…and more. You are invited to join the conversation and become a citizen pundit with your comments, left or right, on President Trump’s apparent breakup with Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin, and Ukraine’s fight to claw back its territory lost in the war. And/or you might want to weigh in on the return of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host’s return monologue Tuesday and Trump’s reaction Wednesday.

We are not a social media site like X-Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Bluesky, et. al. Instead, The Hustings is a civil media site designed to allow you free and easy access to various gradations of political thought from the left and right. This page is designed for easy access to readers who do not agree with you.

Citizen punditry is easy. Email COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please list your political leanings – right, left, conservative, liberal – in the subject line so we may post them in the proper column. –Editors

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WEDNESDAY 9/24/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

With discipline on par with someone suffering from an acute case of logorrhea, Donald Trump addressed the United Nations General Assembly with a wide range of topics ranging from grievance that the UN didn’t pick the Trump Organization for a rehab of the headquarters back in the ‘00s to an observation, “During the campaign they had a hat, the best-selling hat ‘Trump was right about everything,’ And I don’t say that in a bragging way but it’s true. I’ve been right about everything.”

Consider: 

• “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
• “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”
• “I’ve been right about everything.”

During his remarks he was critical of countries because of their immigration policies.

He was critical of countries who are trying to reduce carbon emissions because he says that climate change is a hoax.

(Here’s something you might want to look at because it is likely to be taken down ASAP: On the Department of Commerce website there is this page that includes, among other things:

• “The United States' foremost scientific agencies and organizations have recognized global warming as a human-caused problem that should be addressed.”
• “NOAA, NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council, and the Environmental Protection Agency have all published reports and fact sheets stating that Earth is warming mainly due to the increase in human-produced heat-trapping gases.”

No wonder these organizations have had their budgets cut. How can they possibly disagree with him when he’s right about everything?

There were other claims, like the price of groceries being down in the US, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics latest figures include:

“All six major grocery store food group indexes increased in August. The index for fruits and vegetables rose 1.6% over the month as the index for tomatoes increased 4.5% and the index for apples rose 3.5%. The meats, poultry, fish and eggs index increased 1.0% in August with the beef index rising 2.7%. The index for nonalcoholic beverages increased 0.6% and the index for other food at home increased 0.1%. Both the dairy and related products index and the cereals and bakery products index also rose 0.1% in August.”

He said “energy prices are down,” but again, the BLS has this:

“The index for energy increased 0.2% over the past 12 months. The gasoline index fell 6.6% over this 12-month span and the fuel oil index fell 0.5% over the same period. In contrast, the index for electricity increased 6.2% over the last 12 months and the index for natural gas rose 13.8%.”

Boast and bluster though he may, the American public is paying the price at the grocery store and when their utility bills come due.

In addition to being highly critical of the UN in general and other countries that aren’t the United States (except in his conclusion -- which was certainly a bizarre script as he rhapsodized about how each country is magnificent in its own way -- as though he had just come off the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland), he mentioned all of the “deals” he’s made with countries as regards tariffs.

So with the European Union, ostensibly our friend and ally, there are 50% tariffs on steel, copper and aluminum, 25% on automobiles and parts, 15% on pharmaceuticals, and more. Not that the EU countries are paying those costs. US businesses and individuals are, but the tariffs do have the effect of reducing sales of those products because of the higher prices for US consumers. (No, there isn’t some sort of sudden reshoring of manufacturing capability — smelters and assembly plants and formulation plants — that will make those prices irrelevant.)

Trump continued the notion that the US has long been taken advantage of by countries, something that there is not a whole lot in the way of evidence to support.

While all that bluster was going on Politico reported something that may be the first sign of allied countries beginning to pull away from the US — something that will have negative impacts from a defense point of view.

According to the outlet, “Berlin will steer its massive rearmament drive primarily to European industry, with only 8% going for American weapons.”

This is an €80 billion (US$94.5 billion) program.

It will buy €6.8 billion (US$8 billion) worth of equipment from US contractors.

Heretofore, reports Politico:

“In recent years, Germany has been one of Washington’s biggest defense buyers.”

Apparently that’s changing, to the disadvantage of the US.

This could be the start of something decidedly not good.

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WEDNESDAY 9/24/25

Jimmy Kimmel Live! Lives – Scroll down the center column to read about Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late-night Tuesday. (Pre-Kimmel revival comment below.)

•••

Capitalism Killed Kimmel’s Show -- This situation reveals a flaw in capitalism. The heads of these media corporations likely have some acquaintance with the principle of robust public debate, yet the imperative for free speech disappears when they have to satisfy their shareholders and their protect their own careers. Free speech for them is just a nice idea, if you can swing it, but corporate interests are advanced as life and death issues. –Randall Patnode (via Substack)

•••

What are your thoughts about the legacy of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk’s political legacy, and the memorial for him at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona (we’d love to hear from you if you attended)? What do you think about ABC’s cancellation, under pressure from the Federal Communications Commission, of Jimmy Kimmel Live!?

Will Congress vote on funding bills to keep the government open past September 30 – a week from Tuesday? Should it? 

Join the conversation and email Comments to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings – left or right – in the subject line.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! Lives – Scroll down the center column to read about Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late-night Tuesday. (Pre-Kimmel […]

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Cantor Fitzgerald is a financial services firm that you’re likely not to ever have anything to do with, unless you are a high-net-worth individual (if you are, and given that you are reading this, why don’t you make a donation to The Hustings to keep this thing going?).

Mainly, Cantor Fitzgerald deals with things like institutional equity and investment banking services.

Howard Lutnick joined Cantor Fitzgerald in 1983 and for the better part of his career there, which ended this past February when he was named Commerce Secretary, Lutnick was the firm’s CEO. The firm is privately held, evidently with more than a small amount of ownership in the Lutnick portfolio, because when he left the firm he appointed one of his sons chairman and another executive vice chairman.

The point is, with the exception of an extremely short term as a broker in a firm dealing with currency exchange, Lutnick has onlyworked at Cantor Fitzgerald.

This isolation from what the rest of us generally do by working at Main Street firms, not the bank at the corner of the street, undoubtedly led to his comment in March, during the height of DOGE-mania, related to fraud and Social Security:

“If you stop payments and listen for complaints, you’ll find the fraudsters. My mother-in-law would call me and say, ‘Howard, I didn’t get my check!’ And I’d say, ‘Exactly. That’s how we find them.’”

Lutnick is a billionaire. Odds are he could Venmo his mother-in-law some digits to tide her over until the government check came in.

(A digression: Remember when Elon Musk was claiming there would be $2 trillion in annual savings and then $1 trillion from DOGE rooting out waste, fraud and abuse? It is estimated that it has “saved” about $180 billion, which is a long way from a trillion, and much of this “savings” took the form of doing things like cancelling contracts and selling assets, to say nothing of terminating people—and just showing that the whole “take a chainsaw to it” mindset wasn’t merely a stunt but an actual approach, there were the firing and rehiring of people that did things like address the bird flu outbreak or man the Veterans Crisis Hotline.)

On Friday President Trump signed an executive order that requires a $100,000 annual fee for H-1B visa applications. Those visas are typically filed by tech firms who are looking for foreign specialists. Individuals don’t simply apply for an H-1B. Firms sponsor the applicants. There is an annual limit of 85,000 visas granted per year.

So now if Apple or Meta or Oracle wants to hire some particular people, then they are going to have to pony up some additional cash.

In his peculiar logic, Trump said, “We need workers. We need great workers, and this pretty much ensures that that’s what’s going to happen.”

Presumably that’s what’s been happening, otherwise there wouldn’t be firms filing for H-1B visas.

Which brings us to Howard Lutnick.

According to Politico, Lutnick said when the president signed the order:

“The whole idea is no more with these big tech companies or other big companies training foreign workers. They have to pay the government $100,000, and then they have to pay the employee.” 

He added:

“If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans, stop bringing in people that take our jobs.”

So let’s see. A tech company identifies a really smart person who is in another country and works with that person to try to get an H-1B. But now that is going to cost $100,000.

How does that benefit corporations? Isn’t it penalizing them?

Oh, but the issue is that the person is a foreigner and that foreigner might leave the company and take with her the training received that the company—not the government — paid for (and what’s more, that person has been paying taxes throughout that period). Shouldn’t a corporation decide whether this is worth the risk without the government putting its thumb on the scale?

And the “one of the great universities across our land” is rich, as thanks to the Administration over $7 billion in science grants have been eliminated.

“Stop brining in people that take our jobs.” The visa-holders aren’t taking anyone’s job: they are being offered the job by a firm. Again, the government should not be involved in staffing decisions.

It also needs to be noted that the visa is initially good for three years and can be extended to no more than six years, so presumably if there are qualified American job seekers at the end of that period, the job may become theirs.

Tariffs and steel and aluminum are hobbling U.S. durable goods manufacturers.

Now the visa fee is providing unnecessary complexity to the tech sector. Yes, they can afford it — $100,000 is like the pocket change found in the cushions of Howard Lutnick’s couch — but shouldn’t the government be doing everything it can to facilitate the advance of our tech firms?

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MONDAY 9/22/25

Commentary by K.E. Bell

The inflammatory rhetoric should indeed be turned down, and it has to start at the top. 

That won’t happen. 

Trump knows only one play: Attack, attack, attack. He regularly refers to Democrats as the radical left. There is no radical left, at least not one that has a sniff of power. 

Today’s Democratic leaders are centrists at best or even center right based on both history and accepted norms across the world. 

Trump suggests violence in his rhetoric (“Just knock the hell [out of ‘em], I will pay for the legal fees, I promise”), his actions (pardoning the January 6^thers), and his unrelenting barrage of Truth Social posts (see: Chipocalypse Now: “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”) He is a 79-year-old with the mindset of a sixth-grade playground bully. He’s far beyond learning from his mistakes at this point. 

Perhaps this growth in political violence was inevitable. It seems to me it’s the natural result of 30 years of Fox News propaganda and demonization of the left, and it’s only getting worse. Brian Kilmeade wasn’t cancelled for saying the homeless should be killed, but Jimmy Kimmel was put on suspension for pointing out what Trump said when asked how he is doing with the death of his friend, Charlie Kirk. Trump’s response? Look at the construction underway for the White House ballroom. I don’t know if a more sociopathic response was possible. 

Fox News is an echo chamber that traps its viewers into a distorted point of view. 

According to a 2012 Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind survey, Fox News viewers know less about what’s going on in the world than people who watch no news at all, but they are quite certain the left is to blame for everything. Do we think Fox has become more informative in the age of Trump? Heck no. Will Fox News change? It’s not in the company’s best financial interest, so no. 

And now we can build echo chambers of our own through social media platforms with algorithms designed to incite outrage. That leads to more and more radical influencers who make the public discourse more and more radical — people like Laura Loomer and Nick Fuentes, both of whom have or have had Trump’s ear. 

Fuentes’ to-the-right-of Turning Point Groyper movement placed him at odds with Kirk, fueling some speculation about suspect Tyler Robinson’s politics. 

Violence is never the right answer to political disagreements. But let’s not pretend the rhetoric is as bad on the left as it is on the right. “Both sides” arguments are appropriate when there is a balance between parties. There is no such balance today. 

The extremism on the right starts at the top, gets reinforced by the number one media outlet in the country, and metastasizes in our own curated social media feeds.

Does it need to stop? Absolutely. Will it? I don’t see how.

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Bell is a contributing pundit for The Hustings.

On Rich Corbett's right-column call for responsible political discourse -- Mr. Corbett is absolutely correct that Mr. Kirk's murder demonstrates the deep need for reform and improvement in political discourse. I do not have robust hope that it will in fact serve as the catalyst for such improvement; however, I am grateful that Mr. Corbett expressed his views as he did. --Hugh Hansen

_____________________________________________

Email your COMMENTS on the murder of Charlie Kirk, threats on free speech and/or any other current political issues to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

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THURSDAY 9/18/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Anyone who has tried to organize anything that involves other people — whether it is a school bake sale or an organization that has grown to have some 250,000 student members — knows there are people who want them to fail. This is predicated on everything from taste (“We should have a fruit sale!”) to ideology (“You are a bunch of cranks!”).

In order to get it done, the leaders need to be resilient and strong. They need to overcome the resistance and stick to the mission.

And if they do, they can be successful.

Charlie Kirk was clearly an individual who overcame pushback and built Turning Point USA into something that is far greater than he, which is probably one of the things he set out to do.

It is sad that he died for his mission.

But Kirk succeeded because he lived in a country where freedom of expression is explicitly written into the Constitution’s very First Amendment.

Without it, organizations like Turning Point USA would have had to be an underground operation rather than the public-facing one that it is.

For many years, conversative complained about the “Cancel Culture” that they saw as a de facto push back against their ideas by liberals, whether this was in Hollywood or in the media.

The objective of Cancel Culture is to work to make sure that the ideas that they find distasteful are ridiculed or outright eliminated.

It operates against freedom of expression.

I have never liked Jimmy Kimmel. I have always found him to be smarmy. But now I wonder whether I may run into big trouble for describing him as such.

Kimmel reportedly said on his ABC late-night variety show Monday night (as I don’t like him, I certainly didn’t watch):

“We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

And then Conservative Cancel Culture kicked in. To quote Dick Cheney, “Big time.”

Nexstar, an outfit that has 32 ABC stations, said it was pulling Kimmel’s show. This is non-trivial. Nexstar Media Group owns the largest group of local television stations in the US, reaching some 220 million people. While not all of these stations are ABC affiliates, Nexstar has a massive reach and its company has more ABC-affiliated stations than any other company.

Then Federal Communications chairman Brendan Carr said on the Benny Johnson podcast that stations needed to “take actions on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Cancel work, perhaps.

So ABC, not surprisingly, has canceled his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!

While it actually said that it was being preempted “indefinitely,” that’s fooling no one. Kimmel was probably handed a cardboard box for his things.

This was a business decision. ABC’s existence depends on commercials. Commercials are sold on audience size and demographics.

By taking Kimmel off its stations, Nexstar minimized the audience size, so that means advertisers would be less interested in advertising, or if they were interested, they would pay a fraction of what they otherwise had been. Less money for ABC.

But the funny thing is, terrestrial outlets like ABC have not only been losing audience due to cord-cutting — ABC has lost about half of its audience in primetime over the past 10 years — but younger people, including the key Millennial and Gen Z demographics that advertisers so desire, have foregone television sets for their phones.

Presumably if they bother to read or see a video about Kimmel being let go they might think that ABC is really lame. Even though they’re probably unlikely to tune into The Golden Bachelor (a clue about ABC’s audience?), they certainly won’t feel particularly positive about the network given this move (assuming they have any idea who Kimmel is).

Kirk didn’t build his organization via TV.

Funny thing how so many, especially those on the right who are not members of the demographics that ABC would so much like to present to advertisers, are exercised by criticism by TV performers.

As Charlie Kirk said earlier this year at the Oxford Union, according to Washington Monthly, “You should be allowed to say outrageous things.”

Seems some of his supporters don’t think so.

His memory is more well served by allowing even smarmy TV performers to say stupid things.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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A Call for Responsible Political Discourse

Commentary by Rich Corbett

The tragic death of Charlie Kirk on September 10 marks not just the loss of a passionate conservative voice, but a sobering moment for American political discourse. At just 31 years old, Kirk had built Turning Point USA into a formidable force in campus conservative activism, inspiring countless young Americans to engage with political ideas and defend their faith and principles.

The circumstances of Kirk's death — shot while speaking at Utah Valley University — represent a troubling escalation in political violence that should alarm every American who values democratic discourse. This tragedy follows a disturbing pattern of increasingly heated rhetoric that has moved from the realm of words into the realm of violence.

When public figures consistently describe political opponents as "threats to democracy," “fascists,” or “Hitler,” we must ask ourselves: what impact do such words have on those already predisposed to violence? While the vast majority of Americans across the political spectrum condemn violence, inflammatory language can serve as kindling for those few individuals willing to act on extremist impulses.

Political discourse has always been robust in America, but there's a meaningful difference between passionate disagreement and rhetoric that dehumanizes opponents or suggests they pose existential threats. When media personalities and political leaders frame routine policy disagreements as battles for the soul of America, they risk normalizing the idea that extreme measures might be justified. The hypothetical question is often asked in philosophical discussions: “Knowing history, if you could eliminate Hitler prior to his rise to power, would you kill him?” It may not take much for those who are radicalized by the rhetoric.

Recent years have seen an alarming trend of political violence, with the recent targeting of conservative figures and assassination attempts on President Trump suggesting a particularly concerning pattern that warrants honest examination. We must acknowledge that words matter and those with platforms have a responsibility to choose them carefully.

Charlie Kirk believed deeply in the power of ideas and debate. He built his career on the premise that conservative principles could win in the marketplace of ideas if given a fair hearing. His death should serve as a catalyst for all Americans to recommit to civil discourse and peaceful political engagement.

Media organizations must examine whether their coverage contributes to political hostility or encourages democratic participation. Political leaders must model responsible rhetoric that acknowledges the humanity of opponents. Citizens must resist echo chambers that reinforce the worst assumptions about those who disagree with them.

The best way to honor Kirk's memory is to recommit ourselves to the vigorous but civil discourse he championed. America has always been at its best when we've maintained passionate political debate within bounds of mutual respect. The death of Charlie Kirk should serve as a wake-up call that we've drifted too far from that ideal. In a democracy, words have power—it's time we all used that power more responsibly.

Corbett writes about myriad subjects at My Desultory Blog.

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THURSDAY 9/18/25

President Trump spoke for nearly an hour, in person Friday, on Fox & Friends where he spoke out against political violence following last Wednesday’s assassination of right-wing influencer, absolute free-speech advocate and Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. 

However.

“The radicals on the right are often radicals because they don’t want to see crime,” Trump said. “The radicals on the left are the problem.”

By Saturday evening on All Things Considered, analysis by NPR reporters had counted more than 30 people across the US who have been “fired, put on leave, investigated or faced calls to resign because of social media posts criticizing Charlie Kirk, or expressing schadenfreude” about his assassination. 

MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd, for one, was fired last Wednesday night for saying of Kirk, “He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures, in this, who’s constantly pushing this hate speech aimed at certain groups. I always go back to hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which lead to hateful actions.” [Transcript via Entertainment Weekly.]

Dowd went on to say, “that’s the environment we’re in.”

Social media, The Hustings believes, is largely to blame for the environment we are in, with anger from the left and right heating up the echo chambers to compound hate for the other side.

We believe civil media is the antidote. We use traditional good journalism standards to assure that comments on both sides of the center column are civil and respectful and based on facts. Think of a traditional newspaper’s letters to the editor column. As in a good newspaper, reader comments from across the political spectrum are all on one page for all readers to see. 

To become a citizen pundit and join in this fight against social media blight, submit your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings (left or right, liberal or conservative, etc.) in the subject line. –Editors

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MONDAY 9/15/25

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

While there is a tremendous amount of misdirection, there are things that cannot be avoided: Like grocery prices.

Despite the fact that Donald Trump has, on numerous occasions, gone on and on at how he causes prices to be reduced for those who need things like, oh, eggs and beef, the facts are quite the contrary.

According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), it is expected that the 2025 full-year retail price of eggs will increase 24.4%.

Have you ever gotten a 24.4% raise at your job? Me neither.

The USDA anticipates a less-severe situation for beef prices, going up 9.9%.

What happened to the price reductions?

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins may want to update her resume.

Then there have been the multitudinous claims Trump has made about gasoline prices being below $2 per gallon in some states. A state of mind, perhaps, because when he’s made those claims, gasoline was solidly well above the $2 per gallon price point.

(Perhaps a few station owners decided to have a temporary sale on the price of gas, taking a hit on earnings to get SUVs and pickups lined up around the block, hoping they’d become customers after the numbers on the sign were reset to what the actual price is.)

According to GasBuddy.com, the last time US gas prices were less than $2 per gallon was in January 2021 — because of COVID, a whole lot of people weren’t doing a whole lot of driving, so prices were cut.

(Perhaps the Trump administration’s efforts to minimize the availability of COVID vaccines takes that into account. According to the Centers for Disease Control, COVID-19 was indicated as the underlying or contributing cause of death of 384,536 people in the US in 2020 and another 460,513 people in 2021. Presumably none pumped gas. (Although this may seem cruel, it isn’t going to be nearly as cruel as things will be when the next pandemic hits and the country is woefully unprepared to address it with things like what are generally described as “medicine.”))

The federal Energy Information Agency shows that the least-expensive average cost of a gallon of gas so far this year in the US was in January, when the average was $3.196. Given that the first three weeks of that month were under Joe Biden, the bragging rights for that can’t be claimed.

And if you’re curious about the subsequent months: February, $3.247; March, $3.223; April, $3.299; May, $3.278; June, $3.276; July, $3.250; August, $3.258.

You may note that while the price of gas in August was less than the price of a gallon in April, that August gallon cost more than a February gallon: Where’s the price reduction?

It is worth knowing that the difference between a fictitious $2 gallon and a real $3.25 gallon is 63% -- which makes the 24.4% hike in the price of eggs seem like chump change.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright is clearly doing a great job for the American people.

Most people probably don’t care a whole lot about the whole Jeffery Epstein-Trump association. When they learn what Epstein was convicted of doing they are undoubtedly angered, annoyed or upset. But then they get on with their lives.

And while it is a horrible thing that Charlie Kirk was murdered, if someone just came home from the orthodontist with an estimate for putting braces on their kids’ teeth — up an average 10% to 20% this year — they’ve got more personally immediate things to think about.

Unless they live in one of the cities where the troops have been called out (or where they are threatened to be called out), they are probably looking at their utility bills and wondering about how to divert some money in that direction: According to the latest Consumer Price Index, in the last 12 months through August, the price of electricity is up 6.2% and natural gas up 13.8%.

The president can bloviate. He can weave. He can say all manner of things fantastical.

But when people stand at the supermarket register or when they watch the digits on the gas pump repeatedly rise in the blink of an eye, none of that hot air and spin matter.

The question is a simple one: When the price of eggs and hamburger, gas and electricity are rising, are you better off today than on January 19?

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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MONDAY 9/15/25

Commentary by Jerry Lanson

The Supreme Court majority on Monday in essence decided that Americans are guilty unless and until they can prove themselves innocent.

The court split 6-3 in a decision that at least temporarily allows ICE agents to conduct massive immigration sweeps that round up suspects not on the basis of evidence but on the basis of their skin color, their accent and the places they work.

“The decision lifted a federal judge’s restraining order that barred agents from making indiscriminate stops relying on factors like a person’s ethnicity or that they speak Spanish,” The New York Times reported.

In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor condemned the high court majority’s ruling.

“Countless people in the Los Angeles area have been grabbed, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed simply because of their looks, their accents, and the fact they make a living by doing manual labor,” she wrote.

She added, “We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low-wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”

US District Court Judge Maame E. Frimpong had ruled that ICE could not rely on such factors, alone or in concert, in making mass immigration stops in the Los Angeles area. The plaintiffs in the case before her included two US citizens who had been swept up in such raids, the Associated Press reported.

In making her ruling, Frimpong referenced what she called “a mountain of evidence” that agents were “indiscriminately rounding up numerous individuals without reasonable suspicion,” the NYT reported.

Monday’s Supreme Court ruling seemed an apt complement to the crazed meme President Donald Trump’s posted over the weekend that showed his pleasure in the pain ICE agents inflict as they abduct and move quickly to deport thousands of immigrants, most of whom have no criminal records. Many held jobs and paid taxes. Some of them have been children. Others have lived in the US for decades.

Rather than making an effort to hide the cruelty of ICE’s campaign, Trump increasingly appears intent to revel in it.

On Saturday night, he posted a meme on Truth Social titled “Chipocalypse Now” that began, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning … Chicago [is] about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

It was a takeoff on the dark and surreal Francis Ford Coppola film, Apocalypse Now, in which Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, played by Robert Duval, says, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” after ordering a massive napalm strike in Vietnam.

Napalm was a defoliant that denuded Vietnamese villages, burning women, children and the elderly alike, and leaving those American soldiers exposed to it with serious lifelong illnesses.

Creepy as Trump’s post clearly was, it was not surprising.

The crescendo of ICE crackdowns across the country has been building for months. It started with powerful and intimidating personal stories, like the abduction of a Tufts University graduate student by masked men on a Somerville, Massachusetts, street. Her crime: Co-authoring an op-ed in the college newspaper.

There was the deportation of a Maryland father and construction worker to a notorious El Salvadoran prison along with 200 Venezuelans alleged to be gang members. (They reported being tortured there though subsequent news reports showed many had nothing to do with gangs.) Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s tragic story continues as the Trump Administration tries to deport him to Africa.

There was the arrest of an 18-year-old high school volleyball player and honors student, pulled from his car in Milford, Massachusetts, on his way to a Saturday morning practice. He was released from a Burlington, Massachusetts, ICE detention center after the entire town rallied to support him.

Now the Trump Administration has escalated to widespread raids and occupations by ICE and National Guard troops in swaths of Los Angeles and the entire city of Washington, D.C., and threats of new massive intervention in blue state cities from Chicago and Baltimore to Boston.

The Supreme Court’s cavalier rejection of a federal district court judge’s restraining order on Monday appears to have given a green light to the militarization of other city streets and centers, making it all the more likely elsewhere.

Already, preliminary Census Bureau data analysis by the Pew Research Center suggests that more than 1.2 million immigrants disappeared from the US labor force during the first seven months of 2025, AP reported. The figure included documented as well as undocumented immigrants. And that was before the massive surge in ICE hiring after Trump’s big budget bill and before the occupation of American cities began in force.

Yet the battle over our Constitution and our freedom is far from over.

Judges of both major political parties at levels below the Supreme Court continue stubbornly to uphold the law. A week ago Sunday, for example, a US District Court judge in the District of Columbia issued a two-week temporary restraining order blocking the deportation of more than 600 unaccompanied children to Guatemala even as dozens sat in planes on a Texas runway.

Last week, The Atlantic published an article by Michael Scherer titled “The Anti-Trump Strategy That’s Actually Working. Lawsuits, Lawsuits and More Lawsuits.”

He wrote: “A legal resistance led by a patchwork coalition of lawyers, public-interest groups, Democratic state attorneys general and unions has frustrated Trump’s ambitions. Hundreds of attorneys and plaintiffs have stood up to him, feeding a steady assembly line of setbacks and judicial reprimands for a president who has systematically sought to break down the limits of his own power.”

Americans continue to rally at pop-up protests across the country on village greens and in towns, small cities and metropolises. Even as the massive urban demonstrations of past movements from civil rights to the women’s march have remained noticeably sparse, weekly protests have become much more a constant part of the rhythm of community life.

In the nation’s beleaguered and occupied capitol, The Washington Post reports, “resistance … is taking many forms.”

These include “ringing bells in the masked faces of law enforcement, scribbling signs to warn drivers about ICE checkpoints, bombarding social media with footage of arrests, and employing art and humor to build consensus – and momentum.”

In some parts of the city, for example, residents gather on street corners, in parks or on front porches every night at 8 p.m. to bang pots and pans as a sign of their opposition, the WaPo reports.

In Massachusetts and other states, citizen teams are racing to the site of reported ICE stops and arrests to witness, record and challenge (but not obstruct) the masked federal agents grabbing without warrants or any semblance of due process those they believe to be immigrants.

And now organizers of the massive, millions-strong No Kings protests that rolled across the United States on June 14 are calling for Americans to again take to the street in force on October 18.

The barriers before the American people are formidable: A president and administration hellbent on unchecked dictatorial powers, a Supreme Court that with few exceptions bends to that president’s will, a Republican-controlled Congress that’s cowardly and complicit in his autocratic actions and a Democratic congressional opposition too often enfeebled by his threats.

Taken together, that puts a tremendous burden on we, the people, on the media, on those public servants and not-for-profit organizations unwilling to bend.

It is a burden and struggle, however, that the founding fathers would tell us is worth every ounce of our strength.

“Liberty, once lost, is lost forever,” our second president, John Adams, wrote in a letter to his wife in 1775.

This reminder to us all hangs from lamp posts up and down Main Street in my hometown of Falmouth, Mass.

I hope you’ll take it to heart.

This commentary first appeared in Lanson’s Substack, From the Grassroots.

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THURSDAY 9/11/25

Commentary by Rich Corbett

Each September 11th, we pause to remember. We remember the lives lost, the families changed forever, and a nation that was shaken to its core.

For me, the memories are still vivid. That morning, I was glued to CNBC while getting my son ready for the bus and off to Independence Elementary School. We both caught glimpses of the television as smoke poured into the clear blue New York City sky from the Twin Towers. My son remembers being the one to mention this to his teacher and asked if they could turn on the television in his classroom. Like so many Americans, we stared in shock at our TVs, not yet grasping how much life would change in the hours and years to follow.

In the face of such tragedy, many of us turned where we always turn in times of sorrow, to our faith. Churches and synagogues filled with prayer. We opened scripture and prayed that God would move closer and embrace the brokenhearted. Our hope, even in the darkest of moments, has never rested on human strength alone, but on His enduring eternal promises.

Yet while on earth, faith does not call us to passivity. Scripture reminds us that “blessed are the peacemakers,” and to stand firm against evil. Past leaders know, peace is never simply given. It must be safeguarded by resolve. President Ronald Reagan captured this balance well when he described US policy as “peace through strength.” It is the same message echoed by President Trump who now focuses on America on remaining strong, confident and unashamed of her values.

As we look forward, I find myself asking: “What kind of future are we building for the next generation." America’s young adults now only know 9/11 through history books and memorials. Do they hold the same resolve of the previous generation? Let’s hope we don’t just pass down memories, but a living legacy … one of a strong and free America, a nation that places faith above fear … and one that seeks peace while never forgetting its responsibility to protect its people.

This anniversary is not only about looking back in mourning, but also about looking ahead with resolve. May we honor those lost by living faithfully, standing united, and ensuring that America remains both a beacon of freedom and a guardian of peace.

Corbett is a contributing pundit for The Hustings and also writes My Desultory Blog.

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THURSDAY 9/11/25