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Friday, September 11, 2026

The nationwide average price of diesel hit $6 per gallon Friday for the first time, an ominous record for the fuel that powers much of the U.S. economy. read more


President Donald Trump seems to want to drag the United States down with him once he shuffles off this mortal coil, according to a historian.


The U.S. Supreme Court again rejected a push to use Missouri congressional maps backed by President Donald Trump ... read more


Charles C.W. Cooke, a senior editor at the conservative magazine National Review, has slammed Donald Trump's promise to give Americans $5,000 each if Republicans retain control of both the House and Senate in the 2026 midterms. The idea is "in every sense possible, catastrophic," Cooke wrote in a column published Thursday titled "Trump Breaks Glass, Joins Socialists, Embraces Bribery."


Thursday, September 10, 2026

President Trump is promising $5,000 checks for every adult U.S. citizen if Republicans retain control of Congress in the upcoming midterm election. read more


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More: The 80-year-old president issued dark warnings at this week's GOP midterm convention about the nation's future if Republicans lost the November elections, and he even asked his followers to pledge to cheat if necessary or risk hellfire, and politics and history professor Alan Elrod published a column for Liberal Currents offered a disturbing theory about his plans.

"Trump's speech came off more like a sermon from Jonestown, and observers noticed," Elrod wrote. "My own overriding thought was: 'This speech was like some sort of performance art piece of a live entombing of a mad king and his most loyal followers.'"

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"My colleague Samantha Hancox-Li has an elegantly simple theory for why Trump has become even more obsessed with legacy and with slapping his name on buildings and projects than he already was over his lifelong career as a shameless self-promoter: fear of death," Elrod wrote.

"As she put it: 'My current theory of Donald Trump is that he is utterly gripped by the terror of death, and is desperately attempting to leave some mark on the world that history cannot erase " this is the point of the wars, the annexation threats, the D.C. vandalism. I think right now he is genuinely fixated on adding new American territory as the brass ring, the thing they'll never be able to take away from his memory.'"

Elrod found himself inclined to agree as he watched the president's rambling, self-aggrandizing speech.

"It's a macabre but convincing psychological assessment," he wrote. "Rather than making America great again, Trump is inflicting grievous harm on it with tariffs, now upgraded to import bans against select Canadian goods; an illegal war; and a total ransacking of our public and private sectors for the enrichment of his courtiers and his family. And he is going to bury us all with him in a tomb of his own design " a ballroom."

More: But more issues were in play than "Army transformation." Hegseth's tenure has been disastrous on multiple scores. Instead of giving sound advice to the commander in chief and ensuring that America remains secure while the president fights a deeply unwise war of choice, he has been pursuing his political grievances about DEI and other pet peeves against the U.S. military. Hegseth seems to have a special animus toward the Army, an institution he claims "spit me out." He fired Army Chief of Staff General Randy George, and he has pushed out other senior Army officers; at this point, the Army has no Senate-confirmed chief of staff or secretary. (George's replacement, General Christopher LaNeve, so far does not have the necessary votes to be confirmed.)

Even in less dangerous times, Hegseth's irresponsible behavior would be a hazard to American national security. The Defense Department is a huge bureaucracy; it requires a leader who understands more than the mechanics of teaching trainees how to do push-ups or how to handle a weapon. Secretaries of defense must grasp the economics of the defense industry, the nature of alliances, congressional politics, the policy process, and dozens of other issues for which Hegseth seems to care little and about which he knows even less.

In a time of war, however, Hegseth's shortcomings may prove deadly. Leave aside his early stumbles, including the mishandling of sensitive information. Leave aside, even, that Hegseth dissembled about the severity of Iranian attacks on U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf that had succeeded in disrupting the logistical support for American forces in the theater and led to the kind of deprivations that were suffered by the crew of the aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln. Hegseth's incompetence, and his commitment to staying in Trump's good graces, helped launch the war itself in the first place.

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