On the October 9, 2025 edition of The Last Word, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell launched a blistering critique of President Trump’s growing pattern of targeting perceived political foes. O’Donnell accused the president of using the Justice Department as a weapon against his “enemies list,” a tactic he compared directly to the disgraced legacy of former President Richard Nixon. Drawing a chilling parallel, O’Donnell reminded viewers that Nixon’s presidency “didn’t end well,” warning that Trump could face a similar collapse if his administration continues to blur the lines between justice and political vengeance.
#BREAKING: Lawrence: "It did not end well for the mad man at the center of the plot, the president with an enemies list. The big difference between disgraced Republican President Richard Nixon and disgraced Republican President Donald Trump, is that Richard Nixon did not spend… pic.twitter.com/XyMfsvFClb
The controversy intensified after the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, brought high-profile indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James — two officials long vilified by Trump in public remarks and social media tirades. Halligan’s actions have fueled speculation that she’s become Trump’s de facto enforcer, using the machinery of federal prosecution to settle old political scores.
Critics argue that Halligan’s pattern of cases mirrors the tone of Trump’s personal grievances, targeting figures who embarrassed or challenged him during his presidency. Observers have noted that while Trump portrays these prosecutions as “justice being served,” the timing and selection of defendants make the process look less like impartial law enforcement and more like a coordinated campaign of retribution.
Legal analysts on MSNBC suggested that Halligan’s aggressive posture — and her proximity to Trump’s political orbit — could backfire. By appearing to criminalize dissent, the administration risks creating a perception of authoritarian overreach, echoing the very abuses of power that ended Nixon’s career. As O’Donnell put it, this “enemies list revival” may serve as both a warning and a reminder: presidents who weaponize justice to punish critics rarely escape the consequences.
Rep Ro Khanna (D-CA) appeared in a segment of MSNBC’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki (08/14/25) where he confirmed that together with Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY), they had arranged a 09/03/25 press conference with the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
It cannot be understated just how important this presser may turn out to be , not just for curious public, but also for the victims. Reps Massie and Khanna are giving them an avenue to vent out their grievances and frustrations, something they were denied when Epstein died before his criminal trial. They were robbed of an excellent opportunity to confront their abuser publicly in a court of law.
The presser will of course serve another very important function, and that is, bring back the media’s focus to the heinous crimes committed by Epstein and Maxwell, and how both shared a close relationship with Donald Trump, now President.
The Trump administration has moved heaven and earth to keep the Epstein story away from the mainstream media’s focus, so it will be very interesting to see what “shiny object” they dangle out there on 09/03/25.
A segment on the 08/11/25 edition of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show (TRMS) delved into the Trump administration’s “tough on crime” facade. The gist of the segment was that while President Trump and his administration go to great lengths to project a “tough on crime” stance, they have been super lenient with some very serious criminals the president favors. In other words, there are glaring double standards with the said tough on crime policy.
#BREAKING: Legendary #Maddow: "Investigators in Spain ended up picking up his trail, in part because of the lid of a water bottle that he left behind at the scene. They trailed him as he fled Spain, he went first to Germany, where he had previously lived, and then he fled from… pic.twitter.com/h03RjzNDrV
One of the shocking examples host Maddow pointed to was a triple murder convict—yeah you read that right—a triple murder convict serving a 30 year sentence, that the Trump administration recently released from a Venezuelan prison and flew into the United States. Reasonable people can agree that this is not the kind of person a “tough on crime” administration would be bringing into the country.
He apparently committed the murders at a law office in Madrid, Spain, realized the Spanish authorities were onto him, fled to Germany, and then ran from Germany to Venezuela. Venezuela has a no-extradition policy, so they didn’t send him back to Spain, but agreed to prosecute him for the Madrid murders in Venezuela. It was there that he was convicted and received a 30 year sentence.
He is currently running the streets of some American city as a free man. It will be interesting to hear the rationale the “tough on crime” Trump administration gives for not only freeing such a heinous criminal, but also setting him loose in an American city.
Maddow also brought up the other unavoidable elephant in the room—convicted child Sec trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell who it appears, is gearing up for a presidential pardon after being transferred to a cushy fed camp in Texas. Maxwell is also serving a 30 year sentence.
Bottom line, the Trump administration has to decide whether it wants to be tough on crime towards everybody, or just those the president disfavors. As it currently stands, the latter appears to be the case, and it’s not a good look.
U.S. President Donald Trump sat down with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on 06/29/25 for a wide ranging interview that covered the recent U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Big Beautiful Bill, immigration, tariffs and many other topics.
#BREAKING: Maria: "I saw reports that there were 400 kgs [of enriched uranium] that they [#Iran] moved, but I wonder if it's traceable…"
One very interesting exchange happened when host Maria Bartiromo asked President Trump how his administration intends to tackle the massive layoffs/job losses that will assuredly happen as a result of developments in artificial intelligence. Trump responded that he will solve that by “bringing in more companies”–a strange answer that appeared to shock Maria.
It wasn’t clear whether the president meant bringing in more AI companies to hire more people, or whether he meant bringing in other companies to offset the job losses caused by AI. What’s clear is that neither option adequately addresses the core question raised by Maria.
I was left wondering whether Fox News, or any other media outlet for that matter, would have let former President Biden off the hook with such an inadequate answer to real and present concerns surrounding AI? My guess is they would would have found a way to tie such an inadequate response to his “mental unfitness for office.”
A segment on the 06/13/25 edition of CNN’s Outfront w/Erin Burnett show featured a video showing a U.S. Marine detaining a man outside a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. You’ll remember that the Trump administration recently sent U.S. Marines to downtown Los Angeles to deal with riots stemming from aggressive immigration practices of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE)
#BREAKING:🔥Erin: "I wanna show you some dramatic video that is just into CNN. What you are watching here is a U.S. Marine, and that Marine is detaining a man, the man is outside one of the federal buildings in downtown LA…"😳 pic.twitter.com/meQ6VPnzn6
Per Outfront host Erin Burnett, it was unclear at the time they aired this video, the circumstances that led to this man’s detention by the Marine. The detention however, has naturally ignited a huge debate about the Posse Comitatus Act, which on its face, appears to prohibit any use of the military on U.S. soil for law enforcement purposes.
To be clear, this is a question that has percolated in legal circles for decades, especially as it relates to counterterrorism operations following the 9/11 attacks. This case in Los Angeles now presents a perfect opportunity for a Posse Comitatus lawsuit which hopefully, will result in the Supreme Court settling this burning legal question once and for all.
Interesting report on CNN News Central says (06/17/24) says that after weeks of treading carefully around the subject of former President Trump’s recent felony convictions, Team Biden has finally decided to take the gloves off, and make the convictions a key part of their 2024 campaign message.
Some, including Yours Truly, will translate this CNN report thus: “Team Biden has finally decided it wants to win the 2024 presidential election.” Make no mistake about it, this is Team Biden’s strongest message from now until the November election day, which will effectively boil down to a fight for independent voters.
CNN’s Sara Sidner(0:22): “Today, the Biden campaign escalating its attacks against Donald Trump with a new $50 million ad push rolling out in battleground states, taking on the former President’s character and felony convictions.”
Part of the ad says: “In the courtroom, we see Donald Trump for who he is. He’s been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, and he committed financial fraud. Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s been working…”
CNN’s Arlette Saenz(1:10): “This new ad is significant, as it marks the first time the Biden campaign is using former President Donald Trump’s legal woes in television advertisements…In this ad, they [Team Biden] are trying to frame this election as a choice between a convicted criminal who is looking out for himself, with President Biden who in his words, ‘works for the American people.’ This ad will run as part of a $50 million ad push in key battleground states…”
Bottom line folks, this is the best move Team Biden has made thus far, regarding the upcoming November 2024 presidential election. Simply put, if they preach this message steadily–the other guy is a convicted felon–Biden wins reelection easily, thanks in large part to the independent vote. It’s really that simple.
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Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appeared on the 05/22/24 edition of MSNBC’s All In w/Chris Hayes show, where she dropped a bombshell by calling for a U.S. Senate probe into the affairs of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Rep AOC’s call for an investigation is of course related to recent news reports that say a flag known to be sympathetic to the January 6th insurrection, was spotted flying at Justice Alito’s residence.
Asked by host Chris Hayes what she thought about the Alito news reports, Rep AOC replied(2:22): “I don’t even think that we have to wait until we have a Democratic House majority, because we have a Democratic Senate majority. This is an alarm that I have been sounding for quite some time now. I think that what we’re seeing here, is an extraordinary breach of not just the trust and the stature of the Supreme Court, but we’re seeing a fundamental challenge to our democracy. [Justice] Samuel Alito has identified himself with the same people who raided the Capitol on January 6th, and is now going to be presiding over court cases that have deep implications over the participants of that rally.”
Rep AOC went on to add that Democrats cannot just keep on sitting on power after getting elected. They actually have to use the power that voters bestow upon them, to start addressing this runaway Supreme Court, and other burning voter concerns.
Rep AOC specifically told host Chris Hayes(3:13): “Democrats have a responsibility for defending our democracy, and in the Senate, we have gavels. There should be subpoenas going out, there should be active investigations that are happening, and I believe that when House Democrats take the majority, we are preparing and ensuring to support the broader effort to stand up our democracy…When Democrats have power, we have to use it. We cannot be in perpetual campaign mode. We need to be in governance mode, we need to be in accountability mode, with every lever that we have…”
As you know, Yours Truly has for a long time lamented weakness by congressional Dems. It was therefore quite refreshing to see Rep AOC calling it out too.
A bombshell segment on the 05/20/24 edition of The Rachel Maddow Show (TRMS) delved into the GOP’s long history of using political pressure to scuttle criminal investigations and prosecutions targeting them.
Maddow’s intent was to bring attention to the Republican political attacks currently being leveled against Fulton County DA Fani Willis, as she tries to hold former President Trump accountable for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections in Georgia.
It is widely assumed by many, that the political attacks currently playing out against DA Willis are somehow novel, or totally unheard of in America, when as Maddow clearly illustrates, there is a very long and sordid history of Republican politicians successfully employing similar tactics in the past.
The full Maddow segment (YouTube) is available here for context, but my posts on X(formerly Twitter) get to the crux of her argument, and that is, the Republican attacks on Fulton County DA Fani Willis are nothing knew. Republicans have been doing these political pressure campaigns against prosecutors dating as far back as the 1940s. Such pressure campaigns have largely evaded media scrutiny because as she puts it, they make the country and all the stakeholders look bad.
#Maddow: "The prosecutors and investigators personally were CRUSHED. They were smeared and discredited and destroyed, so they were in no position to tell the story either, and so the story, mostly, was not told. But we NEED TO KNOW that story and stories like that…" pic.twitter.com/UsZnixTvpw
As Maddow correctly points out, it’s incumbent upon any democracy-loving individual, to step up and defend DA Fani Willis, or any other similarly situated prosecutor, against such political pressure campaigns. They are antithetical to a free and democratic society.
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Former Porn Star Stormy Daniels recently appeared to testify at former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial currently playing out in Manhattan, New York. As was expected, a lot of juicy details came out of her testimony, some previously known by the public, and others totally new. Trump’s supporters have predictably sought to downplay, even totally disregard Daniels’ testimony, but as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow recently said on her colleague Nicolle Wallace’s show, we cannot/must not forget the fact that the person at the heart of this sordid affair, is someone who could potentially end up as U.S. president again. Put another way, this is, as Maddow would put it, “a big freaking deal”.
Maddow said(5:55): “The very big picture here is, we are thinking seriously as a country, about putting somebody back in the White House, who mounted a violent effort to overthrow the government the last time that he was voted out, who says that parts of the constitution should be terminated, who says he wants to put the U.S. military in American cities, he wants to build camps for tens of millons of people. That’s what we’re thinking about doing. There’s like this huge yikes factor when it comes to him.”
Maddow adds(6:43): “On top of the scariness about what he’s offering us as a political figure, on top of his likely criminal liability in his multiple criminal trials, we also then just get this yuck factor stuff[with the porn star].”
Maddow then lists the yucky stuff
“She’s doing a porn company promotion at a golf tournament.”
“His infant son is four months old.”
“He has his bodyguard ask her if she’d like to have dinner, so she goes to his room. There is no dinner. He’s wearing satin pajamas. She says get dressed.”
“He tells her I’ll get you under my reality competition TV show and I will help you cheat at it. I’ll give you advance notice on the challenges on the show, and that will help you.”
“He tells her me and my wife don’t sleep in the same room.”
“He asks her when she was last tested for sexually transmitted diseases.”
“He tells her she reminds him of his daughter.”
“She goes to the bathroom, she comes out of the bathroom, and he’s stripped down to his underpants.”
“She tries to leave, and he steps between her and the door. She doesn’t want to do it. She says she doesn’t feel threatened but he says to her, I thought you were serious about what you wanted. If you ever want to get out of that trailer park…”
“They have sex. She’s not into it. He does not wear a condom. That is particularly concerning to her, and he should know that it is because she has just explained to him about her work in the adult film industry.”
“They meet several more times, he makes more sexual advances, they never have sex again, and ultimately it is only when he finally says no, I’m not putting you on my TV show, that she stops picking up his calls.”
Maddow then bottom lines it perfectly saying, “[President]Jimmy Carter almost lost in 1976 because he said he had committed lust in his heart, but this is who we are thinking about putting back in the White House right now, along with what he has threatened to do to the country, in part out of anger for the criminal liability that he has brought on himself by trying to cover up things like this, behavior like this, character like this.”
On 05/08/24 U S. President Joe Biden sat down with Outfront CNN host Erin Burnett in Milwaukee Wisconsin, for a wide ranging interview that included his reelection campaign, the economy, his thoughts about his Republican challenger Donald Trump, AI, the crisis in Gaza… The interview provided an excellent compare and contrast situation between president Biden and his Republican challenger Trump, thanks in large part to excellent questioning by host Erin Burnett.
As host Erin Burnett correctly pointed out at the start of the interview, President Biden was in the battleground state of Wisconsin to tout plans for the creation of a massive Microsoft AI (artificial intelligence) data center, that will reportedly bring some 2,000 union construction jobs to that region, plus provide AI training to some 100,000 people (more job opportunities). As Erin pointed out, Trump, while president, promised the creation of some 13,000 FoxConn jobs in the same area, a promise we now know, never panned out. Only about 1,000 jobs exist right now, as opposed to the promised 13,000.
Asked why Wisconsinites should believe his jobs promise after clearly being duped by his predecessor Trump, Biden’s response boiled down to this(1:42): “He [Trump] has never succeeded in creating jobs, and I’ve never failed. I’ve created over 15 million jobs since I have been president. 15 million in 3.75 years and secondly, Microsoft is a serious player, and they are very much engaged in making sure that they pick this area as the home base for their AI initiative in the nation. They are going to do it.” Biden then delivered a body shot to Trump (liver shot if you will), telling host Erin, “When has he [Trump] ever done anything that he said? I’m not being facetious…” You get the drift–Trump is all talk, or as they say in Texas, “All hat and no cattle”.
Next up on the interview was the economy, where host Erin Burnett pointed out that recent polls show his challenger Trump beating him when it comes to the question as to who voters think would handle the economy better. Specifically, Erin asked whether he was worried that time was running out for him to turn around that sentiment. President Biden responded in relevant part (7:31), “We’ve already turned around. Look at the Michigan survey. Over 65% of Americans think they are in good shape economically. They think the nation is not in good shape, but they are personally in good shape. The polling data has been wrong all along…” Yours Truly has warned about these mainstream media “polls” in a previous post.
The next major topic was the crisis in Gaza, which is having ripple effects way beyond the Middle East.
Host Erin Burnett(10:26): “I know that you have paused, Mr President, shipments of 2,000-pound U.S. bombs to Israel due to concern that they could be used in any offensive on Rafah. Have those bombs, those powerful 2000-pound bombs been used to kill civilians in Gaza?”
President Biden: “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they [Israel] go after population centers. I made it clear that if they go into Rafah…I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem…” Simply put, the United States will continue supporting Israel in its efforts to counter terrorism, but it will no longer just rubber-stamp and supply weapons for anything Israel does to Gazans. The Biden administration will hold the Netanyahu government to some human rights standards, a commendable position indeed. As for the related protests popping out at U.S. institutions of higher learning, and the legitimate questions such protests have raised regarding the first amendment, President Biden said (13:06): “There’s a legitimate right to free speech and protest…They [students] have a right to do that. There’s not a legitimate right to use hate speech. There’s not a legitimate right to threaten Jewish students.There’s not a legitimate right to block people’s access to class. That’s against the law.”
Next up was a discussion about the real potential for a repeat of a January 6th style insurrection if Biden defeats Trump again. Specifically, Erin asked how seriously President Biden takes the remarks by Trump, that he will not accept the election results if he loses. President Biden responded(16:44): “Very seriously, just like I did with January 6th. The guy is not a democrat (small d)…You can’t only love your country when you win…He may not accept the outcome of an election? I promise you he won’t.”
The interview concluded with a question as to whether former President Obama, who did very well in his election and re-election, and who Biden served as vice president, was giving him any advice on how to run his re-election campaign. President Biden admitted that he was indded getting advice from Obama, adding that the advice was, “You’ve got to organize, block and tackle, people knocking on doors, putting up signs…”. One has to admit, that is as “Obama-esque” as it gets. Hopefully Team BidenHarris heeds his advice and get the results Obama always delivered–kicking Republicans in their you know what!!
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