Friday, July 17, 2026
Most Americans Want Democrats To Control The House Of Rep. After 2026 Election
The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between July 10th and 13th of a nationwide sample of 1,616 adults (including 1,450 registered voters). The margin of error is 3.3 points for adults and 3.1 points for registered voters.
While Accusing Dems Of Communism, Trump Is Establishing A National Socialism
The following post is from former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:
Quietly and without any fanfare, the Trump regime is becoming a shareholder or profit-sharer in an array of corporations thought to be critical to the nation’s security.
For example, in one of the most remarkable turnarounds in corporate history, the U.S. chipmaker Intel’s shares have more than quadrupled in value since March 2025. The stock has surged 464 percent in the past 12 months, with the company hitting a market cap of $608.7 billion.
A year ago, Intel was on life support. Many predicted its death. What happened?Intel’s rebirth is partly due to the AI boom, which requires huge quantities of computer chips known as CPUs, which are Intel’s specialty.
But a far larger factor in Intel’s stunning resurgence has been the Trump regime’s direct interventions — not only into Intel but also into other tech corporations: Apple and the giant super-chip maker Nvidia.
The Trump regime has justified this on grounds of national security. But it’s socialism because the downside risks are broadly shared by the public.
Yet the upside the benefits go to the U.S. government and to top corporate investors and executives.
And it further centralizes power and control over key industries in Trump’s hands.
Call it national socialism.
In August 2025 — in one of the most audacious moves by any administration — the U.S. government converted $9 billion in federal grants to Intel into a 10 percent stake in the company, thereby becoming Intel’s single largest shareholder.
Can you imagine if the Obama administration had converted its bailouts of Wall Street, GM, and Stellantis into equity stakes in the big banks and automakers? Republicans would have been on rooftops hollering: Socialism! Communism!
But the Trump regime did the deal without so much as a Republican peep.
At about the same time, Apple CEO Tim Cook came to Washington, seeking to persuade the Trump regime to abandon its plan to impose tariffs of 100 percent on all semiconductor imports. The tariffs would have dramatically increased the cost of Apple’s iPhone and other products, which relied on imported semiconductors.
Apple eventually won an exemption to the semiconductor tariff, on one condition: Apple would work with Intel — it would commit to buying from Intel certain chips used for iPhones and Macs, use Intel’s manufacturing plants (or fabs) to make some of Apple’s chips, and collaborate with Intel on chip design and production.
Then in January, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, came to Washington seeking the Trump regime’s approval for Nvidia’s sales to China of its H200 chip for artificial intelligence.
Huang was desperate to get access to China’s giant and potentially lucrative market, but the sale would require an exemption to America’s policy of not selling or licensing to the Chinese our advanced AI technology, to minimize any risk to U.S. security.
Huang got what he was after, after agreeing to two conditions. First, the United States government would get 25 percent of all profits from Nvidia’s sales in China. Second, Nvidia would invest $5 billion in Intel and buy its custom data center chips. Huang called the deal a “historic” partnership.
This isn’t capitalism, folks. It’s government becoming the major shareholder of the biggest chip-making in America, then giving a tariff exemption to another key tech corporation on condition it buy the products of and collaborate with the first, and giving a national-security exemption to a third key tech company on condition it also buy the products of the first and give the government a portion of its sales in China.
And who the hell knows what Trump and Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce who spearheaded these deals, grabbed for themselves or their families along the way?
Trump’s national socialism doesn’t stop here. Under Trump, the U.S. government has also become the largest shareholder of MP Materials, which operates the only mine for rare earth minerals in the United States, after sinking $400 million of taxpayer dollars into the corporation.
And when Nippon Steel acquired U.S. Steel in June of 2025, it was announced that Trump would personally control the so-called “golden share” that his regime forced U.S. Steel to accept as part of the deal.
It’s ironic that Trump is berating the Democrats for electing and nominating a group of young people who call themselves democratic socialists when he’s been shifting the United States to national socialism.
Doubly ironic because Trump’s national socialism is making fortunes for a small group of top executives who were already fabulously wealthy, while the democratic socialists in the Democratic Party want to tax the wealthy to provide funds for better schools, better wages, and healthcare for all.
And Trump’s national socialism is concentrating ever more power in Trump’s hands. A whole new range of decisions is being made about the U.S. economy but without any congressional oversight or public knowledge. Which corporations get major infusions of taxpayer dollars in return for partial government ownership? Which get tariff exemptions and under what conditions? Which get exemptions to trade with China and under what conditions?
It’s all up to Trump and his lapdogs in the White House and at the Commerce Department. And it helps explain why corporate America will do whatever Trump asks, say whatever he wants, and obey whatever he demands.
The result is not unlike the world’s last big experiment with national socialism — in the 1930s, in Germany.
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Democrats Now Outnumber Republicans In The United States
These charts are from a Pew Research Center survey -- done between January 30th and June 18th of 2026 of a nationwide sample of 5,511 adults, with a 1.8 point margin of error.
Trump Steals Land From The People To Benefit His Corporate Buddies
Presidents Clinton and Obama, under the Antiquities Act, designated lands as national monuments during their terms. The lands were important to several Native American tribes as heritage sites. Together, the monuments comprised about 3 million acres.
During his first term, Donald Trump tried to downsize both monuments, but President Biden restored both to their original size.
Now Trump has again downsized both monuments - from their original 3 million acres to about 300,000 acres. He did this in spite of the Antiquities Act giving presidents the power to create monuments, but not to downsize or eliminate them.
Most egregious was the lie he said as the reason for his action - to give it back to the people of the United States. That's ridiculous! As national monuments, the people of the United States (all of us) owned that land.
What he has actually done is to steal the land from the people so he can sell or lease it to special interests - corporate interests who want to mine it for minerals (uranium, copper, and possibly other minerals).
Trump has no interest in history or antiquities, or what is best for the people of this country. He's only interested in what can be bought and sold (and you can bet he will benefit personally from this).
We can only hope that the desecration of these monuments can be delayed until a Democratic president (elected in 2028) can restore them again.
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