When Democrats take power again, we need to take a two-pronged approach to cleaning up our institutions and communicating about it. This will rely on investigations, single-issue bills, and an aggressive social media presence from our strongest Democratic communicators.
First, Democrats need to launch investigations into the insider trading, pay-for-play, and pardon economy that Donald Trump has created. We need answers to some very serious questions. Did Trump ACTUALLY remove tariffs on Vietnam and then get a golf course announcement just weeks later?
But these investigations can't happen in isolation. They need to be paired with single-issue bill after single-issue bill that directly addresses whatever corruption is being uncovered.
For example, if Democrats uncover 28,000 insider trades coming from the oval office, we introduce a bill banning executive branch officials from trading individual stocks. Force Republicans to vote on it. If they vote against it, make them explain why.
Then, it's necessary to have our strongest communicators flooding the zone about the corruption, and what we're doing. Flipping Steve Bannon's strategy back on him.
Imagine if we had Jon Ossoff, AOC, James Talarico, Abdul El-Sayed, and our strongest Democratic communicators making face-to-camera videos every single day explaining exactly what's happening. "Here's the corruption we're investigating. Here's the evidence. Here's how we're going to stop it."
I think this is how you connect the dots in voters' minds between the way they vote and having a responsive government that's actually trying to address corruption and rewire the system.
Then we move to gerrymandering, affordability, paid family leave, and other reforms. Single-issue bill after single-issue bill, forcing Republicans to take public positions on these issues while Democrats communicate directly with the American people.
I know this might sound idealistic, but we already have the tools at our disposal. I see people like Talarico, AOC, and Ossoff pulling insane numbers on social media. There's no reason that same infrastructure can't be used to explain congressional investigations, proposed legislation, and exactly what Democrats are doing with the power voters gave them.
I have been holding my tongue about something that happened during the Ohio gubernatorial race. I refused to speak while the election was underway because I did not want my words mistaken for an attempt to influence anyone’s vote.
But now that the election is over, I have something to say.
For nearly twenty years, my ministry has taken me among the homeless, the abused, the exploited, and the forgotten. I have sat with victims of sexual violence and witnessed the lifelong wounds of childhood trauma.
What Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign did to Amy Acton was among the most morally repulsive things I have witnessed in American politics.
They took a woman whose stepfather was indicted for raping her when she was twelve years old and featured her mother, from whom she had been estranged for nearly fifty years, in a political advertisement attacking her credibility.
The advertisement challenged Acton’s account of her childhood without mentioning the sexual abuse allegations or the circumstances of that estrangement. When people expressed their horror, the campaign defended it.
Imagine examining another person’s childhood suffering and fractured family relationships, then deciding those wounds might help win an election.
Anyone who has worked with survivors of childhood sexual abuse understands the painful realities of denial, betrayal, shame, and estrangement. A child growing into a successful adult does not erase what happened. Nor does a parent’s denial make that suffering disappear.
I find it equally disturbing that an elderly mother, whom Acton herself described as unwell, was brought into this spectacle. Whatever her own struggles or responsibility for the past, exploiting that fractured relationship was grotesque.
To everyone who defended this, consider the message you sent to survivors. To the young woman whose family refuses to believe her. To the man who has carried the shame of childhood abuse for forty years. To the frightened child who has yet to tell anyone.
What did you teach them about the value of their suffering?
I am a priest. I believe in repentance, forgiveness, and redemption. But none of those things requires me to pretend that deliberate cruelty is anything less than a grave moral failure.
Your political allegiance does not absolve you of moral responsibility. You do not get to set aside your conscience during an election and retrieve it afterward.
If your loyalty requires you to defend the exploitation of a childhood sexual abuse survivor, your loyalty has become an idol. And if your conscience cannot recognize the wrong here, examine what political tribalism has done to it.
This is not about Republicans or Democrats. We have a choice as a people: continue excusing cruelty from our preferred political camp, or summon the courage to condemn it wherever it appears.
Amy Acton deserved better. Every survivor who watched this unfold deserved better.
And God help us if we have reached the point where winning an election matters more than protecting the dignity of a wounded human being.
I've watched the first two games of the World Series from beginning to end. I have not done this in a long time and it is like being in a baseball time machine. The teams playing, Milwaukee and Tampa Bay play what is called "small ball" which is to say don't rely on home runs to win games. This year the Astros hit 226 dingers. Tampa was 22nd with 169 homers and the Brewers hit 154 and ranked 29 of 30 teams.
I don't know any of the players or who the coaches are. No big stars. No one with a $500 million contract. No nonsense. Get on base. Advance the runner. Steal a base now and then. Take chances. The two games so far have been tense and both were one-run victories by Milwaukee. In the 2026 season, Tampa Bay led MLB in one-run victories with a 25-14 record. The Brewers at .636 had the best record in MLB.
Baseball teams ranked by salaries show how much richer players are in the biggest cities. The NY Mets pay $346 million and the Dodgers $339 M this year. The Brewers are ranked 19 of 30 and pay $200 M less than the Mets and the Tampa Bay Rays team is ranked 28th at $95 M. Cleveland, which almost made it to the Series, has the lowest team salary in Major League Baseball at $74M.
So we have a Series this year that is not based on names you recognize from cities that have never wond a World Series. Enjoy it and hope it goes seven games.
Milwaukee Brewers fans showed up to tailgate World Series Game 1 at nine in the morning.
The parking lot gates were still locked. First pitch was ten hours away.
In old Japan, when ten thousand people camp outside a fortress at dawn with iron cauldrons, smoke, and provisions, it is called a siege.
Milwaukee laid siege to its own castle. Out of pure love. With bratwurst and folding chairs.
When reporters told Christian Yelich that fans had been lined up since nine, he said he was surprised it took them that long.
In my land, a general knows the battle is already half won when his people light the morning fires before the gates even open.
Nobody guards a castle like the Midwest in October.
I have yet to see a Muslim politician trying to force their religion on the rest of America.
Know what I have seen? Christian politicians repeatedly pushing their religious beliefs into our laws, our schools, and our personal lives.
This Forbes investigation is a must-read.
Donald Trump pulled in roughly $1.4 billion from crypto in 2025, plus more than $200 million from real estate, and faced a projected tax bill north of $500 million. So his company donated the "development rights" to his Jupiter, Florida golf course to a land trust, argued the course was a natural habitat worth protecting, and kept right on running the club. Forbes estimates the write-off could land around $825 million.
He has done this at least five times since 2005. New York's attorney general alleged two of those appraisals were inflated. In Doral, he claimed a deduction of up to $323 million, more than double what he paid for the entire resort.
A month after the Jupiter deal, he sued the IRS. The settlement his own Justice Department signed bars claims against him over matters that "could be pending," language that appears broad enough to cover this year's taxes. A federal judge found the case was brought to manipulate the judicial process. And the man now running the IRS, who took the job as this deal was being assembled, has a home backing onto those same Jupiter fairways.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Nobody should be able to use the presidency to write his own tax bill.
https://t.co/0MzmPI2AE3
Stephen, let me see if I've got this straight.
You want to abolish the Department of Education because Washington shouldn't control local schools. But you also want Washington to dictate what those schools teach, using federal funding to enforce your preferred definition of patriotism.
That's a fascinating interpretation of limited government.
And the irony of warning Americans about "communist ideology" while proposing government-mandated ideological conformity apparently escaped you entirely.
Here's something they should teach in every American classroom: Loving your country doesn't require pretending it has never done anything wrong.
Real patriotism means understanding the Constitution, studying our history honestly, celebrating our achievements, acknowledging our failures, and recognizing that dissent is one of the freedoms that makes America worth defending.
You don't teach children to love America by teaching them they're forbidden to question it.
That's not civic education, Stephen. That's indoctrination with a flag draped over it.
And if your version of patriotism can't survive a history lesson or a student asking an uncomfortable question, perhaps the problem isn't the curriculum.
Perhaps it's your definition of patriotism.
As Michigan junior guard Syla Swords heads into the 2026-27 season, she stands as one of the most elite, battle-tested playmakers and international stars in all of college basketball.
Coming off a productive sophomore campaign that earned her First-Team All-Big Ten honors and surpassed the 1,000-point career milestone, Swords averaged 14.6 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game while lighting up opponents with high-level shot-making—highlighted by a dazzling 29-point, eight-triple performance against UConn and multiple 20-plus-point scoring explosions.
Her phenomenal trajectory is further elevated by an extraordinary summer on the international stage, where she earned MVP honors at the 2026 FIBA Olympic Pre-Qualifying Tournament after averaging 14.8 points and shooting an impressive 45.0 percent from beyond the arc for Canada Basketball.
Possessing elite basketball IQ, limitless three-point range, and proven big-game poise forged from her historic Olympic and collegiate experience, Swords enters her junior year ready to pilot the Wolverines as an absolute national superstar. 〽️🏀 #GoBlue #ncaaw #BigTenWBB #WBB
A Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim walk into the Senate. All follow the Constitution and want what is best for the people! Refreshing!
All three of these guys give me great hope for the future! Please, please let these guys win. It's time to turn the page in American politics.
feeling such sympathy for an entire generation of young Americans who have never known a US president exhibiting generosity, dignity, decency & a wish to unite the country; just the old-fashioned courtesy of former presidents (Eisenhower, long-ago; Biden, more recently) no matter their politics.
growing up in such a crude, cruel world will give them the wrong idea about life: life is not a stand-up comic routine of crude threats & insults but something precious, magnanimous, expansive, inclusive.... America used to be special, at least in its public stated ideals.
now, public life is debased. it may take generations to recover normalcy.
Can any of the anti-fraud Republicans tell us:
-Who owns the offshore account in Qatar that holds $400M in seized Venezuelan oil money?
-What happened with the $1B sent to Trump's "Board of Peace"?
-Who owns the Qatari gifted Air Force One?
-Why more than 50 people who received pardons did so after major donations to Trump or major partnerships with his family's businesses?
-How much public money has been spent at Trump golf courses?
-Who front ran market moving announcements on the war to the tune of more than $20B?
-Why public contracts are going to businesses of Trump allies and cost more than 10x the normal rates?
If not, maybe it's time to shut the hell up about corruption.
JD Vance just said that ''America isn't obligated to stand by Ukraine because they aren't in a formal alliance.''
Dear JD. Vance,
Look up ''Budapest Memorandum 1994.''
You are welcome.