Featured

Trump: Iran asked me to be Supreme Leader, but I said no thanks

Trump’s “Iran asked me to be Supreme Leader” joke at an NRCC fundraiser uses a real, deadly leadership crisis in Iran to normalize assassination-as-policy and blur what’s confirmed about the war and succession.

Mar 26, 2026

Featured

‘Men need to be perp-walked’ after Epstein files release, Massie tells BBC

A GOP lawmaker says the Epstein document releases are still falling short—because redactions and withheld material may be blocking accountability and survivor-centered justice.

Mar 25, 2026

Buried.News

The stories buried under the noise

Primary focus

Trump fires Kristi Noem as Homeland Security Secretary

A Cabinet secretary was forced out amid contracting and oversight scrutiny, signaling that executive control—not transparent accountability—can dictate leadership of the agency driving mass detention and deportation.

Mar 5, 2026

Featured

The Trump gold coin is not normal : Consider This from NPR

A federal design panel OK’d a Trump portrait for a commemorative gold coin, but the key question is whether Treasury can legally bypass long-standing limits meant to keep living politicians off U.S. money.

Mar 23, 2026

Featured

White House Confronted Over Huge Bets Made Minutes Before Trump’s Big War Move

A $580 million burst of oil-futures selling minutes before Trump’s Iran “talks” post raises a basic public-interest question: did anyone trade on advance knowledge of a market-moving national security decision?

Mar 24, 2026

Norms Impact

Trump Is Rage Baiting the US Into a Second Civil War | Common Dreams

When presidents and cabinet officials normalize dehumanization and hint at enforcement presence over culture, we erode equal belonging and turn federal power into a tool of political exclusion.

General

Feb 22, 2026

Sources

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-2nd-civil-war

Summary

A January 2026 Gallup poll found 89% of Americans expect high political conflict this year, as national leaders normalize dehumanizing rhetoric aimed at whole communities. That rhetorical turn is described as a governing strategy that intensifies “affective polarization” and drives a deeper fight over national legitimacy and identity. The practical consequence is a country split into antagonistic camps, with federal power and public culture increasingly used to signal exclusion ahead of decisive midterm elections.

Reality Check

Threatening democratic stability starts when officials treat whole communities as contaminants and then use the machinery of government to telegraph who “belongs,” because it invites selective enforcement and chills basic participation. Based on the conduct described—public rhetoric and a suggested ICE presence at a cultural event—this is not clearly criminal on its face, but it squarely violates anti–abuse-of-office norms by weaponizing executive authority for identity policing. The real precedent is institutional: when leaders publicly frame dissenting identities as un-American, our rights become conditional on political loyalty, not equal citizenship.

Media

Detail

A January 2026 Gallup poll reported that 89% of Americans expect high levels of political conflict this year as the United States approaches midterm elections. The text describes senior officials normalizing rhetoric that targets entire social and racial groups with terms such as “vermin,” “garbage,” and “invaders,” and frames this as a “Rage Bait Cycle” in which a high-ranking official attacks a community, awaits response, escalates, and then presents himself as a defender of America.

It cites President Donald Trump’s December statement attacking Somalia and Rep. Ilhan Omar using “garbage” language. It also describes a 2026 Super Bowl controversy in which the halftime performance by Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny prompted Trump and conservative commentators to call for a boycott and label the Spanish-language show “not American enough.” The text further states that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be “all over” the event, and that viewers split between the official broadcast and an “All-American” alternative hosted by Turning Point USA featuring Kid Rock.

Norms Impact

Gallup will no longer measure presidential approval after 88 years

Gallup’s exit from presidential approval polling removes a shared yardstick of executive accountability, weakening a long-standing public-feedback norm central to democratic scrutiny.

General

Feb 11, 2026

Sources

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5733236-gallup-stops-presidential-approval-ratings-polls/amp/

Summary

Gallup is ending its publication of presidential approval and favorability ratings, a practice it maintained for more than 88 years. The change redirects a long-standing public benchmark away from individual political accountability toward broader issue and conditions research. The practical consequence is a thinner, less standardized public record of presidential performance that media and the public have relied on for decades.

Reality Check

When a dominant, long-running measure of presidential performance disappears, the vacuum gets filled by partisan, nontransparent metrics that weaken our ability to hold power to account in real time. Nothing here suggests a criminal act; ending a poll is not bribery, extortion, or election interference under federal law, and there is no conduct described that implicates statutes like 18 U.S.C. §§ 201 or 371. The damage is structural: we lose a standardized, widely recognized benchmark that helped anchor public debate in a consistent series rather than a rotating set of competing narratives.

Detail

Gallup confirmed Wednesday that it will no longer track and publish presidential approval ratings after more than eight decades. The company said that beginning this year it will stop releasing approval and favorability ratings for individual political figures.

In a statement, Gallup described the decision as “an evolution in how Gallup focuses its public research and thought leadership,” and said its work would concentrate on “long-term, methodologically sound research on issues and conditions that shape people’s lives.” Gallup said this research will continue through the Gallup Poll Social Series, the Gallup Quarterly Business Review, the World Poll, and its U.S. and global research portfolio.

The Washington Post first reported the change. Gallup’s presidential approval rating has long been one of the most frequently cited measures used by media outlets to describe public opinion of a president’s performance.