He showed Americans the visceral horrors of the Third Reich — what would he think of Trump’s US?

Demonstrators in Chicago protest against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies on Sept. 6. Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

When 30-year-old American journalist William L. Shirer arrived in Germany in 1934, he was puzzled by why the vast majority of everyday Germans had accommodated themselves to living in a totalitarian state.

From MADVoters, 9/14/25

As a direct result of Republicans’ controversial HEA 1447 (2023) and SEA 442 (2025), one Indiana school corporation has just banned 6 books:

The Handmaid’s Tale, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Forrest Gump, Brave New World

Canceled federal grants cost Indiana institutions millions in disrupted projects

Purdue University researcher Danzhou Yang is exploring a natural check on cancer that could be used to stop the disease. Yang’s work is partly funded by a current grant from the National Institutes of Health. She is not on the list of recipients with canceled grants. (Charles Jischke/Purdue University)

The nation’s largest scientific research funder abruptly canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants earlier this year, specifically targeting projects that addressed diversity, inclusion or vaccines.

Jeffrey Epstein & JPMorgan: How the Largest U.S. Bank Enabled the Sexual Predator’s Crimes

Amid growing pressure for the Trump administration to release the full Jeffrey Epstein files, a New York Times investigation reveals how the country’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, enabled Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation and profited from its ties to him. The exposé is based on more than 13,000 pages of legal and financial records. The Times reports JPMorgan processed more than 4,700 transactions for Epstein totaling more than $1.1 billion, including payments to some of the women who were sexually trafficked.

Indiana slashing rates for child care providers

About 55,000 Hoosier children receive a child care voucher under a program facing cuts. (Getty Images)

 

Child care providers around Indiana will see reimbursement rate cuts of 10-35% as the state’s Family and Social Services Administration tries to close a $225 million funding gap.

The sustainability maneuver could push providers to drop out of a low-income child care program, however.

TRUMP MAKES “WAR’' ON EVERYONE

A Washington Post editorial correctly asserted that the old name, The Department of War, more accurately describes what the agency of the US government does than the cold war euphemism, the Department of Defense, a renaming in 1947. The editorial points out that our use of words becomes embedded in our collective consciousness such that we begin to incorporate ideology in our thinking.

Letters from an American - September 5, 2025

Today President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, although the 1947 abandonment of the Department of War name was not simply a matter of substituting a new name for the original one. In 1947, to bring order and efficiency to U.S. military forces, Congress renamed the Department of War as the Department of the Army, then brought it, together with the Department of the Navy and a new Department of the Air Force, into a newly established “National Military Establishment” overseen by the secretary of defense.

Deadly U.S. Strike on Venezuelan Boat Raises Fears of Wider War: Greg Grandin

Acclaimed historian Greg Grandin joins Democracy Now! to discuss the Trump administration’s attack on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in international waters, which killed 11 people earlier this week. President Trump and other senior officials have claimed without evidence that the boat was carrying narcotics from Venezuela to the United States and was operated by the gang Tren de Aragua, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization. “It was pure murder,” says Grandin.

Israeli Attacks Kill Dozens of Palestinians as Army Claims to Control 40% of Gaza City

Israel’s military says it now controls 40% of Gaza City as its forces expand their assault on densely populated residential areas, including camps for displaced Palestinians. Israeli attacks so far today have killed at least 44 people across the Gaza Strip, including at least seven children. This is Somaya Mikdad, a relative of a family hit by an Israeli strike near Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City Thursday that killed a pregnant woman and her unborn child.

Letters from an American

What the Trump administration is doing - Transporation Department. Please read

Just days before Labor Day, a holiday designed to celebrate the importance and power of American workers in the United States, the Transportation Department cancelled $679 million in funding for offshore wind projects, and the Department of Energy announced it is withdrawing a $716 million loan guarantee to complete infrastructure for an offshore wind project in New Jersey.

Smotrich Proposes Annexing Gaza and Carrying Out Trump Ethnic Cleansing Plan

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday proposed the systematic annexation of Gaza over the coming months if Hamas keeps fighting, as well as the implementation of US President Donald Trump's plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian enclave.

Smotrich, who leads the far-right Religious Zionism party, announced his plan to "win in Gaza by the end of the year" during a press conference in Jerusalem.

Forget Law and Order — Trump’s Troop Deployments Are Dress Rehearsals for Nullifying Your Vote

Monday night, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker came right out and said it. Trump sending troops into American cities has nothing whatsoever to do with crime or policing but, instead, is all about stealing the 2026 election:

“Eight of the top 10 states with the highest homicide rates are led by Republicans,” Pritzker said bluntly. “None of those states is Illinois.”

In fact, the cities with the highest crime and homicide rates are Memphis, Tennessee and St. Louis, Missouri respectively, both in Red States.

A Reichstag fire is blazing in Trump’s America and we know exactly who is fanning the flames

US Border Patrol outside the Japanese American National Museum where Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a redistricting press conference Aug. 14 in Los Angeles. Photo by Getty Images

As Gavin Newsom stood inside the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles to announce a California redistricting initiative aimed at countering gerrymandering in Texas ordered up by Donald Trump, federal agents in tactical gear massed outside. Helmets. Guns. Concealed identities. No clear explanation. Just presence.

Trump’s attacks on the Smithsonian come straight from the Nazi playbook

A sign marks the location of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on the National Mall on Aug. 20. Photo by J. David Ake/Getty Images

“The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE,’” President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, the social media network he owns, on Tuesday. “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL…. where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was.”

Trump's DC Occupation Costs 4 Times More Than It Would Take to House City's Entire Homeless Population

Last week, when Trump federalized Washington, DC's police force and deployed the National Guard to occupy its streets, one of his main orders was to "end vagrancy" by destroying homeless encampments and arresting and forcibly relocating the people taking shelter there.