There’s a new feeling in America as kindness drives out cruelty; The Guardian, November 5, 2026

Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian; There’s a new feeling in America as kindness drives out cruelty

"But on Tuesday, that discouraging conversation – changed. Not just a little, but radically.

American citizens rose up and showed the world their nation’s truer colors.

They showed it to be a place that values decency. A place capable of choosing diversity, not mocking it. A place strong enough to say “enough, already”.

The global caricature of the ugly American as an ignoramus in thrall to an immoral cult leader got pushed aside in this election that turned both houses of Congress, and many a governor’s office, away from Maga and toward potential reform.

“I think it was about kindness,” reflected my neighbor, a registered nurse and French immigrant, as I encountered her on her dog walk on Wednesday morning.

In a pre-election piece titled “America’s Clarifying Moment”, the writer and academic Stephen Beschloss summarized the stakes. This is “when we find out whether our fellow Americans really are committed to putting an end to the reckless destruction, the ceaseless corruption, the lawless abuse of our democracy and the utter indifference to the people’s struggle to survive”.

Turns out enough Americans were not merely committed. They were passionate, turning out in droves to elevate the kind of people that Maga had so blithely trashed.

Among the victors: a Black female governor in Georgia, a gay senator in New Hampshire, a Muslim senator in Michigan, and a Native American female governor of New Mexico.

“The sheer diversity of the winners tonight is staggering,” observed Jennifer Senior of the Atlantic."

What Hundreds of Focus Groups With Trump Voters Revealed; The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times, October 23, 2026

Ezra Klein

Produced by Annie Galvin and Jack McCordick

, The Ezra Klein Show, The New York Times; What Hundreds of Focus Groups With Trump Voters Revealed

[Ezra Klein] "What changes in politics — or what have you watched change in politics — as it has become more, in your language here, vibe oriented?

[Sarah Longwell] "I think it’s the big difference between news seekers and news receivers.

We used to live in a world where you spent time with the news, and it was a specific time. You sat down at the breakfast table, and you read a newspaper. You watched the evening news. You made time for the news.

I just think that the news receiver means: I didn’t sit down to find something out. Information just washed over me, and there was no mechanism to verify it. I didn’t really sit and spend time with it and ask: Is this true? Does it even matter to me? It just hit me for a second.

It just flashes over them. So they wake up with an opinion without any idea of how it was formed."

Pa. election results, Shapiro’s speeches, and state laws are all prediction market bets. Could this lead to corruption?; Spotlight PA, September 3, 2026

Jaxon White , Spotlight PA; Pa. election results, Shapiro’s speeches, and state laws are all prediction market bets. Could this lead to corruption?

"Who will win Pennsylvania’s race for governor? How many data centers will be proposed here? Which state laws will be enacted this year?

That’s just a sample of the political questions that prediction market platforms, like Kalshi and Polymarket, allow people to bet on.

These platforms, which allow people to wager on the outcomes of a wide range of real-world events, are exploding in popularity. As the midterms approach and these markets receive more scrutiny, some ethics experts are raising concerns that they are ripe for abuse from government insiders or bad faith actors looking to sway elections."

A bruising 24 hours - what next for Fifa and under-pressure Infantino?; BBC, August 1, 2026

Dale Johnson , BBC; A bruising 24 hours - what next for Fifa and under-pressure Infantino?

"On Tuesday morning, Gianni Infantino was in an impregnable position as Fifa president, the most powerful job in football.

Now, after trying to sell stakes in Fifa competitions to private investments firms - apparently without the knowledge of anyone else - Infantino's position appears to be under threat."

White House Teleprompter Operator Bet on Trump Speeches, Kalshi Says; The New York Times, July 16, 2026

  Lauren McCarthy, The New York Times; White House Teleprompter Operator Bet on Trump Speeches, Kalshi Says

"A White House teleprompter operator used his position to win around $100,000 by placing bets on the prediction market Kalshi about what President Trump would say in his speeches, the company said on Thursday.

It was the latest accusation that someone had used inside information to make a profit on a prediction market like Kalshi and Polymarket, which have grown rapidly and transformed into cultural phenomena.

In this case, Kalshi said Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant to Mr. Trump, had placed wagers on common words that would appear in the president’s speeches, such as country names and economic terms. In March, when Kalshi’s surveillance systems flagged some of Mr. Perez’s trades, the company froze the funds in his account and referred the case to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that regulates prediction markets."

Former FIFA president questions ‘political power’ after Trump-Infantino call over Balogun red card; The Hill, July 6, 2026

 MAX REGO , The Hill ; Former FIFA president questions ‘political power’ after Trump-Infantino call over Balogun red card

"Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter on Monday joined those raising questions about soccer’s governing body overturning the one-game suspension of U.S. striker Folarin Balogun after President Trump spoke to Blatter’s successor, Gianni Infantino, about the matter...

Trump on Monday confirmed he spoke to Infantino after the U.S.-Belgium game and “asked for a review” of the play, which saw Balogun and Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Tarik Muharemović collide while battling for the ball. Trump also questioned the officiating crew’s use of instant replay to dole out the penalty."

House Democrats accuse Trump of 'hijacking' America's 250th birthday for his own gain; NPR, July 2, 2026

Rachel Treisman, NPR; House Democrats accuse Trump of 'hijacking' America's 250th birthday for his own gain

"As America's birthday celebrations kick into high gear, so too do criticisms of the preeminent national group organizing them, Freedom 250.

Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee published a 55-page report Thursday accusing the group of aiding President Trump in turning America's milestone into a "hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment" through tactics that potentially amount to criminal fraud.

It's titled "From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People out of their 250th Birthday.""

As Trump reports $2.2 billion in 2025 income, ethics experts raise alarm; Los Angeles Times, July 1, 2026

Jenny Jarvie, Los Angeles Times; As Trump reports $2.2 billion in 2025 income, ethics experts raise alarm

"Ethics experts sounded the alarm Wednesday after new financial disclosure reports revealed that President Trump’s income ballooned to $2.2 billion in 2025, with $1.4 billion coming from various new cryptocurrency-related businesses.

“It’s bribery. It’s graft. It’s exploitation of public power for private financial gain,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University and an expert in government ethics. “Trump has — with the acquiescence of a somnolent, GOP-controlled Congress and the active assistance of John Roberts’ Supreme Court — transformed the presidency into a massive corruption racket.”

Trump reported income of over $600 million in 2024. But after he entered the White House in 2025, he reported that his income had soared to more than $2.2 billion."

There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This; The New York Times, May 20, 2026

The Editorial Board, The New York Times; There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This

"Has there ever been an episode of presidential corruption so blatant and threatening to constitutional order? Certainly not in modern times. President Trump’s Justice Department is using taxpayer money to create a $1.8 billion political slush fund. Ostensibly set up to compensate those who the department claims have “suffered weaponization and lawfare,” it will in fact reward loyalists willing to defy the law and commit violence on behalf of the president.

The fund manages to combine three of Mr. Trump’s most alarming behaviors. One, it is an obvious form of corruption, coming from a president who has used his office to enrich himself, his family and his allies. Two, the fund continues his pattern of using the Justice Department as an enforcer to punish his perceived opponents and protect his friends and allies. Three, the fund is his latest attempt to rewrite history about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.

It is worth pausing to put the fund into the larger context of Mr. Trump’s political project: He is destroying pillars of American democracy to empower himself. He claims elections are legitimate only if he wins. He uses federal law enforcement to investigate and prosecute his perceived enemies. He purges his party of officials who defy him. He describes members of the other party and civil society as traitors and enemies. He incentivizes his supporters to break the law on his behalf and rewards them when they do. He directs his allies to change election rules to keep his party in power.

Mr. Trump’s project has not yet succeeded, at least not fully. Many Americans — in the judicial system, in Congress, in state governments and elsewhere — continue to stand up for democracy and oppose his autocratic ambitions. By now, though, nobody should have illusions about what he is attempting to do."

The Trump Administration Is Trying to Erase Its Own History; The Atlantic, April 8, 2026

David A. Graham, The Atlantic ; The Trump Administration Is Trying to Erase Its Own History

If a new legal opinion stands, Donald Trump will be on track to become one of the most poorly documented presidents ever.

"The history of Nixon’s presidential record also shows the value of the law, even long after a president leaves office. Nixon loyalists controlled the former president’s library for years, and presented a whitewashed version of Watergate to the public. But the law required that the warts-and-all records be preserved, and when control of the library was finally wrested away and handed to Tim Naftali, a professional historian, in 2006, the library began presenting a more accurate account and providing access to historians, who have in turn presented more complete chronicles of Nixon’s career.

Trump is the most corrupt and scandal-plagued president since Nixon; indeed, his fiascoes eclipse Nixon’s, but many of them remain mostly or somewhat hidden, thanks in part to a much more acquiescent Republican Congress than the one Nixon had. In Watergate, the crimes were known; the question was, in the words of Senator Howard Baker Jr., “What did the president know and when did he know it?” With the Trump administration, the situation is perhaps the reverse: We know much about the president’s stated motivations and beliefs, but we do not have a full accounting of what he and his aides have done. Keeping a record would allow the nation to fully understand his actions and their consequences—if not now, then at least later."

Democrats ask what happened to millions earmarked for Trump’s library; The Washington Post, March 11, 2026

Dan Diamond

 and 

Aaron Schaffer

 , The Washington Post; Democrats ask what happened to millions earmarked for Trump’s library

ABC, Meta, Paramount and X reportedly agreed to pay at least $63 million in settlements with the president. The original fund was dissolved last year.

"Congressional Democrats are opening a probe into millions of dollars private companies pledged to President Donald Trump’s planned presidential library, asking what happened to the money after the original fund was dissolved last year.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts) and Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut) and Rep. Melanie Stansbury (New Mexico) wrote Monday to the leaders of ABC, Meta, Paramount and X, requesting information about the terms of their agreements and the status of the funds they pledged to hand over to the president’s representatives. The letters were shared with The Washington Post."

James Talarico Is a Christian X-Ray; The New York Times, March 8, 2026

DAVID FRENCH , The New York Times; James Talarico Is a Christian X-Ray

"If you were to crack open Scripture today and start reading, one of the first things you should notice is that the Bible contains remarkably few political mandates. You can read it from cover to cover and not know the definitive biblical tax rate, welfare program or foreign policy.

But the next thing you’ll notice is that there is an immense amount of guidance describing how Christians should behave. Indeed, in the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul says that the fruit of the spirit is a set of virtues — “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”..

But what if the coming thermostatic reaction isn’t about ideology as much as about character and temperament? What if we’re seeing a 21st-century version of the American public’s movement away from the cruelty and corruption of Richard Nixon toward the ethics and integrity of Jimmy Carter — a man who won for all the right reasons in 1976, even if his presidency didn’t live up to his promise?

It’s too soon to be that optimistic, but that’s what I see in people’s attitudes toward Talarico. That’s what I see in Cornyn’s surprising plurality over Paxton. This miserable political moment won’t end when the left takes back the government from the right or if the right continues to beat the left. It will end when our politicians — especially Christian politicians — forsake cruelty for compassion and realize that we shall know Christians in politics not by their stridency and ideology, but by their integrity and love, including their love for, as Talarico put it, “all of our neighbors.”

That’s the significance of the Talarico moment: not the old news that a Christian can be progressive but, rather, that Christian politicians can actually act like Christians. Kindness still has a place in the public square, even if it doesn’t always seem that way."