Lao Tzu on waiting for right action
God Makes an Endorsement
Russ Baker 04/20/26 (whowhatwhy.org)
Hope he sticks around and performs some miracles — we’ll need one to clean up the toxic mess Trump has created.
On Saturday, I saw this headline and teaser:
Trump Will Participate in a Marathon Bible Reading
He will read a passage from the Old Testament that his Christian supporters cite as a call to national repentance and divine blessing.
As debate persists over Donald Trump’s appropriation of Jesus for political purposes and over his feud with the pope — and as Pete Hegseth continually invokes Bible quotes (even a fake one from a Tarantino movie) for his holy war — one thing remains unsaid: Religion itself profoundly influences nearly every aspect of our secular lives.
And its status continues to be untouchable.
The New York Times article about Trump’s participation in a weeklong bible reading series — which its organizer labeled “a national reading of God’s law” — was, well, polite and precise, befitting a high-quality news organ. It cites biblical scholars. And notes:
President Trump has a complicated relationship with the Bible. He has often called it his favorite book, has posed with it for photographers outside a church and has sold his own edition for $60. But he has also struggled to name a favorite passage or even pick a favorite Testament between the two.
In other words, the problem is not religion; it is that Trump may himself not be as religious as he would like others to believe.
I get that religion offers solace for many. But we pay a price for our unwillingness to challenge the unscientific bases of those beliefs, and for treating religion as, pardon the pun, a sacred cow.
We nonbelievers are nonetheless thrilled by a pope who stands up to Trump. We see Leo XIV as more of a politician or humanitarian than someone representing an actual religion and its insistence on being the “true way,” complete with ancient and totally unproven specific beliefs, practices, and rituals.
This kind of secular approach to religious figures is not unusual: People can take sides between the state of Israel and various Muslim countries while ignoring the long-held religious beliefs that lie behind much of the current mayhem.
Those who deplore the idea that, in ancient as well as modern times, Jews seized land occupied by others because “God gave this land to me,” need to be aware of how much more land Arabs have seized in the name of Islam. And central Asian Turkic peoples seized what once was Anatolia and surrounding regions for the same reason.
Politicians, public figures, and news organizations will never be frank about this, partly for fear of consequences, and because religious beliefs and language are simply too ingrained in our culture, from “in God we trust” and “so help you, God” to “OMG.” And that especially dangerous expression “thoughts and prayers,” which, for many people, seems to mean that God, not science or gun control or peacemaking, will save loved ones.
None of this is new, of course. The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (161–180 AD), in his Meditations, quoted his mentor Diognetus, who urged him “not to believe the claims of miracle-mongers and charlatans about incantations and the expulsion of demons and the like.”
Cynics know that little has changed in all these millennia when it comes to the appeal of such beliefs. Accordingly, there’s no shortage of political and business interests ready to manipulate religious language and imagery to promote paradoxically demonic policies — policies that threaten the survival of this country and the very conditions that make human life possible on Earth.
For instance, oil companies back politicians who will always blame the mysterious ways of God — not scientifically proven global warming — for major climate-driven catastrophes.
The section of the Bible Trump will read from, presumably without a hint of irony, urges that people “turn from their wicked ways,” after which God “will heal their land.” (One of the others participating in the bible-reading series is a well-known advocate of homeschooling, where one assumes children’s minds are not wickedly poisoned with information about environmental and other scientific matters.)
Until recently, the legacy media treated Trump’s “I’m the Second Coming” act as yet another “there he goes again” novelty. But Trump is not the first apparent nonbeliever to successfully embrace religion to win and keep power.
Years ago, I interviewed George W. Bush’s “faith adviser,” who told me how he had first tried to pitch the faith vote to Bush’s father, with mixed results, then hit pay dirt with the younger Bush — who fully embraced a public pronouncement of his own commitment to Jesus as a ticket to success. (This led to the creation of several unintentionally campy pictures of a pious-faced Bush and Jesus together, and some actually depicting Bush as Jesus, or Jesus as Bush.)
As the younger Bush and his team mapped out a possible path to political success, they struggled with W’s paltry resume and well-deserved reputation as a party boy. The clever solution was to turn his weakness into strength — through a religious epiphany, which served to wipe clean his slate of behavior from before he saw the light, and also to attract a giant, untapped constituency.
It worked like a charm, perhaps because getting people to believe anything when they’re already susceptible to “taking things on faith” is a light lift.
Fast-forward to Trump — another “playboy” with not a hint of religious practice in his pre-political life. Candidate Trump’s wild success with evangelicals, Catholics, and religious Jews can be considered one of the greatest huckster shows of all time. Sadly, the legacy media has had trouble accurately reporting on this travesty because of its long-standing reluctance to look too closely at the intersection of political power and traditional religion.
***
But things may be changing. The god-awful reality of Trump’s presidency is ever so cautiously being acknowledged by a legacy media and a half-complicit establishment that grievously let its guard down and helped create our current mess. The state of his mind, the relentless deceit, the world-class danger of this man with his finger on the nuclear button is starting to seep into the headlines. Here’s an example:
Trump tests loyalty of Christian supporters as erratic behavior escalates (The Washington Post)
Here and there, perhaps sensing that even Trump’s more cultish followers are backing away, onetime fellow travelers and bandwagon drumbeaters are standing up to be counted and to say, at long last, “Enough is enough.”
Another bit of hopeful news, not widely reported from what I can see, is the decision by the California Supreme Court to disbar John Eastman, one of Trump’s lawyers who led the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. It was this initiative that spiraled into the January 6 US Capitol riot.
And here’s yet another sign that a major reset might be coming: The Wisconsin Supreme Court — considered pivotal to the national political equation because Wisconsin is an electoral swing state — as recently as 2020 had a conservative majority. Since then it has been steadily swinging way, way, over. Yet another liberal judicial candidate just won a seat, expanding the liberal majority from 4–3 to 5–2.
Pushing Back Against Corporations
Of course, Trump’s presidency has been a huge gift to the wealthy and the corporations they control. In addition to cutting taxes for the wealthiest, this administration has backed away from regulating monopoly behavior and other abuses of the “free competition economy” that conservatives like to extol.
Which is why it’s great news that a jury has ruled in favor of (mostly Democratic) state attorneys general in deciding that the concert firm Live Nation and its Ticketmaster unit were colluding to drive up event ticket prices to extortionate levels.
Here’s a quick reprise of the players and the action: Trump meddled in a case against the company brought by the Department of Justice under President Biden, resulting in a settlement that went easy on Live Nation.
This did not sit well with state prosecutors. And it’s in the states where the power to defend individual rights resides until this administration is in our rearview mirror.
Similarly, it is state officials who are challenging Paramount’s takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes CNN. Federal agencies tasked with protecting consumers and guarding against anticompetitive monopolies are keeping hands off — reflecting the crony-capitalist allegiances of Trump himself, who loves how his tech billionaire friends, Larry Ellison and son David, are turning CBS, once a showcase of independent, hard-hitting journalism, into a Trump-friendly network.
Meanwhile, more than 3,000 Hollywood pros have signed an open letter protesting the Paramount deal as a threat to creative competition and jobs.
***
The assault on honest reporting and journalism’s defense of the public interest continues with an audacious effort backed by the billionaire Peter “Antichrist” Thiel to put news organizations before a “tribunal.”
Related: The Church of Silicon: Peter Thiel’s Gospel of Unfettered Power
The new development is called Objection, a platform offering, for a fee, to judge whether one should believe a piece of journalism. The staff will include ex-intelligence agents who will supposedly dig into the facts behind the story, which will then be submitted to an “AI jury” to give a virtual thumbs-up or -down.
Judicious use of anonymous sources, a necessary normal aspect of investigative journalism, especially during periods of intimidation, like now, would lower the trust score — unless journalists submit their source’s identity for the AI to assess. Riiiight.
Other tools of the public interest are under attack.
Ever heard of the Wayback Machine? It’s a website run by a nonprofit that saves snapshots of websites over time. It has incalculable practical and historical value. Anyone who has ever tried to see some webpage that is no longer findable by standard search methods knows what a treasure the WM is. Journalists, historical researchers, and ordinary citizens alike are huge fans. I am, and have had the pleasure of visiting the headquarters of the parent Internet Archive and taking its public tour, and getting to know the energetic, dedicated director of the Wayback Machine, Mark Graham.
Now, the Wayback Machine is threatened. A growing number of publishers, justifiably concerned about web crawling bots scraping and appropriating their content for use by AI, are blocking them — and this has hit the Wayback Machine’s crawlers too.
I don’t know the solution, but the Wayback Machine is a marvel of unsurpassed value to public discourse and must be allowed to continue functioning. I’m sure there is a way to protect intellectual property and block AI misappropriation while leaving the Wayback Machine free to perform its indispensable service.
RFK JR: We Told You So
Do you remember back when the legacy media treated the then-Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his views as fringe nonsense to be ignored, little more than a distraction and a laugh? I do! I was worried that this character — like Trump himself — would be dismissed at our considerable peril.
That’s why, in my columns, and at WhoWhatWhy, the independent news organization I founded, we took an early interest.
Related: RFK Jr.’s Panel of Health Hoaxers, Hucksters & Hustlers
Related: But Wait, Folks, There’s More: Anti-Vaxxers and Snake Oilers Are a Team
Related: Building Herd Immunity to Truth: More on RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vax Crusade
Month after month we hammered on the issue of RFK’s largely unfounded health claims, when he was nothing more than an irritant in Democratic primaries. Of course, now we all know how he parlayed his ill-informed rants on serious health issues into becoming the country’s health-policy czar.
This week, the dangerous mess he has created was the topic of congressional hearings. Ever an evasive character, RFK has been busy slip-sliding away from all kinds of assertions. For example, after persuading many parents not to vaccinate their children for measles — with fatal consequences — he now, as The New York Times described,
testified that the measles vaccine is safe and effective “for most people” and agreed it was safer than getting measles. Under questioning, he also allowed that the vaccine might have saved the lives of two unvaccinated children who died of measles in Texas earlier this year.
That Kennedy allowed the vaccine “might have saved two lives” isn’t much of an admission. So far, he has avoided any responsibility for the epidemic of measles raging across America. (This year alone, as of April 16: 1,748 cases.) When lawmakers try to get him to admit it, they don’t seem to know how to respond to his mindless evasions.
Like this excuse: “There’s a world epidemic,” as if the problem is so big he can’t be expected to solve it. No one who’s questioned him so far has pointed out that there’s a world epidemic for the same reason there’s one in the US — no vaccinations. And this world epidemic endangers children in the US — another good reason to get vaccinated!
It’s not like the disease can’t be prevented!
But this is a man who has tried to sell the idea that “nutrition and clean water, not vaccines” prevented measles in Samoa.
Kennedy’s concession that vaccines are “safe and effective for most” is not reassuring. Some suspect it was just for show.
Kennedy may be relying on his close ally Aaron Siri — a lawyer who makes a living suing vaccine manufacturers — to erode the idea that vaccines are safe with new “documentation” of vaccine injury that may be even less reliable than the discredited studies he’s cited in the past.
Siri is petitioning the Health Department to (1) add about 300 conditions to the table of injuries presumed eligible for compensation, and (2) sharply ease scrutiny of claims of injury.
These changes could make it much easier to document false claims of injury, create more lawsuits — and add to the dangerous vaccine hesitancy responsible for the current spread of disease.
The New York Times has suggested Kennedy will “revive his campaign to question the safety and effectiveness of the shots after the midterm elections.” The reaction of Kennedy’s lawyer to Trump’s new four-person team to lead the CDC, including two who support vaccination, offers a clue: Siri immediately attacked one of them, the conspicuously qualified Dr. Erica Schwartz. Siri said Schwartz “would likely be a disaster” and “lacks the basic ethics and morals to lead the CDC.”
Kennedy has turned into a liability for Trump, with high negatives, like — well, like almost all the people Trump appointed.
All that once glittered is revealed as fool’s gold.
SantaCon Actually Was a Con
Speaking of which, I note that SantaCon, the ultimate bro culture event and seasonal Christmas bar crawl, was a scam. Or at least the man behind it was a scammer, according to a federal indictment. He presented the specter of thousands of young drunk men (and women) staggering around Manhattan in Santa costumes as an opportunity to raise money for charity.
But, it is alleged, he ended up siphoning much of the proceeds for his personal use and a lavish lifestyle, featuring luxury vacations, Michelin-starred meals, and a high-end car. He spent $120,000 of the supposedly charitable funds on a fancy apartment, $100,000 at a Costa Rica resort (how do you even do that?), and dropped a bundle on renovating a lakefront property. On and on.
The SantaCon Con seems a perfect metaphor for Trump’s legacy: Find something that makes people feel good, sell them a myth, and scam them for personal ends. The main difference is that Mr. SantaCon might end up in prison, while our Supreme Court, in its wisdom, decided that virtually nothing Trump does can have consequences — for him.
- Russ Baker Russ Baker is Editor-in-Chief of WhoWhatWhy. He is an award-winning investigative journalist who specializes in exploring power dynamics behind major events.
Alan Watts on floating
“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.”
~ Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Watts was a British and American writer, speaker, and self-styled “philosophical entertainer”, known for interpreting and popularising Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience. Wikipedia
Born January 6, 1915, Chislehurst, United Kingdom
Died November 16, 1973 (age 58 years), Druid Heights
Inside Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm Elections
by Doug Bock Clark and Jen Fifield
April 13, 2026 (propublica.org)
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Reporting Highlights
- Safeguards Destroyed: In advance of this year’s midterm elections, President Donald Trump has systematically demolished federal guardrails that prevented him from overturning the 2020 election.
- Changing of Guard: At least 75 career staff are gone. Two dozen appointees, including many from the election denial movement, have been hired. Ten helped try to overturn the 2020 vote.
- Political Interference: Once-fringe actors now have access to vast powers, which they’ve already used to push forward unprecedented actions that critics say amount to partisan interference.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
In mid-December 2020, federal officials responsible for protecting American elections from fraud converged in a windowless, dim, fortified room at the Justice Department’s downtown Washington, D.C., headquarters.
They had been summoned by Attorney General William Barr.
Over the preceding weeks, Donald Trump’s claims that the presidential election had been stolen from him had reached a crescendo. He’d become obsessed with a conspiracy theory that voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan, had switched votes from him to Joe Biden.
With each day, Trump ratcheted up the pressure to unleash the might of the federal government to undo his defeat.
Barr interrogated experts from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, crammed in beside top FBI officials around a cheap table. He needed the group of around 10 to answer a crucial question: Was it really possible the 2020 presidential vote had been hacked?
ProPublica’s description of the previously unreported meeting comes from several people who were in the room or were briefed on the gathering. Everyone understood that the meeting represented an important moment for the nation, they said. Barr, who did not respond to requests for comment, had walked a delicate line with Trump, instructing the FBI to investigate allegations of election irregularities while declaring publicly there had been no evidence “to date” of widespread fraud.
The nonpartisan specialists from CISA, backed by their FBI counterparts, explained they’d unravelled what had happened in Antrim County. A clerk had made a mistake when updating ballot styles on machines, leading to a software problem that initially transferred votes from Republicans to Democrats, they said. There was no fraud, just human error — which would soon be publicly confirmed through a hand count of the county’s ballots.Animation by Matt Rota and Henrike Lendowski
Listening intently, Barr seemed to understand both the truth and that telling it to the president would almost certainly cost him his job.
At the end of the meeting, Barr turned to his top deputy, made hand motions as if he was tying on a bandana and said he was going to “kamikaze” into the White House.
What happened next is well known. When Barr met with Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 14, the president launched into a monologue about how the events in Antrim County were “absolute proof” that the election had been stolen. Barr waited to get a word in edgewise before telling his boss what the experts from CISA had told him.
Do you have information you can share about federal officials working on elections or any of the individuals in this article? Reporter Doug Bock Clark can be reached at doug.clark@propublica.org and on Signal at 678-243-0784. Reporter Jen Fifield can be reached at jen.fifield@propublica.org and on Signal at 480-476-0108. If you’re concerned about confidentiality, check out our advice on the most secure ways to share tips.
Then Barr offered his resignation letter, which Trump accepted. Barr left believing he’d done his part to preserve democratic norms.
“I was saddened,” Barr wrote of Trump in his memoir. “If he actually believed this stuff he had become significantly detached from reality.”
Barr was one of many federal officials — most of them Trump appointees — who refused to bend to the president’s demands, which only intensified after Barr was gone. Although rioters inspired by Trump managed to delay the certification of his defeat by storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, ultimately the institutional guardrails of American democracy held — barely.
But if faced with the same tests today, the guardrails and people that held the line would largely be missing, an examination by ProPublica found.
ProPublica scrutinized what happened the last time Trump lost a national election. Some of that happened in plain sight: After a cascade of defeats in court, Trump began pressuring state and local officials to overturn the results. But more happened behind the scenes, like the meeting that helped persuade Barr to hold the line.
Our reporting uncovered previously undisclosed aspects of a federal effort to safeguard the results of the 2020 vote, which involved at least 75 people across several agencies. Today, nearly all of those people are gone, having resigned, been fired or been reassigned, particularly in the departments of Justice and Homeland Security. That included the cybersecurity specialists who had established that the Antrim County allegations were false and reported their findings to Barr.
The people we identified as resisting attempts to overturn the 2020 results have been replaced by roughly two dozen people Trump has installed in positions that could affect elections. Ten of them actively worked to reverse the 2020 vote, and the rest are associates of such people. In some cases, ProPublica found, officials have been hired from activist groups that are pillars of the election denial movement. Experts warn that shows the movement has merged with the federal government.
These new officials could influence how Trump reacts to the upcoming midterms as polling shows Republicans are approaching what could be a significant electoral loss, with the president’s approval rating nearing record lows, and public concern growing about the weak economy, the administration’s mass deportation effort and the war on Iran. Seemingly in preparation to head off such a blow, Trump has stepped up his efforts to “nationalize” the 2026 elections, saying that Republicans need “to take over” the midterms. Democrats who monitored Trump’s attempts to block his 2020 loss have begun to question whether he will allow a “blue wave,” particularly if it flips control of a House of Representatives that impeached him twice in his first term.
ProPublica’s examination reveals new details on how the president has unleashed his loyalists to transform elections. This includes the background of this year’s FBI raid in Georgia to seize 2020 election materials and how they are using federal resources to search for noncitizens voting. Ultimately, ProPublica’s reporting shows how thoroughly and expansively the Trump administration has overhauled the federal government into what some fear is a vehicle for making sure elections go his way.
ProPublica’s reporting is based on interviews with roughly 30 current or former executive branch officials familiar with the work of Trump loyalists installed in election roles. Most spoke on condition of anonymity because they fear retribution, including those knowledgeable about the December 2020 Barr meeting.
The Trump administration maintains its actions will make U.S. elections fairer and more secure — and keep those prohibited from voting, such as noncitizens, from doing so.
“Election integrity has always been a top priority for President Trump,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. “The President will do everything in his power to defend the safety and security of American elections and to ensure that only American citizens are voting in them.”
Spokespeople for the DOJ and DHS emphasized that their departments are focused on ensuring elections are free and fair, and that they are working closely with the states to achieve those goals. Contentions to the contrary, they say, are false.
A few guardrails have endured, preventing Trump from fully realizing his agenda for elections. Judges have blocked key parts of a March 2025 executive order in which Trump attempted to exert greater federal control over aspects of voting, and some Republican state officials have fought back against Justice Department lawsuits demanding state voter rolls.
Late last month, Trump issued another executive order on elections that attempts to exert unparalleled federal control over mail-in voting and voter eligibility, which Democrats and voting rights groups are challenging in court.
Experts say 2026 will serve as an unprecedented stress test of the integrity of American elections.
“Our election system withstood” Trump’s “attacks following the 2020 election,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who has led the pushback to the administration’s actions on elections, “but this will be an even tougher test, with more election deniers having access to federal power than ever before.”Animation by Matt Rota and Henrike Lendowski
The Dismantling
Barr has said that in the high-stakes days following the 2020 election, he felt like he was playing Whac-A-Mole with Trump’s “avalanche” of false election claims.
The investigators at DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency supplied intelligence that disproved many of them, not just those involving Antrim County.
CISA was created by Trump in his first term to counter cyber threats in the aftermath of Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 vote. It soon came to provide crucial expertise and support to thousands of local election officials grappling with increasingly sophisticated attacks.
After the 2020 election, it also played a crucial part in puncturing fallacies spread by Trump supporters, producing a “Rumor Control” website to rebut them. And it partnered with state officials and technology vendors to release a statement calling the election “the most secure in American history.” Trump swiftly fired Chris Krebs, whom he had appointed to lead CISA, but Krebs’ defense of the election’s soundness reverberated widely in the media and on Capitol Hill.
Among Trump’s first actions upon returning to the Oval Office was eviscerating CISA.
Starting in February 2025, DHS leadership put employees focused on countering disinformation and helping safeguard elections on leave. The leadership also froze the agency’s other election security work, which included assessing local election offices for physical and cybersecurity risks, and disseminating sensitive intelligence information on threats. Eventually, all three dozen or so CISA employees specializing in elections were fired or transferred to work in other areas.
“It took years of dedicated, bipartisan, cross-sector partnership to build the security infrastructure we’ve had, and dismantling CISA leaves a gaping hole,” said Kathy Boockvar, an elections security expert who served as Pennsylvania’s secretary of state from 2019 to 2021. “We are making the job of securing our democracy exponentially harder.”
A DHS spokesperson told ProPublica that the changes at CISA were in response to “a ballooning budget concealing a dangerous departure from its statutory mission,” which included “electioneering instead of defending America’s critical infrastructure.” The spokesperson said that CISA’s mission is still to coordinate protection of critical infrastructure, including by supporting local partners against cyber threats.
It isn’t just CISA that’s been gutted.
The Trump administration has discarded or diminished other federal initiatives with roles in protecting election integrity or blocking foreign interference. While many of these actions have been reported, together they reveal the full sweep of the changes.
First, the administration got rid of the National Security Council’s election security group, which convened departmental leaders to coordinate federal actions related to voting. Then in August, the administration dismantled the Foreign Malign Influence Center, a branch of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that had stymied efforts by Russia, China and Iran to interfere in the 2024 election.
A spokesperson for ODNI said the center was redundant and that its functions were folded into other parts of the office’s intelligence apparatus in ways that “arguably makes our ability to monitor and address threats from foreign adversaries stronger, more efficient and more effective.”
However, former national security officials, including one who had worked at the center, told ProPublica that its functions had largely ceased. Caitlin Durkovich, who led the NSC’s election security work during the Biden administration, said that under Trump the federal government has “abandoned” its traditional role in preserving election integrity and security.
“Nearly every program and capability to stop bad actors and support election administrators has been dismantled,” she said. “Heading into the midterms, this leaves states and localities exposed, without the intelligence support or federal coordination they need to detect and respond to threats in real time — precisely when the stakes are highest.”
The early months of the second Trump administration also brought seismic changes to three parts of federal law enforcement with central roles in elections.
Kash Patel, the FBI’s new director, dismantled the public corruption team, which had been deployed in previous administrations to help monitor possible criminal activity on Election Day. The Foreign Influence Task Force, which aimed to combat foreign influence in U.S. politics, was also disbanded. (An FBI spokesperson said the bureau “remains committed to detecting and countering foreign influence efforts by adversarial nations.”)
Furthermore, the Justice Department substantially reduced the role of its Public Integrity Section, which had been responsible for making sure the department’s inquiries weren’t improperly influenced by politics.
After the 2020 election, senior lawyers in the section warned against having the FBI investigate fraud claims raised by Trump allies, saying that the agency’s involvement could damage its reputation and appear motivated by partisanship. In this instance, they were overruled by Barr and his deputies, but former officials said this was a rare case in which their guidance was ignored. The need to directly overrule the unit, they said, made it a roadblock — one that no longer exists.
A month after Trump returned to the Oval Office, the unit’s top staff resigned when agency leaders directed them to dismiss corruption charges against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams. More resigned later or were transferred. The 36-person section was reduced to two. The administration no longer mandates that it review politically sensitive cases, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
Another key DOJ office, the Civil Rights Division’s voting section, had enforced federal laws that protect voting rights, particularly those that combat racial discrimination. In December 2020, the assistant attorney general overseeing the Civil Rights Division was one of the many department leaders who said they would resign if Trump promoted Jeffrey Clark, a leader who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results, to head the department after Barr’s resignation. This mass threat of resignation ultimately led Trump to not promote Clark.
Continue reading Inside Trump’s Effort to “Take Over” the Midterm ElectionsAnna Freud on looking within
Curiosity rover finds signs of ancient life on Mars
By Andrew Paul
Tue, April 21, 2026 (Popular Science via Yahoo.com)
Key takeaways
- NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover conducted a chemical experiment in the Glen Torridon region, uncovering diverse organic molecules that suggest ancient conditions on Mars could have supported life.
- The discovery of over 20 notable chemicals, including a nitrogen-containing molecule resembling proto-DNA, marks a significant moment in the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.
- While it remains unclear if the organic compounds found on Mars originated from past lifeforms, meteorites, or geological processes, the evidence suggests that large, complex organic molecules can be preserved in the planet’s shallow subsurface layers.
A first-of-its-kind chemical experiment on Mars indicates that our nearest planetary neighbor still preserves remnants of ancient organic molecules necessary for creating life. Although researchers still need to see this type of evidence firsthand, a team writing in the journal Nature Communications on April 21 says that the evidence marks a major moment in the search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.
The data comes from NASA’s trusty Curiosity rover.Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012 and has been scouring the Red Planet’s surface for evidence of microbial life that possibly existed on the planet billions of years ago.
For this new study, astrobiologists remotely directed Curiosity’s instrument array called the Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM) to collect clay minerals inside the Gale crater in 2020. The team specifically focused on a region called Glen Torridon that has strong evidence that it once held water.
After breaking down the samples, the team identified over 20 notable chemicals, including the first instances of a nitrogen-containing molecule whose structure resembles proto-DNA. Curiosity also flagged benzothiophene, a sulphurous compound that often hitches a ride on meteorites.
“The same stuff that rained down on Mars from meteorites is what rained down on Earth, and it probably provided the building blocks for life as we know it on our planet,” said Curiosity geological scientist and study co-author Amy WIlliams.
According to Williams, researchers are now certain that large, complex organic molecules can remain preserved in the shallow subsurface layers of Mars. Without in-person examinations on the Red Planet, it remains unclear if these compounds came from past lifeforms, from a meteorite crashing into the planet, or through geological processes. While it is certainly not life itself, these compounds may help reveal organisms that existed on Mars billions of years ago.
“It’s really useful to have evidence that ancient organic matter is preserved, because that is a way to assess the habitability of an environment,” said Williams. “And if we want to search for evidence of life in the form of preserved organic carbon, this demonstrates it’s possible.”
Although Curiosity supplied the first sample analysis on another planet, it hopefully won’t be the last. Similar experiments are currently planned for both the Rosalind Franklin mission to Mars, as well as the Dragonfly excursion to Saturn’s moon, Titan.
(Contributed by Janet Cornwell, H.W., m.)
Report on State of US Libraries Exposes Trump Attacks and Record-Breaking Book Ban Efforts
Two young girls lay on the floor of a library reading a book on April 21, 2023.
(Photo by Jessica Mielke/Cavan Images/Getty Images)
Book bans “were part of a well-funded, politically driven campaign to suppress the stories and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals and communities,” said an American Library Association leader.
Apr 20, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)
“The State of America’s Libraries” report “is in a very real way a report on the state of our nation,” American Library Association executive director Dan Montgomery wrote in the introduction of the annual publication, released Monday.
“Unsurprisingly, then, there is much to be deeply concerned about in these pages, and much to bring hope,” the ALA leader acknowledged. “Ultimately, this report can serve as a clarion call to those who love libraries and our republic.”
RECOMMENDED…
‘You Are Out of Touch’: Schumer Faces New Calls to Step Aside After Israel Weapons Vote
Urgent Warning to Congressional Leaders: Trump is Psychologically Unstable and Dangerous
Published at the beginning of National Library Week, the report explores a range of topics, including threats to intellectual freedom. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) found that last year at least 4,235 unique titles were challenged—the association’s term for an attempt to have a resource removed or restricted—the second-highest ever documented, just short of 2023’s record.
OIF also found that at least 5,668 books were banned from libraries—66% of those challenged—and 920 books faced restrictions such as relocation or a parental permission requirement. The ALA noted that “this is both the highest number of titles censored in one year and the highest rate of challenges resulting in censorship” dating back to 1990.
“In 2025, book bans were not sparked by concerned parents, and they were not the result of local grassroots efforts,” explained Sarah Lamdan, executive director of the OIF, in a statement. “They were part of a well-funded, politically driven campaign to suppress the stories and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals and communities.”
Specifically, OIF found that 92% of all book censorship efforts were initiated by “pressure groups, government officials, and decision-makers,” and fewer than 3% came from individual parents. Additionally, 40% of the unique titles challenged last year—1,671 works—were about the experiences of LGBTQIA+ people and people of color.
“Libraries exist to make space for every story and every lived experience,” stressed ALA president Sam Helmick. “As we celebrate National Library Week, we reaffirm that libraries are places for knowledge, for access, and for all.”
The most-targeted titles in 2025 were:
1. Sold by Patricia McCormick
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
3. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
4. Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
5. (tie) Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
5. (tie) Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
7. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
8. (tie) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
8. (tie) Identical by Ellen Hopkins
8. (tie) Looking for Alaska by John Green
8. (tie) Storm and Fury by Jennifer L. Armentrout
The ALA publication also features sections on library services for people who are incarcerated or in reentry, how libraries can “approach literacy in a community-driven, responsive way to meet today’s rapidly evolving and growing literacy needs,” and “intensified debates over access to information and shifting fiscal priorities.”
The report highlights ALA’s Show Up For Our Libraries campaign, launched in the face of attacks from Republican President Donald Trump—who has issued executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to effectively dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services. He also fired the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, and the register of copyrights, Shira Perlmutter.
While the report sounds the alarm on the state of US libraries—and the nation more broadly—it also emphasizes, as Lamdan wrote in one section, that “the story of library censorship in 2025 is… not only about the challenges libraries faced, but also about the resilience of the people who stood up for them.”
“Legal victories and new state-level protections emerged in several regions, reinforcing longstanding principles of intellectual freedom and reaffirming libraries’ role as institutions that serve all members of their communities,” she noted. “Coalitions of library workers, authors, educators, and community members successfully advocated for right to read laws in Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island that protect intellectual freedom, libraries, and library workers.”
“Courts across the nation held that censorship legislation was unconstitutional,” Lamdan continued. “Judges declared that laws including Florida’s HB 1069 and Iowa’s SF 496, which provide for the removal of books containing certain viewpoints, were unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Courts also affirmed the First Amendment right to read in libraries. Voters in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas rejected censorship-focused school and library board candidates, electing board members who promised to protect people’s right to read and learn.”
She added that “2025 was also a year of coalition-building. Grassroots activists, advocacy organizations, writers, authors, publishers, teachers, parents, and library workers came together to celebrate libraries and the joy of reading.”
The report was released less than three months ahead of the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence.
“As we look toward the next 250 years, the choice is ours,” said Helmick. “We can let our libraries fade, viewed as charming relics of a bygone era. Or, we can choose to invest in them as a bedrock of our future. Let us decide, right now, that they are not optional. They are the very breath of a free society, and they are worth fighting for.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
Report on State of US Libraries Exposes Trump Attacks and Record-Breaking Book Ban Efforts
By admin | April 21, 2026 | Uncategorized
Two young girls lay on the floor of a library reading a book on April 21, 2023.
(Photo by Jessica Mielke/Cavan Images/Getty Images)
Book bans “were part of a well-funded, politically driven campaign to suppress the stories and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals and communities,” said an American Library Association leader.
Apr 20, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)
“The State of America’s Libraries” report “is in a very real way a report on the state of our nation,” American Library Association executive director Dan Montgomery wrote in the introduction of the annual publication, released Monday.
“Unsurprisingly, then, there is much to be deeply concerned about in these pages, and much to bring hope,” the ALA leader acknowledged. “Ultimately, this report can serve as a clarion call to those who love libraries and our republic.”
RECOMMENDED…
‘You Are Out of Touch’: Schumer Faces New Calls to Step Aside After Israel Weapons Vote
Urgent Warning to Congressional Leaders: Trump is Psychologically Unstable and Dangerous
Published at the beginning of National Library Week, the report explores a range of topics, including threats to intellectual freedom. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) found that last year at least 4,235 unique titles were challenged—the association’s term for an attempt to have a resource removed or restricted—the second-highest ever documented, just short of 2023’s record.
OIF also found that at least 5,668 books were banned from libraries—66% of those challenged—and 920 books faced restrictions such as relocation or a parental permission requirement. The ALA noted that “this is both the highest number of titles censored in one year and the highest rate of challenges resulting in censorship” dating back to 1990.
“In 2025, book bans were not sparked by concerned parents, and they were not the result of local grassroots efforts,” explained Sarah Lamdan, executive director of the OIF, in a statement. “They were part of a well-funded, politically driven campaign to suppress the stories and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals and communities.”
Specifically, OIF found that 92% of all book censorship efforts were initiated by “pressure groups, government officials, and decision-makers,” and fewer than 3% came from individual parents. Additionally, 40% of the unique titles challenged last year—1,671 works—were about the experiences of LGBTQIA+ people and people of color.
“Libraries exist to make space for every story and every lived experience,” stressed ALA president Sam Helmick. “As we celebrate National Library Week, we reaffirm that libraries are places for knowledge, for access, and for all.”
The most-targeted titles in 2025 were:
1. Sold by Patricia McCormick
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
3. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe
4. Empire of Storms by Sarah J. Maas
5. (tie) Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
5. (tie) Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
7. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
8. (tie) A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
8. (tie) Identical by Ellen Hopkins
8. (tie) Looking for Alaska by John Green
8. (tie) Storm and Fury by Jennifer L. Armentrout
The ALA publication also features sections on library services for people who are incarcerated or in reentry, how libraries can “approach literacy in a community-driven, responsive way to meet today’s rapidly evolving and growing literacy needs,” and “intensified debates over access to information and shifting fiscal priorities.”
The report highlights ALA’s Show Up For Our Libraries campaign, launched in the face of attacks from Republican President Donald Trump—who has issued executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to effectively dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services. He also fired the librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden, and the register of copyrights, Shira Perlmutter.
While the report sounds the alarm on the state of US libraries—and the nation more broadly—it also emphasizes, as Lamdan wrote in one section, that “the story of library censorship in 2025 is… not only about the challenges libraries faced, but also about the resilience of the people who stood up for them.”
“Legal victories and new state-level protections emerged in several regions, reinforcing longstanding principles of intellectual freedom and reaffirming libraries’ role as institutions that serve all members of their communities,” she noted. “Coalitions of library workers, authors, educators, and community members successfully advocated for right to read laws in Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island that protect intellectual freedom, libraries, and library workers.”
“Courts across the nation held that censorship legislation was unconstitutional,” Lamdan continued. “Judges declared that laws including Florida’s HB 1069 and Iowa’s SF 496, which provide for the removal of books containing certain viewpoints, were unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. Courts also affirmed the First Amendment right to read in libraries. Voters in states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas rejected censorship-focused school and library board candidates, electing board members who promised to protect people’s right to read and learn.”
She added that “2025 was also a year of coalition-building. Grassroots activists, advocacy organizations, writers, authors, publishers, teachers, parents, and library workers came together to celebrate libraries and the joy of reading.”
The report was released less than three months ahead of the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence.
“As we look toward the next 250 years, the choice is ours,” said Helmick. “We can let our libraries fade, viewed as charming relics of a bygone era. Or, we can choose to invest in them as a bedrock of our future. Let us decide, right now, that they are not optional. They are the very breath of a free society, and they are worth fighting for.”
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
Gaither, Inez Andrews, Albertina Walker, Dorothy Norwood, The Caravans – Mary Don’t You Weep
Gaither Music TV Nov 4, 2016 Music video by Inez Andrews, Albertina Walker, Dorothy Norwood, The Caravans performing Mary Don’t You Weep. (C) 2016 Spring House Music Group http://vevo.ly/4FuyTu
Dialoguing with the Transcendent with Michael Grosso
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Apr 20, 2026 Michael Grosso, PhD, is author of The Man Who Could Fly: St. Joseph of Copertino and the Mystery of Levitation. He also edited and wrote commentary for Wings of Ecstasy: Dominico Bernini’s Vita of St. Joseph of Copertino (1772). His other books include The Millennium Myth: Love and Death and the End of Time, Final Choice: Death or Transcendence?, Soulmaking: Uncommon Paths to Self Understanding and Smile of the Universe: Miracles in an Age of Disbelief. Here he points out that numerous pathways exist by which individuals come into a dialogical relationship with what is sometimes called the subconscious, spirit, higher consciousness, or transcendent realty. He describes the southern USA practice of snake handling and drinking poisonous substances as one such example. The visions of Joan of Arc that led a teenage girl to command an army represent another example. The discussion also focuses on mediumship and channeling. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on October 16, 2020)
Michael Jordan on success
Jordan in 2014
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
~ Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan, also known by his initials MJ, is an American businessman and retired professional basketball player who is a minority owner of the Charlotte Hornets of the National Basketball Association. Wikipedia
BornFebruary 17, 1963 (age 63 years), Cumberland Hospital