Breaking news! Katie Zacharia is out as White House press secretary, after only five days on the job. This is notable because she lasted only half a "Scaramucci" -- the previous minimal measurement adopted for longevity in the Trump administration (after Anthony Scaramucci only lasted 11 days in the same job). "The Mooch" responded to the news by posting: "Records are made to be broken. But I take no pleasure in other people's pain." From now on, one assumes, the question will be properly framed: "Do you think he/she will last a full Scaramucci, or only a single Zacharia?"

Zacharia made the fatal error of becoming the story, which Donald Trump simply cannot allow. She had previously styled herself as a lawyer, but although she did go to law school it was revealed this week that she failed the California bar exam. That and a rather pathetic first performance from the press room podium was all it took for Trump to show her the door at the end of her first week on the job.

Also shown the door this week was Kimberly Guilfoyle, the now-former ambassador to Greece (as well as former fiancée to one of Trump's sons, and embarrassingly enough, former wife to Gavin Newsom). Guilfoyle also became the story, when the pettiness and brazenness of her grifting attempts were made public. Trump doesn't really mind people in his administration grifting, but he does mind when they get caught at it and become a public embarrassment to him. So it's been a rough week for people who work for Trump all around.

Guilfoyle's firing came at an opportune time for Democrats, as a Fox News poll was released this week that showed that the top issue for voters in this election was no longer the economy, inflation, or gas prices, but political corruption instead. Trump and his merry band of grifters have caused this radical shift in thinking, and it could hurt them badly on Election Day.

Donald Trump made the news this week not for corruption or grifting, but instead for a deal that borders on outright treason. A quick refresher, for those who haven't been paying attention: the United States is at war with Iran. Russia is at war with Ukraine. Russia is helping Iran out with their war, sending them advanced drones and satellite intelligence to help them target American troops. America is (theoretically) allied with Ukraine in their war with Russia. Got all that? It's not too tough to understand who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, from America's point of view, is it?

So the news that Trump is going to ignore a U.S. law banning the import of oil or fuel from Russia (which passed at the start of their war of conquest with Ukraine) and ignore the fact that we're supposed to be on Ukraine's side, and totally ignore another law he signed only a month ago which allows him to levy steep tariffs on Russia and the countries which buy their oil -- all of which is intended to starve Russia of funding for their war effort. Instead, Trump is going to buy a bunch of diesel from Vladimir Putin, because it has finally dawned on Trump that the record-high price of diesel in America is one big reason Republicans are about to lose the midterm elections. It's quite obviously a desperation move by Trump. But it is also "aiding and abetting the enemy," no matter how you slice it. He will be providing Russia with desperately-needed funding so they can use that money to help Iran kill Americans in uniform, plain and simple. And to help Russia kill more Ukrainians, too.

Just imagine for one tiny second what Republicans would have said if a Democratic president had done such a thing.

Thankfully, in this case, at least a few Republicans have been denouncing Trump's move. Not enough of them, to be sure, but the move is so odious that at least a few of them have rediscovered their moral compass. Even Fox News isn't exactly happy with the deal, and Thomas Friedman wrote an article in the New York Times equating Trump with Neville Chamberlain.

Trump got absolutely nothing from Putin for this deal. He could have made demands that Russia get serious about peace negotiations or at least force some ceasefire negotiations, but he didn't. Instead, Trump got angry at the Ukrainian president for using the most successful military tactic Ukraine has developed in the war: attacking Russian oil refineries and hitting the hardest-to-repair component of these refineries.

The Moscow refinery attacks were part of a concerted Ukrainian campaign to damage and destroy Russian refineries and other energy infrastructure, a strategy that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said is aimed at bringing the years-long war closer to an end.

The result is the worst fuel crisis in the country since the Soviet Union's collapse. Major gas companies have limited the amount of fuel customers can buy, and the price of gasoline and diesel have both risen about 20 percent since the beginning of the year, contributing to nationwide inflation.

The military campaign has achieved such disruption in part by targeting critical refinery parts, notably the desalting and distillation units, that sanctions have made increasingly hard to repair, according to a Washington Post examination of satellite imagery and other visuals, as well as interviews with experts and Ukrainian military officials. The strikes on refineries have been aided by rapid advances in drone production and intelligence from allies that helps Ukraine plan and execute the attacks, the experts and officials said.

Trump, in a snit, then apparently cut off the intelligence flow that America has been giving Ukraine. The White House also blocked Ukraine from using Elon Musk's military version of his Starlink satellite communications system, which further hamstrung the Ukrainian military and allowed Russian attacks to kill more Ukrainian civilians. Trump, after announcing the deal with Putin, had created out of whole cloth in his own brain (neither side said they had heard anything about it beforehand) a ceasefire from both sides on attacks on energy infrastructure. Russia continued bombing electrical plants in Ukraine, while Zelenskyy tired to assuage Trump by saying he would honor the non-existent agreement if Russia did too. Russia didn't, so by week's end Zelenskyy resumed his attacks on Russian refineries -- further angering Trump. If this all brings the Union organizing song "Which Side Are You On?" to mind, you are not alone. We wrote an article yesterday pointing out that Hillary Clinton was right, when she was debating Trump exactly ten years ago, because Trump has indeed proven himself to be nothing more than Putin's puppet.

In other military-idiocy news, Pete Hegseth isn't going to get the gruesome display he wanted. That's right (and with apologies to Gil Scott-Heron, of course) -- the execution will not be televised. Trump, having a mindset that is even more juvenile than Hegseth (which isn't easy to do), initially said he was not only all for the idea but that he had approved it ("Did I approve? Absolutely."), but this quickly morphed into Trump declaring that he was going to make a decision real soon now... and then the announcement yesterday that he had put the kibosh on the whole demented plan.

Out on the campaign trail, things are looking so grim for Republicans that the jockeying has apparently already begun for who will be next year's GOP House Minority Leader (since most of them have realized they're going to lose control of the chamber). Trump continues to campaign in some awfully red states, playing defense on all the Senate races which could also hand Democrats control of the upper chamber as well.

Trump's rallies have been held in very small venues (such as high school gyms), but he's been having problems even filling those up. The magic seems to be gone for The Trump Show. People are leaving his Truth Social platform in droves, as well. So maybe Trump wanted to spice things up a bit in Ohio, but he chose a rather bizarre way of doing so. Speaking about Senator Jon Husted (who was at the Ohio rally), Trump let loose with a doozy of a comment:

I'm standing over here, and I don't do this with men very often. I started examining his body because I didn't know he was a great athlete. And I looked, and I watched up and down. And I looked at his ass.

Rightwing news organizations didn't quite know how to handle this, but Jesse Watters at Fox News gave it his best shot. He singlehandedly brought the subject up on an episode of The Five this week, launching into it by saying: "We're talking about guys' asses." He then continued: "Trump says a lot of stuff we don't think and we don't say. Sometimes it sounds a little gay. He can get away with it because he's straight." Um... OK, sure Jesse. He concluded this rant (after talking about the ass of one of his male co-hosts) by trying to rally the voters: "I always say vote for the better athlete... you got to go with the guy with the better ass."

Once again, consider just for one teeny moment how Fox News would react if a Democrat had made exactly the same comment.

But back to the election. Democrats now hold a wide edge on the economy with voters, which isn't too surprising, considering that inflation is now up to 3.7 percent. Republicans essentially have no answer for this, seeing as how Trump's disastrous war of choice and Trump's disastrous trade wars and tariffs are the two biggest contributors to inflation right now. Trump simply has no clue what average voters are feeling (at the gas pumps or grocery store checkout) and tried to put a positive spin on it all this week, informing a crowd that "we're making a fortune" on oil, without specifying who the "we" is in that sentence, of course. Voters are not "making a fortune" on oil, instead they are spending a fortune at the gas pumps. One Republican House member in Maryland tried to spin things, admitting at a town hall: "The facts are that diesel prices have gone up, there's no question about it. Why has it gone up? Because the Democrats have environmental regulations, have not...." He didn't get to finish his thought because the audience drowned him out with "belly-bursting laughter."

Trump has now set a new record on gas prices (alongside the record-high diesel price he set last month): most calendar days in a single year with nationwide average gasoline prices over four dollars a gallon.

The wife of Mike Rogers, who is running for a Senate seat in Michigan, was seen handing out $10 gas cards at a gas station this week, in a desperate attempt to convince voters that the Republican Party gives a hoot about what consumers are going through. Up in Maine, voters are getting hit with sticker shock as they buy fuel oil for their winter heating needs, because the price is up a whopping 74 percent over last year's prices.

Meanwhile, the midterm map keeps expanding for Democrats as more and more House districts move to their side while Republicans have begun just pulling all their money out of both House and Senate races that they know they're going to lose.

Representative Ilhan Omar's Washington house was raided by federal agents this week, even though it is well within what is supposed to be a 60-day period where the Department of Justice doesn't do high-profile things which could influence an election. They're trying to strip away her citizenship so they can deport her, which is entirely in tune with all the other thuggish banana-republic things they've been doing. In a related story, ICE refused to adopt body cameras for their agents which switch on automatically if a gun or Taser is pulled from its holster. ICE agents are now (theoretically) supposed to all have body cameras, but strangely enough we never seem to see any footage from them when they slaughter more people in the streets of America.

And to end on an amusing note, once again the Nobel Peace Prize went to someone who was not Donald Trump. And once again, he had a tantrum worthy of a five-year old over the snub.

 

We have a couple of Honorable Mention awards to hand out before we get to the main event this week.

The first goes to James Talarico, for a good comeback line. Talarico was forced to stay off the campaign trail for nine days due to catching the flu, and the rightwing media echo chamber immediately ran with a completely unfounded conspiracy theory -- that he had checked himself into a medical center in Ohio for unspecified mental problems.

This idiocy spread like wildfire, before being proven to be a lie. Talarico returned to the campaign trail and addressed the fact that his opponent in the Senate race in Texas, the state's attorney general (Ken Paxton), had asked for "proof of life" from Talarico while he was sick. Talarico responded by continuing to taunt Paxton for refusing to debate him:

I hear that people are getting really concerned about the attorney general. I've heard rumors that he has a rare medical condition that causes clinical levels of cowardice.... So I know Ken Paxton has asked for proof of life from me. I'm asking for proof of spine from him.

That's a pretty good burn, you have to admit.

We have another Honorable Mention (or perhaps two, even) for the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. He got off two excellent lines on the campaign trail this week, the first in response to a question about why he was excited that Barack Obama was going to campaign for him in Michigan, even though El-Sayed had not always agreed with Obama in the past. Here was his response:

"Do you love your dad?" [Dr. Abdul] El-Sayed asked the reporter, who presumably nodded in response. "Yeah? You agree with everything your dad has ever done? Do you?"

"Not entirely," the reporter admitted.

"Yeah, so, it's a normal thing to love somebody, to really appreciate all that they've done, and to say, 'Hey, here are some things I would have done differently,'" El-Sayed said. "But they still did some important things to create opportunity for you."

"There's no world in which I get to run for office without somebody like President Obama," he added.

But even better than that was El-Sayed's response to some idiocy from JD Vance recently. Anyone from either Michigan or Ohio will understand the potency of this one without having to look it up, we should add. Vance, while ranting about El-Sayed to a crowd, recently said that voters "deserve better than a little weasel who should shut his mouth and show a little gratitude to the country that gave him everything."

El-Sayed's response:

"You know, It's funny, JD Vance called me a little weasel today. I'm like, 'No, no, no, what you're talking about is a fucking Wolverine.'"

El-Sayed soaked up the applause and, after taking a sip of water, continued: "You can take your Buckeye, and go shove it somewhere else."

Then he said: "Ohio."

Which is, of course, the perfect thing to say to Michigan voters.

Getting more serious, though, we are handing the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week to Representative Josh Gottheimer, for writing a letter together with a Republican member of the House (Don Bacon) that "asks members to pledge to recognize election winners certified by each state," and oppose "any attempt to refuse or delay the seating of any Member-elect."

Some Republicans in battleground districts have already signed the pledge. Senator Alex Padilla of California said he supported the effort, saying: "I welcome bipartisan efforts to reaffirm the rule of law, especially when it comes to our elections, yet it’s a sad indicator that we even have to have this conversation."

He's right. It is sad that we have to do this. But we most definitely do. There are all kinds of ways that Trump and his enablers might seek to overturn the results of the midterms if Republicans lose, up to and including an effort to deny the winners of House races their seats, come next January. So getting members (especially Republicans) on the record now denouncing such moves could be critically important to the peaceful transfer of power.

For being proactive and attempting to get out ahead of any nefarious moves to create a constitutional crisis, Josh Gottheimer is our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. We sincerely hope his effort won't even be necessary, but you never know with Donald Trump, the biggest sore loser in American history.

[Congratulate Representative Josh Gottheimer on his House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

 

We don't actually have any Democrats who rose to the level of majorly disappointing us this week, but we have to at least mention in passing a sobering column we read. The column (by Nicholas Kristof) was written in praise of California's Gavin Newsom signing a law making all underage marriage illegal in California. Previously, child marriage was legal with no minimum age, as long as a parent and a judge consented to the union.

What's shocking is that it took a nine-year political battle to get this law signed, and also that California is only the 18th state in the country to institute such a ban.

But what's truly shocking is that several liberal organizations actually support child marriage. Yes, you read that right. As Kristof points out (in another blue state):

The progressive groups that in Illinois have successfully opposed a ban on child marriage include the A.C.L.U. of Illinois, the Illinois branch of the National Organization for Women and Planned Parenthood Illinois Action. In some other states and at the national level, those organizations have been either neutral or helpful in banning child marriage.

Planned Parenthood Illinois Action should listen to the International Planned Parenthood Federation's warning that child marriage "is one of the most persistent forms of sanctioned sexual abuse of girls and young women."

We have to agree with Kristof. It is shocking to see progressive organizations fighting hard against passing laws that protect women (and girls -- some states don't have any age limits at all, and girls as young as 10 have been married as a result). It's one thing to argue to allow a 16-year-old or 17-year-old girl to have the right to get married, but there is no excuse for allowing pre-teens to be forced into marriages that do nothing more than legalize statutory rape.

So as we said, they're not technically Democratic organizations, but we have to admit we were more than a little disappointed (and disgusted) at some progressive organizations for fighting such laws, so we had to at least mention it in passing.

 

Volume 861 (10/16/26)

Once again, we have to hit Republicans hard with less than three weeks to go before the midterm elections take place.

We strongly encourage everyone to get out and vote, and if possible, cast your ballot early! Don't let the Post Office slow-walk your ballot. Don't run the risk of some emergency happening on Election Day. Get out and vote -- the sooner the better!

 

   Inflation is up

The final pre-midterm inflation figure was released this week. So point it out!

"The federal government just admitted what American families already know -- inflation is getting much worse. Last month it hit 3.7 percent, which spiked up from the previous month. While Donald Trump keeps insisting that the price of everything is coming way down, his delusions aren't fooling much of anyone any more. Because you can either believe his fantasy world or you can believe what you all face at the gas pump and at the supermarket. Prices are way up, they're not coming down, and the problem is getting worse because of Donald Trump."

 

   Trump did this

Short, sweet, and to the point.

"When you go to the gas station to fill your tank, and you watch the numbers fly upwards, think to yourself one thing and one thing alone: Trump did this. Donald Trump started a war that never should have been fought, a war he has no idea how to end, and we're all paying a very steep price for his stupidity. As the price of a tank of gas soars to $100 or more, just think to yourself: Trump did this. And vote accordingly."

 

   On Day One? We're beyond Day 600 (and counting...).

This one comes from Representative Brendan Boyle, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. He ripped into Trump for his "broken promises and economic failures" recently, and this quote caught our eye:

President Trump promised to end inflation and lower costs "on Day One." More than 600 days into his second term, he has done the exact opposite, driving up costs for American families with his disastrous war in Iran and reckless tariff taxes.

 

   Trump doesn't care about you

Hit this one again and again, because it is so true.

"Recently at a campaign rally, Donald Trump told voters that they should be happy because, quote, 'we're making a fortune' because oil prices are so high. Well, I don't know about you, but I for one am not 'making' any sort of fortune -- instead I am paying a fortune every time I go to the gas station. But Trump doesn't care. All Donald Trump cares about is making as much money possible for himself and his family. He doesn't care about your family one bit."

 

   The system is rigged against the little guy

Tie everything to corruption, because that is the top issue among voters right now.

"Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in U.S. history. He surrounds himself with grifters and is always looking out for his own bottom line. Tech titans and big Pharma and Wall Street and all the other billionaires line up to stuff Trump's pockets full of cash, because they know he and his fellow Republicans will stop any reforms that might actually help average American families. The game is rigged from top to bottom, from the Grifter-In-Chief on down. All Trump cares about is building a golden palace of a ballroom so he can hold lavish parties with all the billionaires who gave him the money to build it. And the little guy is the one left out in the cold with nothing, because all those fatcats have rigged the game for themselves alone."

 

   Musk's money

There's one big connection Democrats should also be making.

"Elon Musk is now the biggest contributor to the Republican Party's efforts in the midterm campaigns. So every ad you see attacking a Democrat, every ad you hear lying about how wonderful Republicans are, ask yourself: do I really want Elon Musk to tell me how to think? Musk cares even less about average Americans than Trump -- and that's saying something! Say no to Musk's transparent attempt to buy the midterm elections with his vast fortune. Vote blue in November and tune out all the Musk-financed mudslinging ads."

 

   Tell us what you really think, Marjorie!

Marjorie Taylor Greene has been a thorn in Trump's side ever since she broke with him. Apparently, she recently got a campaign email from Trump where he began by asking: "Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor, did I do something wrong?" So she decided to respond. And she certainly didn't hold back or pull any punches! Here is the full text of her tweet (with no edits or "[sic]" notes to break up the flow of it):

Oh, he sent me an email. I think I'll respond.

So yes, actually you did do something wrong President Trump. let's first start with your broken campaign promises.
You protected your pedophile rapists friends instead of women who were raped when they were just teenage girls and you STILL REFUSE to release the Epstein files.
You started an unprovoked war with Iran that the vast majority of Americans do NOT support. You killed hundreds of children at a school in Iran and innocent people and are responsible for 21 U.S. service members deaths and 865 wounded. Your stupid war that you claim you have won like 50 times has destroyed our bases in the Middle East and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of military equipment and weapons, while depleting our weapons and ammunitions.
You are supporting, funding, and aiding genocide in Gaza that has resulted in approximately 22,000 children murdered, thousands of children with amputations, and over 70,000 orphans. And your so called Board of "Peace" has done nothing to stop war and is planning to oversee the very profitable reconstruction and take over of Gaza. One can only guess who all will get those blood money contracts, the Epstein class and associates.
And let's talk about the basics that every single US president is supposed to guarantee to its citizens. Affordable cost of living and affordable fuel in which you have 100% failed to deliver and actually driven inflation and irresponsibly driven the cost of gasoline and diesel to record high levels.
So did you do something wrong?
Yes in summary, YOU are the snake that you warned us all about in the poem you read over and over.
You never cared about putting America first or making American great again.
You are the deep state, the Epstein class, and America last.
And my mistake was supporting you in the first place.

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant