On October 1969, in a quiet advertising office in Los Angeles after midnight, Daniel Ellsberg stood alone at a Xerox machine feeding page after page of classified documents through the feeder.
Each sheet was stamped TOP SECRET. Each copy he made was a federal felony.
He was not a radical or a traitor. He was a 38-year-old former Marine Corps officer with a Harvard PhD in economics, a senior Pentagon analyst who had helped shape U.S. Vietnam policy, and one of the few civilians granted the highest security clearances in the country. He had believed in the war. He had briefed cabinet members, advised ambassadors, flown combat missions as an observer. He had seen the inside of the machine.
Then he read 7,000 pages that proved the machine had been lying for a quarter century.
The documents—later known as the Pentagon Papers—were a classified, 47-volume study commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in 1967. They traced American involvement in Vietnam from World War II through 1968. Their central revelation was stark: four consecutive presidents—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson—had privately concluded the war was unwinnable yet continued to escalate it, sending tens of thousands of young Americans to their deaths to avoid the political cost of withdrawal.
By late 1969 more than 40,000 U.S. troops had been killed in a war the government knew it could not win. The public had been told victory was near, progress steady, the dominoes safe. The documents showed the opposite: deliberate deception, manipulated intelligence, repeated decisions to prolong a lost cause for reasons of credibility and domestic politics.
Ellsberg faced a choice: protect his career, his freedom, his family—or expose the truth that was killing thousands.
He chose truth.
Copying 7,000 pages alone at night was excruciatingly slow. Every passing headlight outside could be the FBI. Every jammed sheet risked exposure. The risk was not abstract: under the Espionage Act he could face life in federal prison.
Then Ellsberg made a decision that still stuns people who hear it.
He brought his children into the room.
His son Robert was 13. His daughter Mary was 10.
On the nights they helped, Robert ran the Xerox machine—feeding pages, collating stacks. Mary sat cross-legged on the floor with scissors, carefully cutting the words TOP SECRET off each photocopy so the duplicates would not be immediately identifiable as stolen classified material.
Years later Ellsberg explained why he involved them:
“I expected to be in prison very shortly. I wanted them to know that their father was doing something in a businesslike way—a calm, sober way—that I thought had to be done.”
He told Robert directly: this would probably put him in prison. He wanted his children to understand that conscience sometimes demands sacrifice, that doing the right thing is not always safe, and that a parent’s most important legacy is not wealth or status but the example of moral courage.
For nearly two years Ellsberg tried to act through official channels. He approached six senators and several congressmen, urging them to enter the documents into the Congressional Record so they could be published legally and protected by the Speech or Debate Clause. Every one of them declined—some out of political caution, some because they feared the legal consequences.
So in March 1971 he gave copies to The New York Times.
On June 13, 1971, the Times published the first installment. The Nixon administration reacted with fury. For the first time in American history, the federal government sought prior restraint—asking a court to block a newspaper from publishing. A federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the Times.
Ellsberg responded by giving the documents to The Washington Post. When they were blocked, to the Boston Globe. Then to more outlets. The truth spread faster than the government could contain it.
President Nixon did not merely want the leak stopped. He wanted Ellsberg destroyed.
He formed a secret White House unit nicknamed “the Plumbers,” tasked with discrediting the leaker by any means necessary. They broke into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding, searching for compromising personal material. They found nothing usable, but the break-in was a felony.
The Justice Department charged Ellsberg with espionage, theft, and conspiracy. He faced 115 years in federal prison.
The trial began in Los Angeles in 1973. Prosecutors portrayed Ellsberg as a traitor who had endangered national security. They demanded he be made an example.
Then the government’s own misconduct began to surface.
The Fielding break-in became public. Evidence of illegal wiretaps and prosecutorial overreach mounted. Most explosively, it emerged that Nixon had offered trial judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. the directorship of the FBI—while the trial was under way.
The offer was blatant judicial tampering.
On May 11, 1973, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg with prejudice, citing “improper government conduct that precluded a fair trial.”
Daniel Ellsberg walked free.
The Pentagon Papers did not end the Vietnam War overnight, but they changed everything. They confirmed what millions already suspected: the government had systematically lied to the public for decades about a war that cost more than 58,000 American lives. Public opposition surged. Congress began restricting funding. The war that could not be ended politically was finally being ended by exposure.
There was one more consequence Nixon had not foreseen.
The same Plumbers unit that burgled Ellsberg’s psychiatrist later broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex. Nixon’s obsession with destroying Daniel Ellsberg helped set in motion the scandal that destroyed his presidency.
Ellsberg did not just expose lies about Vietnam. He inadvertently helped expose corruption at the highest level of American government.
He lived to 92, dying on June 16, 2023. For the rest of his life he remained an antiwar activist, whistleblower advocate, and lecturer on government secrecy and conscience. He never regretted his decision.
His children, Robert and Mary, grew up understanding something profound: that citizenship sometimes requires courage. That doing the right thing is not always safe. That their father chose conscience over comfort, even when it meant risking prison and involving them in an act that could have cost him everything.
The Pentagon Papers did not stop the war immediately. But they changed how Americans view their government. They proved that citizens have both the right and the responsibility to demand truth from their leaders.
Today Daniel Ellsberg is remembered as one of history’s most consequential whistleblowers. The phrase “pulling an Ellsberg” entered the language as shorthand for exposing government wrongdoing at great personal risk.
But in late 1969 he was simply a man in a friend’s office at night, feeding classified pages into a Xerox machine while his 13-year-old son collated and his 10-year-old daughter cut TOP SECRET stamps off the copies.
He could have stayed silent. Kept his clearances. Protected his career and family.
Instead he handed scissors to his daughter and told her to start cutting.
Because sometimes the most patriotic act is to tell the truth—even when your government calls it treason.
Obama put $400 million in euros & Swiss francs on pallets & shipped it to Iran via air freight, to settle an actual debt, and MAGA hasn't shut up about it for 10 years.
Trump is giving Iran $300 BILLION—not to repay a debt, but to end the needless war he started b/c Bibi said to.
#ArtoftheDeal
Snyder: We have a president who is trying to engineer a regime change towards a permanent authoritarian system. That is what's going on. All the evidence is right in front of us. He talks about it pretty much every day in the words, in the tonality. Pretty much all the policy decisions point that way.
Just to give an obvious example, the idea of giving the military $1.5T is just, I mean, on its face, it's a bribe so that the military will support him as he tries to rig elections, stay in power forever. That's what he's trying to do.
As the parent of an amazing kid with autism, who not only just graduated high school with honors, has a college start date in the fall, and who has positively impacted the lives of so many people in our community, it’s imperative that RFK Jr. immediately go and fuck himself.
In the aftermath of SCOTUS's Callais decision, Tennessee state Rep. @Justinjpearson saw firsthand how GOP state lawmakers used every illegal strategy at their disposal to push their racist gerrymandering effort in just 72 hours.
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Debbie Hart runs the Exeland Depot, the only food store for 30–40 minutes in rural northern Wisconsin — and a lot of her customers pay with SNAP. A new USDA rule under Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins requires SNAP retailers to stock far more perishable food by November 2026, the kind of inventory that spoils on the shelves of a tiny rural store.
The USDA's own impact analysis estimates roughly 5,000 stores will lose the ability to accept SNAP — more than double the usual annual attrition. This comes after 3.5 million people already lost SNAP benefits under the "One Big Beautiful Bill." A rule sold as healthy-food access, by the government's own math, cuts off the poor and rural communities it claims to help.
Watch: https://t.co/8ht4cIrzGx
The Trump administration just spent over $760M of our money to protect oil profits.
The global energy shock triggered by Trump’s unexplained, unnecessary Feb. 28 attack on Iran has already pushed utility and gas prices past the breaking point — and the Trump administration seems determined to drive our cost of living even higher.
In fact, these skyrocketing costs have left as many as 20% of American households currently facing utility shutoffs just to keep the lights on as the threat of deadly extreme heat bears down on us.
At the same time, Trump recently claimed we "can't afford" childcare programs, while Mike Johnson openly confirmed that the GOP will further gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid after the midterms. These are vital lifelines for tens of millions of citizens. Apparently, we lack the funds to make America livable, but we have plenty of money to actively sabotage affordable energy.
Today, the New York Times and Reuters exposed a staggering Interior Department decision to hand Invenergy $765 million to "abandon plans to build wind farms in the Atlantic and Pacific." According to the Times, this marks the third deal of its kind orchestrated by the Trump administration to kill offshore wind leases.
That $765 million could have easily expanded health coverage for some of the 15 to 17 million Americans who watched their healthcare subsidies vanish to fund tax cuts for oligarchs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Instead, our tax dollars are being weaponized to inflate energy prices and enrich billionaires at our expense. As the Times highlighted, this follows a clear pattern: since March, the administration has cut similar deals with companies like TotalEnergies, paying them to abandon wind projects across California, New Jersey, New York, and North Carolina in exchange for fossil fuel investments.
Data from Yale Climate Connections previously confirmed that wind energy has long been America’s cheapest power source. Yet, this administration continues to push false narratives, forcing families to hand over larger chunks of their paychecks to fossil fuel executives. Whether you attribute this to pure incompetence or targeted malice, the result is identical: everyday Americans are struggling to pay for gas and facing unsafe conditions trying to heat and cool their homes during extreme weather.
Necessities to live are not, have never been, and cannot be "partisan." Energy is a life or death thing. Through a disastrous string of policy decisions and complete capitulation to the oil and gas industries that funded his campaign, Trump's corporate allies are making out like bandits. Back in 2024, oil barons openly funneled $1 billion to Trump in exchange for a pledge to halt renewable energy. Now, $765 million of our public funds are being set on fire to fulfill a promise made to corporate donors — at great expense to the American public. Again.
Oil barons got a great return on their investment. We got $5 gas, and they're laughing at us while MIT grad Chris Wright pretends he doesn't know that batteries exist. We simply cannot survive two more years of backroom looting.
Remember this when it is time to cast your ballot this November. Do you want to keep paying more as your family's quality of life craters?
[Image: REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo/File Photo]
Donald Trump converted the White House into a money-making operation for himself, his family, and his closest advisors and biggest campaign donors. It's endless corrupt self-enrichment from a president who says he doesn't "think about Americans' financial situation.” No kidding.
Elon Musk donated $277 million to elect Trump.
Trump let him gut the IRS.
Elon’s SpaceX took a $1.9 billion tax break that they believed wouldn’t be allowed if the IRS audited them.
Your reminder that billionaire and corporate PAC donations are bribes.
https://t.co/FrgK2iiaqE
A very dangerous new nightmare we are living in Gaza City, and no one in the world is paying attention to it.
Days ago, the Israeli army installed huge military cranes, each about 30 meters tall, on the eastern areas it controls. These cranes are equipped with machine guns and cameras, and they fire randomly and almost continuously at tents, streets, and exposed neighborhoods.
Gaza City is extremely narrow, only 10 kilometers wide. A single crane at that height is enough to expose the entire city from east to west. Every street, every square, every tent, every house has become completely exposed. There is no place to hide, and not a single moment of safety.
In just the past two days, three people were killed by fire from these cranes. One of them was sitting quietly with his father in a small café, trying to breathe for a few minutes. Hours later, a 5year old girl was killed while playing near her home.
These cranes have turned the entire city into an open field. The latest military technologies are directed at civilians. We have become an open testing ground for their new weapons. The horror is not just in the sound… it is the constant feeling of being an exposed target at all times, where even children cannot run in the street without fear.
10 years ago today Police took Dylan Roof to Burger King after he killed 9 Black people in church.
This week Police killed 1-year-old Black child named Kohen Wiley on the lie that his mother stole diapers.
A 1 year old Black baby is more threatening to police than an armed white supremacist who just mass murdered 9 Black people.
CNN montage of Trump bashing the JCPOA and releasing any money to Iran:
I would have never given him back the money. I would have said, the money is off the table. Let's start negotiating. And you know what? I would have won that negotiation
BREAKING: Judge orders FBI to review and release thousands of records related to the Epstein Files.
We knew the Trump-Vance admin’s attempt to delay this process was unlawful and absurd – today the court agreed with us.
Donald Trump, the developer:
Tear down a historic building for a project that the public didn’t want or approve.
Triple the initial price tag.
Make taxpayers foot the bill after promising they wouldn’t.
Sen. @MarkWarner: What we're witnessing today is an extraordinary display of dysfunction from Trump who decided to install an individual as acting DNI that does not meet even the basic tenets of the law. You've got to have national security background. Bill Pulte doesn't even have a security clearance.
Snyder: Trump is starting stupid wars — he's losing them in ways that are spectacularly obvious to the entire world.
That you would fight bad wars and then lose them on your own terms very quickly when you're supposed to be a superpower. That's a symptom.
It's a symptom of not having a functional government where plans are reviewed.
It's a symptom of oligarchical politics where a few people are making decisions on the basis of either their emotions or how they can make a quick buck.
The difference between this and the deal Trump tore up is that Iran now gets more money, fewer restrictions, less oversight, and more regional autonomy.
Breaking: Tohono O’odham Nation sues DHS over border wall plans that would take sovereign tribal land, use the Nation’s water & destroy sacred sites. O’odham Legislative Council approved suit unanimously while facing wall construction that may start in the next few weeks.
The Southern District of New York is the office that prosecuted Trump on 34 felony counts. He is still appealing those convictions.
The lawyer he just named to run that office - James M. McDonald - is on the legal team handling that appeal.
McDonald is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell. He is part of the team that last month secured the Justice Department's decision to drop a fraud and conspiracy case against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani - a case brought under the Biden administration and killed under this one.
SDNY has jurisdiction over terrorism, espionage, securities fraud, and public corruption. It is arguably the most consequential prosecutor's office in the country. Trump is now placing his personal defense attorney in charge of it.
Jay Clayton, who previously held the SDNY job, is being moved to director of national intelligence - a role that opened when Tulsi Gabbard resigned and that Trump briefly tried to fill with Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, before congressional pressure forced a different choice.
The chain here is not complicated. The office that convicted him gets his lawyer. The intelligence community gets the man who ran the housing finance regulator. A personal attorney now controls a portfolio that includes public corruption cases.
This is what the completion of the project looks like.
$12 million. That's how much taxpayer money the Trump Administration spent to rehire the same federal workers they'd previously fired.
Talk about waste, fraud, and abuse – this Administration commits all three on a daily basis.