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The Geo Group runs Delaney Hall, which is the largest immigrant detention facility on the East Coast. The facility has a $1 billion contract with ICE over the next 15 years to house immigrant detainees.

Last year, immigrant detainees complained about Delaney Hall’s unsanitary conditions in the bathroom; the food being spoiled and having worms in it; staff abusing the detainees; and detainees being denied medical care.

One woman had a miscarriage while she was there, and another man, 41 years old with no prior health issues, died and his death was ruled inconclusive. Fast forward to last month, when hundreds of detainees began a hunger strike to protest these conditions.

ICE, however, denies all of this, even that a hunger strike is happening. But word got out — Protesters showed up and so did federal agents. One of New Jersey’s senators, Andy Kim, was even pepper sprayed by those agents. All of this led New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill, who was herself denied access to inspect Delaney Hall to call in state troopers, in her words, to protect the protesters from the federal agents.

But then the state troopers clashed with the protesters. Some were hit with batons, pushed into traffic, and dozens were arrested. Alongside all of this, the state of New Jersey and the city of Newark are suing the Geo Group, claiming that the company is only letting state officials see a small part of the facility and not the entire thing.

Oh, and by the way, the Geo Group happens to be the largest operator of private prisons in America.

Ben Sheehan is a political commentator and digital creator. He specializes in civics education, which is showcased in his latest book, What Does the Constitution Actually Say?: A Non-Boring Guide to How Our Democracy Is Supposed to Work. Check out his Substack, Politics Made Easy.

Coffee with Contrarians is live every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9:15am eastern every week at ContrarianNews.org

Like many Knicks fans, my wait for an NBA championship has been a long one, and this week’s NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs can’t start soon enough. In my case, it’s been nearly 50 years, dating back to the 1977-78 season, my first year as a fan, when the Knicks mounted a quick playoff run that ended with a humiliating sweep at the hands of the Philadelphia 76ers — a mirror-image of this year’s matchup between the teams.

Back then, the playoffs began with a best-of-three series, and the Knicks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, two games to none, to advance to the NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals to take on the Sixers — the same franchise New York faced in this year’s conference semis. Led by their acrobatic superstar Julius Erving, the 76ers won the opener of that ’78 matchup by 40 points, nearly identical to the Knicks’s 39-point rout in Game 1 of this year’s series.

But what really stands out is that after watching the first two road games on TV, I couldn’t watch either of the final two games, both played at Madison Square Garden. Game 3 was relegated to cable — and nobody I knew in our neighborhood in Queens had cable back then. Game 4 was nationally telecast on CBS, but it would air in New York only if the game sold out. And, amazingly, it didn’t. The crowd that afternoon was 16,307, more than 2,000 short of a sellout.

That would be hard to imagine in today’s NBA, when the Knicks routinely sell out regular-season games, to say nothing of playoff matchups. It will cost you more than $4,000 to get into Madison Square Garden for Game 3, the Knicks’ first home game of the NBA Finals.

But the NBA of the late ‘70s was far less popular than today. In fact, I can’t remember any home games televised over the air that season. Instead, I listened to Marv Albert narrate the action, imagining what the inside of Madison Square Garden looked like. Back then, before the three-point shot, the only three-point play was when a player was fouled while making a bucket; Albert’s memorable call was “Yes! And it Counts!”

Another difference: teams would always wear white uniforms at home, and dark ones on the road — unlike today, when anything goes. So, I’d picture the Knicks in their classic white jerseys as I listened on the radio, and I’d see them in their blue ones as I watched every road game on local station WOR (Channel 9).

I’m not the only fan who misses the old jersey delineation.

As fictional ex-NBA player Nick Brandes (Mark Tallman) said in a recent episode of Apple TV’s Your Friends & Neighbors during an appearance on a Sportscenter-type TV discussion, as an annoyed Andrew “Coop” Cooper (Jon Hamm) watches from his couch, “Look, I’m not a crackpot. I just think it should be a finable offense for the away team to wear white uniforms. What are we even doing here? If I turn on the Knicks game and they’re playing the most famous arena, I want to see the core white. Is that too much to ask?”

Anyway, back to Game 4 of that 77-78 Eastern Conference Semifinals. With the Knicks broadcast blacked out in New York, CBS carried the other Eastern Conference series, pitting the Washington Bullets against the Spurs. (Yes, the Spurs were in the East back then. So were the Houston Rockets. And there were some teams you might not have heard of. Does anyone remember the Buffalo Braves?)

My memory of that Sunday afternoon was the Bullets-Spurs game ending before the Knicks matchup, allowing CBS to switch to the last few minutes at the Garden. And this was the first time I saw the Knicks play in their iconic white home jerseys.

That season marked the end of the Red Holzman era, the coach who led the franchise to its only NBA titles, in 1970 and 1973. He was fired after the 1976-77 season, and the team named him a consultant. Except, as Holzman wrote in his autobiography with my father, Harvey Frommer, Red on Red, “I was never consulted. They sort of pushed me downstairs to a little office in an unused portion of Madison Square Garden.” (He would return for a second stint as coach from 1978-82.)

Holzman’s replacement, Willis Reed, who famously gave the Knicks a lift by limping on the court for Game 7 of the ’70 Finals, did a decent job in his first year as coach, leading the team to a (distant) second-place finish in the Atlantic Division behind the Sixers. And when CBS picked up the telecast of Game 4 in the second half, the Knicks were actually in it, despite losing each of the first three games by double-digits. But over the final minutes, they devolved into what Reed called their “their individualistic ways,” and lost by five. Bob McAdoo, one of the best scorers of his era, led New York with 24 points but shot just 41 percent from the floor. A more damning stat for the Knicks: nobody had more than four assists.

Erving, known as Dr. J., had noted this tendency after leading the Sixers to a Game 3 victory with 28 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. “The Knicks started a shootout,” he said. “They were playing a freelance game.”

That one-on-one style, so prevalent in the NBA at the time, offers another sharp contrast to this year’s Knicks, whose unselfish approach is epitomized by their star center, Karl-Anthony Towns. During their historic playoff run, which includes 11 straight wins after sweeping the Cavs in the conference finals, Towns is essentially playing the point and dishing out assists; while point guard Jalen Brunson is happily giving up that role to help the team win. As Brunson replied to a question about his willingness to do so, when many stars would want the ball in their hands: “One, I’m not a star. Two, I want to win.”

The current Knicks are channeling the championship teams of the early ‘70s, who made sharing the ball a key tenant of their philosophy.

None other than Walt “Clyde” Frazier, the star point guard of those teams, sees similarities.

“I’m mesmerized by the way the team is playing,” he told Jimmy Fallon on an episode of The Tonight Show last month. “Actually, I’m living vicariously through them. They remind me of my team.”

Frederic J. Frommer, a sports and politics historian who has written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic and other national publications, is working on a book on ‘70s baseball.

Late last month, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard announced her departure. Trump’s choice of replacement? William J. Pulte, a loyalist whose leading qualification appears to be his appetite to use power for political retribution. He has no intelligence background, no national security expertise, and is utterly unfit to serve as Acting DNI.

Fortunately, there is something that can be done about it. Senators should refuse to move Section 702 surveillance reauthorization which could be abused by Pulte– and they are doing just that.

On Tuesday morning, Trump announced on Truth Social that he was appointing Pulte, the current director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and Chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to serve as Acting DNI. Pulte’s appointment is troubling for two reasons.

First, the appointment is inconsistent with congressional intent. The Director of National Intelligence is statutorily required to “have extensive national security expertise.” Pulte has zilch, and appointing him in an “Acting” role should not allow him to skirt this requirement. Ludicrously, Trump cited Pulte’s work on things like “safety and soundness of the Markets” in explaining the housing director’s qualifications for a top national security role. That flies in the face of the statute.

There’s a second legal problem with his appointment as well. When Congress created the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) as part of the post-9/11 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, it made clear that during the vacancy in the position of DNI, the principal deputy director would step in. Bypassing congressional intent belies the very goal of having a DNI, or one person who coordinates our national security and counter-intelligence response in the face of grave external threats.

But Pulte’s unfitness runs much deeper than those legal issues. He is best known for weaponizing his position at the FHFA to harass and persecute the president’s perceived enemies. He fired oversight boards — consolidating his own power —and then fired the ethics officials who could help hold him accountable. As Acting DNI, Pulte would be in charge of our county’s most sensitive information. His ability to wage war on the President’s “enemies” and ordinary citizens whose only crime is having a differing opinion would be nearly unchecked.

The DNI oversees a vast network of relationships domestically and internationally, integrating foreign, domestic, and military intelligence. Former DNIs were appointed based on their experience as high-level international representatives, directors and deputy directors of various intelligence agencies under the umbrella of Intelligence Community, and military professionals who achieved the ranks of admiral and lieutenant general.

Pulte has no history in the intelligence community nor in government service at all prior to March 2025. His degree in broadcast journalism led him to running his own private equity fund and later a nonprofit that tore down blighted houses. Much like Trump and his sons, he secured his highest profile role through family connections. Pulte sat on the board of a company his grandpa founded. In his year and a half in government service he has had no applicable “national security” experience. The qualities Trump lauded him for are not borne out in the record of his time in charge at FHFA.

Pulte abused his power at FHFA to lead incessant witch hunts for the president’s enemies. He used his position to spin up investigations of mortgage fraud including dubious claims of wrongdoing by the president’s perceived political adversaries. Many of these “investigations” have so little basis in reality they fail to make it to a courtroom. When Pulte’s farcical claims have reached legal proceedings, they have been smacked down again and again.

In fact, the Government Accountability Office opened an investigation into his actions regarding improper access and use of privileged documents to pursue these un-American cases. A pending investigation into improper handling of sensitive information should be automatically disqualifying for this type of role, and it should raise alarm bells. In his new role as DNI, he would have access to virtually all information gathered across the entire network of intelligence agencies. He’s already demonstrated that he’s willing to abuse his power to dig up mortgage documents and other files to go after Trump’s perceived enemies. What will he do with vast intelligence resources?

The crusades Pulte undertook at the FHFA, with meager investigatory powers and purview, will pale in comparison to what he could accomplish at ODNI.

Among the most powerful tools at his disposal? Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That section provides the government with wide latitude to conduct surveillance of foreign persons located outside the United States. Notwithstanding purported limits on the use of Section 702 to target U.S. persons, the Intelligence Community has been able to use so-called “backdoor searches” to collect information on U.S. citizens. Read in conjunction with the president’s widespread direction to seek out so-called “domestic terrorists” through National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7), Bill Pulte would be in a position to supercharge his baseless attacks on Presidential foes.

How Pulte has run the FHFA should alarm everyone. What Pulte might do as DNI goes far beyond alarming. If information at that agency is not overseen by a responsible steward, it could endanger lives, national security, and weaponize the government in ways never before seen. There is something we can, and must, do to prevent this. The Senate should refuse to advance the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act until Pulte’s appointment to the DNI is withdrawn.

Reportedly, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner is starting that process. He has made clear that he does not see sufficient Democratic support to move forward on Section 702 if Pulte is not removed. Senators of good faith in both parties should join Senator Warner in insisting that this dangerous and unqualified appointee be removed immediately.

Riley Pynnonen is a program assistant at Democracy Defenders Action. Norm Eisen is the co-founder of Democracy Defenders Action and Democracy Defenders Fund, which have litigated or filed complaints on behalf of individuals whom Bill Pulte has investigated.

RJ draws several editorial cartoons each week for his substack, e pluribus cartoonum, and for Roll Call, the newspaper of Congress and Capitol Hill. His work is widely syndicated to print newspapers by Cagle Cartoons.

This isn’t showing up in headlines, which are largely designed to serve as rage-bait for people with entrenched political positions. But it’s the media’s job to present the clearest picture of reality — and that’s been sorely lacking.

On its face, this reality seems to conflict with news about primary results. Many MAGA candidates backed by Trump have won GOP races, while some progressive candidates have “notched primary victories” on the Democratic side, reports accurately point out.

But primary voters don’t represent the electorate. In recent years, only around 20% of eligible voters have participated in primaries. This year, some places with especially high-profile races managed to attract about a quarter of voters to the polls -- still a small number.

A race in Texas that dominated national headlines last week involved even fewer voters. Trump-endorsed, scandal-ridden Attorney General Ken Paxton beat incumbent Sen. John Corbyn. Turnout was huge for a primary runoff — yet still only “10% of the state’s 18.7 million voters,” the Houston Chronicle reports.

Midterm elections generally draw far more voters, with percentages in the 40s. Independents, a plurality of the electorate, show up in substantially larger numbers. (In some states, primaries are limited to voters who register for parties, effectively keeping independents out of the process.)

Appealing to voters in a general election is a whole different ballgame. Even people who are well outside of the MAGA camp often reject left-wing candidates. In analyzing the 2024 election, Blue Rose Research found that voters overall considered Vice President Kamala Harris “more ideologically extreme” than President Donald Trump.

I wanted to know how Americans feel about the parties now. From my years as a fact checker on air at CNN, I learned to look at raw data rather than rely on news articles about surveys. Those summaries are often driven by agendas and the desire for clicks from activists, missing the big picture.

Deep inside a New York Times/Siena poll, I found answers. People were asked whether each party has gone too far in its ideological direction. In both cases, 46% said yes. Only a sliver wants a party to lean even further in that direction. (The survey also found 26% of Americans identify as liberal, 37% as conservative, and one-third as moderate.)

It’s not just one poll. Last fall, Pew Research found that about 60% of Americans believed each party is too extreme in its positions.

For a powerful reminder of how important this is, look at Hungary. This year, the country ended the reign of far-right leader Victor Orban. Last time, Hungarians were given a choice between his far-right government and an avowedly liberal one; they kept Orban. This time, politicians from across the political spectrum threw their support behind a new coalition designed to appeal to most voters. The country saw a massive 79% turnout, and new Prime Minister Peter Magyar won.

Some call his government centrist; others say it’s really about pluralism, in which “multiple parties, ideologies, and beliefs coexist within a society, promoting active engagement and tolerance among diverse groups.” Either way, it worked.

None of this erases the possibility of liberal or progressive candidates winning seats in November. Given the choice between two people chosen by the party faithful, people often go with whichever candidate they dislike less. So even people concerned about Democrats being too far left might prefer them over the current GOP.

But to tackle the growing divisions in this country, we need a new political movement: a coalition built around voters’ biggest shared concerns. We know what those are. The economy is by far the biggest, with the cost of healthcare the top domestic issue, Gallup reports. The environment is a big concern as well. And more Americans worry “a great deal” about the possibility of future terrorist attacks than energy affordability, unemployment, or illegal immigration.

It may take a lot of organizing and multiple election cycles to build a new coalition. But it can happen. Groups like Third Way are trying. The effort could help galvanize voters to participate in primaries and back candidates who represent the will of more people.

Right now, the media is part of the problem. The current landscape incentivizes “the extreme and outrageous,” according to Johanna Dunaway, research director at Syracuse University’s Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship.

They Stand Corrected

Ex-CNN fact checker cutting through the media's lies to deliver the truth. Readers and listeners say: "The standard of truth." "Never before has a podcast like this been so necessary."

By Josh Levs-They Stand Corrected

News giants should commit to ending that madness, building much more coverage around issues that hit home, and helping people understand which candidates offer solutions proven to work. More people may be inspired to show up at the polls, delivering a slate of candidates who can work across divisions to get things done.

Josh Levs is host of They Stand Corrected, the podcast and newsletter fact-checking the media. Find him at joshlevs.com.

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In a seemingly inexhaustible cycle of hype and backlash, Leo’s message rings with clarity of intent, equally uninfected by the apocalyptic doomerism, utopian technobabble, and forced logic of inevitability that has made so much AI discourse — and policy-making — by turns alarming and deeply stupid. He is not here to warn us about a paperclip-based sorcerer’s apprentice situation or to herald the transhuman singularity. He is not here to advise us that the de-humanizing of vast swaths of culture is coming whether we like it or not, so we might as well learn to love the bots. He’s not wasting time on “alignment,” a framing of machine ethics so two-dimensional that I genuinely suspect it comes from Dungeons & Dragons.1

Magnifica Humanitas simply gets down to the business of laying out the threats that unregulated AI poses to human welfare in the here and now, including lost and degraded labor, autonomous weapons, and documented risks to mental health. You know, the kind of things the Catholic Church’s constituency — humans — tends to care about. “Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed,” Leo said in a short speech announcing the text. “The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention...” The Pope knows the power of a tagline!

The encyclical has more on what he means by “disarm,” and it’s an elegant statement of purpose:

To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life. Our task today is not only ethical or technical. It is ecological in the deepest sense, for it concerns a new dimension of our common home.

Everything about the letter’s rollout felt deliberate. The Pope pointedly signed it on an anniversary of the publication of Rerum Novarum (“Of New Things”), an encyclical by the previous Pope Leo celebrated as a landmark expression of the Church’s social gospel. Published at the tail end of the 19^th century, Rerum Novarum — subtitle: On Capital and Labor — was a cri de coeur against working conditions during the Industrial Revolution. This Pope Leo, who has said his name is an homage to his predecessor, describes the AI-juiced digital age as a “fourth industrial revolution” in the making. On his second day as pope, he told the College of Cardinals that he wanted the Church to address AI’s threats to “human dignity, justice and labor,” and in the year before the encyclical became his first major theological statement he has spoken about it in forums around the world.

This is how you do a signature issue.

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U.S. leadership has a terrible track record of discernment around digital technology. Perhaps you recall the “series of tubes” debacle, or when Congress was a little late to the game in appreciating Facebook’s role in the 2016 election. Yesterday, Trump released an Executive Order that, on its face, softens the administration’s long opposition to AI regulation — by asking manufacturers to (voluntarily) provide new models for a government cybersecurity review — but only after getting cold feet weeks ago for fear any such order would be an innovation “blocker.” As-is, the order is the watered-down product of chaotic equivocation, and pretty rich coming from an administration that has slashed its core cybersecurity agency to the bone.

Whatever Trump is going for at the moment, comprehensive, humane AI regulation is never going to come out of this administration. Why aren’t more politicians with a documented shred of conscience owning this issue?

That the Pope is an unlikely commentator on Silicon Valley is what makes him a useful one. He doesn’t have to care about campaign contributions. He doesn’t have to care about the Dow Jones. As the faith leader of 1.3 billion people, he doesn’t even have to care about America (but given that he’s a Chicago native, let’s assume he does). He definitely doesn’t have to care about the ire of the Trump administration, either their mealy-mouthed snark or their impotent threats.2 In this space, he’s a commentator with the power of an outsider.

AI regulation advocacy has proven to be a laboratory for unlikely coalitions, which is a promising sign. Opposition to data centers, in particular, has unusually strong bipartisan support. How and why this is happening are questions worth answering, at a time when we need the biggest tent we can find going into the midterms and 2028.

That said, there was one false note in the encyclical announcement: the fact that one of the co-founders of Anthropic, Christopher Olah, was invited as a speaker. I respect Leo’s call for dialogue, but I couldn’t help feeling like Olah’s participation was a fundamentally hollow gesture by a company seeking to burnish their “lesser evil” brand.

Olah began his speech by acknowledging that any AI maker “operates inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing,” and on that we can agree. Anthropic has gotten plaudits this year for rejecting the Pentagon’s demands that it remove internal safeguards, which it deserves — but this strikes me as a necessary bar that has been set too low. Even as Anthropic was apparently standing up to the administration, it announced the removal of its once-central safety promise to “pause training of more powerful models if our AI scaling outstrips our ability to comply with the necessary safety procedures.” Now is the time for growth at all costs, CEO Dario Amodei said — because if a less scrupulous company builds the next powerfully disruptive model first, it “could result in a world that is less safe.”

Incentives indeed. Anthropic’s models have the same vulnerabilities as their competitors, and I will never buy “if we don’t build it, someone else will” as a decent rationale for anything.

The rest of Olah’s speech made its own arguments for how little his ilk should be involved in setting the regulatory course for this technology:

· “There is a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at a very large scale” — inevitability-speak minus accountability

· “AI systems are not engineered the way a bridge or an airplane is engineered…They are grown, on a structure roughly modeled after the brain…” — I simply can’t begin to get into how wrong this is

· “They are not the cold, calculating robots we were promised. They are made from us, from our words…” — they are hot plagiarism robots

· “If it helps, one way I sometimes describe it is as being a little like bringing a fictional character to life.” — don’t patronize me

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The Emperor’s tailor was hard at work. What we’re building is so dangerous, but also so mysterious; stand back while we create the dehumanizing robots from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create the Dehumanizing Robots. Meanwhile, as the National Catholic Reporter pointed out, Anthropic is “notably absent” among corporate signatories on another Vatican document calling for the ethical development of AI.

I hope Leo understands that he doesn’t need Anthropic’s endorsement any more than he needs their product. While Olah and co. scramble around serving their various “incentives,” the Pope has the advantage of answering to just the one boss, who has been good at delegating for at least a couple millennia. Here’s hoping the rest of us take some cues from his style.

Pulte has no known background in intelligence, counterterrorism, diplomacy, military affairs, or national security policy. His professional experience is rooted in real estate, private equity, philanthropy, and, most recently, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). In a conventional administration, that résumé would raise immediate questions as to his ability to oversee the nation’s intelligence enterprise.

But in this administration, Pulte’s lack of intelligence experience may not be the most important fact about him. His relevance lies in how he has already used government authority.

At FHFA, he did not merely administer housing finance policy. He used his position to push allegations of mortgage fraud against Trump’s perceived political opponents, including Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Senator Adam Schiff. None of those allegations has resulted in a conviction, but the apparent purpose was less courtroom success than public embarrassment and official suspicion.

Pulte’s missing credentials as an intelligence adviser may not matter to Trump. The DNI was created after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, to integrate the intelligence community, set priorities, manage budgets, improve coordination, and “to act as the principal adviser to the President . . . for intelligence matters related to the national security.” But the formal hierarchy is not the visible hierarchy in this administration. Since last year’s Iran crisis, CIA Director John Ratcliffe appears to have become the president’s principal intelligence adviser.

That leaves ODNI available for another purpose. At FHFA, Pulte could apply regulatory pressure in service of political grievance. At ODNI, he would have access to the machinery that can recast political opponents, protest movements, and election disputes as intelligence concerns.

Pulte’s selection does not break from the trajectory of outgoing DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s tenure. It suggests that trajectory is moving into more dangerous territory. As I noted last week in The Contrarian (A Farewell Letter to Tulsi Gabbard), Gabbard surrendered the DNI’s core function, repeatedly blurring the line between intelligence leadership and political messaging.

She showed how ODNI could be politically useful even when its director was sidelined from major intelligence decisions. Pulte’s selection portends the next stage: converting Trump’s grievances into national security priorities.

Counterterrorism is where that danger becomes most immediate. As DNI, Pulte would have oversight of the National Counterterrorism Center, the institution built to coordinate how terrorism concerns are identified, analyzed, and elevated across the government. That matters because the administration’s new strategy, released on May 6, names familiar threats — al-Qa’ida, Iran, jihadist networks, cartels, and transnational criminal organizations — while moving toward treating political and cultural identity as a warning sign.

That framework creates the opening. Protest movements can be described as foreign-influenced networks. Political opponents can be framed as counterintelligence concerns. Domestic dissent can be treated as national security-adjacent. Election disputes can be kept alive not through evidence but through the suggestion that intelligence agencies are still “looking into” them.

If Trump wanted a serious long-term intelligence leader, he could nominate someone with national security credentials and ask the Senate to confirm that person. Instead, Pulte enters through a side door, without immediate confirmation, while reportedly keeping his FHFA responsibilities. That arrangement looks less like sustained intelligence leadership than access, control, and political utility before the 2026 midterms.

Congress should not wait to see whether Trump submits Pulte for permanent confirmation. The House and Senate intelligence committees should demand answers now. Questions such as “What authorities will Pulte exercise as acting DNI?” are not procedural niceties. They go to the heart of whether the intelligence community remains an instrument for informing policy or becomes an instrument for protecting power.

Presidents are entitled to loyal officials, but the DNI’s job is not to make intelligence conform to presidential instinct. It is to ensure the intelligence community bounds uncertainty, frames risk, and delivers warning — especially when the warning is unwelcome.

That credibility is difficult to build and easy to spend. Once intelligence language is used to launder political grievance, the damage spreads. Analysts learn what conclusions are welcome. Agencies learn which issues carry risk. Allies begin to wonder whether intelligence sharing will be handled professionally or filtered through domestic vendettas. Citizens begin to doubt whether threat warnings are real or merely convenient.

Pulte’s appointment should be treated as a warning about intent. Trump has assigned to the post a loyal executor with no attachment to the intelligence community’s professional culture.

ODNI was created to integrate the intelligence community and improve coordination across agencies. Under a second Trump administration, that mission has been narrowed and distorted. Pulte’s appointment suggests the next step: an office that gives political suspicion the color of intelligence authority.

Brian O’Neill, a retired senior executive from the CIA and National Counterterrorism Center, is an instructor on strategic intelligence at Georgia Tech. His Safehouse Briefing Substack looks at what’s ahead in global security, geopolitics, and national strategy.

Every day (Monday-Friday), we’ll update this space with protests, signs, and other public demonstrations against the actions of the administration. Keep checking to see how Americans all across the country are protecting and defending democracy. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

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Trump-endorsed Hinson, who just acknowledged that the Iran war is a drag on Republicans, is no longer considered a slam dunk, even in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats in party registration by over 8 points. As The Daily Beast reported, “Iowa constituents have been hit particularly hard by Trump’s war, which has claimed the lives of six Army Reserve soldiers from the Des Moines-based 103rd Sustainment Command who were killed in an Iranian strike on a facility in Kuwait.”

With Iowa’s farm economy in extreme distress, “Iowa Democrats see an opening, especially as one of the states where recent special elections have seen notable shifts towards Democrats even as voters have soured on the national party’s brand,” NPR reported.

Disastrous MAGA policies have handed Democrats a compelling batch of campaign issues. First and foremost, the rural healthcare system is collapsing, creating a health and economic disaster accelerated by Republicans’ draconian Medicaid cuts. Turek’s personal health struggles and reliance as a child on Medicaid make him particularly effective on the issue.

High tariffs, another self-destructive Trump gambit, cut off Iowans’ access to critical overseas markets, spread economic distress, and may lead to more farm bankruptcies. Trump’s trade war with China has crushed soybean farming in Iowa (the No. 2 state for soybeans after Illinois.) As Bloomberg News reported, “US-China flows were halted for months and some Chinese buyers turned to South American producers.” Exports plunged from $12.6 billion in 2024 under President Biden to just $3.1B billion in 2025 under Trump, improving only marginally this year.

Trump’s Iran war debacle compounded that economic shock. “Trump’s war with Iran and the restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz — a key shipping lane in the Middle East — has also sent fertilizer prices surging just as planting season is beginning,” Bloomberg noted. Fertilizer prices are expected to jump by about a third, to the highest level since Russia launched the Ukraine war. Adding to their economic woes, Iowans now pay (on average) $4.65 per gallon for diesel, up from $2.73 last year.

Turek, a 4-time Paralympic Games basketball player who was born with spina bifida, was savvy enough to capitalize on this assortment of affordability issues during the primary campaign. Claiming prairie populist Sen. Tom Harkin as his political inspiration and mentor, he refused to be categorized as a left-winger. He advocated for “a living wage, affordable housing, healthcare and public education — all while rooting out corruption.” Pointing to his record in winning a Republican-leaning state (rather than vowing to take down Democratic leadership, as his opponent Wahls did), he has argued, “This is not a red state. This is a common-sense state that has masqueraded as more red than we are.”

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Iowa’s problems did not spring up overnight. Under one-party GOP governance, Iowa’s economy is in decline. With the state ranking 46^th in growth, younger, better-educated people are fleeing the state. “In 2008, 47% of Iowa’s college students planned to stay in the state after graduation. That dropped to 41% in 2024,” Iowa Public Radio reported recently. “That’s a big concern in a state where many businesses are already seeing a worker shortage.”

An Iowa think tank, the Common Sense Institute Iowa, explained, “Iowa’s economy [loses] an estimated $4.5 million in total gross nominal earnings over the working life of each out-migrating, college-educated Iowan age 25-29.” Moreover, the cost of out-migration amounts to “an astounding $6.1 billion in lost gross domestic product (GDP) over the working life of those who leave.”

Something is not working for average people, and those who remain in Iowa face a gloomy forecast unless something changes dramatically. Turek has put the state’s long- and short-term economic woes in the context of a political system rigged by the oligarchy’s growing power and wealth. Arguing that it is “nearly impossible” for young people to find careers, he describes scenes of desolation, as if “a vacuum has come through and just sucked it out of there, just because we have policies in place that have only benefited billionaires and multinational corporations.” His answer to this problem? Elect leaders “who are going to actually fight for the middle class and fight for our workers, and fight for small businesses and for rural communities.”

Turek makes the case that Hinson and the policies she has supported have contributed to the burdens weighing down average people. “Ashley Hinson is Joni [“Well we are all going to die”] Ernst 2.0, arguably worse,” he said. “She is someone who voted for the Big, Beautiful Bill ... just to give tax breaks to billionaires.” He adds: “She’s also someone who has voted four times in favor of the Trump tariffs, which has led us to lead the nation in farm foreclosures. It’s absolute ‘farmageddon’ for our farmers. She’s not looking out for Iowans or the middle class.”

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That might remind you of Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico’s populist message: “The biggest divide in politics is not right vs. left, but top vs. bottom.” That is no coincidence. In both Iowa and Texas, Democrats have found a receptive audience for the classic Democratic message that they will stand up for the little guy and gal against the rich and powerful, who rig the system in their favor at ordinary Americans’ expense.

Turek and Talarico will test the proposition that Democrats with an effective message centered on the economy and corruption can win in the heartland. We would experience a sea change in national politics if articulate, compelling Democratic candidates break through with a populist message in states Trump won comfortably in 2024.

If Democrats prevail, they should recognize that victories like these would never have been possible without Trump’s grotesque corruption, war on average workers, and utter indifference to rural Americans’ pain. And it will be rubber stamps — such as Hinson — who will pay the price for sycophancy in service of a president concerned only about himself.

Standing up against the relentless attacks on the LGBTQ+ community and their rights goes beyond the month of June. Pride is a celebration, commemoration, and continued fight for equality. As this administration continues to target trans folks and scrub away LGBTQ+ history, speaking out and protecting LGBTQ+ neighbors is vital.

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The Pope vs AI

Culture Vulture, Freedom 250 Edition

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He sat down with Contrarian editor Tim Dickinson to discuss Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical and why he chose to focus so much of it on the rapid rise of AI and the need to put humanity before technology.

Christopher Hale, Publisher of Letters From Leo, joins Tim to unpack the shockwaves sent out by Pope Leo’s first major theological text. The two also discuss Peter Theil’s bizarre rants on the Antichrist, the Pope bringing the builders of AI into the discussion, and the Church’s apology for its role in the Transatlantic trade slave.

Head to https://standwithpopeleo.com/ai/ to get a breakdown of the Magnifica Humanitas.

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Christopher Hale is the author of the Letters From Leo substack. Hale is a political consultant and politician from Tennessee and was previously Catholic nonprofit executive. He helped lead faith outreach for President Barack Obama.

The transcript below has been edited for formatting purposes.

Tim Dickinson

Hi, this is Tim Dickinson for The Contrarian. Our guest today is Christopher Hale, who publishes the Substack Letters from Leo about our American Pope, and we’ll be talking about today the Pope and AI and the moral oversight of technology. How you doing today, Christopher?

Christopher Hale

I’m well, thank you so much for having me, I appreciate being on the show.

Tim Dickinson

So, the Pope has put out this encyclical about AI, and what is the basic thrust of that project?

Christopher Hale

Sure. Well, so an encyclical is a letter that the Pope writes to, historically, the Catholic faithful, but in the past 40, 50 years, it’s really extended out to be a letter to the entire world. It really represents kind of a governing agenda of what the Pope thinks matters most in the world. And Pope Leo XIV took his name after Pope Leo XII, who wrote the most famous papal social encyclical of all time, Rerum Novarum, which was about labor and capital in the context of the Industrial Revolution. He wrote that in 1891, and of course, the steam engine was the big issue in global economics in 1891, and Pope Leo XIV thinks that the biggest issue today is artificial intelligence, in fact. So he thinks that we’ve entered what he calls, really, the fourth industrial revolution here, and he wants to, from this document, put it in the centerpiece of artificial intelligence, this idea that artificial intelligence should never dominate, but be at service of the human person.

And then one final thing, really after Rerum Novarum, Rerum Novarum really served in 1891 as the intellectual birthplace, what for what would become labor unions, the 40-hour work week, weekends, in fact, and social movements, to the like. And so what we really see with Pope Leo XIV is, I think, his imagination, his hope. is that this new document, Magnifica Humanitas, The Magnificent Humanity, can lead to such social movements today, in fact.

Tim Dickinson

Well, and it’s really interesting that this is clearly, something that the Pope has had in mind, right, from the choosing of the name Leo, and modeling himself after that, message to society, right? That we need to renew that kind of message in this moment. What are the calls that he is making vis-a-vis AI? What is he saying the dangers are, and what is the human response to that? How do we preserve the common good in this era of rising technological dominance?

Christopher Hale

For sure. He really articulates this to, really, three communities. First, to Washington and Brussels, to the governments around the world, he says you need to take an active role in regulating artificial intelligence. I think he would have been disappointed just days before this document dropped, President Trump rescinded or didn’t sign an executive order that had been planned that has these very basic guardrails when a artificial intelligence company puts puts in place a new language model. It asks for a period of review by the federal government, and Trump struck that down based on the influence of his former AI czar, David Sachs, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and others. Leo wants the government to take a significant charge in regulating artificial intelligence.

Perhaps the most peculiar part is he’s talking to builders themselves, the AI companies themselves. Really, Leo XII, and really the predecessors of Leo XIV, didn’t talk so much to industry in terms of self-regulation, but Leo acknowledges that governments alone cannot do it. These systems are so powerful that he really wants to involve the builders of artificial intelligence, and you might have noted that in that room, with him co-presenting the document was, in fact, Christopher Ola, who was one of the co-founders of Anthropic. The Vatican’s been doing this outreach to Silicon Valley for a decade now, and not everyone’s played ball, quite frankly, at the Vatican. I’ve been seeing this in the flesh, in my own experience, but really, Entropic did. They did take the Vatican’s concerns about ethics and artificial intelligence seriously. Some might fight about how much they did, but it was definitely more than their competitors did. And so, Pope Leo XIV wants Silicon Valley to self-regulate, to be thoughtful in the building of its artificial intelligence structures.

And finally, he spoke to you and I, the consumers. He really wants consumers of technology, be mindful consumers of technology. Hopefully the 14 is not a Luditte. In fact, he’s the first pope to have a cell phone. He’s the first pope to send an email. I have his email address. He doesn’t always respond to me, unfortunately. And he’s also the first pope to have a smartwatch, an Apple Watch, in fact. So he’s not writing, from a distance. He understands the technological revolution that we’re in, in the flesh, and he wants us to be more mindful in our consumption. And what he says, I think is so beautiful, is he says that there needs to be parts of life That are technology-free, that are measurement-free, and he encourages us to refine the art of, quote, wasting time with others.

Tim Dickinson

Well, it’s kind of beautiful in this, in this day and age. I was struck by his call to disarm AI, and he seemed to have a dual message there. One is, you know, the AI is increasingly involved in weapon systems, so it’s actually an instrument of war, potentially, currently. But then also this sort of arms race between the AI companies that they are pushing forward with the technology so quickly, so sort of heedlessly, and not focusing on the larger social issues and potential dangers of AI. So can you talk a bit about what his message about disarmament was?

Christopher Hale

For sure, I think you hit the nail on the head with both examples. When Pope Leo XIV was elected Pope on May 8, 2025, he comes to the Loggia St. Peter’s Square. I was there in the Loggia, just feet away from him, and what he said, what he called for in that moment, was a, quote, disarming and unarmed peace. And I just want to play out those two words, because it matters to understand how Leo sees the world. an unarmed piece, so I do not come into the room with weapons, but it’s also disarming. It’s a piece that disarms someone else, and I think a close reader, a close listener might ask, how does one disarm something without carrying arms themselves. And that’s really the Christian miracle. That’s the argument of the Christian theology of a disarming, unarmed peace.

And so Leo believes in that peace. And so I think he is asking for a disarmed AI, but noteworthy, Leo XIV himself does not carry any kind of temporal weapons. He cannot, he cannot sanction artificial intelligence, he cannot levy fines on artificial intelligence. Really, the only appeal that he has to these companies is the moral force of the Catholic Church, but I think it is quite a force to be reckoned with. Just as he cannot do temporal sanctions on artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence, Silicon Valley, cannot deal with Leo XIV the ways it deals with politicians. They can’t fund them. They can’t impeach him, they can’t vote to remove him from office, they can’t put a tariff upon them, they can’t indict them.

And so I think he represents a type of currency that Silicon Valley is not used to playing ball with, and Pope Leo XIV’s influence over American consumers surpasses anything Silicon Valley could dream of. So we’ll find out if that soft power the Vatican has, that Pope Leo XIV 14 tabs actually has real temporal, real hard power to it, and can really force the hands of these companies to change. I think the fact that Christopher Owl was in the room when this document was presented means that some in Silicon Valley are taking this seriously.

Tim Dickinson

I was raised in Silicon Valley, and I’ve never experienced a technological push that was really so much of a push. It’s like, this is inevitable, this is happening, you better just get used to it, nothing’s gonna stop this runaway freight train. And the Pope… is using moral suasion to say, wait a minute, we need to think about the impacts of this. We need to think about the common good as we are, you know, pursuing a technology that, in some ways reinforces hierarchies or reinforces dominance. And so I find, you know, as a consumer of this technology who’s not very, just not on board with the runaway freight train, I find it, not as a Catholic, but just as a person of this world, very comforting that there’s sort of an adult in the room saying, we need to talk about the human element as we’re pursuing this technological wonder.

Christopher Hale

And I think, he’s, quite frankly, ahead of politicians on this. I think that that’s what’s striking, is the Catholic Church, I am a Catholic, we’re not exactly known for being cutting edge, being on top of things, it takes us a little bit of time, perhaps, to catch up to the ways and the knowledge of the secular world. If you think about it, Pope Louis XII writes Rheum the Barum in 1891. Well, that was really in the midst of the Second Industrial Revolution, quite a ways into it, really a century after the Industrial Revolution really began, before he used the power and the force of the church to comment on it. I even think of Benedict XVI, he wrote on the ethics of the finances and the financial crisis, and summer of 2009, really 18 months after the crisis had hit the world. And Pope Francis, his immediate predecessor, wrote on climate change, the Laudato si n 2015, really a generation after it had become a major political issue, both here in the United States and around the globe. Leo XIV is on the cutting edge of this. He’s talking about this pretty early on in the Revolution, at least in terms of Catholic, the Catholic tradition.

And that leads, I think, a really profound situation. Christopher Olah said that, during this presentation with Pope Leo XIV, that Silicon Valley is building what it does not know. And so it’s interesting because Leo XIV is writing about what we do not know is to come. So it’s a… it’s a gamble of sorts. It’ll be interesting to read this document in 10 years and see if Leo XIV was prescient on the concerns he talks about. But what he’s saying is the Catholic Church should be a voice in the room. And here’s what I’ll say. I think that what I’m seeing is that a lot of the pushback against artificial intelligence in this country is lacking a moral grammar, a cohesive moral grammar, and Leo XIV, I think, provides that. As you most… as you noted, it precedes religion. It’s a language that can be taken up by secular movements across this country, and I think that when you start seeing these pushbacks, particularly against data centers this summer into the fall. you’re gonna start seeing Leo XIV’s language being used in these campaigns.

Tim Dickinson

And I don’t want to put them on an equivalence, because they’re obviously very different individuals, but Peter Thiel looms large in this debate, right, as somebody who’s pushing very hard on this technology, and also has very sort of strange ideas about religion, and a very, you know, influence over J.D. Vance, who’s got a strain of Catholicism that’s quite different from the message that Pope Leo is putting out. So can you talk to us a bit… just a bit about that tension between the Leo philosophy and the Peter Thiel, movement, which obviously has a lot of money behind it.

Christopher Hale

Absolutely. So just step back about a year. Peter Theil, for about a year in public sphere, has been talking about the Antichrist, which is a notion, a fringe notion in Christianity. It didn’t really get big play in Catholicism. Some forms of evangelical Protestantism with it up, but even very small there. And he… the Antichrist is basically someone who will act as if they are Christ, but in a deceptive way, actually lead to to the destruction of the world. And Peter Thiel says very strangely that anyone who opposes the unadulterated growth of artificial intelligence is actually a tool of the Antichrist. And so, maybe somewhat unsurprisingly, as Pope Leo made it clear throughout this past year that this is going to be a big issue that he focuses on. In some of these anti-Christ lectures, Peter Thiel has name-checked, Pope Leo XIV as a tool of the Antichrist, suggesting he’s a tool of the Antichrist, and his biggest fear, which I find remarkable, is an AOC presidency filled with what he calls a woke American Pope, really a left-wing movement in his mind, that will stop the growth of artificial intelligence.

I’ll just say this, I think, just in terms of power, in terms of authority, if you are… if you are a developer, a funder of this technology that will displace millions of Americans, likely, and there’s someone speaking out against this, you don’t want the pitch force going towards you. So I think it strikes me as a preemptive move to say, actually, no, it’s these guys’ fault instead. Here’s the issue. Pope Leo XIV, like his predecessor, is very popular, Pope Francis, but Pope Francis was particularly popular with progressives, a little less so with conservatives. Leo enjoys significantly high ratings above both communities. He’s much more popular, Peter Thiel, he’s much more popular in Silicon Valley, and he, in fact, outlast Silicon Valley, so I think they have a long-term issue. And I’ll say one final thing here on this. In Christian theology, in Jewish theology, the original sin comes from the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve famously are tempted by the snake with the promises to be greater than God. To replace God. I think that’s actually a good way of understanding the original sin of Peter Thiel, the original sin of Silicon Valley. I think at their core, a lot of these folks think they are recreating God, and they are acting in God, and the consequences be damned. And Leo XIV’s calling that out.

Tim Dickinson

I study a lot of, Christian nationalist veins in our politics, and I see a trend in Christianity towards this sort of high control, patriarchy, hierarchy, you know, even to the Hegseth model, where God is guiding our bombs against our enemies and smiting them down. And I was reading this, encyclical, and the… The contrast there of understanding the equal dignity of all human beings, sort of a post-nationalist vision for the world. I’m not sure it’s actually post-nationalist, but an idea that every human being is worthy of dignity and love and willed solidarity in the eyes of God. And so, I wonder if you can talk about a bit about that tension within Christianity right now, and where Pope Leo sees the need to move.

Christopher Hale

Sure, and I always say this to my Catholic friends on the right, I think this is 100% true. Christian nationalism is really a misnomer. At its core, Christian nationalism is white evangelical nationalism. Let me put a little bit more meat on that. I think that the folks who are espousing Christian nationalism actually have no room in their movement for Catholics like me. I think we fall out outside of their understanding of what it means to be a Christian, to put it very frank. They don’t think that we achieve salvation, that we, in fact, are not Christian. And so, it’s not surprising to me to see Leo speak in such a way, that, I think indirectly is a counterpunch to these movements. He says something I think that’s really profound. He says, in the Christian understanding of the world, truth is not something to be possessed or defended, like a sacred object. It’s something to be shared, and to be given out. And I think that’s a really good understanding of the world.

I’ll speak religiously for a second. To be a Christian is to be a receiver, a recipient of good news. And good news ought to be shared. It’s not something that we beat someone over the head with, it’s not something we use to harm. It’s not something we use to castigate others, it’s something we use because it’s a gift that we’ve received and we want to share with others. I think that language is… will really go a long way. If you’re a Christian, if you’re a Catholic, and you’re concerned about these right-wing strands of nationalism, I think defiling our faith, I think you have a champion in Pope Leo XIV, and maybe a vocabulary, once again on how to oppose this.

Tim Dickinson

The last thing I wanted to ask you about, and this kind of pops up in the encyclical, is an apology for slavery from the church. And I’m sort of interested in sort of untangling this connection between why is that in there, right? Is this the idea that AI could somehow be part of a new enslavement, or… I just wondered what your thoughts are on that, and why you think that Leo chose this document to make a really profound apology for the church’s past involvement in slavery, or making excuses for slavery.

Christopher Hale

I think you actually answered the question the way you framed it. I think that if he has just simply connected slavery to artificial intelligence, it would have just simply kind of fallen away as, an extravagant, fallacious claim. But the fact that he apologized, really the first pope to apologize particularly for transatlantic slavery, popes apologized in general for slavery, but particularly to apologize for transatlantic slavery. on this, the 250th anniversary of our country, which was, of course, so much infused and built on slavery, he put it front and center.

That was the headline that the Associated Press ran with on Monday when this document came out. So I think by apologizing for it, he puts this at the forefront of our mind to say, exactly as you mentioned, that he is fearful that artificial intelligence will lead to new forms of slavery, to new forms of indentured servitude and the like, and he is concerned. We saw that with the Industrial Revolution, of course, in our own country, in many ways, and in many ways, only, I would say, mechanized and synchronized slavery in the South. And so he is afraid that it can be used in a way to lubricate new forms of slavery in our own country, and to make them go out faster.

Tim Dickinson

And the one, which, of course, yes. Do you have any closing thoughts that you want to make sure our listeners come away with today?

Christopher Hale

Sure. It’s a long document, it’s 42,000 words. I just encourage two paragraphs for you. Paragraph 120, he talks about, what it means to be a human being. And he says that, in paragraph 120, he says that oftentimes, there is this promise of Silicon Valley that we can overcome our limitations, overcome our sufferings. And he says, to be a human person. is to, in fact, suffer. And we shouldn’t be afraid of our suffering, because suffering is a part of what it is to experience love. And so he says, don’t be afraid of your suffering, don’t be afraid of your limitations, find grace in them, find import in them, and find what it means to be a human in them.

And then the second thing is paragraph 220, very easy to remember, 120 and 220. He gives, I would just say, a very simple framework, as I mentioned before. On how to exercise from this new perspective. Quoting Pope Francis, he says, let’s learn to waste time again with our children. Let’s learn to waste time with our friends. Let’s learn to waste time with our neighbors, and in fact, strangers. Everything’s mechanized, everything’s measured, and everything that can be measured can be controlled. Let’s find areas of our lives that cannot be measured, not be controlled, and in fact, the areas that give us the most profound meaning in life. I have a simple website that’ll help you read the sense cynical, it’s not always… the value has always been out in the best sources, but if you go to standwithpopelio.com slash AI, I give you a nice reader, it’s all free, some graphics to go along so you can understand this document in full if you don’t have time to delve into the 42,000-word document.

Tim Dickinson

Well, Christopher, this has been a great conversation. Thanks so much for your time today.

Christopher Hale

Thank you for having me.

Tim Dickinson

Take care.

Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist whose cartoons have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. Find him on Substack at nickanderson.substack.com.

Culturally speaking, it can often seem as if Donald Trump is trapped in the early ‘90s, his taste permanently stunted the moment he opened the Taj Mahal Casino (a.k.a. “the 8th wonder of the world”) and left Ivana for Marla Maples.

He loves Les Misérables, which opened on Broadway in 1987. He reportedly believes that “November Rain” by Guns n’ Roses is the best music video of all time, an opinion which proves the adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day. At rallies, he is known to play Sinéad O’Connor’s 1990 hit “Nothing Compares 2 U.” His favorite movies include Goodfellas (also 1990) and Bloodsport (1988). He is preoccupied with broadcast TV, especially 60 Minutes and late-night talk shows, and barely seems aware that streaming exists, even though his wife’s documentary is on Amazon.

Which is why it made perfect sense last week when Freedom 250 announced the lineup for “The Great American State Fair,” a series of concerts on the National Mall this summer to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial.

The roster was of artists who all peaked before Bill Clinton was elected president: Milli Vanilli, Vanilla Ice, C+C Music Factory, Young MC, and Poison’s Bret Michaels, among others. It was a nostalgic cavalcade of has-beens and never-were, an extravaganza of where-are-they-nows that would have inspired every seventh grader in the country in 1990 to do the Roger Rabbit in their Z. Cavariccis. (The only group that was missing from the lineup? Peach Pit favorite Color Me Badd.)

But, much like the romance between Brandon Walsh and Emily Valentine, this ‘90s fever dream was doomed from the start. What was touted as a concert series full of “nostalgia, iconic hits, and live performances from some of the era’s most recognizable names,” quickly spiraled into a debacle of comic proportions — Trump’s very own Fyre Festival, minus the catering.

Nearly as soon as the lineup was announced, artists started backing out, claiming they had been misled about the nature of the event, which was organized by Freedom 250, a public-private partnership established by the Trump administration last year (not to be confused with America 250, which was set up a decade ago).

First to bail was Minneapolis funk star Morris Day, who said simply, “It’s A No For Me😎.” Rapper Young MC busted a move out of the concert, saying he had no idea it was a “Trump-backed” event. Martina McBride, the country music star whose 1993 hit “Independence Day” is often mistaken for a patriotic anthem even though it’s about a woman leaving an abusive relationship, also bowed out, saying she was also under the impression the fair would be a “nonpartisan event.”

Most confusingly, Jodie Rocco, a singer who performed on dozens of songs released under the name Milli Vanilli, said the musicians behind the group had never been asked to perform at Freedom 250. Instead, organizers had apparently booked Fab Morvan, the surviving member of the notorious European duo that sold millions of records and won a best new artist Grammy before it was revealed that they were lip-synching to music recorded by other singers in a scheme devised by German producer Frank Farian. (In an email, Rocco said she was actually a “staunch Trump supporter” who objected to the “fraudulent” use of the Milli Vanilli name, not the political nature of the event.)

Even Michaels — a man who broke his nose onstage at the Tony Awards and starred in not one, not two, but three seasons of the VH1 dating show Rock of Love (including one set on a tour bus) — concluded that the fair was beneath his dignity.

“Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than what I agreed to be a part of,” he said in a lengthy Instagram post.

By the weekend, the situation had gotten so bad that even the president couldn’t deny the collective rejection. In a Truth Social tirade, he railed against the “boring,” “overpriced” musicians “who nobody wants to hear,” and suggested canceling the concert series entirely and replacing it with — what else? — a MAGA rally. For his inauguration not even 18 months ago, Trump was able to book artists like Carrie Underwood and Snoop Dogg.

Now, he can’t retain the guy from Milli Vanilli. Morvan initially said he was planning to perform (and actually sing the songs), but by Monday he, too, was out.

“I was there to unite the people, to have them walk down memory lane, celebrate life. It was a way to say, ‘Hey, I’m still here, you’re still here. Let’s have a good time together,’” he said on CNN. “But throughout the week it turned into a circus. I’m not into politics, so you hear it first here: I’m not attending the June 26th celebration.”

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Arguably even more humiliating than the defections were the statements from the few artists who have doubled-down on performing.

Freedom Williams, the guy who once vowed to make dance music enthusiasts sweat until they bled, responded to the controversy with a rambling, seven-minute Instagram video which he apparently filmed while sitting on the toilet. In the N-word-laden rant, which included digressions about vaccines, Muammar Gaddafi, Zionists, and “white capitalists,” Williams said he still planned to perform even though he isn’t a Trump fan. In fact, he said he would vote for “Genghis Khan, Hitler, and motherfucking Ivan the Terrible” before he’d let anyone tell him what to do. (You can read the full transcript of his tirade here, if you dare.)

Vanilla Ice also made it clear that, despite the criticism, he still planned to light up the stage and wax a chump like a candle.

“I don’t even vote, so I don’t even care,” the rapper and home-flipper also known as Robert Van Winkle told TMZ. “I’ll go play for Putin and I’ll play in Iran, if you want. It don’t matter. There’s music fans everywhere.”

Trump’s desire to celebrate the nation’s 250th by time-traveling to 1990 makes some sense when you consider the sorry state of the music business 36 years ago.

Vanilla Ice, whose 1990 hit “Ice, Ice Baby” became the first hip-hop song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard hot 100 and more recently has been used to troll anti-ICE protestors, was a master of what we’d now call “cultural appropriation.” He was a handsome white guy with a goofy haircut who sold millions of records by peddling a sanitized version of Black music to an audience of suburban girls. (And told his detractors to “kiss my white butt!”)

Milli Vanilli was even worse, a particularly egregious example of a powerful white producer exploiting Black artists — an all-too-common pattern in the music industry. As detailed in an excellent 2023 documentary, Farian made a fortune peddling a hoax but faced little of the vitriol that Morvan and Pilatus endured in the wake of the scandal. Meanwhile, the mostly-Black musicians who played on the Girl You Know It’s True album received little compensation or credit for their work.

Then there’s C+C Music Factory, another producer-driven dance pop group accused of lip-syncing. Martha Wash, who recorded key vocals that were used in the group’s hit “Gonna Make You Sweat” filed a lawsuit in 1990 accusing the producers of fraud for replacing her in the music video and album art with the svelter Zelma Davis. (Wash would become what Rolling Stone called “the most famous unknown singer of the Nineties,” contributing vocals to numerous dance hits from the era without being in the videos or album art.)

Instead of celebrating this milestone by showcasing the best in American culture, the Trump administration tried to resurrect some of the worst musical trends of the recent past. As the cancellations continue to roll in, the future of “The Great American State Fair” looks increasingly uncertain. But what’s clear is that Trump has turned the nation’s anniversary into an embarrassing fiasco — and he can’t even blame it on the rain.

Meredith Blake is the culture columnist for The Contrarian

On the eve of the French Open, Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend co-hosted an intimate dinner party for other Black tennis players who would be at the tournament — by photos, it looked like six people in all.

Osaka noted that some invitees were unable to attend, but think about that number: six. There are 256 men and women in the singles’ draws alone at the Open, and dozens more who play on a doubles team. And a single digit percentage of those players have roots in the African diaspora.

In an Instagram post, Osaka wrote that she keeps tabs on everyone in tennis who is Black.

“There’s a fellowship, a camaraderie that doesn’t need words to describe. You just feel at peace knowing that there’s another person who has experienced similar things to you and you feel less alone.”

Predictably, the very online bad-faith anti-Black bigots and bots were in their feelings, whining about the dinner being racist and how would Osaka and Townsend feel if a group of players held an all-white party. Blah, blah, blah.

And I am left to wonder, again: What the hell do those kinds of people want from Black folk? Like seriously — what do they want?

Since the very moment the people who had been enslaved were granted liberation via the Emancipation Proclamation, a not-small number of people who benefitted from their free labor have dedicated hours of their lives, if not weeks and years, to denigrating them and their ancestors and doing whatever they can to make our lives more difficult.

When the Constitution was amended to grant Black men the right to vote, they used that right with such success — not just participating in elections but getting Black men into local, state, and federal offices — that the Ku Klux Klan formed and began using violence to keep Black men as well as white men sympathetic to their cause away from the polls.

When the courts decided that yes, all taxpayers are due access to the publicly funded pools in town, many cities filled them in with dirt rather than share.

When the courts decided that yes, the children of all taxpayers can attend all of the publicly funded schools, many communities across the South saw a rise in private Christian schools, also known as segregation academies, where they couldn’t be forced to admit Black students.

Those moves and countless others were made to send the message: No Blacks allowed.

When the message was received and Black people did for themselves, they often found great success. In arguably the most famous example — though far from the only one — the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Okla., became known as Black Wall Street, with numerous homes and properties built for doctors and lawyers and restaurants and movie theaters, and it quickly became a neighborhood of affluent, entrepreneurial Black people. In 1921, with local white residents angered at Blacks becoming so prosoperous, an allegation that a Black shoe shine “assaulted” a white woman set off a two-day massacre. Black Wall Street was burned to the ground, and hundreds of its residents were killed or injured.

On and on it has gone. They don’t want Black people in “their” parks or schools or neighborhoods, yet when Black people create their own spaces there is screaming still, because people who look like them are being left out.

So what the hell do they want?

(Let’s be clear: I’m fairly certain I know the answer to this, but because the full-blown “round up of anyone who looks vaguely Black, Central American, or Muslim and send them to the nearest for-profit concentration camp because Justice Brett Kavanaugh said it’s A-OK” executive order hasn’t been issued yet, I need these people to pick a lane.)

I’ve attended dinners similar to the one Osaka and Townsend hosted. Each year at the Super Bowl and pre-draft Combine, there are gatherings for Black media members covering the events to catch up with old friends or make new connections and just … breathe.

To be in community with people who, as Osaka noted, have had experiences similar to your own. To be among the elders, men like Bill Rhoden Jr., who paved the way. To be with people who know what it’s like to have editors and producers hire someone with a fraction of your experience to the job you asked to be considered for. Or, for me, to be around some of the exceedingly small number of women who understand what it’s like to be in a press box of over 200 people and be the only person in the room who looks like you.

The uproar over the dinner party only proved why Osaka and Townsend wanted to hold it in the first place: They wanted to be together, to be free to be themselves without judgment. To be Black and successful and happy.

It’s been easier for them, thanks to Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe and Venus and Serena Williams, but Osaka wrote that her Haitian father had police called on him many times as he was on the tennis court with young Naomi and her sister, teaching them the game; keep in mind, Osaka isn’t even 30 yet.

Too many people loathe Black folk, but what they really hate is Black joy. To see that through it all — over 400 years of enslavement, violence, and systems and structures designed to keep us down even at the expense of lower-class white people — we are still here.

Perhaps Osaka said it best as she addressed the faux-controversy.

“There are multiple things I will apologize for in my life but celebrating being Black and appreciating who we are will never be something I would consider saying sorry for. Thanks,” she wrote.

“Actually I lied, I am sorry. I’m sorry for the people who cannot comprehend in their brains that this is not about exclusion, this is a celebration about how far we have come.”

Shalise Manza Young is an award-winning writer focused on the intersections of race, gender, politics, and sports. She is the director of track and field at Phillips Andover Academy. She and her family, including Contrarian Pet of the Week Coco, live in Boston. You can find her on Bluesky @shalisemyoung.

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The horrors of Donald Trump’s ICE operations had largely faded from the front pages. ICE pulled back from in-your-face, militarized raids in cities like Minneapolis. And cartoonish supervillains like Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino departed from the federal government.

But for those detained in ICE facilities, little has changed. The Contrarian previously reported on the abysmal conditions of ICE detention and the parallels between these facilities and concentration camps. In fact, under the new leadership of DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the cruelty continues.

The Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, run by the notorious private jailer GEO Group, has become a renewed flashpoint. Detainees inside the facility have mounted a hunger strike to protest “terrible and inhumane” conditions. An open letter from those inside describes concerns: wormy or rotten food, foul bathrooms, poor ventilation, widespread illness, inadequate medical care (“They only prescribe Tylenol for all ailments,” the open letter notes), and attempts by ICE agents to “coerce detainees into signing deportation orders.” Detainees also allege they are being forced to work, either without pay or for a pittance of $1 an hour.

GEO Group did not respond to questions from The Contrarian. DHS responded with a bizarre statement asserting “there is no hunger strike at Delaney Hall” and touting the facility’s “comprehensive medical care.” DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis added: “No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been better treated than illegal aliens. They are provided 3 meals a day, medical care, and receive full due process.”

Read other open letters from detainees about the appalling conditions at Delaney here and here. The detainee hunger strike at Delaney is part of a larger pattern of hunger strikes at GEO Group facilities from Pennsylvania to Michigan to California.

Instead of improving conditions inside, DHS has chosen violence outside Delaney — cracking down on protesters who have gathered in solidarity with the hunger strikers, hitting them with chemical munitions and intimidating them with armored vehicles. Last week, Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) took a blast of pepperball spray to the face while trying to keep constituents safe. “I tried my best to bring down the temperature,” he said in a video post on X, in which he decried the “normalization of violence in America.”

During a cabinet meeting with president Trump, Mullin made no apology for his agency hitting a former Senate colleague in a chemical blast, saying that Kim “probably shouldn’t have been there.” As for conditions at Delaney, Mullin made light of the hunger strikers’ demands, insisting “this isn’t a Holiday Inn” and adding that those complaining about food “can go back to their country.”

Kim has called out GEO Group for “profiting off of human misery,” insisting the publicly traded company is putting its balance sheet above human dignity. GEO Group recently reported a $100 million increase in quarterly revenue, and a 96 percent increase in profit, compared to the first quarter of 2025. “They can afford to hire more doctors,” Kim said. “They could afford to have better quality food that isn’t rotten and disgusting — but that’s less profit for GEO Group.” The New Jersey senator is calling for Delaney Hall to be shut down.

Over this past weekend, violence escalated at Delaney. Troublingly, New Jersey state troopers in riot gear took over the defense of the detention facility — squaring off against protesters and dispersing them with tear gas. These troopers are under the control of Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, who incongruously has also embraced the protesters’ call for Delaney to be shut down.

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For his part, former Border Patrol commander Bovino is now off traipsing the world, palling around with far-right figures in Europe and talking up “remigration” — or the forced expulsion of minorities. On X, he sent the staff of Delaney a stiff-arm salute. “You have the world watching,” he posted, “and supporting your efforts to hold the line.”

This isn’t, of course, the first time Delaney Hall has been in the news for poor detainee care — or for controversies with politicians. The ICE facility was one of the first flashpoints regarding detainee abuse in the second Trump term, and is where Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ) was arrested and charged with “forcibly impeding” a federal officer — for contact that wouldn’t have been called a foul in the NBA. McIver, who is Black, was on the scene attempting to gain oversight access as a member of Congress. The Legal Defense Fund has called her prosecution a “brazen act of political retaliation and a worrying misuse of federal power.”

Echoes of Broadview

The administration is now, transparently, using lawfare to retaliate against those who would challenge or publicize its abuse of detainees. At a similar ICE holding facility outside of Chicago, known as Broadview, detainees have decried filthy cells, being deprived of adequate water and food, and even being filmed while on the toilet.

In late October, the administration charged six pro-immigrant protesters, including then-congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, on counts of intimidation and conspiracy for allegedly impeding the path of a federal officer’s car. Their arrests came at the height of the administration’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” in which Bovino and the Border Patrol wreaked havoc throughout Chicagoland.

But the case against the so-called “Broadview 6” unravelled dramatically in late May — amid alleged chicanery from the Department of Justice, which had allegedly warped the grand jury process. When one grand jury wouldn’t return the indictment the administration was seeking, reticent grand jurors were simply tossed off the jury, and the government had another try. The Assistant U.S. Attorney on the case also allegedly engaged in other prohibited behaviors with grand jurors. The judge overseeing the matter then received only heavily redacted grand jury transcripts from DOJ.

When Judge April Perry finally got access to the complete record, she declared herself “incredibly shocked” by redactions that had covered up prosecutorial improprieties. She said she could not grant the government the “presumption of regularity” that courts typically extend to the Justice Department: “That trust has been broken.”

In the same court transcript, Perry said that the case raised questions of a “vindictive prosecution” and that the behavior of government lawyers could merit “sanctions for prosecutorial misconduct” as well as “potential ethical violations, including lack of candor to the Court.” (The U.S. attorney at the center of the scandal has since been fired from a new job she’d taken with the Senate Judiciary Committee.)

Shuttering ‘Alligator Alcatraz’?

Beyond a judicial rebuke of unprofessional prosecutors, there is actual good news in the fight against inhumane detentions of immigrants. The notorious Florida state detention camp known as “Alligator Alcatraz” looks like it will be shut down, bringing to an end its ignominious run in the swampy Everglades.

Alligator Alcatraz was built at the site of a little-used airfield, in a mad rush by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who — like Trump — sees cruel treatment of the undocumented as a boon to his political prospects. The camp has been a humanitarian disaster from the jump, marred by terrible sanitation and tent-walled cages that provide insufficient protection from the South Florida elements.

Initially, Trump touted the facility, touring it with his Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, as if it were the state of the art in migrant detention.

But an Amnesty International report soon described “inhuman and unsanitary conditions” at the camp that included “overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping,” as well as “limited access to showers, exposure to insects… lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy.”

Most disturbing, Amnesty described the use of a punishment that it states “amounts to torture,” called “the box.” It is described as a “2x2 foot cage-like structure people are put in,” shackled to the ground “sometimes for hours at a time, exposed to the elements with hardly any water.”

The facility has processed as many as 22,000 detainees. Hundreds of these were not tracked properly in federal databases and could not be located by reporters for the Miami Herald, raising dark questions about due process and disappearances.

The closure of the detention camp appears to have less to do with humanitarian concerns than ballooning costs and clashing assumptions of who would pay the bills. The state put up nearly half a billion for the construction and running of the facility — on the (flawed) assumption that the Trump administration was good for the money. That reimbursement has only just begun to trickle out.

Despite overseeing this wildly expensive, high-profile failure, DeSantis recently declared the inhumane institution a triumph: “If we shut the lights out tomorrow,” he said, “we will be able to say it served its purpose.”

Whether Broadview or Delaney Hall will join the ranks of future ICE detention center closures is a matter of sustained public outrage and attention. There are many horrors of the Trump administration that command our notice, of course. But few speak so directly to our national character. Human beings held in the name of our government require sleep, sustaining food, sanitary living conditions, and proper medical care. To tolerate less is a moral injury — and an abomination for which history will be our nation’s harshest judge.

(You can contact your members of Congress here.)

Tim Dickinson is the senior political reporter for The Contrarian