackers more than producers.

Criticism was notable coming from Montana Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy, who represents one of the nation’s top cattle-producing states.

“I’ve advised President Trump against this course of action for a year because American ranchers have been struggling against packer monopoly for decades and this will harm them…” Sheehy posted on X. “This action will make it more difficult for American ranchers to rebuild our herd and bring prices down for the American people.”

https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2026/08/26/trumps-beef-import-announcement-sparks-cattle-industry-alarm/91435574007

Top photo: Cattle in the Slaughterhouse

Legalize it. 49ers owner prostitution bust. Waste of cops time

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.24.2026

This entire story is ridiculous on several distinct levels.

Not the least will be the pious hand wringing and finger wagging directed towards 49ers owner Jed York. A foolish act? Given that prostitution is illegal.

Otherwise, so what?

First is the fact that prostitution is illegal throughout most of the United States and is the reason that this billionaire this story gets any attention.

Second is the undeniable fact that the billionaire owner of the San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York could be so stupid and put himself in this precarious legal position.

Jed York. Busted

It’s embarrassing for Jed York, embarrassing for the San Francisco 49ers and embarrassing for the City of San Francisco.

Prostitution is legal in many European countries where the activity is closely monitored by local law enforcement and health authorities. If he really needed a little action Jed York should have flown to any number of European cities. Or waited until his team flew to Australia for their upcoming season opener. It’s legal down under as the map below shows.

He can afford the air fare. Instead he went to East Palestine, Ohio. A known hot spot for police ‘stings’. A mere 20 miles from his birthplace.

In countries where it’s illegal working prostitutes are susceptible to unsafe working conditions: pimps, thugs, abusers and subject to arrests.

Excerpted from The San Francisco Chronicle 8.24.2026

San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York whose wealth is valued at 8.5BN responded to an advertisement on a prostitution website and arranged for a $140 sexual encounter, according to an affidavit signed by an agent with the Mahoning Valley Human Trafficking Task Force.

He was arrested after he arrived at the mobile home park in East Palestine and was taken into custody as part of a sting operation.

Authorities seized $160 from York that will be forfeited to the task force, which assisted the East Palestine Police Department with York’s arrest, according to court records. The phone the affidavit said was “used to arrange the criminal act” was ordered returned to York.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/49ers-york-arrest-ohio-22401045.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2ZjaHJvbmljbGUuY29tL2JheWFyZWEvYXJ0aWNsZS80OWVycy15b3JrLWFycmVzdC1vaGlvLTIyNDAxMDQ1LnBocA%3D%3D&time=MTc4NzYzNjc5MTA1OA%3D%3D&rid=OTJhM2RhZWItNDMzYy00ZjMxLTgyMTQtZTU2ZjE2NDIzNDRl&sharecount=Mw%3D%3D

A true Israeli ‘terrorist’ Ben-Gvir. Minister of National Security

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.21.2026

Perhaps no Israeli leader, aside from Benjamin Netanyahu is more responsible for Israeli criminal behavior than Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The blogger keeps reading reports about Itamar Ben-Gvir. Israel’s Minister of National Security. A man who thinks Palestinians are sub-human; has happily posted videos of himself tormenting protesters who sailed to Palestine to support the people of Gaza and published a video of himself touting ‘gallows’ for Palestinians.

It comes as no surprise that much of the world now treats Israel as a ‘pyrrhia’ State. Its reprisal actions since October 7, 2023 when Hamas brutally murdered 1195 mostly Israelis October 7 attacks – Wikipedia has been labeled ‘Genocide’ by many world leaders and nations.

It is genuinely appalling to learn of how truly despicable is his conduct. The latest inflammatory comments being his wish that 30-40 Palestinians be killed each day.

Call to kill Gazans

In August 2026, he called for killing “30 to 40” people in Gaza every night while speaking to a former hostage, Rom Brasalavski, on a podcast. Ben-Gvir clarified that the killings should go beyond those who “pose an immediate threat”, stating that “there are people there who are not worthy of life… they’re not even people.”[92]

His statement was condemned by the Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, stating that Ben-Gvir’s statement was “inhumane”, “unacceptable” and a violation of international law.[93] Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s foreign minister, also condemned Ben-Gvir’s remarks, calling them “intolerable” and “inhumane”.[94] United Nations secretary-general António Guterres called the remarks as “appaling”, “dehumanizing”, “outrageous”, and “dangerous”.[95] Guterres’ spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, called his remarks as “abhorrent” and “scandalous”.[96]

Ben-Gvir has also called for the ‘hanging’ of Palestinians and showed off the proposed site in a video.

Israel continues to commit genocide, atrocity crimes by deliberately targeting Palestinian children, UN independent commission finds | UN News

Last year, the commission concluded that “Israel had committed genocide against the Palestinian group in the Gaza Strip, found that the intense scale and systematic nature of the Israeli military operations have continued, resulting in unprecedented death, injury and trauma of Palestinian children.”

Here are some findings in the commission’s latest report:

  • Israel has killed 20,000 children and injured 44,000 more since 7 October 2023
  • Severe physical and mental injuries, mass trauma, orphanhood, separation, disability, repeated displacements, starvation and the collapse of education and healthcare have erased childhood and will continue to affect children in Gaza throughout their lives
  • Palestinian children have been arrested and subjected to torture and other severe forms of mistreatment in Israeli prisons and detention facilities, with no information on their whereabouts
  • Israeli security forces have used sexual violence against children as part of the collective shaming and oppression, entrenched within a prolonged, ethnic, gendered and intergenerational pattern of occupation and hostilities

Itamar Ben-Gvir – Wikipedia

Ben-Gvir is a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank; according to the BBC, his “political background lies in Kahanism—a violently racist movement that supports the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands”. He has a long history of anti-Arab activism, leading to dozens of indictments and at least eight convictions of crimes including incitement to racism and support for, as well as possession of propaganda of, a terrorist organization (the now-illegal Kach political party). As a lawyer, he is known for defending Jews accused of Jewish extremist terrorism in Israeli courts.

Ben-Gvir is known for being a provocateur and has attracted headlines for a variety of reasons: threatening Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on live television in 1995 shortly before his assassination; having had a portrait in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish terrorist and mass murderer; calling in 2019 for the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel who are not loyal to the state;[2] inciting violent clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah in 2021; and making highly controversial visits to the Temple Mount, where the al-Aqsa Mosque is located, in 2023 and 2024.

Itamar Ben-Gvir (Hebrew: אִיתָמָר בֶּן גְּבִיר [itaˈmaʁ benˈgviʁ]; born 6 May 1976) is an Israeli politician and lawyer who has served as the minister of national security since 2022, except for a two-month gap in early 2025. He is the leader of Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), an Israeli far-right, Kahanist and anti-Arab party which won six seats in the 2022 legislative election and is part of the thirty-seventh government of Israel.

Top photo: Itamar Ben-Gvir and Benjamin Netanyahu


Holst’s The Planets – Mars, the Bringer of War
Gustav Holst’s The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite composed between 1914 and 1917, inspired by astrology rather than astronomy. The first movement, Mars, the Bringer of War, sets a tone of relentless aggression and military force Wikipedia+1. performed appropriately by the United States Marine Band

Bibliocide—attacks on written word—tactic of totalitarians and terrorists.

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.18.2026

Censorship and book burning are a sad historical phenomena. Recent history has found this activity in countries around the world. Nazi Germany, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and Russian obliteration of Ukrainian libraries.

America is not immune. The House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC) strove to ban books in overseas libraries which were deemed “too Communist” and “nonconformist”. Even in the midst of the 21st century certain localities in America have successfully moved to ban books from libraries and schools. Book Bans – PEN America

American Book Banning: Trends, Causes, and Impact

Book banning in the United States has surged in recent years, with both schools and public libraries facing unprecedented levels of censorship.

Scale of the Problem
PEN America’s 2025 report found 6,870 book bans enacted in the 2024–25 school year across 23 states and 87 public school districts, affecting nearly 2,600 authors, illustrators, and translators PEN America. This is the highest number of bans in a single school year ever recorded. The American Library Association (ALA) documented 4,235 unique titles challenged in 2025, with 5,668 books actually banned from libraries, plus 920 restricted through access controls American Library Association. These bans disproportionately target works by authors of color, LGBTQ+ authors, and books addressing racism, sexuality, gender, and history PEN America+1.

Who Is Driving the Bans
ALA data shows that 92% of challenges in 2025 were initiated by pressure groups, government officials, or decision-makers, not individual parents American Library Association. This reflects a coordinated political and activist push to influence school and library curricula.

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal 8.18.2026

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/russia-burns-books-and-sacks-libraries-in-ukraine-31326e56?st=DMN2Zg&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Bibliocide—attacks on the written word—is a common tactic of totalitarians and terrorists. The Nazis burned books in Germany in the 1930s, as did the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s. Bosnian Serbs destroyed Sarajevo’s National and University Library in 1992, and in 2015 ISIS devastated Mosul Central Library.

Nazi book burnings – Wikipedia The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union (German: Deutsche Studentenschaft, DSt) to ceremonially burn books in Nazi Germany and Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism. These included books written by Jewish, half-Jewish, communist, socialist, anarchist, liberal, pacifist, and sexologist authors among others.[1] The initial books burned were those of Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky,[2] but the burned books came to include other authors, including the works of Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, H.G. Wells, and effectively any book incompatible with Nazi ideology.
During the Khmer Rouge regime (1975–1979), the government carried out a systematic campaign to destroy books, newspapers, and other printed materials as part of its broader cultural and political purge. This was part of Pol Pot’s “Year Zero” policy to erase Cambodia’s pre-1975 history, culture, and intellectual life, replacing it with a Maoist-inspired agrarian socialist society

The Ukrainian Culture Ministry says Russia has damaged or destroyed 906 libraries since 2022. Numerous cases of book burning and library sacking have been documented. Among them: In 2022 the Petro Mohyla Church library was burned in Mariupol. Books were burned in Rovenky in 2023. Yulia Kakulia-Danyliuk, a librarian in Kapytolivka, has described the destruction in that village: “Everything was smashed and broken, books were scattered everywhere. There was filth.”

Books in Ruins: How Russia attacks Ukrainian culture

Kapytolivka holds particular significance, having been home to Volodymyr Vakulenko, a poet and children’s book author, who was abducted and murdered by Russian troops in 2022. When the librarian returned after the village’s liberation, only 4,500 of 16,500 books remained. She found books on Ukrainian culture and history in the toilets, covered in human waste. “All of them had been soiled. That was done deliberately.”

Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of the Center for Civil Liberties (which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize), describes the destruction of books as “part of a broader genocidal policy of Russia. We know from history that the burning of libraries accompanied genocides throughout the centuries as an erasure of someone else’s identity. Putin openly says that there is no Ukrainian nation, no Ukrainian language, no Ukrainian culture.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Civil_Liberties_(human_rights_organization)

The Center for Civil Liberties (Ukrainian: Центр Громадянських Свобод, romanized: Tsentr Hromadyansʹkykh Svobod) is a Ukrainian human rights organization led by the Ukrainian lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk.[2] It was founded in 2007,[3][4] with the purpose of pressuring Ukraine’s government to make the country more democratic.[5][6] The organization was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Ales Bialiatski and Russian organization Memorial.[3][7]

In America the book burning mania took hold in the early Cold War era.

HUAC and the Era of “Book Burnings”

During the 1950s, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and other anti-communist forces in the U.S. government were linked to reports of book burnings at American-funded overseas libraries. These libraries, numbering about 230 and holding nearly two million books, served millions of visitors annually and were intended to present a “balanced” view of the United States The New Republic.

The Context

  • HUAC’s role: Established in 1938, HUAC targeted alleged communists and “subversive” activities. While it investigated individuals, its influence extended to shaping cultural and informational policy abroad Wikipedia.
  • Overseas libraries: Originally founded in Latin America in 1942–43 to model public libraries abroad, they emphasized free access to all printed materials. By the Eisenhower era, their purpose had shifted toward promoting U.S. perspectives and discouraging “non-conformity” The New Republic.
  • Targeted content: Books deemed “too communist” — including works by or about communists — were removed from shelves. This included literature banned under dictatorships the U.S. had fought against, such as in Germany, Austria, Japan, Korea, and Trieste The New Republic.

Political Backing

  • Eisenhower administration: Reports indicated that State Department directives, sanctioned by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, ordered U.S. libraries abroad to remove such books. President Eisenhower publicly distanced himself from these orders, but his administration’s actions were tied to HUAC’s anti-communist agenda The New Republic.
  • McCarthyism: Senator Joseph McCarthy, though not directly involved with HUAC, was part of the broader anti-communist climate that enabled such censorship Intellectual Freedom Blog.
America doesn’t burn books. It bans them as neo-Nazi sentiment takes hold

Trump thought Iran war would be easy as saying “You’re fired!”

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.12.2026

Donald Trump seriously believed the war on Iran would be over quickly.

Instead he has taken the World into economic discord with no end in sight.

Trump just thought this just another episode of The Apprentice where he could dispatch Iran with the words, “You’re fired!!”

Excerpted from Foreign Affairs – August 12th 2026

EMMA ASHFORD is a Senior Fellow in the Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center and the author of First Among Equals: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World.

Donald Trump campaigned for a second U.S. presidential term on a promise to end wars, not start them.

And for the first year after his return, there were indications that he might make a real break with the status quo that has led Washington to overextend itself. He pushed the United States’ European allies to spend more on defense, promoted peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and pursued a cautious détente with China that has dialed down tensions over Taiwan.

Eighteen months later, however, the United States is bogged down in a new war in the Middle East. Although the U.S. military has enjoyed tactical successes, Washington has not achieved any kind of meaningful strategic victory; in certain respects, Iran exerts more power now than it did in February.

The DonaldTrump way

Nonetheless, Trump has shied away from making diplomatic compromises. Just like his nemesis, U.S. President Barack Obama, Trump promised Americans that he would extract the country from pointless “forever wars” in the Middle East and then proved unable to do so.

But the fact that the United States again became mired in a Middle East conflict is even more surprising today, because over the past two decades, the American public as well as many U.S. leaders have firmly concluded that such wars are mistakes.

At heart, structures and incentives pull Washington back, repeatedly, to avoidable quagmires. For starters, military action is easy for U.S. presidents to initiate. Since 1991, U.S. leaders have gotten in the habit of deploying force to secure even the most minor U.S. interests. The short-term costs and risks of using force against a smaller, distant state or nonstate actor often appear small—most Americans can go about their day-to-day lives without even realizing their country is at war—and Congress has largely become willing to cede its constitutional oversight.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/guest-pass/redeem/92meLFc_TI8

The Rapid Rise of DSA Progressive El-Sayed Democrats

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.6.2026 UPDATED

If truth be told the Wall Street Journal and its favorite tabloid The New York Post are praying for a victory in November by Dr. El-Sayed.

The WSJ editorial page will be in overdrive excoriating the Doctor for the next six years. It will be great for circulation and provide plenty of Red Meat to the WSJ crowd.

Wall Street Journal Opinion 8.5.2026

The March of the El-Sayed Democrats

His victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary sets up the race of the year in November.

Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday is no surprise in this year of rising radicalism in the party. But maybe hold off on French Revolution 2.0. Democratic voters made the race far closer than pollsters predicted, and now Mr. El-Sayed will have to persuade voters beyond Ann Arbor and the white liberal gentry.

New York Times  – 8.6.2026
The Daily Beast – 8.5.2026

Mr. El-Sayed, an articulate 41-year-old public-health official, was expected to roll over Rep. Haley Stevens. But his lead was 1% on Wednesday when the race was called. The narrow victory suggests many Democrats had second thoughts about nominating a man with radical views hailed by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as the next great progressive hope.

Progressive is an understatement. Mr. El-Sayed now says he’s a “capitalist,” distancing himself from the Democratic Socialists of America, but his agenda remains the full Bernie Sanders. He continues to support Medicare for All. He favors a wealth tax and an enormous expansion in federal entitlements for child care and more. He wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying the agency “is about normalizing paramilitary force on our streets.”

He has a particular animus toward Israel and has campaigned with Hasan Piker, the Mao Zedong fanboy and Soviet Union admirer who has said the U.S. “deserved 9/11.” Mr. El-Sayed wants to cut off all U.S. military aid to Israel, which he accuses of genocide in Gaza.

Karen Tumulty – Washington Post-8.5.2026
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-march-of-the-el-sayed-democrats-87bd9eb4?st=pPjnKJ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Is that the best the WSJ Opinion readers can do responding to the blogger’s ‘Comment’?

Top photo: Dr. Abdul El-Sayed Democrat nominee for US Senate from Michigan

Trump Trolls Times reporter again fishing for sources

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 8.2.2026 UPDATED

The Hill – 8.2.2026

For a President who is so media savvy and friendly when it suits him the blogger can only continue to look on with dismay as Donald Trump assaults the First Amendment and crush the right to publish.

During his second term Trump’s Department of Justice has already issued subpoenas against The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

Does Trump seriously believe these mainstream media giants are standing idly by while its reporters are harassed by his DOJ? Thank goodness these publications are having none of it.

Excerpted from The New York Times 8.1.2026

Previously undisclosed subpoena, involving reporting on a failed 2019 SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea, reflects the Trump’s expanding campaign to investigate leaks of what Trump labels secrets.

A freelance reporter has been fighting a subpoena from the Trump administration seeking to force him to reveal his sources for a New York Times article about a failed top secret mission in North Korea, according to people familiar with the matter.

Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesman for The Times, said in a statement that the subpoena to Matthew Cole was “part of the government’s escalating attacks on journalists, which should concern all Americans.” He added that the demand to disclose Mr. Cole’s sources “is another brazen and illegal attack from the administration designed to deny the public information of vital importance.”

The subpoena, which has not been previously disclosed, reflects the administration’s intensifying campaign to investigate leaks of government secrets by pressuring reporters to divulge their sources. Until President Trump began his second term, federal subpoenas to reporters were exceedingly rare.

In February, F.B.I. agents showed up at the New York home of the reporter, Matthew Cole, to deliver the grand jury subpoena, which was issued by prosecutors in Newport News, Va., according to the people familiar with the matter, who described the private conversations on the condition of anonymity.

The Times is providing a legal defense to Mr. Cole.

Trump jabs the media on Air Force One

The investigators are seeking his testimony about two years’ worth of information about Mr. Cole’s contacts and conversations, as they try to identify his sources for the article about the operation in North Korea, the people familiar with the matter said. It is unclear if the administration has also sought Mr. Cole’s phone and email data, as it has done in other cases.

Last fall, Mr. Cole, along with a staff reporter for The Times, Dave Philipps, revealed the details of a Navy SEAL Team 6 mission in 2019 that went awry. The article described how the SEAL members killed two or three unarmed North Koreans who appeared to have stumbled upon the mission, a classified operation to plant a secret eavesdropping device near the country’s coastline. The Times’s account, published in September, drew on interviews with two dozen people.

The article also noted that the Trump administration did not notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations, before or after the mission, an omission that may have violated the law.

The Justice Department has not subpoenaed Mr. Philipps, according to people familiar with the matter. He declined to comment.

Mr. Cole disclosed more details of his reporting on his Substack newsletter, stating that despite learning about the mission in 2023, he waited for months before making calls to find out more given the sensitive nature of the reporting.

Top graphic by: Dave Whamond

Chile 9/11/73. Strategic Insight, Moral Myopia Shaped Kissinger

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 7.26.2026

Henry Kissinger has been dead nearly three years but his legacy of Machiavellian intrigue will long be remembered. Perhaps no more so than Chile where the Kissinger and Nixon sought to keep socialist Salvador Allende from gaining power.

TIME – after the coup – 9.24.1973

When that failed and a military coup eliminated President Allende on September 11, 1973 the American government aligned itself at the hip with the free market fascist leaning junta led by Augusto Pinochet.

Excerpted from Foreign Affairs Magazine – 12.3.2023 Timothy Naftali

The Nixon administration continued the policy started by President Kennedy of deploying covert action in Vietnam to prevent the socialist Salvatore Allende from ever becoming president of Chile

Kissinger and Nixon.

Never best friends. Just allies out of necessity

In September 1970, Henry Kissinger supervised the CIA’s efforts to arrange a military coup to prevent Allende, who had just received the largest number of votes in a national election, from becoming president that year. “I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist,” Kissinger announced to the board that recommended U.S. covert action to Nixon, “just because its people are irresponsible.” Known as “Track II,” this covert action failed to produce the desired outcome.

Three years later, there were no American puppet masters in the military coup, led by the brutal Augusto Pinochet, that brought down Allende. But Kissinger welcomed the result and refused to apply any pressure on the new, pro-U.S. regime to prevent human rights abuses—indeed, Kissinger did the opposite.

Chilean military guards detained political prisoners in the Santiago soccer stadium after the 9.11.1973 military coup

In June 1976, after Pinochet’s junta had detained thousands of innocent Chileans, torturing an estimated 30,000 and executing at least 2,200 of them, Kissinger told Pinochet in a private meeting, “My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left-wing groups around the world, and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going communist.”

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/henry-kissinger-contradictions-america-secretary-state-tim-naftali

September 11, 1973. A Day of Shame for America. Sponsored Coup d’etat in Chile
Opening theme of 1982 film ‘Missing’, adapted from the book of the same title by Thomas Hauser. The controversial cinematic account of the deaths of two Americans Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi. Detained and executed by the Chilean military after the coup. Missing (1982 film) – Wikipedia

Top photo: La Moneda the presidential palace in Chile under attack during the September 11th 1973 Coup.