Pay close attention: Trump didn’t claim that there was any actual interference in voting or election results. At no point did Trump say or point to any evidence that a single vote was changed or altered. Indeed, even White House conspiracy theorist John Solomon admitted as much to reporters afterwards. That’s because it did not happen. Audits, recounts, certifications, federal investigations, and more than 80 judges, including those appointed by Trump himself, have all uniformly rejected his attacks on the 2020 election.

What we got instead on Thursday was a rehash of four myths, all of which fall apart on close examination.

1. Myth: Purported Vulnerabilities in Electronic Voting and Ballot-Counting Systems

   Trump spoke broadly about vulnerabilities in voting machines, but he did not say there is evidence that voting machines or votes were breached. And that’s because they weren’t. He wants to scare you with the hypothetical, but truth is that our election officials put safeguards in place to minimize any vulnerabilities. Their dedicated work and vigilance ensure our elections work as intended, protected from technological exploitation.

2. Myth: China’s Acquisition of American Voter Data

   This is a scare tactic. Trump made wild claims about the compromise of election data, but let’s be clear: He did not say that votes were exploited or compromised. The voter registration data he is in a twist about actually consists of basic and publicly available data such as names and addresses — far less personal information than what the average American shares when ordering clothes on Temu.

3. Myth: Michigan Voter-Registration Investigation

   Again, there was zero evidence of voting fraud here. Trump didn’t point to any and can’t. Though there were isolated cases of irregularities in registration, local election officials flagged them in real time. Our elections systems worked as intended to unearth them. This is a backhanded endorsement, not a critique.

4. Myth: Noncitizens on State Voter Rolls

   Trump has made these wild claims of folks improperly registering over and over again using baseless allegations and wrong lists, such as the error-ridden and oft-abused Department of Homeland Security SAVE databases. The truth is that Americans follow voter registration laws and cast ballots in good faith, as we documented in our Democracy Defenders Action report with LULAC on The Big Lie.

Then there was the avalanche of documents Trump said would prove him right. They did just the opposite. For example, they show Russia, not China, was working to interfere in the 2020 election — to help Trump! If all of this is the best he and the election deniers have, they are in trouble.

Thursday was a flop — a predictable one. One of us (Norm) was asked by cable TV to do a curtain raiser for the speech. The forecast was for a comically loony mish-mash along the lines of other famous conspiracy theories, and boy did Trump deliver:

Trump lost in 2020. This will remain true no matter how many pieces of bogus evidence he invents or floats. The truth is Trump and his fellow election deniers are not just trying to prove bizarre counterfactuals about prior elections. They’re trying to fool us into doubting the next one.

But we will not let that happen. And with your help, Contrarians, we will call them out on their actions. In America, leaders do not choose their voters; voters choose their leaders. The American people will not let Trump and his cronies take our vote or our voice.

Thanks to you, we stand ready for whatever Trump and his administration may throw at us next. Your paid subscriptions help make our Democracy Defenders Fund and Action election protection work possible and also help power the rest of our over 300 legal cases and matters. If you’re not a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one.

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And of course, your paid support also makes possible our phenomenal daily democracy coverage. Take a look at the best of the Contrarian this week, assembled by our wonderful colleagues:

Dept. of Injustice

Trump’s Cronyism Signals a Chilling — and Familiar — Story

Brian Tyler Cohen analyzed how Trump’s corruption is following an all-too-familiar global playbook — Putin’s — and what we need to do to step out of Russia’s post-Soviet footsteps. “If the next Democratic administration doesn’t take note and prosecute the criminals of today to the fullest extent of the law, then that criminality is doomed to repeat itself.”

The Tea ft. Alphonso David

Global Black Economic Forum President Alphonso David joined April Ryan to talk about Lindsey Graham’s Senate replacement, Trump’s renewed attacks on Georgia’s senators, and what a Todd Blanche DOJ would mean for minority and underserved communities.

Trump DOJ’s NYT Subpoenas Are the Latest Encroachment on Press Freedom

Josh Levs wrote on the latest moves of an administration actively hostile to a free press and how coverage has fallen short by ignoring the history of reporter subpoenas. “It’s crucial information because it shows the media’s successful track record in fighting back.”

Trump’s Lawyers Should Be Sanctioned

Erwin Chemerinsky argued — apropos of a federal judge shutting down Trump’s outrageous IRS lawsuit this week — that all lawyers complicit in Trump’s abuses of power should expect repercussions for egregious misconduct. “Abuses of the legal system, even at the direction of the president, are unacceptable.”

Voting & Candidates

Who Will Replace Graham Platner in Maine?

Tim Dickinson wrote on the slow-then-fast fall of former progressive darling Graham Platner and the newly restarted race to challenge Susan Collins in one of the most important contests of 2026. “Two things are increasingly clear. Democrats dodged a major bullet in Platner. And as Maine goes — so goes the Senate in 2026.”

Diluting the Youth Vote

Diamond Brown and Amelia Letson wrote on how voter suppression tactics target young voter participation in the wake of Louisiana v. Callais and a slew of other Republican efforts to limit who is going to the polls. “These tactics do not operate in isolation.”

The Next Generation Rises

This week, The Contrarian spoke with several of the candidates working to turn the House blue this November: former federal scientist Kristin Hook in Texas’ 21^st District; Matt Maasdam in Michigan’s 7^th District, hoping to be the first Democratic Navy SEAL in Congress; and San Diego City Council and former Peace Corps member Marni von Wilpert in California’s 48th District.

The Global View

Lindsey Graham and the Limits of the Warhawk Imagination

Brian O’Neill wrote on Graham as one of Washington’s last unapologetic hawks and how “his death offers an opportunity to examine a worldview that dominated both political parties after the Cold War and survived … long after its underlying assumptions had ceased to match reality.”

Renewed Strikes on Iran, June Jobs Report, and AI’s Impact on the Workforce

On the podcast this week, economists Jared Bernstein and Aya Ibrahim looked at how the economy is processing new violence in Iran and more.

‘Aramco Is a Supervillain’: How the Saudis Weaponized Soccer

Sammy Roth wrote on Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s master plan to culture-wash Saudi Arabia — and how the irony of the World Cup’s sponsorship by oil-state companies is hard to ignore as the climate crisis affects players in real time. “For all their talk of diversification, the Saudis plan to pump oil for a long time.”

Fighting back

Undaunted

In this week’s Undaunted column, Jen Rubin celebrated the Epstein survivors and others tenaciously confronting acting Attorney General Todd Blanche during his confirmation hearings. “Survivor Dani Bensky’s gut-wrenching testimony put the blame directly on Blanche for releasing victims’ names and images.”

Create ‘Good Trouble’ and Fight Street-Camera Surveillance

In this week’s Calls to Action, we highlighted ongoing Freedom Summer events (including a large rally in Atlanta Saturday afternoon), ways to demand accountability from ICE in the wake of the killing of Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a new way to oppose street-camera surveillance, and more.

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw protests over ICE deaths in Houston and Maine, protests against AI data centers, and more events in North Carolina, Delaware, Wisconsin, Colorado, and elsewhere. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Culture, Cartoons & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on string pulling (Puppet Show, Nick Anderson; Operating at Arm’s Length, Michael de Adder), paper shredding (Redacted, RJ Matson), and yarn spinning (Tom the Dancing Bug, “Stigmatized!”; Digging Up Evidence, Michael de Adder).

Why the Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger Should Scare Film and TV Lovers

Meredith Blake wrote on what’s at stake as 12 states sue to block the $110 billion merger that would bring two of Hollywood’s biggest studios under the control of Trump allies. It’s “something that should trouble anyone who cares about movies, TV, and American popular culture.”

This Chickpea Pasta Just Solved Airline Enshittification

Lol, not really, writes Emily Beyda. But she’s hoping it will make her 10-hour flight home more bearable (and it might work for your next trip, too!).

Contrarian Rescue of the Week

Last but never least: meet Duke!

But don’t just take my word for it. Instead, consider the evidence represented by the word of over 100 former judges. Their bar complaint asking the New York State Bar to investigate Blanche for multiple ethics issues is a shocking expose. We at Democracy Defenders Fund with Lawyers Defending American Democracy were proud to represent the judges — and to lay out what is in effect an epic indictment of the acting AG.

Like the rest of my over 300 legal matters and cases, your paid subscriptions helped make it possible. All profits go to support pro-democracy litigation like this complaint.

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Let’s start with Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund. As the judges’ complaint outlines, Blanche helped orchestrate an egregious settlement between Trump as a private citizen and the Trump administration. This sweetheart deal would have green-lit payouts to Trump allies, including Jan. 6 insurrectionists who attacked law enforcement, from a taxpayer-funded $1.776 billion fund. The terms of this settlement also purport to shield Trump, his family, and their businesses from all investigations by the IRS or other agencies for any past conduct — unheard-of treatment for any American president.

As we and the judges said in the complaint, “This extraordinary ‘sight unseen’ global release of liability not only violates longstanding norms established in the Justice Manual, but it could serve as the functional equivalent of a backdoor blanket pardon—inoculating President Trump, his family, and any ‘related or affiliated individuals’ from federal oversight to the overwhelming prejudice of the interests of Mr. Blanche’s client: the United States.”

In addition, Blanche oversaw a growing list of abusive and frivolous investigations against perceived opponents of the administration and personal foes of Trump. Our complaint highlights two examples: Kilmar Abrego Garcia and James Comey. A judge threw out the Abrego Garcia indictment, concluding that “[t]he evidence before this Court sadly reflects an abuse of prosecuting power.” And both of Comey’s indictments, also on such limited grounds, suggest that Blanche and his Justice Department were seeking to punish one of Trump’s chief “political enemies.”

Last, and perhaps worst of all, we demonstrate that Blanche’s personal involvement in the bungled release of the Epstein files is also cause for investigation. Not only did he oversee the failure to properly redact the names of nearly 100 victims, but he also failed to release information required under the Epstein Files Transparency Act. As if that were not bad enough, Blanche’s “communications and actions suggest that he may have been motivated to end inquiries into the Epstein files to protect Mr. Trump and himself in violation of his duty of loyalty to the United States,” the Bar complaint noted. As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) expressed in his recent Contrarian essay, “A government of laws is the opposite of what Blanche wants; he wants all the laws flat before Trump.”

Others also have been speaking out. This week, just days before his confirmation hearing, more than 1,200 former Department of Justice employees urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Blanche’s nomination, warning that he has compromised the DOJ’s independence and integrity. The Justice Connection deserves credit for organizing this extraordinary, unprecedented effort, bringing together DOJ alumni from 14 administrations with thousands of years of collective experience in defense of the Justice Department. Their letter aptly points out that under Blanche’s leadership, more than 16,000 employees have left the DOJ, including over a quarter of its attorneys — many of whom were forced to choose between keeping their jobs and carrying out vindictive prosecutions and other unethical assignments.

Former pardon attorney Liz Oyer wrote an extraordinary missive to the Judiciary Committee as well. She recounts that Blanche fired her after she refused to fulfill a request from his office to use her official position to advance a favor for a friend of the president — restoring federal firearms rights to an individual convicted of domestic abuse. And in an effort to prevent Oyer from informing Congress about his actions, Blanche directed U.S. Marshals to deliver an intimidating letter to her home and initiated an — in our view — unfounded professional misconduct complaint against her.

There you have it Contrarians. It’s a compelling case against Blanche, and you are a part of it — thanks to your paid subscriptions. If you are not a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one.

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Of course, your paid subscriptions also help make possible our pro-democracy coverage every day. We think there is nothing quite like it. To see for yourself here, as usual, is the best of this week’s Contrarian.

Targeting Citizens

Are You Anti-Fascist? Then MAGA Would Call You a Domestic Terrorist

Lily Conway wrote on the outrageous sentencing of anti-ICE protesters and the criminalization of dissent. “The vagueness of the Justice Department’s definition of ‘anti-fascist’ is a purposeful obfuscation meant to grant wide permissions to the legal and criminal enforcement arms of the state to go after anyone they deem to be too critical.”

If All Lives Mattered, This Administration Would Seek Justice for Nolan Xavier Wells’ Death

Carron J. Philips wrote on the death of Nolan Xavier Wells and the all-too-revealing lack of federal law enforcement attention. “A Black boy among a large group of white teenagers in the Deep South disappeared and died, and suddenly nobody knows anything.”

The Spy List Washington Should Not Build

Brian O’Neill wrote on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s push for a consolidated list of intelligence targets — which, in the wrong hands (theirs), “becomes a tool for control, exposure, and political misuse.”

Supreme Court Shame

Reining in a Rogue Supreme Court

Norman Ornstein gave a blistering analysis of Slaughter v. Trump, in which the Supreme Court ruled last week that the president can fire independent regulators at will and called on Congress to exercise its constitutional authority to rein in a court bent on undermining democracy itself. The Founders “did not see the Supreme Court as all-powerful.”

The Supreme Court’s Extremists Continue to Attack Good Governance

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) wrote on how the Supreme Court’s attack on independent regulation serves exclusively the corrupt interests of “billionaire polluters.” “The extremist wing on the Supreme Court apparently knows better [than] every federal and state government [and] decades of previous justices.”

An Authoritarian’s Dream

Nancy Gertner and John Shattuck wrote on the Supreme Court’s latest decisions as an exercise in propping up an otherwise flailing presidency with the tools of autocracy — which is, they point out, not always a winning long-term strategy. “Let us not forget that King George III was sacked by the American people.”

Revisionist Reality

The Clouds Are Warning Us

Mike Tidwell wrote on how disappearing clouds could be making extreme weather events like the July 4 heat wave worse, even as Republicans continue to reject the reality of climate change. “We could be heading for a world in which only by mimicking volcanic eruptions can we fend off hell on Earth.”

America’s Choice: Authoritarian Propaganda, or an Honest History?

Jeff Nesbit wrote on a recent White House “hit piece” on the Smithsonian: its latest authoritarian attempt to replace historical scholarship with state propaganda. “True patriotism does not require a country to lie to its children about its past to ensure their loyalty to its future.”

Split Screen: Building a Legacy by Destroying History

Azza Cohen analyzed Trump’s destructive, gonzo image-making, from Mar-a-Lago-ifying the White House to flooding social media with AI fever dreams, as a means of drowning institutional memory. “Let us not fall for all the gilded distractions.”

Fighting Back

Trump Has Blazed a Path to Midterm Victories — for Democrats

Jill Lawrence called on Democrats to get past inside skirmishes and back to the job of building the big tent required ahead of the midterms. “It’s time to make the best, most heartfelt, most relatable case you can to the people you want to represent.”

Undaunted

In this week’s Undaunted, Jennifer Rubin celebrated the lower-court judges continuing to hold the line against Trump’s attempts to undermine free and fair elections. “This crucial work is all the more critical given the slim thread by which election law sanity hangs at the Supreme Court.”

Demand ICE Accountability, Make ‘Good Trouble’

Our latest Calls to Action include ways to oppose Todd Blanche’s AG confirmation, stop Russ Vought’s takeover of science grants, support trans youth, and more routes to Good Trouble.

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw protests to demand justice for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s fatal shooting by ICE agents, data center protests, No Kings on the 4^th of July, veterans marching for “Freedom over Fascism,” and more.

Cartoons, Culture, & Fun Stuff

Our cartoonists took on the bang-wrapped whimper of Freedom 250 (‘It’s Gonna Be Forever, Or It’s Gonna Go Down In Flames’, Nick Anderson; Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling), a better name for Trump’s crypto (Mine, Mine, Mine, Michael de Adder), and the administration’s strategic direction (Hey, Who’s Driving This Car?, Nick Anderson).

The Glorious Spectacle of John Oliver on ‘General Hospital’

Meredith Blake wrote on the real can’t-miss pop culture event of recent weeks, in which comedian — and genuine soap fan — John Oliver got the “juicy” role he always wanted and TV viewers got a crossover for the ages. Taylor and Travis could never.

So, Your Country Hosted the World Cup

Megan Armstrong wrote on the complexities of loving a grand global celebration of sport — that’s also yet another showcase for corruption. “FIFA President Gianni Infantino met his match in U.S. President Donald Trump.”

Limited Edition Screen Prints!

Celebrate America 250 with The Art of Resistance

This limited-edition collection of screen prints is created to honor the American tradition of leveraging creative expression to inspire change.

All proceeds from merch sales go towards funding critical litigation and resistance journalism to fight back against Trump and uphold democracy.

Click here to order yours!

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On Monday, we won the Lisa Cook case. The Supreme Court, with a 5-4 majority, blocked Trump’s attempt to fire the first Black woman to serve as a Federal Reserve governor. Democracy Defenders Fund was counsel of record alongside Lowell & Associates, Cooley LLP, and Clement & Murphy PLLC. As Abbe Lowell and I said in our joint statement, Trump’s firing of Cook was always “a manufactured pretext to bend the Fed to his political will,” and the court didn’t buy it.

Also on Monday, we supported the win in Watson v. RNC — a victory for voters and a rejection of the Republican National Committee’s effort to throw out ballots postmarked by Election Day but received after. DDF filed an amicus brief in this case on behalf of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), our frequent partner; no voter should ever lose his or her voice because a political party wants to change the rules.

We followed that up 24 hours later with the birthright citizenship case — a win two years in the making for us and our great co-counsel, clients, and partners. We started planning for Donald Trump’s illegal overreach nearly two years ago, when Project 2025 flagged birthright citizenship as a target. Because of that preparation, we were able to file the original case that ultimately resulted in this victory with our partners on day one of the Trump administration. Our role included something I am especially proud of: working with our colleagues at LULAC to connect with brave expectant mothers who served as plaintiffs, taking necessary precautions to protect their identities while allowing them to share what this moment meant to them. My colleague Lica Porcile was on TV with one of our clients, translating her emotional reaction to a truly landmark day. It is worth a watch.

I also explained the meaning of this ruling on MSNow right after it came down. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that the men who drafted the 14th Amendment “extended that promise to every free-born person in this land.” Trump tried to rewrite who counted as an American, and the court said no.

Our win rate at the Supreme Court was about 80% this term — a striking figure given the court was so often bereft of law and logic. That was on display in Monday’s ruling in another case that was brought by friends of ours, Trump v. Slaughter. It gives Trump sweeping new power to fire members of independent federal agencies — a decision he immediately celebrated. The court also upheld state bans on transgender athletes and lifted Watergate-era caps on coordinated spending between political parties and their candidates, which will pump more dirty, dark, and corporate money into politics — the exact opposite of what we need.

Those decisions and many others demonstrate that the court is irreversibly broken. So do the bare 5-4 majorities in all three of our wins. (Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh concurred in the judgment with the five in the majority in birthright but on such different and wrong grounds that he cannot fully be counted; I agree with eminent constitutionalist Larry Tribe that it should essentially be viewed as a 5-4 decision.)

Demand is building for court reform, and I agree. That should start with serious consideration of term limits for justices. That would allow a more reasonable rotation of judicial appointments that would more closely track presidential terms and the will of the American people — a welcome infusion of democracy into the institution.

One more abuse of the courts broke while I was writing this column. My client, the Olympic canoeist Davey Hearn, was charged with a felony for touching the Reflecting Pool. We at Democracy Defenders Fund are proud to represent him with Mary Dohrmann at the Washington Litigation Group. As Mary and I said on Thursday when the charge was announced, Davey is innocent. These charges are outrageous and should be alarming to every American. This indictment reflects the administration’s effort to shift blame for its own failures. As our nation celebrates Independence Day, Americans should be deeply concerned about the misuse of government power against an ordinary citizen based on a concocted narrative. The justice system exists to determine facts, not to provide political cover. We look forward to our day in court and to allowing the same court system that is being misused to vindicate itself — and Davey.

My mixed feelings about those court highs and lows are appropriate as we celebrate America’s 250th. Despite my American pride and patriotism, some ambivalence is in order this semiquincentennial. The mighty ideals of 1776 and the founding generation have inspired Americans and people around the world. But they have never been completely fulfilled. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” That promissory note has never been fully honored, and in fact we have gone deeper into debt on it in the past 17 months.

Still, what could be more patriotic than fighting to turn that around — that is, fighting for the American idea? We will keep on doing that with the help of your paid subscriptions. It is the most unique bargain in American journalism. You not only support cases like birthright and Cook, but also our great coverage of how our democracy is doing. See for yourself in this week’s roundup, featuring the best of our coverage, including some truly brilliant essays about America’s 250th birthday.

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The Promise of America by Maria Cardona

Yes, the country has changed, hardened. But if anger is the spark, hope must be the fuel.

The Moral Test of a Republic by John F. Terzano

“Thank You For Your Service” is not enough.

Who Will Stand the Next Watch? By Brian O’Neill

Our republic still needs people willing to tell power what it needs to know, not what it wants to hear.

How Much Democracy Does America Really Have? By Ben Sheehan

Quite a bit, but it expands and contracts. How it does so depends on us.

Backsliding Toward 250: The Hijacking of Religion at the Semiquincentennial by Robert P. Jones

At 250, it’s time to celebrate the pluralistic nation we have organically become instead of a mythical white Christian nation we have allegedly lost.

The South Shows America How to Fight to Expand Democracy for All By Stacey Abrams and Genny Castillo

Democracy has never been more necessary or more at risk, but giving up on the South would doom us all.

America 250: Our Progress. Our Peril. Our Path Forward. By Tim Dickinson

To counter a MAGA “revolution,” we may need a new (OK, old) refresh of the bill of rights.

No One is Stealing My Fourth by Jamie Riley

Donald Trump destroys everything he touches, but he can’t touch our patriotism.

What Patriotism and Loving My Country Means This July 4th by Laleh Ispahani

250 years on, America’s promise lives in our actions toward bettering our country and supporting one another.

How Lincoln Changed Our Understanding of the Declaration by Ted Widmer

He believed we could make the Declaration whole by living up to its better sentences and refusing to give in to those who will try to weaken them.

Country Over Corporation: Reclaiming American Freedom

Professor Eddie Glaude, in conversation with April Ryan, reminds us of July Fourth’s true meaning and why Americans must fight back for freedom.

Not Dead Yet by Meghan Houser

America’s 250th is a day for celebrating the defiant pulse of the living.

We Need a Re-Founding by Janai Nelson

250 years into the American experiment, it’s time for the radical hope to imagine better.

Your Revolutionary Summer Reading List by Meredith Blake and contributors

From our Culture Columnist and other Contrarians, recommended fiction and nonfiction that illuminates where we are — and how we got here.

Limited Edition Screen Prints!

Celebrate America 250 with The Art of Resistance

This limited-edition collection of screen prints is created to honor the American tradition of leveraging creative expression to inspire change.

All proceeds from merch sales go towards funding critical litigation and resistance journalism to fight back against Trump and uphold democracy.

Click here to order yours!

A 67-year-old former Olympic canoeist, finishing a long bike ride on a sunny June morning, swings by the Lincoln Memorial. A concerned citizen, he wanted to see for himself what had happened to the nation’s cherished Reflecting Pool. Despite doing nothing wrong, within moments he was in handcuffs.

That is the story of Davey Hearn — and it is the newest of the over 300 legal cases and matters that your paid subscriptions help make possible, Contrarians.

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Few of those cases capture the absurdity of this moment quite like Davey’s. As a U.S. canoeist in three Olympics and eight World Championships, he was celebrated for representing his country on the water. Now he is being prosecuted for touching it.

As I told Chris Hayes when Davey and I appeared together on MSNow on Monday: There is no crime here. Instead what we have is, as The New York Times reported Tuesday, a White House that knew much earlier than it admitted that the pool was deteriorating — and was looking for others to blame.

The targeting of Davey is an example of what makes this such a dangerous moment for American democracy and the American people. We’ve seen what this administration does to Americans who dare to question ICE’s actions, or demand accountable government, or object when their rights are violated. By standing up and speaking out, Davey has demonstrated bravery. We at Democracy Defenders Fund are proud to represent him together with the Washington Litigation Group, and we will vigorously contest these charges.

Davey’s courage is also helping shine a light on corruption. The Reflecting Pool fiasco is of a piece with other major Trump corruption cases of the moment: the Kennedy Center renaming, the $1.8 billion slush fund, and the Epstein files. Each of these four breakthrough scandals follows the same autocratic playbook: abuse power, make a mess, then dodge accountability. And in each case, my colleagues and I are fighting back with the help of your paid subscriptions.

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On the slush fund, we at Democracy Defenders Action filed another brief last week with Platkin LLP on behalf of our 35 former federal judges, supporting the court’s inquiry into whether it was defrauded. At the Kennedy Center, we and the Washington Litigation Group got Trump’s name off the building — but the administration erected a tarp over the facade in what our client Rep. Joyce Beatty called a “petty act of defiance.” After we petitioned the court, the judge ordered the administration to explain itself.

On Epstein, we are so proud of our colleague Katie Phang, who just won a preliminary injunction in her case to enforce the Epstein Files Transparency Act, represented by Brendan Ballou and our other friends at the Public Integrity Project. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche now has one week to start producing critically important documents he has been withholding — or show cause why he should not do so. That includes disclosing documents or removing redactions on emails, FBI reports, and draft indictments revealing the identity of possible additional wrongdoers and co-conspirators — plus much more.

This week, my Democracy Defenders colleagues and I also filed a complaint to the New York State Bar on behalf of over 100 judges. Working with Lawyers Defending American Democracy, we are calling for a professional responsibility investigation into Blanche. He is the same Blanche who, as former DOJ Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer documented this week, broke prison rules to move Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security facility. She appears to be the only convicted sex offender ever to have received such an exemption. Blanche’s July confirmation hearing is going to be a doozy.

We, our wonderful clients and partners and the democracy coalition writ large are winning on the corruption front — as on so many others.

Take election protection. This week also saw a series of court triumphs on election issues in which the pro-voter coalition has been successfully fighting back against Trump since day one. That includes not only litigation breakthroughs by the coalition but also limiting the post-Callais damage in the South to just three stolen congressional seats this cycle. Any stolen seat is terrible, but this could’ve been so much worse.

And all of that is before decisions next week on two landmark Supreme Court cases in which we and our wonderful partners are hopeful of success: the Cook case upholding the independence of the Federal Reserve and the birthright citizenship case upholding the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to all born in the United States.

You help make all that possible, Contrarians. It is the most unique bargain in American journalism. Your paid subscriptions help fund our over 300 legal cases and matters like representing Davey Hearn against wrongful criminal prosecution. And you also support our scintillating pro-democracy journalism, as you can see for yourself in our weekly roundup of the best of The Contrarian.

What Comes Next

America 250: Our Progress. Our Peril. Our Path Forward.

Tim Dickinson kicked off our America 250 coverage with a prescription to counter the MAGA “revolution”: a new (or, rather, old) refresh of the Bill of Rights.

America’s Best Kept Secret: Progressiveness Is Popular

Jennifer Rubin wrote on why Republicans, not Democrats, should be in a defensive crouch. “The cliché that we are a “divided” country is a dodge to avoid recognizing how badly MAGA is faring.”

Trump’s Troubling Health & Mamdani the Kingmaker?

On the podcast this week, Katie Phang and Simon Rosenberg discussed Tuesday’s primary results and the tea leaves around Donald Trump’s recent health reports. “As somebody who’s more of an establishment Democrat … I welcome all these debates. I’m not scared of them.”

Removing the Roadblocks to Political and Economic Change

Nat Kendall-Taylor shared new research on the rising demand for sweeping reforms in the face of an affordability crisis and still-encroaching authoritarianism: “71% of our research participants say our political system needs major changes or to be completely reformed.”

Iran & Israel

The Iran Deal’s Real Consequence

Brian O’Neill analyzed the settling dust on Trump’s Iran agreement: an attempt at closure from which China and other global players may take a very different lesson. “They watched Washington improvise its way from bombing to bargaining, and they’ll adjust accordingly.”

Words & Phrases

Jen wrote on attempts by MAGA pols and dark money groups to define who is pro-Israel— and how Trump, his white Christian nationalist allies, and AIPAC have done incalculable harm to Middle East stability, Israel’s security, and the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Healthcare in Danger

On The Dobbs Anniversary, Taking Stock of Women’s Health

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf and Joyce Vance marked the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to roll back not just abortion rights but also women’s health and freedoms writ large by decades. “[This] is and always has been about amassing power and exerting control.”

The Algorithm Said No

Reuben Steiger wrote on the AI-automated processing systems that are now slashing Medicare coverage — and violating the fundamentals of due process. “We have a government that can refuse you anything and explain nothing.”

Public Health Is About to Get Sicker

Dr. Mariam Rashid and Dr. Perry N. Halikitis wrote on a new federal rule seeking to defund public health degrees, even as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-DEI, pro-“efficiency” crusade endangers care capacity. “The hantavirus does not check passports. Contaminated water does not stop at Zip code boundaries.”

Fighting Back

To Defeat Authoritarianism, Start Here

Ami Fields-Meyer drew on interviews with political dissidents across five continents to give us new answers on how any American can fight democratic backsliding. “Individual acts of courage matter more than you think.”

Speak Up For the First Amendment, Protect Peace

In this week’s Calls to Action, opportunities to tell off the Federal Communications Commission, defend voting rights, oppose Rick Perry’s proposed elimination of the Peace Corps, protect ICE protestors, mobilize for All of Us 250, and more. And if your state’s primary dates are still to come: VOTE!

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw continued celebrations of Juneteenth, protests in Oregon and Illinois, support for the Prairieland defendants, ongoing Albania protests, and more. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Cartoons, Culture, & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on a money pit (Charity Case, RJ Matson), a cesspit (Color Guard, Michael de Adder; Crime and Punishment, Nick Anderson) and the pits in human form (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

A Sitcom’s Message of Tolerance 50 Years Ago

Frederic J. Frommer wrote on the groundbreaking episode of The Bob Newhart Show that featured an openly gay character in a storyline of dignity and acceptance. “Newhart, an actor known for his own sense of decency, certainly lived up to that reputation.”

“If It’s Too Loud, Turn It Up”

Alan Light spoke with the incomparable Tori Amos on In Times of Dragons, a fiery protest album by way of the saga of an imagined relationship with a “Lizard Demon” businessman. “I don’t believe that you can sit on the sidelines, not right now, not anymore.”

The Culture Wars Feel Inescapable. It Wasn’t Always This Way.

Meredith Blake wrote on Isaac Butler’s new book, The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars, which looks to the twilight of the Reagan years for the origin of a present in which “seemingly every choice we make — from the sports we enjoy to the music we listen to — feels like a political statement.”

Syrian-Inspired Lazy Girl Chickpeas and Rice

Emily Beyda gave us a quick-and-easy recipe perfect for keeping your cool in the hot, hot heat of summer.

As I told Nicolle, the artifact that hit me the hardest was the center’s original print of the Declaration of Independence.

That founding document kicks off the displays — spanning five floors — telling the story of the Obama presidency in the context of the past 250 years. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all … would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Obama presidency felt like a huge payment on that note, and the past 17 months like a massive debit. But the two-and-a-half century story the center tells is a reminder that together we can overcome this moment and restart progress. Or as Barack put it in his remarks at the opening on Thursday, quoting one of his and Dr. King’s favorite sayings, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Wednesday morning, I got to spend a few minutes with President Obama at the center at a gathering for administration veterans in the Sky Room at the pinnacle of the building. We caught up a little bit, reminisced about friends present and departed, and talked democracy.

Obama was trailed by his White House photographer, Pete Souza. We have gotten to be buddies over the years, and I turned the tables on him by taking a selfie of the two of us.

Like countless people I talked to in Chicago, Pete thanked me for the Kennedy Center case, the slush fund case, and the over 300 other pro-democracy litigation matters you help make possible through your paid subscriptions, Contrarians.

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After meeting with Barack, we were invited to spend the day exploring the center and talking to the people who helped create it. It was like a day-long house party (in an exceptionally fancy and large house). Here I am, still in the Sky Room, with the artist Idris Khan. He covered the ceiling in thousands of hand-stamped words from Obama’s Selma speech, layered and ascending toward a skylight — as if the words themselves are rising up to the heavens.

As I strolled the building, I also met Nicola Green, a British artist who has made art about Obama and what his rise meant to the U.S. and the world. The remarkable story of her work with him will be a subject of her book coming out in August — we will have her on The Contrarian to tell the tale! Three of her silkscreens from the series “In Seven Days...” are on display on the first floor of the center. They are inspired by thousands of drawings, photographs, and notes she gathered during the 2008 campaign.

I also got to visit with the great American artist Carrie Mae Weems, whose “The Cool Blue Wind” is a photographic collage on silver and gold metallic paper, washed in blue, with an original jazz soundtrack playing above.

The images and music evoke Obama’s 2008 campaign — I was there, and I can tell you that like a jazz ensemble, there were elements of improvisation and of everyone coming together in beautiful unison. She also reminded me that artists are foundational to resistance, a lesson (as she and I discussed) that I also learned from Vaclav Havel.

Speaking of resistance, the official opening ceremony the next day was a fascinating study in repudiating Donald Trump — without ever mentioning his name.

That began with every living presidential couple taking the stage, save one. (You can’t see Hillary and Bill, they were behind Sasha and Malia from my angle, but take my word for it — they were there!) The absence of that presence was loud.

Then there were the musical acts. Again, they never uttered the name of the current president — I’m sure they were asked to keep it classy. But it was a lineup of musical performers Trump could only dream of for his coming 250 event, and one that exemplified the talent, joy, and diversity that are his antithesis. This was the grand finale, with Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Common, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and Eddie Vedder:

Finally, the Obamas’ remarks were a moving affirmation of our American story and their role in it. But they did not pull punches on where we are now. Take this from Michelle:

I hope that when you walk through this campus and bring your children here…you fully absorb the elation of achieving something together…. And I know that can be hard to grasp right now, when everything feels so upside down, when fact and fiction run together, when folks seek to stifle speech, limit access to education, devalue diversity, erase the inconvenient parts of our history, when our phones constantly buzz with the latest outrage.

I hope that this place can offer a respite from all that, at least for a little while. I hope it can reignite the optimism and empathy and ambition that has always powered this country’s greatest change.

Barack’s challenge to Trump came when he celebrated our democracy, as he had said he would at our Wednesday morning gathering — including talking about that copy of the Declaration that had struck me so powerfully on my center walk-through:

Over more than two centuries, through petitions and protests, marches and strikes, moral appeals from the pulpit and conversations at the family dinner table, men and women from all walks of life of every color, every faith, every region took up the cause of democracy and made it their own, until “We the people” came to include not just some of us, but all of us.

And that’s why the story we tell in this building begins not with Michelle’s origins or my origins, but with our nation’s, with the founding era print of the Declaration of Independence, and a pen and ink stand used by Frederick Douglas, Lincoln’s bible and a pamphlet by Ida B. Wells, suffragists’ buttons and a hard hat worn by FDR’s labor secretary, Frances Perkins.

And it’s why the exhibits here focus not just on policies but on the shared values that make democracy possible. A belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people, and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection. A belief in checks and balances in our government and an accountability that comes with an independent judiciary and a robust, free press. A belief that our military and law enforcement owe allegiance not to any president or political party but to the people and our Constitution. A belief in the peaceful transfer of power after the people have spoken in fair and free elections, recognizing that in a large, complicated society like ours, no group or faction gets its way 100% of the time. And a belief that qualities of character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, a sense of duty and honor, those things matter in our public dealings, just as they do in our private lives.

These are the values and traditions I believe in, and they are not Republican or Democratic values. They’re American values we can all share, regardless of party, values every president here today, as different as we are, has tried our best to uphold, values that John MacCain and Mitt Romney believed in, no less than I did.

It is our greatest inheritance, the story of America at its best, because it reflects a basic faith in the decency of our fellow citizens and the possibility that despite all of our differences, we can see each other and understand one another and make common cause together.

Like a nesting doll, Obama’s words surround the petty evil of the current regime with the greatness of his presidency, embedded within the vastness of America’s past 250 years — and our next 250. Those remarks and my time at the center give hope.

When I traded notes with some of those sitting around me after the speech, they tended to agree. Here I am with a holy Trinity of late night — and a Jedi knight:

A lot of people are paying attention to our shared work, Contrarians. That includes both our unparalleled coverage of our democracy and our litigation to protect that democracy.

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See for yourself with our usual weekly roundup of the best of The Contrarian.

The Iran “Deal”

The Iran Deal is Worse Than the War

Jennifer Rubin wrote on the Versailles-signed agreement that will supposedly end Trump’s costly folly of a war. “Trump promised at the start of his illegal war to extract an unconditional surrender. Certainly, the document does read like a near total capitulation — but not by the Iranian regime.”

Did We Gain Anything From the Iran War?

I spoke with Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) on what — if anything — Trump has achieved in Iran besides global economic insecurity, death, and destruction. “We’re worse off than before.”

The Clock Is Tehran’s Friend

Brian O’Neill wrote on what’s likely to come next in Iran, and why Tehran’s aim is to make the dealmaker live with a deal that never closes. “Iran does not need collapse. Collapse would clarify things. Ambiguity is more useful.”

Policy Report Card

The Screwworm Is the Cost of RFK Jr. All But Killing Public Health

Jeff Nesbit wrote on how a cattle parasite is reaping the Trump regime’s anti-science agenda. “This isn’t a food safety crisis (at least not yet)…. But to the pocketbook of the typical American consumer, the return of the screwworm is a slow-burning catastrophe.”

Republicans Starved Social Security

Jen wrote on Republicans’ latest “solutions” to the Social Security solvency problem and the questions Trump refuses to address. “We anxiously await the answers — and for Democrats to raise the Social Security issue over and over again on the campaign trail and in every available oversight and budget hearing.”

It’s Impossible to Believe This Administration Likes Black People

Carron J. Phillips wrote on the Pentagon’s removal of a prominent portrait of America’s first Black four-star general, Chappie James, and the silence around a UFC fighter’s attack on Michelle Obama as the latest in an ongoing pattern of erasure and abuse. “The race to the bottom is being led by those who serve at the top.”

Voting

After Callais, Democrats Must Bet Big on the Black-led Organizing in the South

Pamela Shifman warned against the would-be pragmatic strategizing that would have Democrats focus voting efforts outside the South in the wake of Callais. “To abandon the South now would mean turning our backs on the very people who have consistently put everything on the line for American democracy.”

What ‘the Math’ Says About the Midterms

Tim Dickinson interviewed VoteHub data science guru Zachary Donnini to size up Democratic prospects for capturing Congress in 2026. “The Senate landscape is incredibly chaotic.”

Voters Reject the GOP’s Chaos, Corruption, and Rising Costs

Brooke Butler wrote on the special elections that have shown Trump and MAGA Republicans underwater in districts across the country. “Democrats know we need candidates who can articulate a clear contrast between their forward-looking vision … and [a] trail of broken promises.

Fighting Back

From FDR to the Obama Center

Lorraine Forte also wrote about the opening of the Obama Presidential Center this week and how the space makes clear that it is not intended as a grand monument to the former president but to the power of democracy. (Unlike, you know, certain more recent presidential constructions.)

Take Action for Juneteenth and Voting Rights

See the Contrarian Calls to Action this week for ways to keep the spirit of Juneteenth going into “Freedom Summer,” plus prep for “All of Us 250” and how to protest Trump’s renewed push of the anti-voting rights SAVE Act.

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week we saw protesting around the G7 and corruption in the World Cup, Pride flags flying, a No Kings protest in Colorado, anti-ICE activism, and more. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Culture, Cartoons, & Fun Stuff

This week found our cartoonists in a reflecting mood (Metamorphoses, Nick Anderson; Clean You Can See, RJ Matson) in the face of thwarted presidential ambitions (Renaming Rights, Michael de Adder; Speak Softly, Nick Anderson, Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

The New York Knicks Are the Perfect Antidote

Megan Armstrong invited all of us to bask in this New York minute at a time when collective joy has been in short supply. “Nothing compares to witnessing the end of a drought, the breakthrough of human spirit bucking against historical precedent.”

America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries

Abraham Kenmore spoke with historian Eddie S. Glaude Jr. about his new book, America, U.S.A., which traces the moments when the United States has marked its founding — and who has been left out of these commemorations. “My love of this place — not the abstraction of this place — is rooted in the people.”

‘Idiocracy’ Now!

Meredith Blake wrote on Mike Judge’s 2006 dystopian satire, which bombed at the box office 20 years ago but has since seemed all too prophetic to many viewers — especially after last past weekend’s corporate-sponsored blood sport at the White House.

Let’s start with the Kennedy Center, where this happened in the wee hours early on Saturday:

The removal of Trump’s name was thanks to our client, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), to my colleagues at Democracy Defenders Action, to our co-counsel Washington Litigation Group — and to your paid subscriptions, which help fuel my and my colleagues’ pro-democracy litigation.

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Of course, Trump being Trump, he and his cronies did it in the stupidest and most unlawful way. Throughout the 24 hours before the Friday midnight deadline, Trump & Co. kept trying and failing to get a stay of the order to remove his name. We responded to his desperate gambits with snap filings of our own and defeated him at both the trial and appellate level.

Then Trump blew past the court-ordered midnight Friday deadline in order to erect a scaffold and then hang a tarp, clearly so he could attempt to hide the removal of the letters. It was a literal cover-up! But, true to form, he botched the attempt to hide the removal, allowing photographers to capture an iconic image.

The scale of Trump’s corruption makes Richard Nixon look like a piker — and Trump’s bumbling makes the Watergate burglars look slick. As we noted in response to the regime’s midnight motion to get another 12 hours, “Defendants had two weeks to comply with the order, and only need an extension because of their inexcusable delay.”

Meanwhile, the whole pathetic display only heightened already strong public attention across the nation. Why do people care so much about this case? Trump’s name on that building defaced the memory of a beloved, fallen president. We don’t need more than that to be horrified.

But there is more. The Trump administration has featured the most outrageous corruption of any president in American history. Like the $1.8 billion slush fund (more in a minute about that), the Kennedy Center renaming is a corruption scandal. The naming rights to the building are literally priceless. Congress mandated the name, and by law that is sacrosanct. For Trump to violate that by putting his own name on the structure is yet another theft from the American people.

And the removal of the name is visible, tangible proof that Trump’s corruption and Trump himself can be stopped — that the rule of law still reigns in America and we can take back the institutions of our democracy. And if Trump thinks he’s just gonna leave the tarp there indefinitely to cover up his shame, we have plans for that, too.

We could not fight Trump’s corruption without you Contrarians. We are capping off our week-long pledge drive for new paid subscriptions to support the Contrarian 1-2 punch. The first is our great weekly coverage. The second is the fact that all profits from those paid subscriptions go to help support my and colleagues’ pro-democracy litigation.

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Your support was on full display not only at the Kennedy Center but also earlier on Friday when we supported some folks who put the kibosh on Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund. A Virginia federal judge enjoined the fund at the request of a wonderful group of lawyers and their clients. She had this to say about a bipartisan brief that we filed in that case on behalf of a Republican and a Democratic senator:

Senators Booker and Cassidy’s timely brief is very useful by providing the unique perspective of current members of the U.S. Senate and explaining how the Anti-Weaponization Fund implicates significant legal and constitutional issues including the Appropriations and Appointments Clauses of the Constitution, as well as the separation of powers.

The judge also read the following passage from our brief aloud from the bench at the hearing where she granted the injunction:

A scheme deliberately designed to recast insurrectionists — including those who perpetrated violence against law enforcement officers — as victims and legitimate prosecutions as persecution does not merely rewrite history. It creates incentives for similar conduct in the future, with the explicit encouragement of the officials responsible for administering justice.

Kudos to our Democracy Defenders Action co-counsel at Platkin LLP and to our local counsel at WLG, plus the superb lawyers and their clients who brought the case in the first place.

But it’s not enough to stop the slush funds from flowing. We have to hold accountable the people responsible. That’s why we, with Platkin LLP and Susman Godfrey, represented a bipartisan group of 35 former judges who successfully petitioned a Florida federal judge to investigate the whole mess.

That case is important because it provides an additional vehicle to probe the $1.8B and the associated “settlements” purporting to wipe away vast liabilities from Trump and his family. Late Friday night, Trump’s lawyers filed their brief attempting to justify this outrage. It substantially consists of attacking the motives and acumen of our dozens of former federal judges appointed by presidents of both parties and with hundreds of years of collective experience on the bench.

Now it is our turn to file a response explaining why this scandalous behavior — unlike anything we have ever seen in our history — is unjustifiable. Stay tuned.

As I finished this column, the New York Knicks won their first championship in 53 years. Some spoke of the Curse of Donald when the Knicks’ 13-game playoff winning streak was broken on the very night Trump attended. The Curse seemed to persist like a hangover into the next game, with the team falling behind by 29 points. But Knicks fans who hung in there saw their team overcome the largest deficit in NBA Finals history that night and then come from behind again on Saturday to win it all. You Contrarians have hung in there with our democracy (and us) over the past 17 months. We Contrarians and we Americans will also shake off the Curse of Donald and prevail. Our work on the Kennedy Center and slush fund cases are a powerful reminder of that.

For more proof, enjoy our usual rundown of the best of the Contrarian this week:

Injustice at DOJ

Catch-1001: How Coordinated Investigations Have Made Congressional Testimony Dangerous

Former federal prosecutor Alexis Loeb wrote for us on the suspicious convergence of pressure happening as groups like the SPLC and ActBlue are made to testify before Congress while facing active DOJ criminal investigations. “The risks go beyond an unfortunate sound bite.”

Todd Blanche Is Still Donald Trump’s Personal Lawyer

Peter Carr wrote on the corruption driving Trump’s unfit attorney general choice. “His fealty appears to have no bounds — even saying that Americans should be ‘happy’ that Trump is so involved in Justice Department matters.”

The DOJ’s Assault on Civil Rights

Erwin Chemerinsky reported on how the Justice Department just made it much harder for employees to prove discrimination on the basis of sex and race and much easier for employers to avoid liability. “It is astounding to see [DOJ] disregard long-established Supreme Court precedent and nullify a federal statute.”

Foreign Affairs

Cuba Is the Distraction. Ukraine Is the Opportunity

Brian O’Neill analyzed why Trump keeps chasing spectacles of dominance in Cuba and Iran while overlooking the one conflict that could strengthen his position. “Trump could easily portray himself as the leader who finally forced Europe to shoulder more responsibility while pressuring Putin into negotiations … but the conflict carries too many fingerprints he dislikes. NATO. Biden. Zelensky. Institutional.”

Reality Defies Trump-Friendly Predictions

Jen Rubin wrote on how poorly both Trump and Netanyahu predicted both the course of war in Iran — and the extent of the American public’s support for it. “Netanyahu’s reliance on Trump … render[s] Israel more isolated and his coalition more precarious than ever.”

Anti-Civil Rights Cruelty

A Cop in North Carolina Beat a Woman on Video — and Nobody Cares

Carron J. Phillips wrote on the case of a white police officer’s violence against a Black woman in North Carolina — which, despite being caught on tape, “has received minimal attention, illustrating just how desensitized America has become to violence from law enforcement.”

ICE Air: Gulags in the Sky

Gillian Brockell spoke with Tim Dickinson about the airlines that profit from Trump’s ICE deportation machine while inflicting new cruelties. “This whole process is just designed to wear [immigrants] down so that they’ll give up on their cases and sign a voluntary removal order to agree to be deported, which … [is] basically submitting to torture.”

I Warned About the Young Republicans’ Racist Group Chat. They Got a Passport.

Michael Franklin wrote on how the same pipeline that produced racist chats and “edgy” fascist jokes is infiltrating more and more Republican immigration talk. “This is how extremist ideas become governing ideas: First they are laughed off as jokes, then defended as debate, then repeated as campaign language, then embedded into bureaucracy, then treated as if they were always legitimate.”

Fighting Back

This Is What an All-Out Redistricting War Looks Like

Tim Dickinson wrote on a redistricting strategy report that could help Democrats beat MAGA Republicans at their own game, scoring as many as 21 new House seats in 2028. “The aim here is not to replicate the GOP’s ambition for permanent power…. The idea is to punish the MAGA GOP for starting this fight.”

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw protests in Albania, Massachusetts, Arizona, Connecticut, Tennessee, Oregon, and more. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Contrarian Calls to Action: Oppose Trump’s Arch, Visit the ‘Trumpsonian’

In this week’s Calls to Action, we featured ways to shatter the corporatization of “Pride,” defend human rights during the World Cup, and block the nomination of Trump toadies.

Cartoons, Culture & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists covered questionable logic (All the Cards, RJ Matson; Horse Sense, Nick Anderson), fickle pleasures (A Smooth Exit, Nick Anderson; Are You Not Entertained?

Michael de Adder), and alien invasion (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

What’s in a Name? For Drag Queens, a Lot.

Meredith Blake wrote on how the legal battle between Patagonia and Pattie Gonia shows the complexity of turning subversive art into a brand. “When progressives are squabbling over trademarks, the only people benefitting are the lawyers.”

Chicken with Preserved Lemons and Olives. Jamie Schler gave us a delicious weekend recipe and an ode to bridge-building.

Contrarian Pet of the Week

Last but never least, meet Sushi! This cat’s birthday suit is formal wear.

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But one of the fundamental lessons of the fight for democracy — indeed of any fight — is when you’re winning, pour it on. And that’s just what we did this week with two more major legal onslaughts against the slush fund plus much more (all covered here at the Contrarian, naturally).

First, we did not accept the Trump administration’s claim that it was backing away from the fund. In a sign that we had drawn blood, anonymous leaks that the fund was supposedly dead were followed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s testimony on the Hill. He declared that the fund was “not moving forward.”

With an administration that lies so much (just look at Trump’s flip-floppery on Iran, among countless other examples), we weren’t buying it. That’s why, a day after Blanche’s announcement, we sued to make sure that not a penny of this money is ever paid — and the associated “settlements” also are stopped.

Sure enough, after we filed, Trump apparently back-tracked, saying of the fund “I love it…. I think it’s so important” and “These are great people that were destroyed, their families have been destroyed.” Violent insurrections who attacked cops should be paid? We don’t think so. And who better than our clients — two January 6 prosecutors — to take that on?

But more was to come. On Thursday, we filed a rare bipartisan brief opposing the fund. We represent Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) in an amicus brief fighting this outrageous attempt to take $1.8 billion from taxpayers. They assert that it violates the Appropriations Clause by spending federal money without congressional authorization. Like hiding the Epstein files — which we are also litigating — Trump’s fund has unusual bipartisan opposition on the Hill. Experts say those kinds of defections are a sign of failing authoritarianism.

Now the Trump administration has filed legal briefs claiming that the fund is not going forward. Well, we are going forward. We won’t stop until we have not only guaranteed that no money will be paid, but also that Trump’s sweeping “settlement” absolving himself and his family from vast liabilities is also reversed.

But our corruption-fighting week wasn’t yet over. That’s because of a leaked internal Kennedy Center memorandum to staff in response to our win in the case. The good news was that it contained a very detailed rundown of all the steps being taken to remove Trump’s name from the center. I can’t wait to be there when his name is excised from the front of the building. The bad news was that the document mischaracterized what the judge ordered. The memo claimed “[t]he Court did not rule that the Center must stay open during the renovation.” That is false, and on Friday we filed a motion with the court saying so. We will not let this stand.

Of course, that was not the only anti-corruption activity that we undertook this week. We filed a bar complaint against former Attorney General Pam Bondi, brought a new lawsuit to expose FBI Director Kash Patel’s Olympics boondoggle on the taxpayer dime, and continued the discovery push in our DOGE cases as we march toward our deposition of Elon Musk.

So, as you can see, our response to Trump’s flooding the zone with corruption is rule of law shock and awe. And all of our over 300 legal cases and matters at Democracy Defenders Fund and Democracy Defenders Action are made possible by your paid Contrarian subscriptions. Because we are owned by nobody, profits go to support our litigation work.

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Of course, we don’t only fight in the courts but also in the court of public opinion. To see for yourself, just check out this week’s roundup of the best of the Contrarian.

Lives at Risk

‘Terrible and Inhumane’: Delaney Hall and the Grim Reality of ICE Detention

Tim Dickinson wrote on the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, run by a notorious for-profit jailer group, which has renewed a flashpoint as protesters rally outside for hunger strikers within. “Instead of improving conditions inside, DHS has chosen violence outside Delaney.”

The Voting Rights Act Is Gone. Our Nation’s Health Will Suffer the Consequences

Avenel Joseph wrote on the connection between the Supreme Court’s recent gutting of the VRA and the likely worsening of health outcomes in the states most affected — especially for Black Americans. “States where voting is more accessible report better mental health, fewer uninsured residents, and lower infant mortality.”

Primary Night & Voting Rights

Iowa May Go the Way of Texas

Jen Rubin wrote on how another red state, Iowa, entered play for the Senate in November — thanks to highly electable Democratic primary winner Josh Turek, who 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.”

A Deeply Disturbing Decision in the Alabama Voting Case

Erwin Chemerinsky wrote on the Supreme Court’s ruling this week to allow Alabama to use voting maps found to be racially discriminatory, putting yet another nail in the coffin of the VRA. “The conservative justices seem to be following a single principle: Do whatever it takes to help the Republican Party.”

Voters Want Transformation, Not Restoration

Neera Tanden wrote on takeaways from CAP’s 2026 IDEAS Conference. “The fact is that people feel stuck — because they are stuck. They don’t believe the system works — because it doesn’t work for them…. The American people do not want to go back to a broken status quo.”

Pulte in as DNI

Trump’s New Intel Head Is Worse than Unqualified

Riley Pynnonen and I wrote on Trump’s pick to replace Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence: a man who is already a central figure in the president’s campaign of political retribution.

Bill Pulte Is Not Being Sent to Lead the Intelligence Community

Brian O’Neill wrote on how Trump’s acting DNI pick suggests the transformation of U.S. intelligence writ large. “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.”

Journalism Under Attack

The Tea ft. Jim Acosta & Isaiah Martin

On The Tea this week, April Ryan and guests spoke about ongoing attacks on journalism and Democrats fighting fire with fire. “The most egregious thing that we’ve seen all week is Bari Weiss and the Ellisons killing 60 Minutes.”

Of Course They’re Going After E. Jean Carroll

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf reported on Trump’s ongoing obsession with silencing the iconic journalist who has successfully sued him twice. “The Trump administration’s latest move to deploy Justice Department investigators against Carroll is not only an attempt to distort the rule of law to vilify her and her colleagues, but it also sends a clear signal to all of us. Go public, risk retaliation.”

When the Newsroom Becomes a Server Farm

Ruben Steiger wrote on the AI-based threats to substantive and local journalism, including “pink slime” sites, search decimation, and bailouts leading to industry dependency. “AI breaks the economics of investigative journalism.”

Racism in sports

Naomi Osaka and Taylor Townsend Hosted a Party. And the Haters Showed Up

Shalise Manza-Young wrote on the telling response to a celebration at the French Open. “Too many people loathe Black folk, but what they really hate is Black joy. To see that through it all … we are still here.”

The NAACP’s Sports Boycott Targets the Wrong Group of Black Americans

Carron J. Phillips wrote on the NAACP’s request for Black professional athletes to withhold support for predominantly white institutions in states affected by attacks on voting rights — and why this may be less effective than appealing to the college athletes on whom these institutions rely.

Fighting Back

How To Reclaim Power from the Right

Brian Tyler Cohen wrote on why this is a moment for Democrats to fight the administration’s law-changing, norm-bending fire with fire. “You could say that demonizing the opposition is bad for the country. But you can’t say it’s worse than Donald Trump’s presidency.”

In this week’s Contrarian Calls to Action: Mobilize for America’s 250th, Fight Pulte’s Noxious Nomination, plus more ways to stand up for democracy, ICE demonstrators, and voting rights. Also see Tim Dickinson’s conversation with Ezra Levin for more on the First Amendment Celebration Indivisible is planning with Jane Fonda (!) for June 14. I’ll be there!

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw protests in Oregon, Alabama, Kansas, Albanians against a Kushner resort, continuing ICE demonstrations, and Tesla takedowns. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Cartoons, Culture & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists covered narcissism (The Wart Stops Here, Michael de Adder), terrible choices (The Situation Room, Nick Anderson; No Experience Necessary, RJ Matson), and both at once (The Bari Weiss Fix at CBS, Nick Anderson).

How Trump’s Nostalgia-Fueled Concert Turned Into an Embarrassing Debacle

Meredith Blake wrote on the would-be star-filled lineup for “The Great American State Fair,” which has seen even Milli Vanilli sending regrets. “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.”

Emily Beyda encouraged readers to embrace comfort food when the election results are difficult to watch, and Ciera Stone introduced us to Vela, a rescue dog who needs a home.

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Just weeks after I was in court to help argue the case, a federal judge blocked the administration’s attempt to close the Kennedy Center and change its name. The court ordered that Donald Trump’s name be stripped from the building within two weeks, rightly declaring that only Congress has the power to change the name of this national cultural landmark. Hat tip to my colleagues at Democracy Defenders Action and the Washington Litigation Group and, of course, to our wonderful client, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH).

And that was not our only major breakthrough Friday in the fight against Trump’s illegality. As a result of a motion we and our great partners filed for 35 bipartisan former federal judges, a Florida federal court has reopened Trump’s IRS case — the one he used to create that notorious $1.8 billion fund. In a sternly worded order, the judge launched an investigation at our request. In addition to the judges, I thank Platkin LLP and Susman Godfrey for partnering with Democracy Defenders Fund on this case.

And I thank all of the Contrarians who support the work through your paid subscriptions. I don’t think I have ever had two of my cases as the top two stories on both The New York Times and The Washington Post websites, but that happened Friday because these two wins were good news for democracy.

People often ask me if the public is paying attention to what Trump is doing. I think it is, and that is reflected in his historically low polling numbers. These two cases represent scandals that broke through and dominated the media and public attention. The public outrage over Trump’s settlement of his case against his own government and the establishment of his enormous $1.8 billion fund has been vast. It moved beyond the usual swirl of one controversy after another and dominated news coverage, with analysts calling it a “grift fund,” “a pipeline to funnel taxpayer money to President Trump’s allies,” and “in a totally different solar system than any past government settlement on record.”

That’s why we swung into action for those 35 bipartisan former federal judges. They filed in federal court in Florida seeking an investigation of the events of the past two weeks. Our filing, before federal Judge Kathleen Williams, complemented a series of other lawsuits by our partners in the democracy movement addressing different aspects of the controversy.

Though Judge Williams previously accepted Trump’s voluntary dismissal of the case, she noted that no agency “submitted any settlement documents nor filed any documents ensuring that settlement was appropriate where there was an outstanding question as to whether an actual case or controversy existed.”

Those circumstances have now changed — and dramatically so — with the $1.8 billion settlement agreement that occasioned such an explosion of public controversy. As we noted in our motion (your motion), “The purported ‘settlement’ that the parties never placed before this Court raises profound questions about the parties’ candor toward the Court and manipulation of the judicial system, which threatens to undermine confidence in the administration of justice.”

With these kinds of circumstances and the many issues enumerated in the 16-page brief we and the judges filed, the court has the power to reopen the case and look into the matter. That’s just what she did.

Our matter is by no means the only legal action against Trump’s proposed $1.8B fund. In the Eastern District of Virginia, Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit on behalf of a coalition of individuals and organizations also requesting to block the Trump administration’s fund, arguing that it is an unconstitutional and politically discriminatory misuse of taxpayer money. They also had a big win Friday when their judge entered a temporary restraining order forbidding the $1.8 billion fund from operating while the case is briefed and argued in the coming weeks.

In the District Court for the District of Columbia, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW, which I cofounded and where I long served on the board) filed a lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately halt this fund on the grounds that the program unlawfully favors political allies and violates constitutional protections. They are also seeking emergency relief.

Meanwhile, in a lawsuit also filed in D.C. federal court, the Public Integrity Project is representing two former police officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, 2021, asserting that the fund is unlawful because it would reward rioters and further endanger the officers’ safety.

Expect more news in all of these cases soon. And we will have another shoe to drop as well, so stand by for that, too!

Meanwhile, in the Kennedy Center case, we are bracing for an appeal of our wins, though we are confident that we can preserve them. But after the court issued its decisions, the president seemed to signal he might throw in the towel. He stated on social media Friday that if he couldn’t have his way with the center, he had instructed the commerce department to “transfer this failing Institution” to Congress — whatever that means.

We are ready for anything that may come next in both of these cases, thanks to you. Your paid subscriptions make our work possible and form the backbone of our litigation efforts in this matter and over 300 others.

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Not only that, you also make possible our great coverage of these cases and of so much more. It’s the most unique bargain in American journalism. See for yourself in my usual weekly roundup of the best of the Contrarian.

Policy Disasters

Trump’s ‘Better’ Iran Nuclear Deal Is Worse

Tom Malinowski broke down why Trump’s revised nuclear deal will be far from the
“unconditional surrender” he promised — and will in fact leave the U.S. more vulnerable than before, at the cost of an unnecessary war. “Future presidents will have to reset confidence in the United States after this fiasco.”

How Trump’s Weird Fixation on DEI Continues to Hurt Women

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf reported on the Trump administration’s latest attacks on women — including blocking a women’s history museum, erasing “Black” from maternal health legislation, and slashing NIH women’s health grants by 30 percent. “Our voices and votes matter more than ever.”

We Are Not Ready for the Next Pandemic

Roberto Valadéz wrote on how the Ebola outbreak in East Africa is revealing the profound inadequacies of Trump’s “America First” approach to global health, both abroad and at home. “In a hyper-connected world, a pathogen circulating a continent away is only a single flight from our own backyards.”

Unseen Cracks

The Secret Court System That Rules Us All

Brendan Ballou joined Tim Dickinson to talk about “forced arbitration,” the secret court system that provides protection for corporations while stripping them from ordinary citizens. “This is a story about how the billionaire class gets to swindle you with impunity.”

Sen. Chris Murphy Is Looking for ‘Meaning and Connection in a Broken America’

On this week’s podcast, April Ryan spoke with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who argues in a new book that Trump is a symptom of more foundational American ills. “We have created a culture where the winners take all, where modesty or restraint is a weakness…. And if our economic winners can just take everything, why can’t our political winners take everything?”

Somebody Has To Make a Start

Danny Miller and Steve Silverman wrote on complicity, resistance, and how they both begin in the mirror. “Hannah Arendt called it the banality of evil because what she witnessed wasn’t exceptional. It was ordinary compliance at a mass scale…. But the historical record also offers something else. Ordinary people, in conditions far more dangerous than ours, chose differently.”

Fighting Back

The Hard Work of Peace

Veteran and human rights advocate John F. Terzano gave us a reflection on the long, hard road out of any war — even one the administration is trying to minimize as much as Iran — and why “Memorial Day must never be simply a celebration of military power or nationalism. It must remain a solemn reminder of war’s terrible human cost.”

Undaunted

Jen Rubin reported on the fight against Jim Crow that is tearing across the South in the wake of the Supreme Court’s latest attack on voting rights. “Dogged voting rights activists refuse to accept [Louisiana v. Callais] as the final word on our 250-year experiment in multi-racial democracy.”

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw alarms raised about a California bill that would criminalize protests at churches, protests against redistricting in the South and data centers in Utah and Pennsylvania, global actions in Bolivia and Albania, and more. See this week’s Calls to Action for more local and national ways to make a difference in democracy: Prep for ‘Freedom Summer’ 2.0 and Stand Against the Cuba Blockade.

Cartoons, Culture & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on messing with Texas (Hearts Afire, Nick Anderson), mistakes in Iran (Trump’s Dream Deal With Iran, RJ Matson; Iran War Status Updater, Nick Anderson), and missing sanity (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

What ‘Lord of the Flies’ Can Teach Us in 2026

Meredith Blake wrote on a new Netflix adaptation of William Golding’s novel from the writer of Adolescence, which proves how much the source material has to say to our current dystopic moment.

Maura McDonough shared a rescue pet of the week, and Marissa Rothkopf Bates encouraged readers to indulge in a coffee-flavored, chewy cookie.

In spring 1945, my mom had been in Nazi captivity for a year — transferred from Auschwitz to a slave labor camp in Neuengamme, Germany, packing (and, when she could, sabotaging) ammunition. When she was flagging, a friendly jailer whispered to her to hang on — the allies were near. If not for the U.S. Armed Forces joining the fight, at a terrible cost to so many American soldiers and families, my mom would not have survived.

My father’s connection was more direct: He actually served in those forces. He fled Europe for the United States in 1940, arrived in the United States with no papers, and enlisted in the Army to become a citizen. Who knows what would have become of him if the Army had not welcomed him and his service in this country. Though my parents didn’t actually meet until years after the war (in Israel, of all places), the U.S. military was their godsend, and so mine.

That legacy, and your contribution to this fight, have helped inspire me throughout this past year, since our last Memorial Day. Whether it was seeking the release of opinions related to the administration’s legal authority for the use of military force in Iran, or those related to threats from Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age,” or joining esteemed colleagues to support Members of Congress who have faced retribution for reminding those in uniform of their duty to refuse unlawful orders, much of my legal work has stemmed from my gratitude for the honor of our servicemembers and as a solemn tribute to the extraordinary values these brave men and women represent.

The American idea, which those still serving and their absent comrades fought and died for, is being attacked from within this Memorial Day. And so I ask you the same questions I asked a full year ago: How do we honor those who died for freedom while liberty remains under attack? How do we salute the flag and that idea of America it stands for when its meaning is consistently assaulted by the very administration entrusted with its care?

Some might say we should simply remember our lost soldiers without tarnishing that tribute by addressing our political climate. But looking away squanders their sacrifice. It is our responsibility to be candid about the ongoing crises and to honor those who serve more urgently with each day that passes and with each new senseless war they are asked to wage on behalf of our great country.

We do that by recommitting ourselves, again and again, to defending our democracy. Memorializing our veterans’ sacrifices, to my mind, is to attend to the fragile, unfinished, exhausting, necessary work of fighting autocracy and rebuilding a country worthy of their service. We do that by holding tight to the idea of America, even when its practice falters. We do that by doing our part, as they did — not merely on distant battlefields, but on our streets, among our communities, and in our courthouses. This past year has shown me how profoundly committed this country is to engaging in those battles. Witnessing the masses who have gathered for the people and against oppression in Selma, Montgomery, Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and nationwide fueled my resolve to continue opposing those in power who are uncommitted to upholding the dream of America. Today, I beseech you to keep up the fight, as a means of honoring those who have sacrificed their lives to secure our freedoms.

For me, that mission remains informed by a Jewish aphorism that my parents, both saved by American soldiering, would sometimes say to me:

לֹא עָלֶיך הַמְלָאכָה לִיגמוֹר, וְלֹא אַתָּה בֶן חֹרִין לְחִבָּטֵל מִמֶנָה

“Your job is not to finish the work — but neither are you, the child of free people, not to do your share.”

I think of it often when I’m doing my pro-democracy work in the court of public opinion at The Contrarian or in my parallel work in the court of law, which paid subscribers have generously made possible. The challenge is relentless, so it reassures me to know that I need not harbor illusions of finishing the job. By the same token, it motivates me to stay mindful that I must continue to do my share.

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“The child of free people.” That’s me and my family — but it also applies to most of you. We owe our liberty to American soldiers who fought and died for it. Memorial Day is about people — ordinary people who exhibited extraordinary courage so that those they never knew, but also they and their children, could be free. As we raise flags and lay wreaths, let us also raise voices and lay down the law. And as we enter this summer, following a year of shocking corruption and injustice, let us be realistic: no one can finish the work. But let us each be prepared to do our share for democracy.

An exceptional number of people have done just that in these past weeks alone, and we covered it here at The Contrarian, made possible, of course, with your support.

DOJ Corruption

Words & Phrases

Jen Rubin wrote on why judges, juries, and attorneys nationwide no longer trust the Department of Justice as capable of living up to its name. “Let’s dispense with the notion that the weaponized, rogue department now run by Todd ‘I love you, sir’ Blanche is even trying to earn ‘the public trust.’”

A Farcical Hearing

Tom Joscelyn and I wrote on the outrageous hearing the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee held this week on the SPLC. Titled “The Southern Poverty Law Center: Manufacturing Hate,” it was nothing but an opportunity to amplify the Trump regime’s smear of a legendary civil rights organization.

DOJ Facilitates a Heist

Mimi Rocah wrote on the nearly $1.8 billion dollar slush fund the DOJ is creating for Trump, purportedly in exchange for his withdrawal of a (bogus) claim against his own IRS. “We cannot lose sight of the fact that this is a fictional narrative created for political purposes.”

The Global Picture

Civilian Deaths Still Shadow Precision Warfare

Brian O’Neill wrote on the troubling opacity — and suspiciously low figures — of the administration’s civilian death reports. “Democracies do not maintain credibility because they avoid mistakes in war. They maintain credibility because they confront mistakes honestly.”

China Laughs as America Stumbles

Tom Malinowski joined Jen to dissect Trump’s diplomatic failures in Beijing and how the summit signals a shift in U.S.-China relations. “It’s like Trump has this hierarchy in his mind of power in which America is not number one. We’re in the middle … and China’s on top.”

What Happens When Every Nation Has Its Own AI?

Reuben Steiger wrote on the rise of sovereign AI, by which countries are choosing to balkanize the technology in hopes of a strategic advantage — and, in doing so, entrenching inequity and censorship. “If AI hype so far has been centered around technological miracles, sovereignty is about politics.”

Identity Attacks

When They Target Black Votes, They Attack Freedom for All Americans

Nadine Smith wrote on the inextricable ties between the advancement of civil rights and democracy writ large. “If you are not Black, the question is whether you understand yet that attacks on Black freedom have always been the core test of what this country is. They are the frontline indicators of whether democracy itself is surviving.”

Widening Our American Identity

Jenan Mohajir wrote on the Trump administration’s efforts to say “the quiet part aloud” and advance the narrative of America as a fundamentally “Christian nation” — something that, she writes, is counter to the far older truth of religious diversity as core to American identity.

Democracy Demands Women’s Health Stay Front and Center

Jennifer Weiss-Wolff on the latest in Republican threats to women’s health: “It is critically important to keep reproductive health and the chaos at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) front and center in the headlines. Why? Two words: midterm elections.”

Fighting Back

The Tea ft. Gov. Gavin Newsom & Aaron Parnas

April Ryan was joined by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and journalist Aaron Parnas for fantastic conversations about legacy v. new media, holding a mirror up to Trump, and the urgency of new ideas for resistance. “It’s not about party. It’s about you. We the people.”

Here’s How Dems Win the 2026 Midterms

Swing Left Executive Director Yasmin Radjy joined Tim Dickinson to break down the 2026 midterms in depth — and to look ahead to 2028. “Every single fight to dismantle authoritarian power has required strong grassroots power and infrastructure.”

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we shared more coverage of last weekend’s actions in Alabama, as well as protests in Missouri, Texas, New Hampshire, and elsewhere. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Fight Trump’s Corruption and Irritate JD Vance

Plus more ways to stand up for democracy with our Contrarian Calls to Action.

Cartoons, culture, & fun stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on the payoffs of the Iran war (The Summit, Jack-in-the-Box, Michael de Adder; Water Hazard, Nick Anderson), the payoffs for J6ers (A Path to Justice, Nick Anderson); and the payoffs of Chief Justice John Roberts’ long game (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

How Stephen Colbert Brought God into Late Night TV

Meredith Blake wrote on Stephen Colbert’s remarkably open embrace of his Catholic faith — always alongside his progressive politics — and how The Late Show’s end will leave “a loss for anyone who values thoughtful conversations about faith, spirituality, and belief.”

Meredith Blake shared her goldfish, Buttercup, picked up as a county-fair prize almost a year ago. And Jamie Schler encouraged Contrarians to get fancy and make an indulgent vanilla rum panna cotta with rum-roasted cherries.

Leading off the list will be Trump’s personal lawsuit to brazenly pick $10 billion out of Americans’ pockets. It is a new low. And his machinations in recent days when it looked like a federal judge might stop him only highlight how depraved this whole scheme is. For this week’s publishers note we thought we would offer a deep dive on our new top scandal—with the full list to follow tomorrow.

This sordid story begins in January, when Trump, with his sons and the Trump Organization, sued the IRS and the Treasury Department. The plaintiffs argued that the agencies failed to take appropriate measures to protect Trump’s tax information, which leaked.

The lawsuit is riddled with flaws. For starters, it targets the wrong entity. No one in the IRS leaked his taxes; an outside contractor from Booz Allen Hamilton disclosed the information. For that and many other reasons, the lawsuit is entirely defensible by DOJ – indeed, a comparable one was settled for no payment at all.

Most outrageous of all is the amount originally sought: $10 billion. That is more than the entire annual appropriation for the IRS, an agency of 75,000 employees.

And it is an agency Trump ultimately oversees, as is the other defendant, the Treasury Department. Although Trump claims to be acting in his personal capacity as the plaintiff in this lawsuit, he is the chief executive of the federal government. He is in effect both the plaintiff and the defendant in this case! It is like a bank robbery committed by the CEO and board of directors of the bank.

In the annals of American law, it is hard to find an example of a president effectively suing himself. It’s not just wrong; it also raises profound constitutional issues. The President is prohibited by the Domestic Emoluments Clause of the Constitution from receiving any “profit, gain, or advantage“ from the United States other than his salary. This frivolous cash grab—whether paid to Trump directly or diverted at his direction to a fund that benefits his loyalists—is the exact type of corrupt self-dealing that the founders and framers were concerned with when they signed the Constitution.

And then there is Article III’s Case or Controversy requirement for a federal lawsuit. It provides that a legal action is only valid if the parties are actually adverse to one another. A case that is in effect Donald Trump v. Donald Trump hardly seems to fit.

Judge Kathleen Williams of the Southern District of Florida was rightly skeptical. She asked Trump’s personal lawyers and the government attorneys to submit briefs by May 20 explaining how the parties are genuinely adverse. She also asked six well-regarded lawyers to serve as amici, friends of the court, providing their view of the legitimacy of this lawsuit.

Needless to say, Trump is not keen on this kind of scrutiny and potential rejection of his legal complaint. Giving additional fuel to fears of collusion, on Tuesday, reports emerged that Justice is in settlement negotiations regarding this $10 billion lawsuit. Typically, when a plaintiff settles a case out of court, he is free to drop the case, and that is the end of the matter. If that kind of side deal were allowed to happen here, the settlement would escape judicial scrutiny.

Those concerns about a plot to dodge the court were only heightened by subsequent reports that emerged throughout the week. They suggest that Trump may now drop this and other lawsuits, including one seeking damages from DOJ relating to the seizure of classified documents he wrongly retained at his Florida home. In exchange, DOJ is said to be establishing a $1.7 billion fund to compensate those whom Trump claims were unfairly targeted by the Biden administration’s “weaponization” of the DOJ, including those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Jan. 6 insurrectionists who assaulted police officers should not be able to seek a financial reward for their actions. Nor should the rest of the rogues gallery of wrongdoers and Trump allies who are included in his bogus “weaponization” claims. Though Trump is said not to be able to directly apply for payment, it appears that people or entities linked to him will not be precluded.

Judge Williams should not fall for it. She has the power to investigate all this, and she should do so. This is a historically unprecedented effort to undermine her jurisdiction and purloin vast sums through self-dealing.

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The whole affair is even more sordid because Trump’s former defense lawyers are running the show at DOJ. That starts with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, whose bumbling performance when Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in connection with 2016 campaign wrongdoing did not seem to harm the lawyer’s career prospects. How can a DOJ headed by the likes of Blanche be expected to fairly resolve the president’s claims? It cannot, of course.

If you are thinking this whole depraved situation could not possibly get any worse, think again. Thursday brought revelations that former DOJ ethics counsel Joseph Tirrell counseled Blanche that under the ethics laws he should not be involved in anything involving the personal issues of his former client. As a former White House ethics czar, I certainly agree. Though the American people are not privy to who is doing the negotiations over this latest Trump settlement, Blanche should immediately disclose whether he has had any involvement in anything personally relating to Trump.

As you Contrarians are well-aware, corruption has been a hallmark of Trump’s second term, but this cascade of scandal after scandal is in a category of its own. It all amounts to the most extreme example of self-dealing we’ve seen yet. As Trump makes the lives of everyday Americans more expensive by continuing the war in Iran and with higher tariffs, he is trying to shake down the American taxpayer for vast sums. No wonder consumer sentiment is hitting an all-time low.

With the support of your paid subscriptions, we have been sounding the alarm on this pattern of brazen corruption for months—and fighting it. In fact, we filed a complaint in November, requesting that the DOJ inspector general investigate the department’s potential $230 million settlement with Trump after he reportedly filed the claims related to the documents. As we described in our complaint, even Trump admitted, “It’s interesting, because I’m the one that makes a decision, right?... [I]t’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.”

We agree, and we will be doing much more. Stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, enjoy our usual weekly round up of the best of the Contrarian. And if you are coming to Montgomery today, I will see you there. Plus keep an eye out for our coverage on the day of the event.

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After Callais

This week, we spoke to experts, policymakers, and activists to break down the threats to voting rights in the wake of Callais and what comes next. Mother Jones correspondent Ari Berman: “I think it’s really hard to argue now that this isn’t a return to some form of Jim Crow.” Election law guru Rick Hasen: “This is just ... a [redistricting] race to the bottom.” Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL): “Partisan politics has become a proxy for racism.” Rep Shomari Figures (D-AL): “The answer to a court Jim Crow is turnout, turnout, turnout.”

Callais Is Not the Last Word

Jennifer Rubin wrote on what democracy defenders must do now and in the long term to fight the Supreme Court’s infuriating, partisan, and legally unsound rulings. “If Democrats come out of the 2028 election with House and Senate majorities, and the presidency, they will have all the motivation and tools required to reverse the slide into Jim Crow.”

Lane Kiffin and America’s Blindness to Racism in Sports

Carron J. Phillips wrote on the rude awakening poised to descend on sports like college football, in which, despite willful denials of discrimination by powerful white men, sports and politics have never been separate. “Given the Supreme Court’s decision … people have started asking whether Black college athletes should stop playing at schools where the gerrymandering is taking place.”

We’re Not Buying It

Trump’s $4.50 Gas Price Tar Pit

Jeff Nesbit wrote on how little patience the American public has for the White House’s shrugging attitude towards affordability. “When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) notes that Americans are ‘selling their plasma to pay for groceries and gas,’ she isn’t using hyperbole. She’s describing palpable voter anxiety.”

Young People Know When Institutions Are Playing in Our Faces

Michael Franklin wrote on behalf of younger generations who see racism as an embedded, virulent fact in policy and culture — and are tired of hypocritical institutions pretending otherwise. “Telling people to have faith in systems that are inconsistent, selectively accountable, and structurally unequal without acknowledging that sounds like denial, not inspiration.”

Once a Grifter…

Sean Duffy Can’t Stay Away from Reality TV

Meredith Blake checked in with the transportation secretary, who is using his time in office this summer to star in a self-aggrandizing extended car commercial on YouTube. “Duffy has been called tone-deaf for going on a free family vacation when gas is averaging $4.50 a gallon.”

Trump Is a Just Real Estate Guy Who Sees America as a Property

Tom Malinowski sized up the emperor’s new, old clothes, and what they tell us about his policy playbook. “If you treat countries as the equivalent of property development companies, with profit as your only motive, your foreign policy is probably going to look something like this.”

Healthcare Under Threat

A One-Two Punch from HHS

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf wrote on the latest from Health and Human Sservices: the launch of moms.gov, a new website that serves as a one-stop-shop for the Trump administration’s pronatalist agenda, and an opinion essay by Melania Trump.

Voting and Reproductive Rights Are Antithetical to the Conservative Agenda

Lourdes A. Rivera analyzed the relationship between Callais and another recent exercise of conservative judicial will: a ruling in favor of Louisiana’s restriction of access to abortion medication. “Black people, women, and Black women in particular are just not Louisiana’s kind of ‘legal persons’ entitled to full participation in society.”

Fighting Back

We Are the New Architects of America

LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, joined Jen to discuss “All Roads Lead to the South,” this Saturday’s monumental gathering in Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, to protest the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act. “We’re not asking somebody for a seat at the table, this is our table that we have built.”

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we covered protests in Oregon, Tennessee, and New York, a new protest song, and the run-up to All Roads Lead to the South. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org, and, if you can, join The Contrarian in Alabama today!

The New Civil Rights Movement Starts Now

This week’s Calls to Action features more on the action in Alabama, localized protests against data centers, preparation for “Seven Days in June,” and more ways to get off the sidelines in defense of democracy.

Cartoons, Culture, & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on the war in Iran (On Life Support, Nick Anderson); the war on American voters (Raising the Flag, Nick Anderson), and how neither is making Trump look as good as he thinks (Up to his Knees, RJ Matson; Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

How the Battle Over American History Is Playing Out in One Southern City

Meredith Blake wrote on Natchez, a bracing and inventive documentary on antebellum tourism in Mississippi that juxtaposes Gone with the Wind fantasy with the violent present-past beneath. “Southern nostalgia is especially irresistible because it has been economically beneficial.”

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But then three things made me feel better.

First, I looked afresh at the math, and I was reminded that we could still see a one- or two-seat pro-democracy pickup in that state. The same majority of Virginia voters who expressed their will to counteract Donald Trump’s open theft of congressional seats is still there. And, like me, they are probably mad as hell about the Republican majority on the state Supreme Court blocking the referendum they voted for.

Second, if Virginia was a wake-up call for me, perhaps it will be one for the country as well. As we covered this week, the South is rising up, with intense protests in places like Tennessee and Alabama. But we need to do much more to wake up the country as a whole to the post-Callais redistricting crisis and the ways it is being used to push for a new Jim Crow. In fact, a nationwide mobilization in Montgomery, Alabama, to address redistricting wrongdoing has just been announced for next weekend. Pack your bags!

Third, the legitimate, voter-approved Virginia redistricting that was blocked was needed to balance out illegitimate and illegal gerrymanders elsewhere. But if we can block them, we can further limit the damage. That is exactly what my colleagues and I are doing in our litigation campaign in the South, including our cutting-edge case to stop the illegal Florida gerrymander. It is the latest of my over 300 legal cases and matters defending democracy that you make possible through your paid subscriptions.

On Wednesday, April 29, a mere hour after Callais dropped, Florida House Republicans passed a brazenly partisan congressional map pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. It soon passed the Florida Senate, and on Monday, May 4, DeSantis signed legislation making this new map official. Four Democratic seats were eliminated. Other Southern states have followed suit or will do so.

Florida was also one of the worst, because it is such a flagrant violation of state law. More than 15 years ago, Florida voters overwhelmingly rejected gerrymandering by adopting the Fair Districts Amendments to the state constitution, despite opposition from the Republican-led legislature. These amendments prohibit drawing districts intended to favor incumbents or political parties. The brazen gerrymander we are now witnessing flies in the face of that.

The gerrymander is clearly partisan. Yet DeSantis’s general counsel justified it by pointing to the Callais decision — which is about racial gerrymandering. However wrongly, that ruling upheld a challenge to Louisiana’s map that created a second majority-Black congressional district in the state, even though the map was drawn to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

That has absolutely nothing to do with the partisan gerrymander in Florida. You don’t need to be a redistricting expert to see that the Florida GOP has been waiting in the wings for the opportunity to rejigger the state’s congressional map. The decision was nothing more than a pretext to roll out its long-desired plans.

This is a travesty, which is why we were quick to act. Working with a tremendous coalition of clients and co-counsel, on May 4, we filed in Florida state court to block the new map. In the complaint, we explain that DeSantis and his allies openly used partisan data to increase Republican seats from 20 to 24 (out of Florida’s 28 districts). In true partisan fashion, DeSantis’s office shared the proposed new map with Fox News before it was even sent to state legislators.

As we explain in our filing, “The Challenged Plan is illegal. It is a flagrant violation of the express will of the people of Florida, who amended their constitution just over 15 years ago to ban precisely the intent that is at the heart of the Plan. The mandate of Article III, Section 20 [of the Florida Constitution] is clear, and the Challenged Plan just as clearly contradicts that mandate. It should be enjoined.”

In addition to our great regular partners LULAC and SPLC, we at Democracy Defenders Fund are fortunate to have many other wonderful colleagues on our side in this fight. Our coalition, which includes Common Cause, the League of Women Voters of Florida, and Southern Coalition for Social Justice, reflects the mosaic of America that makes our country so great.

And there is one other partner: all of you Contrarians! Because of your paid subscriptions, we are able to file cases like this one and do our part in the national effort to combat this sweeping attempt to restrict access to the ballot.

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That doesn’t only mean filing litigation, of course. It also means being part of what is going on in the court of public opinion, including through supporting the vibrant, peaceful public protest that has sprung up across the South and is stirring around the nation. Protesters and the pro-democracy public alike count on The Contrarian’s coverage of the Democracy Movement to serve as a hub to understand the moment and take inspiration from it. This week was no exception as we took you inside the protests across the South, as I discuss in our weekly round up below.

We will be in Montgomery, Alabama on May 16 for the National Day of Action, participating and bringing you our great Contrarian coverage, just as we have done for No Kings and so many other demonstrations over the past 16 months.

For more, and for everything else that happened this week, please keep reading for this week’s best of the Contrarian. No other outlet in American journalism goes deeper on these issues every day – and, like our litigation, it is all thanks to your paid subscriptions. It’s the most unique bargain in American journalism, as you will see when you take a look at this week’s highlights.

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Voting Wrongs

SCOTUS’s Brazen Power Grab Guts Voting Rights

Norm Ornstein argued that the Supreme Court’s overexercise of power now merits more than the usual calls for judicial reform — that it’s time to go back to the Constitution to curtail a truly unbalanced federal branch. “No option should be off the table.”

The Economic Consequences of Gutting Voting Rights Are Staggering

Alphonso David trained an economic lens on the travesty of Callais. “The math of modern voter suppression: make voting more expensive while making each vote feel less powerful.”

The GOP’s Grand Southern Delusion

Charlie Bailey, chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, offered reasons for hope in a key midterm battleground state, Republicans’ voter suppression campaign notwithstanding. “They cannot get through their heads that the impacts of their policies have turned folks against them.”

Virginia’s Redistricting Ruling Is Peak Darwin-Era Politics

Historian Jill Lawrence wrote that scruples are for sissies, and that’s why it’s important to elect the candidates who will do the right thing, even if they are flawed humans themselves: “They … offer a template for looking at the bigger picture — the biggest one of all. That would be the fate of U.S. democracy, now in the hands of an oligarchic regime intent on staying in power, no matter what it takes.”

Media Matters

Local TV News Is Vanishing

Jennifer Schulze wrote on the ongoing decimation of local news sources thanks to consolidation, copycat content, and right-wing conglomerates. “Thousands of local newspapers are already gone; your local TV newscast could be next.”

‘He Put a Lasso Around the Earth in a Way Nobody Had Before’

Meredith Blake wrote on how, “for better and for worse,” CNN founder Ted Turner changed the way the world gets its news (and much more), and interviewed Lisa Napoli, author of Up All Night: Ted Turner, CNN, and the Birth of 24-Hour News.

Split Screen: The Church Is the State Now

Azza Cohen wrote on the chilling messages encoded in the Trump regime’s use of overtly religious imagery. “The visual of the word ‘science’ next to a white man in an explicitly religious pose is a poignant visual metaphor for how this administration wants to be seen.”

Worth a Hard Look

America Becomes Outraged Only When It’s Too Late

Carron J. Phillips wrote on the latest attacks on voting as part of Americans’ pattern of all-too-blind — if not fatal — optimism in the stability of democracy. “Trump 2028 isn’t propaganda; it is a preemptive campaign slogan. Republicans tip their pitches because they know Americans will ignore the signs.”

Wars Do Not Occur Within a Vacuum

Ciera Stone gave us a searing report on the humanitarian crisis being waged across multiple regions of the Middle East. “This is what the human cost of war looks like…. The stories and people profiled are merely snapshots of an unfathomably vast, brutal picture. For each day of complacency, the cost of lives and livelihoods goes up.”

Health & Science

The Evisceration of the American Mind

Jeff Nesbit wrote on the Trump administration’s recent move to fire 22 leading members of the National Science Board, the independent governing body of the National Science Foundation. “By purging the NSB, the administration isn’t just shaking up the bureaucracy. It’s dismantling the peer-review process and replacing scientific expertise with political loyalty.”

The Triple Threat of Big AI

Reuben Steiger looked at some of the headlining threats of the frontier AI models — among them monopoly, autonomy, hacking — and asked: Can artificial intelligence solve more problems than it’s creating?

Fighting Back

Meet Two Candidates Fighting for Montana

Tim Dickinson spoke with two candidates in the Democratic primary for Montana’s 1st District, pro-healthcare ex-gun exec Ryan Busse and former smokejumper Sam Forstag, both of whom are finding creative ways to bring the blue wave west.

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we covered May Day Strong protests in Missouri, Wisconsin, New York and North Carolina, redistricting protests in Tennessee, Alabama and elsewhere, and more. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org. And see our Calls to Action for more ways to fight the MAGA assault on voting rights.

Culture, Cartoons & Pets

This week, our cartoonists covered the beach (86, Nick Anderson), the ballroom (Why the Long Face?, Nick Anderson), the Blame Game (Michael de Adder), and one unstable brain (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

The Devil Offers Free Two-Day Shipping

Meredith Blake wrote on Anna Wintour and her cinematic counterpart, Miranda Priestly, who, between the Bezos-sponsored Met Gala and a journalism fantasy in The Devil Wears Prada II, each did a little too much trusting of billionaires.

A Make-Your-Own-Adventure Brunch Casserole

Marissa Rothkopf Bates shared a “golden retriever of recipes: eager to please and there to bring you joy with its simple, happy-go-lucky existence.”

Contrarian Pet of the Week

And last but never least: meet Daisy Shaw!

I was in New Mexico at a democracy conference of all places when the decision hit on Wednesday morning. As I sat on my patio in the morning sun and read the decision beneath the high blue sky, I was struck by the contrast between the beauty of my surroundings and the horror on the page. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which guaranteed fair representation for Black and Latino Americans in Congress, state legislatures, and more, was annihilated.

The content of the majority opinion was devastating, but so was the timing. I knew that the decision would be bad, but I had hoped that the Roberts Court would at least have the decency to wait until the end of the term in June — not drop this bombshell in the middle of primary season.

Sure enough, chaos immediately ensued across the South as the GOP sought to capitalize on the case by immediately commencing efforts to snatch away Black and Latino representation. Florida passed a bill the same day. Alabama and Tennessee are taking steps to pass their own bills. Louisiana went even further, canceling active congressional primary elections! Odious Gov. Jeff Landry claimed an “emergency” in contravention of state law.

It was one of the darkest series of days since Jan. 20, 2025. But we Contrarians refused to quit back then and have since helped mount ferocious pushback in the courts of law and of public opinion. Your efforts as part of the overall democracy movement have helped make Donald Trump one of the most unpopular presidents in history. We will do the same pushback here, starting with litigating vigorously with our pro-democracy allies in the South. Your paid subscriptions make that possible; because we are owned by no one, all profits are plowed into our over 300 legal cases and matters — and counting.

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The past 15 months are not the only inspiration for what we must do now. Far from it. The civil rights movement in particular offers vital lessons. I asked three of today’s leaders in that movement — Bryan Fair of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Lauren Groh-Wargo of Fair Fight, and Juan Proaño of LULAC — for inspiration and specific next steps. I had intended to combine their ideas with my own into a single column, but their ideas stand on their own as distinct and brilliant guides to action.

Bryan’s Thoughts:

I’d like to start with a few high-level observations:

The majority opinion in Callais reminds one of the court’s infamous opinions in Dred Scott and Plessy, in which the court announced that “persons of African descent, whether slave or free, … had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” and that “separate was equal.” Now, “nonminority voters,” a euphemism for white voters, have no duty to respect and preserve minority voters’ power. The Callais decision invites an immoral race to the bottom against all minority voters and their nonminority allies. We eventually defeated Dred Scott and the similarly dreadful Plessy. We must also reverse Callais.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend toward justice unless we bend it.

The price of freedom is high. Many people gave their lives to gain for us the right to vote for us. We honor them by exercising the right to vote. If we want change, we must demand it by participating and encouraging others to join the fight for free and fair elections.

Every electoral district in this country is a racial gerrymander, designed based on the racial demographic composition of the district. If Black and Latino opportunity districts are violative of the Fourteenth Amendment, thousands of white opportunity districts violate that amendment as well.

Tyrants are never the heroes. My heroes are those who resist tyranny in all its forms and all its sources, whether legislative, executive, or judicial. Resistance is our superpower!

We are on the right side of history and the right side of justice.

With that here are five specific guidelines for action:

1. A multiracial democracy cannot be defended by a narrow constituency. It requires a broader, deeper coalition that spans race, gender, class, geography, religion, and identity. Every coalition partner must commit to supporting our allies and their right to free and fair elections.

2. We must speak to current voters and the nearly 90 million nonvoters who sat out the 2024 election. We must speak where they are, and we must hear their concerns to connect with them. We must help them participate in our democracy, especially those who face invidious barriers.

3. We must advance the principle of one person, one vote as the cornerstone of our democracy and challenge every device, procedure, or map that undermines that fundamental constitutional doctrine. We need a new Voting Rights Act that proscribes voter suppression, vote abridgment, and vote dilution in all elections across the country.

4. We must speak directly and candidly about racism, past and present, identifying both the sophisticated and simple-minded strategies used to suppress minority voting power. Nonminority voters are not entitled to an inflated weighting of their votes. That’s what the 1965 Voting Rights Act proscribed.

5. We must expand voter education, engagement, and registration efforts to mobilize the largest multiracial turnout in our history for the November midterms.

Lauren’s Thoughts:

Callais represents the latest move by the Roberts Court, the Federalist Society, and the MAGA movement to dismantle Black and Latino political power through Supreme Court cases gutting the Voting Rights Act and eliminating private enforcement mechanisms. These actions are intended to strip the political power of Black and Latino Americans and to create a “New Solid South” under White one-party rule.

Below, I outline a strategy to delay, disrupt, and ultimately defeat these efforts while building a long-term coalition for democratic progress and a multiracial American democracy. This strategy builds the infrastructure needed to fight this immediate crisis. It also empowers us to create a new vision and build enough power to enact real, structural changes necessary for a thriving multiracial democracy responsive to the needs of its residents.

1. Fight Back Hard Now: We are working with existing coalitions and networks across the South alongside our national allies to push back against these cynical, racist attempts to gut Black political power and gerrymander the congressional and state maps. If we cannot block them outright, we must make the fight as long, difficult, and painful as possible for the GOP. The more we can combat its plans and expose them as the extreme and cruel measures they are, the more the public will see how GOP leaders are focused on their own power rather than meeting their needs.

2. Organize and Build a Deeper Coalition: We must build a deeper, more resilient coalition rooted in people and their needs, hopes, and dreams. This must be paired with developing mass movements with an effective use of electoral tools to counter anti-democratic forces along with organizing for better living and working conditions and much more. We need a mass revival of labor, community, and electoral organizing across the South. That means deepening outreach to the millions of nonvoters among us and those who aren’t following the news, and engaging and empowering young people across racial and cultural lines with strategies that go beyond political spaces.

3. Make the Coalition Broader: A key lesson of the civil rights movement is that it won the hearts and minds of the nation by constructing a truly broad tent, an approach that’s needed again today. That means bringing in the business community, disaffected Republicans, civic organizations, and other influential voices who agree we need a thriving two-party system and responsive government, the needs of our people met, healthy debate even if we all don’t agree on the issues, and the isolating of extremists and autocrats. We will engage major corporations and regional leaders who are rooted in and connected to the South and encourage them to take an active role.

4. Expose Racism, Corruption, and Disdain for the American People: Southerners and Americans more broadly do not want racism, division, or hatred. They want a functioning democracy that can make tangible differences in their daily lives. MAGA knows it has no agenda the American people want or support, which is why it is stealing power and eviscerating norms rather than attempting to make a persuasive case to voters. Political parties try to earn your vote; authoritarian movements find ways to win without it. To move forward, we must clearly identify and confront the extremists, making them and their out-of-touch ideology central and visible in ways the broader public can see and understand.

5. Mobilize Black Voters and Their Allies in the 2026 Midterms: We must leverage this attempt at massive voter suppression to drive the most robust, organized, and empowered mobilization effort in modern history this fall and fight attempts to steal or undermine the count and the results. Leaders in the South are already gearing up to do that. Allies everywhere must support this effort — and themselves turn out in record numbers. From Birmingham to Selma to Minneapolis, overreach has historically prompted voter backlash, and we must channel that here.

Juan’s Thoughts (Note: Juan was so into it that he produced a 2000 word Substack essay of his own that you can find here. Excerpts follow.)

American political life rests on a foundation that Latinos did not build alone. We built part of it. We fought for part of it. But the load-bearing structure underneath all of it was built by Black Americans who marched, organized, sued, were beaten, were jailed, and in too many cases were killed so that this country could become, for the first time in its history, a real multiracial democracy….

Here is the five-track plan I am taking to our 400+ LULAC councils and 575,000 members nationwide:

1. Federal Legislation: Congress must pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. We know the political environment. We know the votes are not there today. But the bills must be live, on the floor, forcing every member of Congress on the record. That is itself a mobilization tool, and the political environment will not stay the same forever.

2. State Voting Rights Acts. Eight states already have their own voting rights acts that go further than the federal VRA. We need them in Texas, Florida, Arizona, and every state with a meaningful Latino population. LULAC is mobilizing our councils to push for state voting rights acts state by state. This is the work of the next 24 months.

3. State Courts and State Constitutions. Callais gutted the federal pathway. State constitutions and state supreme courts remain. Florida’s Fair Districts amendment, California’s Voting Rights Act, the New Mexico and Arizona state-level protections, these are now the front lines. We will litigate aggressively in state court, and we will defend state-level protections from federal court challenges that are coming.

4. Voter Mobilization. This is where LULAC lives, and this is the work that matters most right now. We will accelerate our voter registration program. We will train Spanish-language poll workers and election observers. We are building the largest Latino voter protection infrastructure the country has ever seen to challenge in real time the suppression measures that will follow this ruling. Callais makes our turnout work more important, not less. The single most powerful response any Latino voter can give to this court is to register, to vote, and to bring three others with them. We turned out in record numbers in 2020 and 2024. We will turn out in record numbers again.

5. Coalition. This week’s media briefing, convened by the National Urban League — featuring LDF, the NAACP, UnidosUS, AAJC, the Lawyers’ Committee, the National Action Network, the Leadership Conference, and other organizing partners — is the model. What you saw on that call was a multiracial civil rights coalition refusing to be divided. That coalition is the answer. The attack from this Court is on multiracial democracy itself, and the response has to come from a coalition that reflects what multiracial democracy actually looks like.

There you have it friends — a passel of ideas for how we can start work right now to rebuild, repair, and renew post-Callais. I know I felt more hopeful after talking to Bryan, Lauren, and Juan and getting their ideas. Before turning to our usual weekly summary, I wanted to share one more jolt of wisdom from my wonderful Contrarian colleague, April Ryan, discussing the broader context of the decision:

That’s all we’re asking for: a level playing field for every American. We talk about that aspiration and much more in this week’s round up of the best of the Contrarian, put together as always by our wonderful team.

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Gun Violence & WHCD Aftermath

Why Is the White House More Concerned with Building a Ballroom than Protecting Americans?

On the podcast this week, AFT President Randi Weingarten joined Jen Rubin to discuss gun violence, Trump’s ludicrous (if unsurprising) response to Saturday’s attempted shooting, and Friday’s May Day Strong Rally.

Gun Violence Deeply and Uniquely Impacts Women and Children

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf wrote on the ripple effect of gun violence on women and children—and also some underreported good news from states like Virginia, where gun safety bills that haven’t gained traction in Washington are moving ahead under Democratic governors.

Yes, Shootings Are Traumatic. Welcome to Our World

Ciera Stone gave us a searing essay on what it’s like to grow up with school shooter drills and the real and deadly threat behind them as a generational norm—and to know that institutional leadership will again do nothing. “I ask traditional media and politicians alike: how long until you forget this shooting, too?”

SCOTUS v. the VRA

The Supreme Court Has Demolished the Voting Rights Act

Leah Litman broke down exactly how antidemocratic the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision was and what we can expect as Republican-controlled states seek to redraw their maps to entrench power by destroying majority-Black and Latino districts. “It’s basically a judicial coup — a revolution against the will of the people expressed in the VRA.”

The Supreme Court’s Racist Rerun

Nadine Smith of Color of Change put the Louisiana v. Callais decision in context of America’s long history of racist attacks on voting rights, while looking to past and present for a roadmap to successful democratic resistance. “People fight differently when something has been taken; we are in that moment now.”

Want to Fight Today’s SCOTUS Decision? Then Fight for the Georgia Supreme Court in May

Ben Wikler, Lavora Barnes, and Spencer Klein—key members of the fight for the Wisconsin Supreme Court last year—wrote on two state supreme court election races that, in the wake of Wednesday’s Voting Rights Act decision, now matter more than ever. “Nobody is talking about this election. That needs to change.”

Media & Tech

Musk vs. Altman: Risking the Future on a Battle of Egos

Reuben Steiger wrote on the OpenAI as a case study in abandoned ideals. “To see where this kind of internal tension between idealism and greed leads, look no further than OpenAI’s recent agreement to work with the U.S. military to surveil citizens and use AI to make tools of war.”

Trump Is Trying to Get Jimmy Kimmel Fired (Again)

Meredith Blake analyzed Trump’s post-WHCD threats against his favorite talk-show target du jour, Jimmy Kimmel, and why they’re packing notably less of a punch this time. “The president’s problem — or at least one of them — is that his poll numbers are only tracking downward.”

Warnings About Kash Patel May Fall on Deaf Ears

Josh Levs wrote on legacy media’s “credibility crisis of its own making,” which may soften the impact of important investigative work like the Atlantic’s coverage of Kash Patel’s radical unfitness to be FBI director. “In 1976, 72% of Americans trusted the media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly either a “great deal” or a “fair amount.” Now, that figure is at an all-time low of 28%.”

Fighting Back

Trump Made Progressivism Great Again

Jen wrote on the irony that active, humane government has rarely had a better call to action than Trump’s embodiment of its total opposite. In the midterms, “Democrats must paint a vivid picture of the choice voters face: MAGA nihilism, corruption, cruelty, and oligarchic rule vs. functional government, improvement of safety net programs, humane immigration policy with border protection, personal freedoms to define one’s life, and fairness for the little guy and gal.” Every voter can be part of the referendum.

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we covered May Day mobilizations nationwide, as well as earlier protests in New Jersey, Texas, Arizona, Oregon and Arizona, and more. See our weekly Calls to Action for ways to defend voting rights and continue May Day solidarity in the days and weeks to come. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Culture, Cartoons, & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists covered the president’s new construction fantasies (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling; At Least They Have Thoughts and Prayers, Michael de Adder) and the Supreme Court’s post-Reconstruction fantasies (The New Jim Crow, RJ Matson).

In 1970, Princess Anne Ruffled D.C. Feathers by Dissing America’s National Bird

Fred Frommer wrote about when a certain royal visited America with her brother, during which she said the eagle was a “bad choice.” Oh, for the gaffes of yesteryear….

We Ride For Meg

Shalise Manza Young gave Megan Thee Stallion her flowers. “Yes, she is a multi-platinum rapper who is unapologetic about her sexuality, but she is so much more than that: a philanthropist, a savvy businesswoman, a prolific entrepreneur. A survivor.”

Classic Lemon Chiffon Pie

Jamie Schler gave us a dessert that’s perfectly “sweet and tart, retro for modern times.”

Contrarian Rescue of the Week

And last but never least: meet Cardi! This tongue-lolling angel of a lab mix is available for adoption.

I spent time this week on other injustices that you, Contrarians, are enabling me to contest — including David Ellison’s Paramount-Warner merger and my forthcoming court appearance arguing for summary judgment on the renaming of the Kennedy Center. But this publisher’s note spotlights the SPLC battle. It’s a stark example of the erosion of institutional norms and the chilling effect such actions could have on free press and expression. These concerns underpin a Contrarian special report I co-wrote with my colleague Tom Joscelyn, a senior adviser for Democracy Defenders. We’ll be posting that at noon ET here at The Contrarian. In it, we scrutinize the details of the indictment to share a definitive takedown. You won’t want to miss it!

Here’s a sneak peek, followed by our usual weekly roundup:

During a press conference on Tuesday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel announced that the SPLC had been criminally indicted by a grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama. “There is nothing political about this indictment,” Blanche insisted. Anyone paying attention knows that is a lie. This DOJ attack on the esteemed SPLC is a travesty.

This sham regime has unethically abused its power in this ridiculous attack on a legendary civil rights organization. As my fellow former presidential ethics counselors Richard Painter (George W. Bush), Virginia Canter (Barack Obama and Bill Clinton), and I (Barack Obama) wrote in a statement issued shortly after the indictment, we will not stay silent while the administration weaponizes the tools of law enforcement to attack groups it disagrees with.

This grievance is not a new one. MAGA Republicans have been gunning for the SPLC for years. During a congressional hearing late last year, for instance, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) portrayed the legendary civil rights organization as a bogeyman out to get conservatives and demanded a full investigation into how the DOJ, FBI, and other federal agencies had long relied on the center’s work. Other leading MAGA Republicans have loudly complained when the organization called out their hate.

Donald Trump’s corrupted DOJ and FBI have found a way to use the court system to act out MAGA’s revenge fantasy. Absurdly, the Trump regime alleges that instead of seeking to “dismantle” white supremacist groups — the center’s mission for the past 55 years, during which time it helped take down the Ku Klux Klan — it was surreptitiously paying extremists as part of some convoluted conspiracy. Blanche accuses the group of “manufacturing racism to justify its existence.” Patel claims the SPLC “allegedly engaged in a massive fraud operation to deceive their donors, enrich themselves, and hide their deceptive operations from the public.”

These allegations are a smear. None of them withstands scrutiny.

The indictment centers on the SPLC’s use of paid informants to infiltrate white supremacist groups. That is not unusual. It is often difficult to get inside groups seeking to overthrow the U.S. government or impose their racist vision on the country. The FBI itself regularly uses informants, and the “courts have recognized” that it “is lawful and often essential to the effectiveness of properly authorized law enforcement investigations.”

Indeed, the SPLC provided intelligence from its informant network to law enforcement agencies, including the FBI — a fact not included in the indictment. The exclusion of any mention of the longstanding working relationship between the SPLC and the FBI is outrageous and undermines the entire premise of the case. “We frequently shared what we learned from informants with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI,” Bryan Fair, the SPLC’s interim president, said in a video defending his organization.

Patel knows Fair’s statement is true. Patel severed “all ties” between the FBI and SPLC in October 2025, as he wrote on X. Patel’s statement is an admission that the SPLC had those ties and was providing intelligence to the bureau. In fact, before Patel ended the relationship, Republican congressmen and conservative activists frequently complained that the FBI was cooperating too closely with the SPLC.

Nevertheless, the DOJ alleges that the SPLC’s use of informants was part of a “scheme and artifice” to deceive donors. Acting U.S. Attorney Kevin Davidson alleges in the indictment that though SPLC’s “stated mission included the dismantling of white supremacy and confronting hate across the country” it was “unbeknownst to donors,” secretly using “donated money … to fund the leaders and organizers of racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and the National Alliance.”

However, the indictment utterly fails to explain how these payments to extremist leaders undercut the SPLC’s stated mission. Nor does it say how anyone working for the center intentionally deceived donors. Nor could it; if you surveyed donors to the organization, they have already stated or would almost undoubtedly say that investigating hate is exactly what they wanted to support and that these claims are reprehensible.

The DOJ’s entire case centers on the SPLC’s alleged payments to ten informants inside extremist groups. Our special report, which will be posted here at The Contrarian at noon today, details the facts regarding these informants. The report makes evident that not a one justifies the criminal charges brought against the SPLC.

Please check it out! As you’ll read, this is hardly a conspiracy to secretly fund extremism or defraud donors. It is simply intelligence work. In fact, it is the type of information-gathering on white supremacist groups the FBI routinely engages in — or at least used to.

The hollow, desperate accusations underscore the extent to which the Trump regime wants Americans to believe that the SPLC, which has fought white supremacy since its founding in 1971, was secretly sponsoring white supremacy. That is utter nonsense.

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We stand with SPLC and will support the organization however we can. The ability to do so in the court of law and of public opinion through our nonstop journalism is all thanks to you, Contrarians. Your paid subscriptions help fund our legal battles and scintillating coverage. See for yourself in our rundown of The Contrarian’s other work this week, put together as always by my wonderful colleagues:

War Is a Reality Check on Even the Maddest of Kings

Tom Malinowski wrote on the president’s unappealing next options in a war he said would be over in 24 hours, which has now stretched for eight weeks. “Trump wanted Iran to be easy, not hard.”

Trump vs. Earth

Tim Dickinson reminded us why Earth Day began as a protest—and why its spirit is more vital than ever to counter “the carbon-pilled nihilist in the White House” bent on reversing decades of environmental progress while making climate denial official U.S. policy.

Women Are the First To Go

Jennifer Rubin found something of a pattern in which Trump’s (incompetent) lieutenants are thrown under the bus—and which seem to only fail upward. “There is less tolerance for Chavez-DeRemer’s petty scandals than for Hegseth’s blunders that endanger our national security. Mike Walz got a different job after Signalgate; Bondi got shown the door.”

A President of Spectacle, A War of Consequence

Brian O’Neill wrote on the Iran War as a testing ground for whether Trump knows how to command anything other than attention. “The president whose political style has long depended on improvisation, denial, and force of personality is now confronting the one test that exposes those habits most brutally: sustained conflict against a capable adversary.”

Good News for Women — from the States

In the face of the administration’s ongoing attacks on women’s health, Jennifer Weiss-Wolf took a look at the states that are serving as “laboratories for democracy,” showing what can be done when women’s health is a priority.

JD Vance Can Forget About 2028

Jill Lawrence looked ahead to the 2028 prospects for the man many have picked as the best chance for Republicans to turn MAGA into a post-Trump dynasty — and why, amid a crush of scandals and outrages, the road isn’t as clear as he thinks. “Vance has no choices and no escape.”

The Tea w/April Ryan ft. Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie and Loni Love

On this week’s The Tea, April Ryan and guests Bishop Vashti Murphy and Loni Love talked about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, faith in the time of Trump, and what’s next for the entertainment industry.

‘Bow Down’: Why Madonna Remains in Vogue

Culture columnist Meredith Blake this week honored Madonna, the Queen of Pop who cemented her legacy at Coachella while her contemporaries Prince and Michael Jackson showed up elsewhere in the news. “If people are stealing your looks — literally or figuratively — it means they still care.”

Resistance Reading and How to Protest Paramount

Every week, be sure to check out the Contrarian Calls To Action, which this week includes not only our usual guide to making a difference for democracy — including how to support the SPLC, planning for May Day, and ways to protest the Paramount merger — but also recommended reading in honor of World Book Day!

Meet Penny!

And of course, we always have our pet of the week. This week, we feature our own culture columnist, Meredith Blake’s adorable new puppy, Penny, who’s sure to leave you with a million-dollar smile on your face.

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One last thing: Your big idea could win $1,000. Five colleagues and I are judging The Future of Democracy Prize — and we’re looking for young voices (18–30) with bold answers to one question: What will it take for U.S. democracy not just to survive, but to thrive? No finished essay required to enter. Just a 350-word abstract by April 30. Finalists get $1,000 and publication in a national anthology. Learn more or submit your entry here. And please, forward this to one fellow pro-democracy 20-something who needs a nudge.

As always, thank you for being a Contrarian!

Warmly,

Norm

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I barely had a moment to get comfortable before my phone started buzzing. In one of those coincidences that make you believe the good lord does not want to see CNN turned into Fox News, I got a flood of messages that the state attorneys general had just won another major antitrust case that they took to trial: the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly. I immediately jotted a note and passed it to Katie, who broke the news to the room during her opening statement:

Katie, David, and Mark were representing different constituencies that were signatories to a letter that we at Democracy Defenders Fund, the Committee for First Amendment, Future Film Coalition, and many other groups had put together. It features over 3,500 signatures urging state AG action here, just as in the LiveNation case, and pledging their support for the AGs. The signers include everyone from stars like Ben Stiller, Bryan Cranston, and Jane Fonda to the working people who actually make the film, television, and news businesses operate: camera operators, makeup artists, sound engineers, and many others.

The letter dropped on Monday with a New York Times exclusive, was widely covered everywhere, and served as a wake up call to Larry and David Ellison, the father-son duo who run Paramount, that this dangerous combination faces the same opposition that was successful in the Live Nation-Ticketmaster case. The news of that state AG win galvanized the wood-paneled hearing room in the Rayburn House Office Building and with the letter and hearing constituted a one-two-three punch that knocked the inevitability out of the Paramount-WBD narrative.

I was so proud of my friends who testified with the other witnesses, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard representing the Committee for the First Amendment and Michael Isaac representing the Writers Guild of America East. As Katie said when she was later reflecting on the hearing, “Each and every witness delivered … the critical messaging that we all need to hear, which is that this merger threatens creative independence … [and] the ability to deliver truthful fact-driven journalism.” Here’s our Substack Live conversation moderated by the Contrarian’s wonderful culture columnist Meredith Blake where you can catch that and more:

It’s fitting that our work to oppose this merger, which is only beginning, came the same week that the Hungarian people finally threw out Viktor Orbán after 16 years of authoritarian rule. The excessive control of entertainment and news by merging two of Hollywood’s iconic film and TV producers, putting CBS, CNN and TikTok under the ownership of the Ellisons, would effectively represent the Orban-ization of America. As our letter of support for the state AGs said, “Competition is essential for a healthy economy and a healthy democracy. So is thoughtful regulation and enforcement. Media consolidation has already weakened one of America’s most vital global industries — one that has long shaped culture and connected people around the world.”

As I recently wrote, the Ellisons are notorious cronies of Trump, who with his administration have been openly pushing for the merger, including the takeover of CNN to get better coverage. And to prove the point about this unholy alliance, David Ellison will this week host a D.C. dinner “in celebration of the First Amendment honoring the Trump White House” together with the CBS White House correspondents. You can’t make this up. How do you celebrate freedom of the press by honoring a president and a White House who viciously attack it daily? The oxymoronic nature of the gathering is only highlighted by its location, the “Donald Trump United States Institute of Peace.”

This is exactly the kind of thing that Hungary–where Orban-linked forces took over the media–just rejected. We can’t let Orbanization happen in this country. We are just getting started with our work to stop it.

That is thanks to you Contrarians of course. Your paid subscriptions make it possible for us to work on this matter and about 300 others! That includes many of the landmark cases and wins of the Trump period. It’s the most unique bargain in American journalism: you get the Contrarian’s scintillating coverage of how our democracy is fighting back, and you get to join the fight by supporting my and my colleagues’ legal cases.

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As for the anti-merger letter the over 3,500 entertainment and news professionals who have now signed are all heroes because they are speaking up despite the risk of retaliation. Indeed, that retaliation was demonstrated — together with the Ellisons’ unfitness to operate CNN — when Paramount pulled all its advertising from a leading entertainment publication because one of its columnists signed the letter. There was no real doubt about the unsuitability of the Ellisons after the shocking mishandling of CBS News on their watch, but the episode highlighted how brave the signers are. Ruffalo put it well in his testimony when he compared this moment to the notorious Hollywood blacklist era.

Perhaps my favorite moment of the entire process of putting together this letter, however, was when my friend Damon Lindelof told us several days before the letter launched that he was going to apply his signature. He’s one of the great TV creators whose body of work includes Lost, Watchmen, and much more. He has made his professional home at Warner Bros. for a decade and a half. He explained on Instagram, “Hollywood mergers mean fewer movies and fewer TV shows and that means fewer jobs. When two storied backlots are owned by the same company, the outcome is intuitive—one becomes a Ghost Town. I’m scared. But I’m not a ghost. And a fight is already lost if it’s never fought. So I signed. Proudly.” His entire statement is worth reading. I am nominating him for a Profile in Courage Award! (Documentarian Rory Kennedy signed the letter too, so I know who to call.)

True, all of this was just one battle in a much larger war for democracy being waged in the United States and around the world, including in Hungary. But that’s how we save our democracy: one battle after another (so to speak). And that is also how we at the Contrarian cover our democracy. See for yourself in our rundown of the best of the Contrarian’s work this week, as always put together by my wonderful colleagues.

Under the Banner of Heaven

Hegseth’s Enraging Purges Shock but Don’t Surprise

Shalise Manza-Young wrote on the secretary of Defense’s ongoing exercises in bigotry and poor military leadership, a man seemingly determined to exclude everyone more qualified (and non-white/straight/cis/male) than he is. “Before he publicly prayed that his God give troops the power to commit ‘overwhelming violence’ in Iran, Hegseth had already acted like a segregationist intent on taking the military back to 1948.”

Trump’s Puerile Pope Problem

Catholic author and scholar Christopher Hale joined Jen Rubin to break down Trump’s recent attacks against Pope Leo XIV, and why the pope’s comments are getting so far under Trump’s skin in the first place. “When Americans can see the man in the white cassock speak natural English and speak thoughtfully about American issues…. I think that is his superpower.”

Elections

The California Quagmire

Tim Dickinson reported on the latest in the “semi-dysfunctional scrum” of California’s governor’s race, which, following the exit of Democrat Eric Swalwell in light of sexual assault allegations, has created a bizarre danger zone for Democrats: If they don’t coalesce around a viable candidate soon, California could end up choosing between two Republicans.

Trump Mobilizes DHS and USPS in Latest Assault on Elections

Samantha Tarazi told us what we need to know about Trump’s second executive order on elections, signed last month in the aftermath of the SAVE Act’s legislative failure, and no less of a blatant attempt at disenfranchisement. “[It’s] all to create chaos and sow seeds of doubt ahead of this year’s midterms while giving Trump’s allies in state legislatures a playbook to undermine American citizens’ freedom to vote.”

Long Cons

The Tax Fairness Question Dominating This Filing Season

Elena Patel wrote on the new inequalities of this year’s tax season, courtesy of the One Big Beautiful Bill — the benefits of which tilt toward the very top of the income ladder while the costs fall on those at the bottom.”

Russ Vought Is Rewriting America’s Budget

Apropos of Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought testifying before the House Budget Committee — during which lawmakers quizzed him on Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget (a 44% increase) and cuts to domestic programs — Bobby Kogan joined Jen to discuss Vought’s real game: the continued gutting of federal programs.

Why Donald Trump and Kash Patel Want Your Data

Jeff Nesbit wrote on how the very administration that claimed to be the victim of surveillance overreach is now asking for the keys to the most powerful spy machine ever built. “The timing is calculated.”

Media Matters

Why the Meme Wars Are No Laughing Matter

Josh Levs wrote on “memetic warfare,” in which the base units of internet commentary have become powerful tools of statecraft, propaganda, and cyberattacks. “It’s a phenomenon that surrounds and manipulates us in ways most people don’t realize.”

Block the Merger!

Katie Phang laid out an exacting case against the Paramount–Warner Bros. merger, which would erode press freedom and make important stories harder to tell. “Maybe no executive ever says the quiet part out loud…. Careers are made and destroyed through suggestion, through silence, through raised eyebrows.”

‘If Someone Won’t Answer, Persist’

Meredith Blake interviewed the subject and filmmakers behind Steal This Story, Please!, a documentary about Amy Goodman, the unflinching Democracy Now! Host whose prescient vision for independent media is now a beacon in a time of unprecedented consolidation and threatened free speech.

Fighting Back

Orban’s Defeat Spurs Democracy’s Resurrection

Tim Mak joined Jen to discuss celebrations in the streets of Budapest, what Viktor Orbán’s defeat means for global democracy, and what we can learn for our own fight against autocracy. “They were chanting Europe, Europe, Europe….”

This AG Fought the Ticketmaster Monopoly and Won

California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined Jen to discuss his win this week in the monopoly case against Ticketmaster and Live Nation — welcome proof that states can fight the oligarchy despite a federal government with no interest in enforcing antitrust laws.

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw protests in Texas and Washington, Tesla Takedowns, and much more. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Culture, Cartoons & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on the Strait of Hormuz (Holding the Cards, Taking a Toll, Nick Anderson; Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling), dire straits at CNN (Coming Soon: The New CNN, RJ Matson), and straight-up blasphemy (Big Crowds, Doctor, Doctor, Michael de Adder).

Inventors Have Looked to Perfect ‘Robot Umpires’ for Better Part of a Century

Frederic J. Frommer reported on the MLB’s recent adoption of the automated ball-strike system — and how it’s actually the culmination of a surprisingly long, quixotically funny quest for robot umpires. “Jeez, Luciano, this machine is even blinder than you.”

Moon Joy

Lily Conway wrote about the joy the Artemis II crew gave us. From naming a crater in remembrance of one of the crewmember’s late wife to reveling in the possibility that humanity can do amazing things when united, everyone can use a little Moon Joy right now.

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One last thing: Your big idea (350 words) could win $1,000. Five colleagues and I are judging The Future of Democracy Prize — and we’re looking for young voices (18–30) with bold answers to one question: What will it take for U.S. democracy not just to survive, but to thrive? No finished essay required to enter. Just a 350-word abstract by April 30. Finalists get $1,000 and publication in a national anthology. Learn more or submit your entry here! And please, forward this to one smart 20-something who needs a nudge.

That’s not exactly the approach that President Trump, his cronies, and their families have adopted. I’ve written before about the Top 10 most outrageous corruption scandals of this administration. This week, my Democracy Defenders Fund colleagues and I added another item to the list. Working with former New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, we filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission urging it investigate ALT5 Sigma (ALTS).

This company boasted Trump’s son Eric as a board member (later re-designated as a board “strategic advisor and observer”) and Trump Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s son Zach as its board chair. Its history in recent months is one of serious failures of compliance, breakdowns of governance, and profoundly concerning financial connections with another Trump and Witkoff-linked venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF).

The story starts in August, when ALTS told the world that it had raised $1.5 billion through various investment vehicles. ALTS then moved the money to WLF by buying $750 million of its $WLFI governance tokens, about 7% of total supply. As detailed in our letter, “ALTS appears to have steered as much as $500 million of private investor money directly into the pockets of the Trump family and their associates.” When this money hit their wallets, Zach Witkoff (co-founder and CEO of WLF) and Eric Trump (also a WLF co-founder) assumed leadership roles on the board of ALTS.

These facts give rise to questions that are of the utmost importance to the integrity of our financial markets and of our democracy, as our letter explains. The most profound: who were the investors who funded the ALTS $WLFI purchase–and did they do so in order to get in the good graces of the Trump administration?

The concerns about this transaction are only deepened by what went on in the period in and around this massive financial transfer to WLF. In August, ALTS disclosed that several months earlier a Rwandan court had ruled that ALT5 Sigma Canada Inc., a subsidiary of the company, and its former principal were criminally liable for illicit enrichment and money laundering, ordering imprisonment, fines, and dissolution of the subsidiary. Shortly thereafter, the CEO of ALTS was suspended without explanation, auditors changed multiple times within just a few weeks, and the company failed to meet the due date for filing its annual report. It’s little wonder that ALTS was at risk of being delisted from Nasdaq and its share price has plummeted. Despite the immense capital influx from these transactions, the share piece has declined by around 75%. The company is looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for the 2025 fiscal year.

Given these troubling data points, our letter urges the SEC’s Enforcement Division to “carefully examine these issues because they indicate, both individually and collectively, that ALTS may have engaged in a number of securities violations, thereby harming investors and financial marketplace writ large.” This is not just a story about corporate governance. It is a test of whether the rules that protect investors and the integrity of American markets still apply when political power and private profit intersect.

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Our SEC letter calling for an investigation of ALTS is just one of many similar filings we’ve made. This one is outrageous enough that even Trump’s SEC may investigate. But whatever they do, we’re laying down a marker for the press, the public and other enforcement authorities. Whether for state attorneys general and securities regulators, a future more independent Congress, or future federal regulators, there will be a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. Meanwhile, we must all demand answers.

Our ability to continue pushing back against Trump and his cronies’ web of dubious dealings is, of course, supported by your paid subscriptions. We are deeply grateful that you Contrarians make this work possible as well as our weekly pro-democracy Contrarian coverage. See for yourself in this week’s roundup of our best content produced by my terrific colleagues:

War Crimes

What Comes From the Failure to Confront Insanity

Jen Rubin wrote on the cascade of civil and political failures behind Trump’s genocidal threats on Tuesday: “some muddled tale of a diplomatic breakthrough should in no way diminish the illegality, the horror, or the frightful intrusion of religious zealotry into our politics.”

The Strategic Gift to Tehran

Brian O’Neill wrote on how Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be helping to produce the strongest Islamic Republic since 1979. “It would be one of the great strategic self-inflicted wounds in Middle East policy.”

Toxic Religious Rhetoric & Why a Ceasefire in Iran Isn’t Enough

On the podcast this week, Jen spoke with Robert P. Jones about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s crusader rhetoric and the dangers of Trump’s “refrigerator-magnet style” theology, and with Joyce Vance about Iran after the ceasefire, the Republicans finding a shred of conscience, and more.

Break Glass

Norman Ornstein thinks it’s time to call an emergency an emergency and invoke the 25th Amendment. “We have a malignant narcissistic psychopath as president, with control over the military and the atomic arsenal, who is deteriorating mentally before our very eyes.”

Cabinet Chaos

What Pam Bondi Destroyed in One Year Could Take Decades to Rebuild

Stacey Young wrote on just how much Pam Bondi’s reign as AG degraded the Justice Department: an exodus of talent, criminal cases shut down, an utter loss of good faith with the courts and more. “Now, the best way we can fight for the department is from the outside.”

Which Cabinet Member is Next on The Chopping Block?

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) joined Jen to consider the next attorney general—and the next vacant cabinet seat—amid war with Iran. “I think Kash Patel stands a very good chance of being shown the door.”

The Home Front

Texas Stripped 15,000 Businesses of Opportunity. Now It Faces a Legal Challenge.

Stacey Abrams wrote on how Republicans have made disadvantaged communities a scapegoat for failed economic policies, including a Texas comptroller who quietly decertified more than 15,000 minority- and women-owned businesses in December.

Don’t Forget About Minnesota

Annastacia Belladonna-Carrera of Common Cause reminded us that, despite what the Trump regime claimed, ICE has never left Minnesota and is continuing operations across the state. “The media may not be all over it … but the need is still there.”

No Farms, No Food

John Boyd, founder of the Black Farmers Association, spoke to April Ryan to sound the alarm on Trump’s devastating attack on small and minority farmers. “There’s going to be a lot of generational land that changes hands.”

Affordability is the Issue, Especially for Childcare

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf wrote on how the Trump administration is putting the onus on states to fund social services — while making it impossible for them to provide those services.

Checking in With the Bots

5 Things You Should Know About AI Right Now

Amid the many hype and doom cycles about AI, Adam Conner of the Center for American Progress gave us a breakdown of what AI is actually doing right now — to the economy, to warfare, to your job.

How the Media is Helping AI Spread Lies

Josh Levs wrote on the problem with AI summaries having taken the place of traditional media as the first source of information for many, even when it comes to war — and how this is compounded by the media’s acquiescence to AI-first search.

History Has Its Eyes on You

Operation Enduring Glory

Tim Dickinson gave us a rundown of all the things Trump is naming after himself, which somehow includes both the Institute of Peace and the “most lethal warship ever built” at the tip of the iceberg.

The Infuriating Hypocrisy of Usha Vance

Meredith Blake checked in with the second lady, who thinks kids should read more but doesn’t have much to say about the Trump administration defunding libraries (or anything else).

Split Screen: Giorgia Meloni — Feminist or Fascist?

Azza Cohen took a nuanced look at Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female prime minister, as both gender-empowerment opportunist and persevering target of media sexism. “That a woman can be the head of a political party named ‘brothers’ is some kind of ironic victory.”

Fighting Back

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw anti-war protests nationwide in New York, Illinois, Washington, D.C., Missouri, Tennessee, and more. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

This Congresswoman Is Jamming the Gears of Trump’s Chaos Machine

Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) joined Jen Rubin with an update on the ongoing standoff over ICE funding and why there is still cause for hope. “The point really is people’s freedoms … so we’re not going to vote for one more penny until these reforms are done.”

Culture, Cartoons & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on hollow wins (Rescue from Iran, Nick Anderson), obvious losses (Both Sides Win, Michael de Adder), better worlds (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling), and more.

The Auriemma/Staley Spat is Good for Women’s College Basketball

Carron J. Phillips wrote on how the 2026 Women’s Final Four will be deservedly remembered for one thing — and it wasn’t the championship game. “Sports are more enjoyable when what’s at stake is more than the final score.”

This column is based on our letter and associated materials.

Correction: An earlier version said Eric Trump sits on the board of ALT5 Sigma. He is now a strategic advisor and observer. This version has been updated.

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Like the hundreds of others in the crowded courtroom, I expected to see history in the making — a case that would enter the annals of American law. What I didn’t expect was to witness a scene out of a reality TV show: The Real Cabinet Members of D.C.

I was seated in the third row of the gallery. The first row is reserved for cabinet members and VIPs, and it was filling up when, at about 9:45 a.m., Attorney General Pam Bondi arrived and took an open seat for the 10 a.m. argument. She looked uncomfortable and unhappy, her face a grimace, her back stiff. I assumed she knew her side was going to have a rough day of it. We now know that she had just been fired in the car ride over with the president.

Before long came the lumbering bulk of Donald Trump, accompanied by the more diminutive White House Counsel David Warrington. He sandwiched himself between Bondi and Trump, with the president occupying the spot at the very end of the far right of the row. That’s where the drama kicked in. Trump began whispering to Warrington and to his Secret Service detail. Then Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hurried over from further down the row, sycophantically groveling in the aisle to Trump’s right for more presidential whispering.

The next thing I knew, Trump was getting up and moving to the far left opposite end of the bench, about five feet in front of me — and as far away from Bondi as possible. She was left alone at the end of the row, looking none too chipper.

At the time I thought maybe Trump just didn’t like the view, although it wasn’t that different. It was a little over 24 hours later that Bondi’s firing was announced. In retrospect, it makes me wonder if it wasn’t the seat that Trump disliked but the seatmate. Whatever the explanation, I momentarily felt sorry for Bondi, abandoned at the end of the row like a school kid without a lunch companion.

But my flicker of sympathy was short-lived. After her role in pursuing baseless criminal charges against innocent victims of Trump’s misplaced revenge, in exposing the names of the Epstein victims, and then in doing so much other damage to the Department of Justice and the rule of law, I can only say she deserves to be shunned–and disbarred. (Hmm, that gives me an idea….)

With all that as prologue, what then transpired once the arguments began must have done little to improve her mood. Based on what I saw in court on Wednesday, I am guessing we are looking at a 6-3 or 7-2 victory for our birthright case. It was a terrible day for Trump, Bondi and their ilk — but a great day for justice and for all you Contrarians, whose paid subscriptions help support my work on cases like this one.

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It appears that the Supreme Court is poised to affirm that the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment means what it has always been understood to mean: that every person born on American soil is an American citizen. ACLU Legal Director and my co-counsel Cecillia Wang did a brilliant job of explaining that the meaning of the citizenship clause has been fixed since the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. Subsequent Supreme Court case law, notably the Wong Kim Ark decision in 1898, has only reinforced that babies born in the country are American citizens regardless of the citizenship status of their parents. Here I am with Cecillia right after the argument:

Even the conservative justices were skeptical of the government’s argument: that only babies with parents who are “domiciled” in the United States and have permanent legal status here are entitled to birthright citizenship. Solicitor General John Sauer was peppered with questions about the lack of textual and historical support for this argument. At one point, after Sauer mentioned Wong Kim Ark, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said, “Well, I’m not sure how much you want to rely on Wong Kim Ark.” Gorsuch also called out the government on the striking absence of discussion of “domicile” in congressional debates at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was passed. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. referred to the government’s examples as “quirky.”

We do not expect to win this case 9-0, and Justices Clarence Thomas and, to some extent, Samuel A. Alito were sympathetic to the government’s arguments. That said, based on the questioning from the justices, it appears that a clear majority will rule for our clients. This is not a difficult case, in large part because the court already decided this issue in Wong Kim Ark, which involved the son of Chinese immigrants. In fact, Kavanaugh asked Wang whether the opinion could be a very short one affirming that the court is following Wong Kim Ark, and she agreed that it could.

As I explained at a rally after the argument, Wednesday was the culmination of years of planning that began even months before Trump was reelected in 2024. This planning was the reason that Democracy Defenders Fund and our partners were able to act immediately when Trump’s executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship as we know it was issued on the first day of his second term. More of my rally remarks are here:

We do not relish that this work is necessary, but I and my litigation colleagues at Democracy Defenders Fund and Democracy Defenders Action stand ready to continue fighting. That is thanks in no small part to your paid subscriptions, which fuel our role in cases and matters like this one and over 280 others.

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Of course, your paid subscriptions don’t support only my work in the courts of law; they also support the Contrarian’s stellar coverage that shapes the court of public opinion. Just take a look at this week’s highlights, put together by my wonderful Contrarian colleagues:

Birthright citizenship at SCOTUS

Trump Is Likely to Lose on Birthright

Erwin Chemerinsky laid out multiple legal paths by which SCOTUS could strike down Trump’s illegal executive order on birthright citizenship, as suggested by Wednesday’s oral arguments on Trump v. Barbara. “The Fourteenth Amendment is not the only avenue.”

On the Ground from SCOTUS’ Hearings on Birthright Citizenship [podcast]

This week on the podcast, we heard from Juan Proaño, head of LULAC, court reporter Adam Klasfield, post-oral argument impressions from yours truly, and more from the front lines of the SCOTUS birthright citizenship case.

No Kings Day at the Court

Taryn Wilgus Null wrote about what else is at stake in the birthright case: whether the president can unilaterally change the Constitution. “The court’s decision will go to the very rule of law … and whether our country is truly by the people and for the people.”

War in Iran

Iran’s Negotiating Strategy Is Built on Distrust

Brian O’Neill analyzed Tehran’s playbook in response to Trump’s flailing negotiations: engage tactically, resist irreversible concessions, and assume diplomacy can be used to justify further military pressure. “Iranian officials have indicated a willingness to continue conflict rather than return to a pre-war status quo that leaves the regime exposed.”

Is It Too Late To Apologize?

Dennis Ross, former ambassador and Middle East negotiator, joined Jennifer Rubin to weigh in on Iran peace talks and answer some billion-dollar questions: Will anyone give up control of the Strait of Hormuz? Are maintaining sanctions against Iran a non-starter? Do the Houthis and other external parties need to be addressed simultaneously? And what, finally, will it take to secure a ceasefire?

American Consumers Will Pay for Trump’s War with Iran

Jeff Nesbit wrote on where the American public is already paying for the war in Iran — at the grocery store, the gas pump, in our electronics — and where it could go from here. “We’re no longer dealing with a localized conflict or a simple energy shock. We’re witnessing the systematic deconstruction of the global supply chain.”

Trump Is Serious About Accepting a Humiliating Defeat

Jen checked in with our reckless firestarter-in-chief, whose most recent spate of rambling, false statements on the war in Iran lay bare his modus operandi in what is already a snowballing geopolitical nightmare. “No other president could possibly have done this much damage in such a short time. The United States stands alone — more despised and less respected than we have ever been in the modern era.”

Inhumane policies, ongoing harms

The Echo in Trump’s Detention Camps

Shalise Manza Young situated ICE’s detention facilities in the searing context of a legacy of state violence. “There is nothing in American history that compares to the horrors of chattel slavery and the Trail of Tears. But damn if the echoes of both can’t be heard when it comes to these federal concentration camps.”

For Meta, the Mask Is Off: They Knowingly Harmed Children

Yaël Eistenstat reported on two landmark guilty verdicts in the long road to holding social media companies accountable for their predatory — and predator-enabling — design and business practices. “This is the type of evidence social media companies have fought tooth and nail to prevent from ever entering a courtroom.”

Women Who Serve Also Face the Trump Administration’s Misogyny

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf wrote on the increasingly hostile environment women in the military endure under the Trump administration’s misogynist, anti-DEI policies. “We’ve reached the point in the plot where they no longer worry about saying the quiet part out loud.”

Fighting back

In Defense of Joyful Protest

Tim Dickinson reported on No Kings 3 from Portland, Oregon, where the day was a party with purpose. “Portland protesters turned the tables by laughing in the face of fascism, donning chicken suits and inflatable frog costumes, and refusing to cower before an authoritarian president.

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

All this week, we featured coverage from some of the 8 million of us who attended No Kings protests last weekend. We also highlighted protest planning for May Day, including plans for a nationwide general strike. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Protesting is Necessary but Not Sufficient

Danny Miller and Steve Silverman wrote on what must come the day after we take to the streets, if we’re serious about stopping democratic backsliding: “strikes, boycotts, deliberate non-cooperation with illegitimate exercises of power, and the patient work of organizing across every sector of civil society.”

Cartoons, culture & fun stuff

This week our cartoonists covered making deals (The Next Big Iran War Announcement; Help!, Nick Anderson), breaking promises (‘If they rise, they rise’, Michael de Adder), losing big (Have You Seen the Dow?, RJ Matson), and the biggest loser (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ Takes a Chilling Look at the Effects of Russian Propaganda

Meredith Blake wrote on the Oscar-winning Russian documentary that has a lot to teach Americans about how a society gets militarized — especially its schools.

Plus, Emily Beyda shared her perfectly imperfect Easter treats, and G. Elliott Morris shared Pancake.

The mega-merger would allow the Ellisons to consolidate and control how Americans consume news and information to benefit Trump’s authoritarian agenda. Exhibit A: Last August, the Ellisons took control of Paramount, the home of CBS news, in a separate merger through their company Skydance — and immediately transformed CBS News’s coverage, with the network taking more fawning positions on Trump’s political program. There is little doubt that, should the Paramount-WB merger pass regulatory and legal scrutiny, the Ellisons will look to transform CNN — though they claim otherwise — as they did their network news empire. That is a deeply alarming prospect, particularly to champions of democratic rule who know that media consolidation is a time-honored authoritarian tactic.

The Ellison takeover of CBS News provides us with a painful picture of what a future CNN might become. As detailed in our Democracy Defenders Action letter with partners to Paramount’s board, the company’s handling of CBS News raised serious concerns about a steady erosion of editorial independence. That deterioration culminated in the elevation of Bari Weiss to a position of extraordinary influence over the network’s direction. Ratings are now in the toilet, but there is no sign of change, raising the question of whether the whole point was to destroy the storied CBS journalism operation as an independent overseer of government, including of Trump.

And it may be even worse for CNN, the news crown jewel of WBD. Reports indicate that David Ellison promised Trump that he would make “sweeping changes” to the network. This reportedly may include giving Weiss some control over CNN as well as CBS. It’s unsurprising that Trump administration officials have expressed vocal support for the Ellisons in their hostile takeover bid, as has been widely reported.

On Friday, FCC Chair Brendan Carr openly bragged that “President Trump took on the fake news media, and President Trump is winning,” including because “soon enough CNN will have new ownership.” And Trump himself allegedly has gone so far as to give Larry Ellison a “direct personal assurance” that Paramount would win the WB war, according to a recent lawsuit.

Don’t minimize the non-news harms of this fiasco either. The Ellisons would also control a huge market share of movies and television. The 20th century teaches us that those may be even more powerful tools for pushing pro-Trump propaganda.

Moreover, these kinds of concentrations of market power hurt consumers. Instead of Paramount and Warner competing in the marketplace, they would be one consolidated mass. Basic economics teaches us that would lead to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers. Rather than HBO Max and Paramount+ contending with each other to drive prices down, they can agree to hike them. The mashing together of big companies would likely lead to layoffs at the combined enterprises — another blow to working people.

To students of authoritarianism, this pattern is unmistakable. Twenty-first century strongmen consolidate power steadily, across institutions — government, business, media and culture — until dissent has nowhere left to stand. It is the playbook followed by Vladimir Putin in Russia, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey: centralize power, marginalize independent voices, and bring the information ecosystem to heel. They don’t care whether the crony capitalism they practice worsens economic conditions for average people in those countries. When Trump, his backers in politics, and his aligned corporate actors move to concentrate control over media and cultural production, they are not just reshaping markets; they are testing whether the same model can take hold here in the United States.

That is why the proposed merger is so dangerous. What’s at stake here is not simply another corporate combination, but rather a profound shift in who controls the production and distribution of news and entertainment in the United States. When a handful of firms dominate both creative output and the channels through which Americans understand the world, the risks aren’t just economic — they’re civic.

That is particularly problematic with this merger, as it would unite major studios, streaming platforms, and national news networks under a single, right-wing corporate umbrella — a new media giant that could easily convert CNN and its other properties into a new Fox News. A Trump-blessed, Ellison-controlled media empire would bring a narrowing of editorial autonomy when the country can least afford it.

In the face of all of that, we unfortunately have little expectation that the federal government will stop the deal. The Trump administration has retreated from serious, robust, and nonpartisan antitrust enforcement — likely, in this case, at the behest of the president himself. DOJ has sought more information about the transaction but that is probably a fig leaf in light of the pro-Ellison remarks by the President and other administration officials. Crossing Trump is hardly a recipe for career advancement in this administration.

That places the burden of protecting consumers from monopolies on the shoulders of the state attorneys general. Fortunately, the states have all the federal government’s legal tools, if not more. They can open investigations, compel documents, and, if necessary, go to court to block the transaction or impose meaningful conditions. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has already signaled that states are prepared to move independently of federal regulators. And they should. Courts have long recognized that mergers threatening to reduce competition, suppress wages, or degrade quality can and should be stopped before the damage is done. In a case of this magnitude — touching not just markets but also the infrastructure of democratic discourse — the argument for action is overwhelming.

This moral burden will place a major strain on the states. State attorneys general, unlike the federal government, suffer from resource constraints. Most have small antitrust departments, with only a few lawyers and experts to review key mergers — a process that can take months, depending on a deal’s complexity. This is why we have seen — and will likely continue to see — multi-state enforcement efforts, like the Live Nation-Ticketmaster litigation. And even these collaborative efforts come with high costs, as states must go toe-to-toe with companies willing to pour hundreds of millions into their legal defense. The states have notched some critical wins, but they still need help.

That’s where organizations like ours and the rest of the democracy movement come in. Outside advocacy can play a key role in shaping the political environment in which these cases unfold. That is especially true here, where fear of professional retaliation could mute voices within the industry itself. Civil society groups, journalists, creators, and even shareholders can help fill that silence by documenting the merger’s likely harms, supporting the costly litigation such a challenge would require, and making clear to the public that this deal is neither benign nor inevitable.

Other opposition is also beginning to emerge. The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors approved a motion to conduct a “comprehensive economic impact analysis” of the merger, which could be a disaster for the city. Across the Atlantic, the European Commission appeared to expand its investigation into the deal’s potential funding sources from the Middle East under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation. Brussels reportedly issued new requests for information from Paramount, demanding transparency into the various sovereign wealth funds backing the Ellison bid — specifically questioning whether capital from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates constitutes an unfair market distortion.

For all these reasons, the assumption that the merger is a fait accompli deserves to be challenged. And, Contrarians, we will continue to challenge it. That’s because the fight over this merger is, in the end, a fight over whether the American media and information systems remain pluralistic and independent of the government or whether they become further consolidated and more easily influenced by autocrats. That is not a question to be decided quietly — or by default. It needs to be litigated in the court of law and the real, full court of public opinion. Thanks to your paid subscriptions, we and our colleagues do both, through our democracy litigation and our democracy coverage. It’s the most unique bargain in American journalism.

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As always, that brings me to the stellar work The Contrarian published this week, rounded up by my colleagues for you here:

Abdication of Governance

What Did Republicans Expect?

Jen Rubin had little patience this week for the private fretting of the party that empowered Trump. “Whether the Iran War ends this month or months from now, Republicans cannot escape responsibility for the massive expenditure of taxpayer dollars, loss of life, rise in energy costs, regional instability, and damage to alliances Trump has wrought.”

Governance by Ideological Whim Meets the Rule of Law

Jeff Nesbit wrote on the reckless abandon of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s first year at the Department of Health and Human Services and the recent federal district court ruling that has halted his radical overhaul of the child vaccine schedule — a “procedural guillotine” damning in its assertion of incompetence and lost public trust.

Fundraising at a Predator’s Picnic

Ciera Stone reported on the shocking story of how a convicted child sex offender ascended the ranks of the North Carolina GOP — with the full knowledge and support of state-level leaders, including current U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley.

Misogyny & Resistance

Another Lesson from Dolores Huerta: The Patriarchy Has No Place in Social Justice

Maria L. Quintana wrote on the bright lights of the national farmworker’s movement undimmed by César Chávez. “Movements for civil rights and social justice are not immune to the patriarchy and all its violence. But every day, we work to root it out.”

Why Conspiracies and Propaganda Fuel Violent Extremism

Cynthia Miller-Idriss and Bill Braniff joined Jen to discuss the violent misogyny and anti-minority brainwashing still happening — even accelerating — online in the wake of the federal government gutting the departments built to stop it.

Attacks on Women Continue Unabated

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf wrote on the danger of normalizing the administration’s constant drumbeat of attacks on women’s health and rights, and updated us on the latest from across the country. “Attacks on women’s bodily autonomy haven’t stopped — they just stopped making the front page.”

The Smokescreen of War

When Intelligence Stops Judging, It Stops Mattering

Brian O’Neill analyzed how recent congressional hearings from Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and John Ratcliffe have revealed an intelligence system drifting from strategy to sycophancy. “When pressed on whether Iran posed an imminent threat to justify the U.S. attack on Iran, Gabbard responded that determining what constitutes an ‘imminent threat’ is the responsibility of the president.”

What Can We Believe About the Iran War?

Representative Jim Himes (D-CT) joined Jen to decode Trump’s mixed messaging on the possibility of a peace deal on the horizon — and just how much it would cost the United States to secure the Strait of Hormuz. “This is a war of many contradictions.”

Sports Spotlight

Trump Seems Intent on Tanking the World Cup

Shalise Manza Young wrote on our ratings-obsessed president’s ironic determination to ruin the most-watched sports event on the planet – with the minor complications of a war of choice in the Middle East, ICE’s reign of terror, and a travel ban. “How many fans will want to come here under these conditions?”

Death of the Cinderella Story

On this week’s Offsides, Pablo Torre joined Jen to discuss the WNBA’s landmark deal to raise salaries and the NCAA’s poaching problem. “The big win, really, for women’s sports writ large, is that this is not a charity. This is good business.”

Trump’s ‘Protection’ of the Army-Navy Game is an Ineffective Diversion

Carron J. Phillips wrote on more of Trump’s unwelcome sports-world meddling, this time the ignoble cause of “protecting” the Army-Navy game as an attempted distraction from American soldiers dying in Iran. “At this rate, Trump might as well mandate that Chick-fil-A can’t be sold on Sundays.”

Fighting Back

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week we saw opposition to ICE’s incursion at airports across the country, protests in Virginia, Ohio, Oregon, Georgia, Indiana, and more, and a lot of planning ahead for No Kings Day! For today and going forward, see Indivisible for more information, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org. We hope to see you out there!

MAGA is Afraid of Your Vote

Janai Nelson joined Jen to break down MAGA Republicans’ strategy to stop your vote — and how you can help protect it for yourself and your community. “We can all do something, and it doesn’t cost us anything to exercise those rights, but it will cost us our future if we don’t.”

Cartoons, Culture & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists covered chickening out (TACO Tuesday, Nick Anderson), doubling down (Meet the Press, RJ Matson), brute force (The Fog of War, Michael de Adder), brutish force (Regime Change Hydra, Michael de Adder), and more (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

Days of Love and Rage

Anand Gopal joined Abraham Kenmore in conversation on Gopal’s book, Days of Love and Rage, which documents a remarkable experiment in self-governance at the start of the Syrian civil war. “We tend to think of democracy as something that happens once every two or four years for a few minutes when you go to the ballot box … [but] there are much more capacious visions of democracy.”

‘The Bachelorette’ Controversy is Nothing New for Reality TV

Meredith Blake wrote on the latest scandal to rock reality TV, joining a legacy of muck. “Bad behavior is an asset for aspiring reality stars, whether they’re a soft-swinging’ Mormon mom or a serially bankrupt real estate heir.”

Why Young People Can’t Get Enough of ‘Love Story’

Meredith also wrote on Gen Z’s new obsession with Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, whose press-shy mystique feels like a breath of fresh air to the TikTok set — even as the series introducing her “arguably couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Kennedy family.”

That’s the story of Vladimir Putin in Russia. Viktor Orban in Hungary. Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey. And, of course, that is what Donald Trump and his allies are trying right here in the United States.

But unlike those others, he is running into a buzzsaw: the democracy movement, which of course includes you Contrarians. Just look at a few examples from this week where we are fighting back, from the Voice of America to the Paramount-Warners merger; and from the Anthropic case to the Kennedy Center litigation.

Let’s start with government. Courts have stopped Trump over and over again from thwarting the will of Congress and bringing government agencies under his heel. But our heroic federal judges don’t act on their own initiative. Someone has to bring the cases!

That’s where you Contrarians come in. Your paid subscriptions help support my and my colleagues’ over 275 legal cases and matters.

This week was no exception. With wonderful colleagues, we won a landmark court judgment. It reversed Trump’s efforts to shut down the vitally important, US government owned Voice of America. The court ordered that journalists return to work and for broadcast operations to resume.

It was a resounding victory for our partners and clients including federal employee unions AFSCME and AFGE, Reporters Without Borders, other partners–and you Contrarians.

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What about business? In the Anthropic fight, the Trump administration went into a rage because that company would not allow its AI to be available for possible mass surveillance or autonomous killer robots. They retaliated by attempting to designate the company as a “supply chain risk,” which would have devastating commercial consequences for Anthropic.

With your support, we represented 149 former federal and state judges to file a bipartisan amicus brief rejecting this bullying. Invoking purported national security risks does not place the Executive above the law. Our brief calls this what it is: unlawful retaliation. And it makes clear that the judiciary has both the authority and the obligation to set it aside.

This is not about courts intruding where they don’t belong. It is about ensuring the Executive stays where it does belong.

Then, there is media. This week, I joined Jim Acosta to speak out against the Paramount–Warner Bros’ merger on The Contrarian right after he appeared before members of Congress to denounce the deal:

We explained that the Ellison family, who put together this unholy alliance, are close Trump allies who already own CBS and control TikTok. Adding CNN would give them and Trump too much power over the media that Americans consume. Trump is openly relishing that prospect. And his lackey Pete Hegseth declared, “The sooner David Ellison takes over, the better.”

Not to mention that combining the movie and television operations of Paramount and Warner would allow the Ellisons to charge consumers higher prices and give them fewer viewing choices.

But there is good news about the government review of the deal. Not from the Trump administration. It can hardly be expected to undertake the usual regulatory scrutiny given comments like Trump’s or Hegseth’s. Nor can it be expected from the FCC’s Brendan Carr, who has threatened to revoke broadcasters’ licenses if they don’t cover the news the way the administration wants.

Rather, hope comes from the state attorneys general. We public interest litigators have often worked in parallel with them over the past 14 months to go to court when democracy is threatened–and win. Here, we were proud to help lead dozens of members of the democracy movement to call on the AG’s to block this merger.

They have said that they will scrutinize the merger under applicable law. They proved they mean business by challenging another unsavory media merger of media giants Nexstar and Tegna on Wednesday. Friday news broke that two of the largest state AG offices, California and New York, are working together to review the deal.

You Contrarians already have the AG’s backs. Thanks to your support, we have been pushing back legally on Paramount’s overreach for months. We will not let up–and we are grateful for the state AG’s leadership.

Finally, let’s not neglect the Arts. Once again, with your support my colleagues and I struck a series of blows in defense of the Kennedy Center and in opposition to Trump’s effort to rename, close, and significantly demolish the place.

Last weekend, we at Democracy Defenders Fund with the great folks at Washington Litigation Group won a temporary restraining order on behalf of our client Congresswoman Joyce Beatty—a longstanding trustee of the Center. The order forced the administration to provide her with documentation it had been holding back about the planned closure and to allow her to speak at the board meeting addressing that closure.

And speak she did, dramatically confronting the president and telling him why his actions were illegal. No sooner did he and his cronies on the board vote for the closure anyway then we were back in court. This time we secured a “rocket docket” scheduling order to fully brief why it is illegal to rename and close the Kennedy Center. Again, we could not do it without you.

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This is just one week and four cases. But if you multiply it by our efforts and everyone’s in the democracy movement over the past 60 or so weeks of the Trump administration, that adds up to a lot of resistance. It also explains why, despite his repeated aspirations to “be a dictator,” Trump has not achieved the success of his admired authoritarians like Putin or Orban.

That is what we cover every week here at the Contrarian, along with much much more. Just see for yourself in this week’s roundup, put together by my wonderful Contrarian colleagues.

SAVE Act

The Anti-Voter SAVE Act Must Be Stopped

Michael Waldman and Emily Whitehead sounded the alarm on just how catastrophic the SAVE Act, which would require voters to show a passport or birth certificate as proof of citizenship to register or re-register to vote, would be for democracy if it is allowed through the Senate. “If passed, it would be the most restrictive voting bill ever approved.”

The SAVE Act: Awful and Unconstitutional

Why exactly is Trump pushing so hard for the SAVE Act, Erwin Chemerinsky asked? To advance his theory of voter fraud, despite study after study showing no evidence for his claims. “The SAVE Act addresses a problem that does not exist.”

War

Trump Chose War

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) joined Jen Rubin to lay plain the ground realities of the war in Iran, informed by multiple classified briefings on America’s actual military position: there was no imminent nuclear threat, and we may now be poised for another forever war. “The idea that we’re going to somehow impose a crown prince…is a difficult fantasy.

Trump’s War is the Worst Conceived in American History

Jen Rubin started the week by writing on just how many experts—and previous presidential policies—Trump ignored to launch his deadly folly of a war. “The annals of regime change are not littered with success stories.”

Health & Science

Why the Trump Administration Couldn’t Kill the Nature Record

Jeff Nesbit wrote on the Trump administration’s efforts to disband a first-of-its-kind federal effort to catalog the health of nature and the environment—and how its work is not as easy to kill as they’d like. “Science has a way of refusing to stay buried.”

What They Don’t Want You to Know About Long COVID

Megan Armstrong gave us a brave and blistering essay on what it’s like to live with a condition much of the medical establishment—not to mention the federal government—wants to wish away. “The effects of COVID hide in plain sight…unfortunately, blissful ignorance has never been an effective strategy.”

Economy & Corruption

The “Affordability” Trap: Why Progressives Need to Talk About Design, Not Just Prices

Dr. Julie Sweetland wrote on why, to build a lasting movement, we must stop talking about the economy like a force of nature and start treating it like a blueprint. “Making life ‘affordable’ is a modest, bureaucratic goal. Designing a society where the system works for ordinary people by default? That is a vision worth fighting for.”

PA Representative Exposed For Insider Trading?

Mayor Paige Cognetti (Scranton, PA) joined Jen to discuss Congressional corruption—namely whether an elected official should be allowed to leverage policy votes for personal profit—and the ethics reform we need. “We’ve had to really work hard to rebuild trust.”

Dispatch from Chicago: Illinois Primary Has a Lesson on Big Money in Politics

Lorraine Forte broke down the more than $50 million of dark money poured into the Chicago primaries from PACs and special interest groups, and asked: how can we keep our elections from turning into auctions?

Fighting Back

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week we saw protests in New York, South Carolina, Vermont, and more. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Yeah, the ‘90s Were Cool, But We’re Ready to Fight Now

Jennifer Weiss Wolf wrote on how the real story about Gen X feminism should be less about looking back to the riot grrl past and more about their place on today’s front lines, fighting against ICE, the SAVE Act and more. “Today’s quiet democracy protectors are the same people who may become tomorrow’s pro-democracy voters.”

Cartoons, Culture & Fun Stuff

This week our cartoonists took on misdirection (Just Another Distraction?, RJ Matson; Misleading Packaging; Michael de Adder), crying wolf (The President Who Cried Nato, Michael de Adder), and how to stop making sense (Talking Head, Nick Anderson).

Why the Irish are Taking Over Pop Culture

Meredith Blake wrote on Jessie Buckley’s Oscar win for best actress—somehow a first for an Irish woman—and why Ireland’s pop cultural ascendance is a lesson in civic investment (and maybe a little homegrown luck).

Must-Read

A Reckoning Long Overdue

Maria Cardona, a political strategist for Dewey Square Group, founder of Latinovations, and dear friend to The Contrarian, closed out the week with a stunning tribute to the bravery of Dolores Huerta in the wake of Thursday’s shocking revelation about César Chávez. Though the farmworker movement has always been far more significant than any one individual, we must correct the historical record about a man long miscast as an infallible hero. She leaves us with a message devastatingly relevant to our current moment: “It is long past time to hold perpetrators accountable, no matter how powerful they may be.”

Iran is certainly the worst of Trump’s foreign policy fiascos, but it by no means is the only one. Indeed, there have been so many that it’s hard to keep track. That’s why I decided for this week’s column, I would catalog Trump’s Top 10 foreign policy failures as the latest entry in our Contrarian Top 10 lists. I drew on my experience as a U.S. ambassador among many other sources (including colleague Jen Rubin’s own version of this list for 2025).

As you will see when you look at the list, this is not only a tale of Trump’s wrongdoing – it’s also the story of our pro-democracy pushback. Despite the difficulty of litigating foreign policy snafus, with your support we have often found a way to do that in the courts of law as well as, of course, in the court of public opinion, including through our coverage here at the Contrarian. You make all of that possible with your paid subscriptions.

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1. Insane Iran Illegalities

In a matter of days, Trump has somehow managed to combine the worst aspects of our most foolish wars, from Vietnam to Iraq. It is also outlandishly illegal, as I explained with a bipartisan group of experts last week in the Contrarian. We are working up a litigation rejoinder — stay tuned!

2. Terrible Tariff Troubles

Trump’s erratic and ill-defined tariffs policy has alienated allies, shaken the global reputation of the U.S. economy, and penalized millions of American small businesses and working families with an illegal tax, as the Supreme Court recently ruled. Because there is an enormous amount of damage to rectify, Democracy Defenders Fund and our wonderful partner Platkin LLP have filed a lawsuit against the government over the collection of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. We will fight to recover funds that were unlawfully seized from our wonderful client Busy Baby LLC and its owner Beth Benike, fighting on behalf of all small businesses. And I hosted New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin and Benike at the Contrarian this week:

3. The Maduro Mess

Trump’s trial run on regime change unilaterally began in our own backyard. Two months ago, the United States launched strikes against the Maduro regime, seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in the process and bringing him and his wife to the United States for trial. Whatever you think of that end, it should not be achieved by illegal means. At DDF, we filed a bipartisan ethics complaint from our all-star team of ethics experts, representing the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, seeking an investigation of the lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel who gave the wrong legal advice.

4. Maritime Massacres

The illegal use of power in Latin America began with strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific that the administration claimed to be carrying drugs. Not only does it appear that some people on these boats may have been innocent civilians, but, even worse, defenseless survivors were apparently killed. We at DDF make sure that the rule of law is applied to everyone, and I, alongside fellow ethics experts Ginny Canter and Richard Painter, filed a complaint at the Justice Department demanding that this illegal advice be exposed to the public.

5. Undermining Ukraine

​​Despite Trump claiming he’d negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine within a day of taking office, the war between Russia and Ukraine has only intensified under his watch. In fact, 2025 was the deadliest year for civilians in Ukraine since the war began. For President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine, and Europe, Trump has been the worst of allies. That has sent a message to our friends everywhere that we cannot be trusted. But fortunately Trump does not speak for all Americans, and he certainly does not speak for the Contrarian, where we have been vocal in standing up for Ukraine and for American alliances.

6. Greenland Greed

Trump’s obsession with treating sovereign nations like real estate is nothing new. In his first term, he tried to buy Greenland — an idea that was quickly shot down by the Danish government. This time around, he decided to send Donald Trump Jr. to advance the deal in Greenland, during which the junior Trump met with locals with a message from his father promising that the United States would “treat [Greenlanders] well.” Unsurprisingly, Denmark and the rest of our NATO allies rejected the offers resoundingly.

Ultimately, at the World Economic Forum, NATO General Secretary Mark Rutte and Trump announced a “framework of a future deal” that would renegotiate American military presence in Greenland but ultimately prevent the United States from acquiring the territory. As I told the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, the absurdity of acquiring another sovereign nation’s territory is only “made worse by allegations that Trump[’s] associates have ties to companies who could benefit from the president’s actions.”

7. Undoing USAID Unlawfully

The complete gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development has been nothing short of catastrophic. Once one of the world’s largest funders of disaster relief, food security, clean water, and disease prevention — credited with saving more than 90 million lives over two decades — it has been all but dismantled. According to estimates from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols, more than 500,000 children died in the first year alone as a direct result of these cuts. This is abhorrent — a betrayal of every principle we claim to hold.

We at DDF were the first to sue over Elon Musk’s actions through DOGE and the legality of his appointment. The case is ongoing, and we are now fighting to take his deposition and prove the wrongdoing. We won’t stop until justice is done.

8. Canada Clownshow

Trump’s repeated attacks on our ally Canada are unhinged. He has battered our peaceful neighbor with a series of erratic tariffs, publicly ridiculed Canadian leaders, and even joked about taking over the country and making it the 51st state. In doing so, he has squandered the goodwill Canadians have long held toward the United States, turning a trusted partner into a wary skeptic increasingly inclined to distance itself from us. Just ask the bourbon industry — and many others.

9. A Chinese TACO

By contrast, Trump seems never to have met a dictator to whom he won’t kowtow. One of the more humiliating examples was his about-face on China. His initial tariffs on that nation were met with pushback, setting off an escalating trade war. Unfortunately, Trump neglected the fact that we need China’s rare earth minerals for a wide variety of U.S. uses. China cutting off those exports brought Trump to his knees. He ultimately made concessions, including dramatically cutting back the tariffs he had imposed. Who knew that TACO was Chinese food?

10. Voiding Voice of America

Voice of America and other U.S. government global media have long been crown jewels of American soft power around the world. Countless people have relied on the news our nation provides, particularly where free media is scant. As a former ambassador in Prague, I know this well. So many foreign friends told me how they counted on “the radios” broadcasting VOA and more.

Over the past year plus, that has been systematically dismantled, profoundly affecting our interests and reach as a nation. Here, too, with wonderful partners and clients, my democracy litigation colleagues and I have pushed back, with win after win. Most recently, we secured a court order that Kari Lake’s appointment as interim CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media was illegal and her actions invalid. The battle continues – thanks to your paid subscriptions.

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11. Bonus: Donald’s Domestic Defeats

Of course, in a sense, all of our 267 legal cases and matters help counteract Trump’s foreign policy fiascos. That is because domestic victories also act as guardrails on Trump’s power, preventing him from veering even further off the rails. Conversely, when our allies see that the rule of law is holding, they are reminded of what really makes America great and that our nation will be back.

After we went to court this week in our case to stop the renaming, closing, and demolition of the Kennedy Center, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), our wonderful client, explained on the Contrarian YouTube channel:

We at Democracy Defenders Action and our colleagues at Washington Litigation Group were in court with the congresswoman fighting for her to receive essential documents and the right to speak before Monday’s board meeting. Saturday morning brought the welcome news that we had substantially won, with the court ordering information and a meaningful opportunity to be heard — sending the message around the world that American rule of law still works.

That is thanks to your support. And that support also makes possible our Contrarian coverage of foreign and domestic issues alike. Just see for yourself in our usual review of all this week’s Contrarian analysis and reporting brought to you by my wonderful colleagues.

War in Iran

These Christian Nationalists Are Loving War with Iran

Tim Dickinson gave us a must-read on how the famously irreligious Trump has the full backing of Christian nationalists on Iran. “God is using President Trump to execute judgment on wicked civilizations.”

Trump’s War on Iran Challenges a Democracy Already Under Stress

Robert Weissman and Lisa Gilbert wrote on the potential for Trump to use war in Iran and national security threats to erode a democracy already pushed to its limits — including as an excuse to interfere with the November elections.

Trump Thinks He Can Gain Historic Glory

Aaron David Miller gave us his analysis of why Trump wants to be known as the president who killed the supreme leader of Iran. “He started to think like this is fun and easy and like you bomb stuff and you accomplish things and he made the mistake of thinking this would be easy again.”

Forced Regime Change Doesn’t Work

Philip Gordon joined Jen to tell us why military-imposed regime change never works — and why Iran may not give up the fight, even if both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu back down.

Economy & Corruption

Democrats Can’t Let Up on DHS Funding

Norman Ornstein argued that Democrats can force Trump and his minions to do the right thing by hammering home common-sense reforms most Americans support. “It is time — actually, past time — for Democrats to seize the initiative.”

Not a Dime More for Trump’s Illegal War

Jen wrote on the mounting costs of Trump’s new war — in lives and taxpayer dollars alike. “Despite lip service to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, Trump’s consistent demands for more defense spending suggest that enough is never enough for the voracious military-industrial complex.”

If Corruption Falls, So Does the Regime

Former federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou joined Jen to lay out how to raise the price of corruption: by tracking and suing those responsible. “There’s criminality upon criminality here: If somebody commits a crime to be absolved of a crime, that itself creates a certain amount of liability.”

Kristi Noem’s $220 Million Tax Heist

Rep. Joe Neguse sat down with Jen to expose the corrupt Department of Homeland Security ad contracts your tax dollars paid for — and how to hold Noem accountable after her departure from office. “[Noem’s firing] is a first step, not a panacea. There’s more to be done.”

Health, Aid, & Civil society

Thousands of Americans with HIV at Risk of Losing Access to Lifesaving Care

Jeffrey Crowley sounded the alarm on the prospective loss of the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, the nation’s primary safety net for HIV medications, which is facing its largest financial crisis in decades. “This moment demands new urgency and new solutions.”

Global Health After USAID Is Vulnerable and Volatile

Roberto Valadéz gave us a new report card on the Trump administration’s “America First Global Health Strategy,” which replaces humanitarian gains with transactional self-interest while making the world less ready for the next pandemic.

Dissecting the President’s Women’s History Month Statement

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf reviewed the receipts of a year in degrading healthcare and denying history. “As with everything Trump says and does, we have written, video, and audio proof of who he is — whether that be as a citizen, candidate, defendant, or president — and how he regards girls and women.”

Images and Optics

We Built the Surveillance State Ourselves

Brian O’Neill wrote on how the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping case reveals an uncomfortable truth: We have long since traded privacy for useful technologies. “This landscape did not arise because governments imposed a single sweeping surveillance regime. It grew out of consumer demand for safety and convenience.”

Split Screen: Visuals of Survivors and Predators

Azza Cohen took a bracing look at the depiction of Epstein’s survivors versus his accomplices, asking: are these images more often evidence or propaganda? “I want to see Epstein, a predator, depicted as such — and his associates, some of whom at least knew of his criminality, not shown exclusively as the powerful people they are.”

Canceling the Atlanta Hawks’ ‘Magic City Monday’ Shows That Adam Silver Has Lost the Plot

Carron J. Phillips questioned why a strip club has drawn “more scrutiny in the NBA than incidents of violence against women.”

Fighting Back

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw Stand Up for Science protests in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, anti-ICE protests in Minnesota, Tennessee, and elsewhere, anti-war protests in Vermont, New York, and London, and more. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Undaunted

For this week’s “Undaunted” column, Jen celebrated some of the journalists covering the Trump administration and the outbreak of war by asking hard questions and digging for the full story despite a government increasingly hostile to a free press. “[These] reporters do not aim to create “balance” between lies and truth or between a pro-democracy party and a cult.”

You Got ‘The Look’ from Hillary Clinton?

A propos of Hillary Clinton’s appearance before the House Oversight Committee, where MAGA members tested no one’s time and patience more than hers, Shalise Manza Young celebrated the look: Clinton’s “now-famous indication that you are a fool.”

Cartoons, Culture & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on misdirections (Pain at the Pump; ‘The First Casualty When War Comes is Truth’, Michael de Adder), wrong directions (The Magic Feather; Battleship: Strait of Hormuz Global Shock Edition, RJ Matson), a likely destination (How the War Ends, Nick Anderson), and a better timeline (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

Stream This Album and Help Kids in War Zones

Meredith Blake wrote on “Help (2),” a sequel to the hit charity album of 1996, that this time around features music from Olivia Rodrigo and Oasis and will raise money for children in Ukraine, Gaza, and beyond.

On Iran, there is much to say, as I explained in my Contrarian essay with Republican luminaries who formerly served in senior roles in all three branches of the federal government. The war is grossly illegal. But there is, alas, little to be done in my preferred venue for action, the courts. They have erected strict barriers to suing in this area. (My colleagues and I did come up with one idea I am trying to develop into a case; stay tuned for that in future weeks.)

I was, however, able to take action on a domestic legal violation by seeking expedited relief in our Kennedy Center case to stop the destruction of that cultural treasure. We first brought this matter on behalf of Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) with Nathaniel Zelinsky and other colleagues at Washington Litigation Group to reverse Donald Trump’s attempt to add his name to the Kennedy Center. Now we’ve amended it to stop the plans to close and demolish the Kennedy Center, and we are asking for rapid review from the court, as we explained on the Contrarian YouTube channel. You make all that possible with your paid subscriptions.

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Different as they are, these topics do share touchpoints. Above all, both exhibit profound contempt for the rule of law. In the case of Iran, the Constitution gives Congress the power to take this kind of action, pure and simple. There is no excuse for failing to get congressional authorization, and no president has ever tried something of this scope and scale without doing so.

Of course, it is true that presidents of both parties have committed offenses against the text of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution, but assembling those lesser transgressions into a single justification will not fly.

And then there’s the matter of the UN Charter, which the U.S. Senate ratified in 1945. That means it has been and continues to be the “law of the land.” The president is required to follow it. Instead, the Trump administration has grossly violated it, including by openly calling for regime change, carrying out the assassination of a foreign leader, and launching a war of aggression in the absence of an imminent threat.

There’s much more that I, along with Judge J. Michael Luttig (Article III), former Sen. John Danforth (Article I), expert ethics attorney Richard Painter (Article II), and others outline in our essay, which I hope you will read.

Though hardly comparable, we cannot ignore the illegalities occurring here at home, like what has happened with the Kennedy Center. Even renaming it (the subject of our pending case) was a flagrant violation of a clear dictate of Congress — and shutting it down for demolition and remodeling, as Trump proposes to do despite Congress ordering it be a “living memorial” to the slain president, would be, too.

And that’s not to mention the devastating impact on the other statutorily mandated purposes of the Kennedy Center. That includes serving as an arts hub for the nation. According to the law, the Kennedy Center Board must “present classical and contemporary music, opera, drama, dance, and other performing arts from the United States and other countries” and serve as a leader in “arts education and policy,” among other functions.

The risk of losing the Kennedy Center as we know it is too great to ignore. It may never recover, particularly if Trump largely demolishes it. That is precisely why, with your support, we have amended our complaint and are challenging this blatantly illegal effort in court with full force, alongside our outstanding co-counsel. We are hopeful that the court will intervene to halt this repeated sidestepping of Congress and to protect a storied institution that belongs to the American public, not Donald Trump.

No, it’s not the same as stopping an illegal war. That was up to Congress — and the president’s party again failed us this week. But it is an important initiative to maintain the rule of law, protect Congress’s role under Article I, and keep the fight moving forward where we can. We’ve done that in 265 cases and matters to date — and we are going to keep going (including with that litigation idea we’re developing related to the Iran war). That is thanks to your paid subscriptions, and so of course is all of our scintillating Contrarian coverage. See for yourself in this week’s roundup put together by my wonderful colleagues.

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An Illegal War

Trump Brings America Closer to a Quagmire in Iran

Brian Katulis diagnosed Trump’s second-term foreign policy as “strikes without strategy” and wrote on what America must now do to avoid another forever war. “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there, and it will likely lead you astray.”

Operation Epic Fury and the Law

Brian Finucane took us inside the illegality of Trump’s operation in Iran — and what it will take to hold him to account under the Constitution, the War Powers Resolution, and international law. “There is no silver bullet solution to the problem of a president bypassing Congress to enact force unilaterally.”

Trump’s Avoidable, Deadly, Costly War with Iran

On the podcast this week, Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) and Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) asked: Where is the intelligence or evidence that an attack from Iran was imminent? They’ve seen none. See also: Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) condemning what he calls “ a War of Choice,” and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) on “funding an Unconstitutional War.”

Trump and Hegseth Want AI Without Rules

Tom Malinowski wrote on Anthropic’s principled stand against weaponized AI, which got it fired by Trump’s DOD — and in the process showed a legislative and political path forward for Democrats. “Support for AI safety rules is one of the few causes that unites Americans across party lines.”

Selling Out / Cashing In

The Paramount/Warner Bros. Merger Is Not What a Free Press Looks Like

Neera Tanden condemned the Ellisons’ plan to increase a Trump-friendly media monopoly that has already compromised CBS News — and outlined how state attorneys general can stop it.

An Illegal, Unjustified War Underscores Danger of Media Consolidation

Jen Rubin wrote on how, on the advent of Trump’s deadly operation in Iran, the stakes of the journalism crisis grow even higher. “Major news events — including complex wars — highlight the danger in allowing a few MAGA billionaires to control our news.”

Everything Is Gambling Now

On this week’s “Offsides,” Pablo Torre and Jen dissected the insider trading pandemic rocking sports and politics. “When you have a market that is telling you, here’s what the future is like, but that future is literally being shaped by money … you’re not only creating a vector for corruption and quid pro quo and insider trading stuff, you’re also fundamentally creating a dystopia.” See also: Who’s Feeling Lucky?, Meghan Houser’s deeper dive on the ascendance of prediction markets.

Science & Healthcare

The Silent Starvation of American Science

Jeff Nesbit wrote on the invisible impoundment of science funds that is doing exactly what Trump’s sweeping budget cuts were designed to do — without the messy public debate.

Why We Fight for Science When Everything Is Going Sideways

Colette Delawalla put the administration’s war on scientific innovation in urgent context and offered ways we can all defend something that is at the heart of “the great experiment of American democracy.” (Including a National Day of Action today, March 7!)

Where U.S. Athletes Always Lose: Healthcare

As we said goodbye to the Winter Games, Megan Armstrong wrote on what else American athletes left behind in Milan Cortina: a standard of healthcare many of their peers take for granted. “The human body can be miraculous, but it can also be unexpectedly cruel. The system shouldn’t be even crueler.”

Elections

How are Black Americans Engaging with Elections Now?

After major Democratic wins in Tuesday’s primaries, Democratic pollster Terrance Woodbury joined April Ryan to dig beneath the headlines and look ahead to the midterms. “What I keep warning Democrats is not to take [Black] voters for granted.”

Every Expansion of Democracy Has Faced Backlash

Diamond Brown and Melody Dodoo wrote on the SAVE Act: the latest chapter in a long history of institutions and actors mobilizing to contain Black political power, “offered in the name of ‘election integrity’ but engineered as instruments of exclusion.”

NC Voters Oust Politically Unfaithful Officials

Anderson Clayton, chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, joined Jen to discuss how Democrats pulled off state-level and local victories — and how to keep the momentum going. “I think the sky’s the limit for what North Carolina can do in November.”

Fighting back

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week we saw protests against war and ICE in Oregon and California, in Texas, Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, found a new protest song, and more. Check out the State Up for Science National Day of Action this Saturday, find other protests in your area at mobilize.us, and see other things you can do right now in our weekly Calls to Action. And, as always, send us your resistance photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Democracy Rises and Falls with Women’s Movements and Mobilization

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf marked the beginning of Women’s History Month with “a state of the state for women,” highlighting feminist perspectives on the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the downward spiral of reproductive rights at home, the affordability crisis — and how women are on the front lines of resistance.

Rev. Jackson’s Legacy Demands More: Disturb the Comfortable Anyway

Michael Franklin spoke with Dr. Joe Leonard Jr. on the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s legacy — and the standard it sets for those who inherit it. “The question is not whether older leaders will keep telling stories. They will. The question is whether younger leaders will treat those stories as nostalgia — or as instruction.”

Cartoons, Culture & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on the many ways “Operation Epstein Fury” doesn’t add up (A Chicken In Every Pot, In Two Weeks, Nick Anderson; Flyover Country, RJ Matson; Those Numbers Are Way Up, Michael de Adder) and why A.I. won’t be fixing anything (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

Meredith Blake wrote on two essential-viewing, Oscar-nominated documentaries: The Devil is Busy, which follows a clinic worker on the front line of America’s abortion war in Georgia; and The Alabama Solution, which bears witness to conditions in the countries’ deadliest prisons via contraband cell phone footage taken by incarcerated men.

Pistachio and Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Marissa Rothkopf Bates gave us a cake dedicated to “Cricket, soon-to-be former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s former dog, who deserved so much better from her. As we all did.” (It’s delicious.)

Contrarian Pet of the Week

And last but never least, meet Tanner! Daryn Dickens’s cockapoo enjoys sleeping, belly rubs, and any time people come over.