<U.S. Representative Tracey Mann (R-KS), a fifth-generation Kansan who was raised on a family farm near the town of Quinter (population 929), was asked on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins how farmers in Kansas are reacting to President Trump’s sweeping tariffs including the now 145% tariff against China.

Mann, who is also a commercial real estate broker in Kansas City and has an estimated net worth of $7.8 million, replied, “I’ve heard countless producers have reached out to me, contacted me, saying ‘hey, if we need to bear the brunt, be the tip of the spear to get to a better place for the good of the country, uh, willing to do that.”

Mann’s comment has received a lot of backlash on X, as one replied: “I'd love to chat with those countless farmers. Got any proof they exist?”

Bob Ochoa chimed in: “Countless like in none or such a big number that they can not be counted. Either way, this seems like a great number to have communicated (especially if it represents a large percentage of farmers). Even better if it was a ‘countless' farmers from more than one state. That said, Kansas does represent almost 3% of all farming in the US.”

Others are slamming Mann and President Trump’s promise to provide financial aid to American farmers affected by the tariffs.

Green Party member Richard Hewitt replied: “Farmers expect to be bailed out rather than ‘bear the brunt’, and they are correct in their thinking.”

Another commenter added: “I just heard some talk that Trump is thinking of another multi-billion-dollar payout to farmers that in my mind could be called a bribe.”

There is precedent for the idea that farmers will receive relief. During his first term in office in 2017, Trump initiated a trade war with China when the U.S. imposed tariffs on steel, aluminum, and auto parts. China levied retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agriculture, specifically soybeans, which triggered the Trump administration to introduce $16 billion in aid to American farmers affected by the trade war with China.]

Note: In February, the Trump administration “sent shockwaves through the Kansas agriculture sector” when it suspended the USAID-administered program Food for Peace, which purchased approximately $355.6 million worth of wheat and sorghum annually from Kansas farms.>

<Republican lawmakers who have continued to give in to Donald Trump's demands could be making preparations for a potential rebellion.

Republicans like Chip Roy and Thomas Massie have challenged the President, but things have ultimately gone his way, according to a Washington Post report Saturday.

Paul Kane, senior congressional correspondent at WaPo focusing on presidential relations with Capitol Hill, reported over the weekend:

"First, they threatened to block House Speaker Mike Johnson’s path to claiming the gavel in early January. Then they threatened to block a funding bill to keep federal agencies open in mid-March. Then, in recent days, they threatened to block a resolution that would unlock the process to push ahead with President Donald Trump’s tax-and-border agenda," he wrote. "Each threat from leaders of the House Freedom Caucus ended with the same result: capitulation. After caving on each round of threats, these far-right conservatives vowed that the next time would be different — if their demands were not met precisely as they sought."

Kane added, "This collection of several dozen Republicans, after a decade of rabble-rousing that helped push aside three other speakers, has yet to fully buck Johnson (R-Louisiana) on any major initiative this year."

"In their minds, these are Freedom Caucus victories, after they piled up pledges from establishment Republicans to supposedly bend to their will," the report states. "Last month their caucus provided the key votes to fund the government and pass the first version of the budget resolution. To some former allies, the gang has morphed into an attention-seeking group that will ultimately support whatever Trump wants, giving up their past ideological purist ways on issues like bringing down the national debt."

According to Kane, "In the four big votes so far, Trump ordered these conservatives to fall in line, and they all did."

"Next time, they say, it could be a different ending. It could be," he then added.>

<It’s been another grueling week.

Several of you have asked me how to live in a nation whose leader has embraced cruelty as public policy. How do we inhabit Trump’s America without becoming complicit in this cruelty?

Molly watched Trump sign the executive order initiating criminal investigations of Miles Taylor (who wrote an anonymous 2018 New York Times op-ed describing internal resistance to Trump in his first term) and Christopher Krebs (who played a major role in undercutting Trump’s false claims about 2020 election fraud).

Molly asks: Is this America?

No, Molly, it is not — at least not the America we have known and loved.

Others of you are thunderstruck by Trump’s cruelty toward refugees who fled violence and have been living in the United States legally but are now being forced to return to their home countries and face more violence.

And the Trump regime’s cruelty toward people here on temporary visas who are deported arbitrarily, without a hearing — some sent to a gruesome prison in El Salvador even after the regime has admitted error in sending them.

And children in poor countries who are in desperate need of vaccines but are now doing without them because Trump has ended USAID.

The cruelty toward vulnerable people in Gaza, in Ukraine, and in Yemen who are being bombed, wounded, or killed because the Trump regime is doing nothing to stop these bloodbaths or is contributing to them.

Cruelty toward tens of thousands of public servants who are suddenly and without warning fired — some just months away from retirement and a pension.

Revoking security protection for Biden’s son and daughter. And for General Mark Milley and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Revoking security protection for other former members of his first administration despite warnings of ongoing threats from Iran because of actions they took on Trump’s behalf.

Firing more than a dozen prosecutors who worked for the special counsel Jack Smith on criminal investigations of Trump.

Revoking security clearances of 51 people who merely signed a letter suggesting that the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop could be Russian disinformation.

Targeting law firms that employ or have employed lawyers who worked on investigations into Trump or on causes Trump objects to.

Targeting universities that have allowed international students freedom of speech.

And on it goes, day after day — the Trump regime’s abject cruelty, viciousness, heartlessness, brutality.

How does a moral person live with this? How do we not become complicit?

The answer, I think, is to do whatever we can to protect those who are vulnerable to this cruelty.

We speak out against Trump’s use of criminal investigations to punish public servants who helped expose his venality.

We make our communities into sanctuaries that limit local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

We urge our universities to protect free speech and expression of everyone, at whatever the cost.

To the extent we can, we fund groups that are helping poor families around the world get the medical assistance they need.

We call our senators and members of Congress to tell them to retrieve their constitutional authority over government spending.

We tell them to stop the brutality in Gaza, Ukraine, Yemen, and everywhere else America is either encouraging it or failing to discourage it.

We tell them to stop Trump’s criminal investigations of opponents.

We protest. We organize. We mobilize. We do what we can to put good people into office and keep them there, and we help regain control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

In other words, we become organized activists against Trump’s organized cruelty.

We try to make this country an America we can love again.

Years from now, when our children and grandchildren ask what we did during Trump’s reign of terror, we can tell them that we worked tirelessly to curb his cruelty — and we did it with our compassion.>

<Since Jan. 20, many have spoken of a constitutional crisis, the wanton lawlessness of a president trying to make himself a king in all but name. But by and large, elected Democrats have bent over backward to avoid using a certain word. Their alarm bells ring hollow when the unavoidable implication is left unstated.

But it’s time to stop beating around the bush: Trump must be impeached and removed from office.

A few members of Congress understand this and are willing to say it. It’s a start, and one where public pressure is essential. It’s more effective than you might think at breaking the silence.

A group of self-organized volunteers has been recruiting voters in every House district and started simply asking congressional offices. “Operation Anti-King,” they fittingly call it. In addition to Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who has already called for impeachment — and has done so many times since Trump’s first term — they quickly found seven more willing to go on the record: Reps. Suzanne Bonamici and Maxine Dexter of Oregon, Sam Liccardo and Maxine Waters of California, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Shri Thanedar of Michigan, and Hank Johnson of Georgia.

In a statement to this group, Dexter made the obvious connection: “Donald Trump’s cruel, chaotic, and unlawful actions have put our democracy at risk. ... I will not stand by while our democracy is eroded. I support impeachment because no one is above the law.” Bonamici likewise affirmed her support because he is “violating the Constitutional rights of people in this country and ignoring the rule of law.”

There are a number of objections behind the conventional wisdom against talk of impeachment, but they don’t hold up.

The theory of a backlash in Trump’s favor has no real evidence. There was no such reaction against his first impeachment, after which Democrats went on to win a trifecta in the next election, or the second, after which Democrats beat expectations even with an unpopular president in 2022. Similarly, the idea that it’s “too soon” since last year’s election would amount to giving presidents license to destroy the Constitution so long as they do it promptly.

Trump’s approvals are already falling sharply, especially since his tariff fiasco threatens to drive the economy off a cliff. And millions have already turned out across the country for mass protests.

It is a severe failure of imagination to think his public support is some static fact of nature, or that the present crisis will not continue to escalate. As America slides into open authoritarianism and economic ruin, we can’t afford an opposition that, as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes recently told Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, is doing nothing more than “the kinds of things you’d be doing if Mitt Romney were president.”

As the government flings itself apart, we will keep coming back to the grim reality. Trump can’t be restrained, or reasoned with, or babysat for the next four years. The only way to bring power back under the rule of law is to remove a lawless man from power....>

<....Members of Congress don’t swear an oath to defend the Constitution only if it tests well in a focus group, or with pundits and consultants. Nor does Republican opposition justify inaction. Refusing to do the right thing because you expect others won’t join is just another form of complying in advance.

Alexander Hamilton explained impeachment covers offenses that “are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.” Thus it is entrusted not to courts but to our elected representatives. They are accountable for failing to use it, both to their voters and to the harsh judgment of history.

Under the House’s Rule IX, impeachment is a “question of the privileges of the House” and must be voted on within two legislative days. Speaker Mike Johnson could intervene with his own rules resolution, as he has on other matters. But this also requires a vote of the full House, which then effectively becomes the same thing. Thus, any individual representative has the ability to make all the others, in both parties, take a position.

Would it pass the House, much less reach two-thirds in the Senate? For now, obviously not. Down the road? It’s not impossible.

Either way, delay only deepens the reluctance, the sense of resignation, fueling the constitutional collapse. It is succumbing to despair, when in fact just a few hundred people have the power, and the sworn duty, to end the insanity. It might be the only efficacious power they have left.

One question naturally arises: impeach him for what? Not because there is any shortage of high crimes and misdemeanors but because there are so many. Usurping the power of the purse, imposing massive tax hikes, creating illegal pseudo-offices, attacks on the First Amendment, threatening opponents, obstructing the courts, flagrant bribery, threatening to invade allies, disappearing people to a foreign torture camp. But there is one charge encompassing the sum of it all: the supreme constitutional crime of tyranny.

Tyranny is the charge made by the grassroots effort’s model article. It is an idea with deep roots, from ancient Rome, to the American Revolution, to post-World War II Germany. A head of state whose design is to become a despot has destroyed his own claim to legitimacy.

Evoking the Declaration of Independence, the draft insists “he has demonstrated his character is marked by every act which may define a tyrant.” Arguably a truer description of Trump than of George III. He openly pines for dictatorship, autocracy, even un-American monarchy. He recognizes no limits on his power, no law he must obey, no rights he must respect.

It’s an ugly truth, but we can’t evade it by refusing to confront it, in plain terms, openly and unapologetically. Every member of Congress, like the nation as a whole, faces a binary choice: It’s Trump or the Constitution. We can have one or the other but not both. To save the Constitution, we must be willing to use its “indispensable” remedy.>

<Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) suggested Jesus Christ would send "Saturday Night Live" actors and writers to hell for a sketch that mocked President Donald Trump.

In a sketch over the weekend, comedian James Austin Johnson mentioned Jesus during his impersonation of Trump.

"The stock market did a Jesus," the comedian said. "It died. Then on the third day, it was risen, and then on the fourth day, it died again, possibly never to return, just like Jesus."

On Monday, Burchett reacted to the sketch in an interview with Real America's Voice host Eric Bolling.

"I remember my daddy had some scripture, it was on an old — in his bathroom," the Republican lawmaker recalled. "And it said that Jesus wouldn't be mocked... You deny me before me, and I'll deny you before the gates of heaven, and that just all fits in there."

"It makes me sad that that gets passed off as humor," he continued. "At some point, Christians are going to say enough is enough, and we're going to, you know, the advertisers on those things will have to pay the price, we say we're not going to buy our cars, we're not going to buy our computers, or whoever or whatever is on that."

"And so I, but I'm going to, I'm going to find out who the advertisers were doing that, and I am going to make a, make a few calls to some people because that, that's beyond the pale, that is just pathetic, it really is.">

<An honest non-political source link from that corner?? Who else feels the ground shaking? Magnus' $200K Fischer random victory musta inspired Orange Face to give an extra big effort today.>

<Ranking prominently for visibility on X — in response to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro‘s post about the arson perpetrated at the Governor’s Residence — is a comment that essentially condones the act of the arsonist.

The account — paradoxically called United We Stand — responded vituperatively to Shapiro’s post, which had expressed “eternal gratitude” to law enforcement and first responders, by asking:

“Did you speak out against the firebombing and shooting up of occupied Tesla buildings or cars? Did you condemn the riots that were burning and destroying our cities back in the ‘mostly peaceful’ summer of 2020? No?”

The user followed with assertion that “you reap what you sow.” (The user also suggests that the fire was a “false flag psyop” — the crown jewel of all conspiracy theories.)

The high placement and visibility on X of a comment that essentially condones violence is not as notable as it once would have been.

Yet the comment, which quickly garnered nearly 40K views, is perhaps notable for the hundreds of likes it has received and the many comments that agreed with its premise.

The ostensible support for such an act — and/or the failure to condemn it — also sparks concern as it comes on the heels of the nation’s shocking reaction to the cold-blooded killing of health care CEO Brian Thompson, allegedly by the vigilante Luigi Mangione.

Despite the support it garnered, objectors to violence and arson, some pointing out the “irony” of the “United” handle, got specific in rejecting the comment.

Failure to condemn the violence, as in the United post above, was not rare in response to Shapiro’s post, leading one observer to say that “the FBI is going to have a field day with these comments” and imply that law enforcement may investigate those comments perceived as tacit or overt threats.

New FBI Director Kash Patel has shown an interest in parsing social media posts for criminal transgressions such as threats to injure.

Citing an alleged MAGA toleration for — if not promotion of — violence with an alleged wink-wink, some observers were reminded of when President Trump asked on the campaign trail how Nancy Pelosi‘s husband was doing.

The question, coming after Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi was attacked in his own home by an assailant with a hammer over political differences, was the kind taunt that would have been unthinkable for any past President, but which Trump’s audience loves — as the reaction above shows.

An account called LibertarianLars expressed sorrow about the Shapiro arson, and blamed both the GOP and Democrats for leaving people in a lamentable situation where “1 in 5 Americans think Violence is the Answer to our political problems. The reason more and more people are feeling this, both on the left and the right, is that they do not feel represented.”>

<A Biden-era rule that capped most bank overdraft fees at $5 is on the verge of being scrapped after the U.S. House of Representatives recently joined the U.S. Senate in voting to repeal it.

The legislation now awaits President Donald Trump's signature, which is expected later this week.

Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment on this story via email.

The reversal, made possible under the Congressional Review Act, would overturn one of former President Joe Biden's consumer protection initiatives. Critics have said that Biden's law prevented people from getting credit because it would force banks to stop overdraft services altogether, while its proponents have called it necessary to defend consumer rights.

Last Wednesday, the House passed the resolution by a vote of 217 to 211, with just one Republican, Pennsylvania Representative Ryan Mackenzie, breaking party ranks to oppose the vote.

The Senate has already approved its version of the resolution, meaning the president has the final say over if it passes into law.

If signed into law by Trump, the repeal will eliminate a regulation that was projected by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to save Americans roughly $5 billion annually in overdraft fees, or about $225 per affected household.

The Biden administration had previously pitched the cap as a way to protect low-income Americans from what they described as "junk fees" disproportionately affecting those least able to afford them.

Under the rule, large banks (defined as those with more than $10 billion in assets) would have been required to either cap overdraft charges at $5, align the fees with actual costs, or clearly disclose them as formal credit products with annual percentage rate terms.

If Trump signs the measure, the rule will be nullified and the agency will be barred from issuing a "substantially similar" regulation unless authorized by new legislation.

Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat who voted against the resolution, wrote in an Instagram post: "A $5 cap on banking overdraft fees would have saved billions for our families. The Senate Republicans chose the banking industry over their own residents' well-being."

Senator Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican and chair of the Senate Banking Committee, said last month: "Your bank account goes beyond zero, you have to pay a fee, your bills are paid. Some people will say that people who live paycheck to paycheck use their overdraft option to pay their rent.

"So, when you start capping this fee structure, you start eliminating overdraft. You start eliminating the possibility of people working paycheck to paycheck to make the decision to continue to use their resources in the most effective way."

Lindsey Johnson, chief executive of the Consumer Bankers Association, told The New York Times that the resolution was "a significant victory for millions of Americans— especially the one in five without access to credit — who rely on overdraft services to pay for essentials and cover emergency expenses."

The president is expected to pass the legislation into law, though the White House has not confirmed when this will happen.>

<....The "explore this opening" link refuses to play a Sicilian 1.e4 c5 from this page, insisting instead on Nf3 (Nf3 was never played in the game above) due to the all-too-common KIA mislabel. Lasker (those who have not read his writings likely do not know about his footnote contributions) didn't pop up on my alternative search. Furthermore, given the strict length of post limit deliberately hindering FTB's harassed account, readers will have to miss out on some good information again. Of course, if this were a political post (not mine, mind you), a foot long rant would be allowed....>

<President Donald Trump's new budget plan has renewed a push for Medicaid work requirements and spending reductions that could leave millions of Americans without health coverage.

With the GOP-led House advancing a budget resolution this month, key committees are now tasked with writing legislation that may include sweeping changes to Medicaid eligibility and funding.

Nearly 80 million Americans rely on Medicaid for health coverage.

A recent analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimates that 36 million adults—about 44 percent of all Medicaid enrollees—would be at risk of losing coverage under expanded work requirement policies now being considered.

States that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act could see the sharpest impact.

The Trump administration and congressional Republicans argue that requiring Medicaid recipients to work or justify an exemption will reduce program costs and promote labor force participation.

In a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, analysts found at least 10,000 residents would lose Medicaid coverage in every state that expanded its Medicaid during the coronavirus pandemic if new work requirements were passed.

The coverage losses would be highest in states with large populations like California (1-1.2 million) and New York (743,000-846,000). In several other states, more than 100,000 people would likely find themselves without coverage. That list includes Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington.

The top five states at risk of the most Medicaid coverage losses are California, New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, the report found, in part due to population size.

Research from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) shows that 92 percent of Medicaid-eligible adults either already work or have valid exemptions due to caregiving, disability or education.

Administrative costs are another concern. Georgia's waiver-based "Pathways" Medicaid program, launched in 2023 under similar requirements, has cost over $40 million, with the bulk going toward administrative and consulting expenses rather than health care services, according to KFF Health News.

According to the Center for American Progress, 12 states—including Arizona, Indiana, Montana and New Hampshire—have "trigger laws" requiring them to roll back Medicaid expansion if federal contributions fall below 90 percent. This change alone could eliminate coverage for more than 3.6 million people.

While the new budget passed by House Republicans does not outright cut Medicaid or enforce work requirements, it instructs the Energy and Commerce Committee to reduce $880 billion in spending over the next decade.

Since Medicaid and Medicare are allotted a considerable portion of the committee's funding, financial experts and Democratic lawmakers anticipate that Medicaid could see substantial changes under the new budget.

"Republicans are putting Medicaid and SNAP on the chopping block in order to reward their billionaire donors and big corporations with tax breaks," California U.S. Representative and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote on X. "The American people cannot afford this extreme agenda."

Trump, however, has consistently said that Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security will be spared from cuts under his administration.

In an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures in March, Trump doubled down, saying, "I'm not going to touch Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid."

"We're going to get fraud out of there ... everybody wants us to get the fraud out ... we're going to have tremendous growth."....>

<....Chris Fong, CEO of Smile Insurance and a Medicare specialist, told Newsweek: "Based on the current political climate, it is likely that we will see the work requirement for Medicaid individuals. Our hope is that there will be some exceptions due to disability levels, but there's no indication that disability levels will be taken into account when determining Medicaid eligibility."

Kevin Thompson, CEO of 9i Capital Group and host of the 9Innings podcast, told Newsweek: "There's a strong likelihood that federal work requirements will be implemented as Congress looks for ways to offset the cost of a new tax bill. Unfortunately, that may come at the expense of programs like Medicaid. The federal government is pushing for work requirements and block grants, which would cap funding and shift more responsibility to the states. While larger states will feel the effects due to scale, the poorer often southern Republican-leaning states that rely heavily on federal assistance may bear the greatest burden."

Alex Beene, financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: "While many may think working requirements for Medicaid benefits isn't necessarily a bad thing, the reality is many Medicaid recipients already work in some capacity. The 80-hour-or-more requirement for monthly working hours if implemented, though, could leave some recipients getting nothing."

"And while proposals do leave room for those who are unable to work due to personal health issues or family care, we also know that the more paperwork and procedures you add to the process for qualifying for benefits, the fewer who receive them because they are either unaware or unable to complete those additional tasks."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to begin marking up Medicaid-related legislation in early May. GOP lawmakers have signaled they will include work requirements as key components of the reconciliation bill they hope to pass this summer.

But experts warn that stripping Medicaid from low-income individuals and families could increase medical debt, delay diagnoses and destabilize hospitals, particularly in rural areas.

"Work requirements have no upside," CBPP analysts Gideon Lukens and Elizabeth Zhang wrote in their February report. "They strip health coverage from people with low incomes—most of whom are already meeting or exempt from the requirements—leading to gaps in care that damage their health and financial security and make it harder for them to find or keep a job.">

Content here a problem, <fredwuckfad>? Stay away!

<The momentum has shifted. President Donald Trump’s shock-and-awe approach to MAGA governance is generating shock and disgust among Americans.

Massive protest rallies brought millions of people into the streets of big cities and small towns in every state on April 5. People showed up for more reasons than could fit on any one of the many brilliant homemade signs.

People were protesting the Trump administration’s lawlessness. Its abuse of power. Its kidnapping and deporting students for disagreeing with the president. Its terrifying practice of abducting people and shipping them off to be tortured in foreign prisons with no chance to prove their innocence.

Many of us were also resisting the senseless sacrifice of decades of common-good investments in everything from medical research to national parks. We were there to protest the brazenly dictatorial demands that Trump has made for ideological censorship of history, art, education and science.

The president’s stubborn recklessness has hit home for millions of Americans in deeply damaging and personal ways. People living financially fragile lives in retirement or still saving for those years have seen a huge portion of their savings wiped out by a pointless and self-destructive trade war.

It has been a lot.

There’s no doubt that the Project 2025 presidency threw the country off-balance with the viciousness of its anti-American blitzkrieg in its first two months.

I’ve heard over and over again from despairing Americans desperate about what to do. I’ve heard from angry people who were anguished that their elected representatives were not using their platforms and power to slow the assault.

People gathered on the National Mall on April 5 were angry and anguished. But they were also energized. They were joyful to be surrounded by so many others who were motivated to turn the tide.

At some point in the afternoon, there was a shift in the wind, and it felt like rain was about to fall. I felt it physically, but also metaphorically and spiritually.

That shift didn’t start on April 5. For weeks, Tesla Takedown protests against billionaire Elon Musk’s gleeful cruelty and destruction spread across the country and world.

Brave and brilliant lawyers who saw what was coming are challenging the Trump team’s illegal and unconstitutional actions.

And just a few days before the April 5 rallies, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) denounced the hardship being caused by Trump’s recklessness in a 25-hour speech, an inspirational display of defiance and determination.

Booker noted that “more and more voices” are speaking up to say, “This is not right. This is un-American. This is not who we are. This is not America.” Citing his mentor, the late civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis, Booker urged Americans, “Let’s get in good trouble.”....>

<....Still, the supremely arrogant Trump pushes ahead the way he does, bullying, intimidating and demanding submission. He dares his fellow Republicans to invite his wrath by crossing him in the smallest of ways. And congressional Republicans, almost without exception, have fallen in line, offering praise or nonsensical justifications for Trump’s destructive policies.

But I think they are feeling the wind shift, too. That’s why so many House Republicans, even in the deepest red districts, are refusing to meet with their constituents. They don’t want to try to defend massive cuts in care for Veterans or the Social Security Administration.

Trump won’t admit it, but he’s also feeling the shift. Why else would he abandon his plans to make Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) his ambassador to the United Nations? Her district would normally be as safe as a Republican seat could get. But Trump couldn’t count on a Republican replacement winning a special election there.

Trump’s instrument of destruction, Elon “Chainsaw” Musk, has become so politically toxic that Wisconsin voters defied his millions of dollars — even his million-dollar bribes — and rejected his state Supreme Court pick by a margin that no one imagined.

Trump is overplaying his hand. Americans are finding their voice and their courage.

Republican officials like House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) remind me of kids who are so eager to keep playing a baseball game that they pretend not to see the storm clouds and lightning on the horizon, who ignore the rain even as it soaks their uniforms and makes the grass slippery and unsafe. Johnson can see the storm brewing, but he’s turning away from the threat.

There’s been a huge shift in Trump’s favorability since the start of his second term, especially among the younger voters Republicans have been so excited about. A new poll from The Economist/YouGov found that Trump’s net favorability among voters under 30 plunged from +5 at the start of his term to -24 in early April.

It seems that Americans watching the reality of the Project 2025 presidency are coming to the same insight about MAGA-supporting Republicans that the legendary James Baldwin had about an earlier generation: “I can’t believe what you say … because I see what you do.”

Congressional Republicans still have time to do the right thing and stand up to Trump. If they’re not moved to do it for their legacy in history, they should be motivated by their next elections.>

<Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) blamed Democrats for the town hall disruption on Tuesday, calling the incident “selfish” and saying those opinions should be expressed “at the voting booth.”

“I’m not intimidated by the Democrats who tried to shut down my town hall tonight,” Greene wrote in a post on the social media platform X on Tuesday.

“I refused to tolerate their selfish attempts to disrupt an event that was for all of my constituents, not just the ones who could make the most noise,” she continued. “This is the type of business that should be handled at the voting booth.”

At least six protesters were removed during Greene’s town hall in Cobb County, Ga., on Tuesday. Three were arrested, including two individuals who police used stun guns to detain.

Greene spoke to reporters after the event, saying, “it shouldn’t be this way,” when asked about the disruption.

“There’s no reason for screaming, yelling, ridiculous outrageous protesting,” she said. “That disrupts the entire event for every single person that is there. And, you know, one of the most important things I do is offer constituent services, and that was exactly what I wanted to be able to promote and talk about tonight.”

Greene, an outspoken far-right ally of President Trump’s, told reporters that she gets the most death threats of anyone in Congress, even sometimes more than Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).

She condemned political violence broadly, pointing to the recent arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s mansion on the first night of Passover.

“It shouldn’t be this way for any elected leader, no matter what political party they represent,” Greene told reporters.

During the nearly hour-long town hall, where she took questions submitted by the audience, Greene defended Trump’s tariff agenda, the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) work that she said was focused on rooting out waste and abuse in the federal government and called, again, for federal funding for public broadcasters PBS and NPR to be revoked.

House Republicans were advised in early March to refrain from hosting town halls with constituents in their districts. But some have done them anyway, facing backlash.

Democrats have also faced irritated constituents, with attendees contending that liberal lawmakers are not doing enough to counter Trump’s agenda.>

<A former spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, who until this week served as an administrator for his infamous "anti-woke" college, was arrested and relieved of his position for indecent exposure, the Tampa Bay Times reported on Tuesday.

Fred Piccolo, 47, is in jail as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, on charges of "exposure of sexual organs," which constitutes a third-degree felony under Florida law. After his communications role for the governor and some other state communications positions, he was hired as the Director of Marketing and Media for the New College of Florida in Sarasota; a spokeswoman for the college "confirmed that Piccolo was fired Wednesday after the school removed him from its website," according to the article.

Piccolo has a long list of other allegations of public lewdness, according to the report.

"In August, Piccolo was accused of exposing himself to a store employee at a Banana Republic inside Sarasota’s University Town Center Mall," the report continued, with Sarasota County deputies noting in the arrest report that he was "using one hand in a stroking manner" as he looked at the woman. "Eleven days later, Piccolo exposed himself to an employee of Dillard’s in the same shopping center. The next day, Piccolo returned to the store and again exposed himself to a female employee, according to arrest records."

Per the report, he faces ongoing criminal charges from all three incidents.

The New College of Florida, based in Sarasota south of the Tampa area, has become infamous as a testing ground for DeSantis' allies to enact "anti-woke" reforms to academia, including the abolition of the tenure system and a mass purge of faculty that left students unable to take courses required for their majors.

In recent months, the Republican-controlled Florida legislature itself has grown exasperated by DeSantis' interference with the state's public higher education system, in particular appointing allies or rivals to academic leadership positions they aren't qualified for with no input from the schools' boards. A new bill is advancing that would take away DeSantis appointees' power to interfere with these hiring decisions, sparking outrage from the governor's office.>

Like the piccolo player, do ya, DeSatan?

<During a break from discussing the Donald Trump administration's growing battle with the judiciary, Axios founder Jim VandeHei reminded the panel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the president has a lot on his plate right now with problems of his own making.

According to the Washington insider, Trump's tariff war has done what appears to be irreparable damage to the reputation of the U.S. and he has put himself into a box he can't escape from to get the economy back on track.

Noting Trump has been facing an extraordinary amount of push back from Wall Street, VandeHei explained, "I think the president blinked in a pretty substantial way last week because of this pressure," he began. "It's pressure from CEOs. It's pressure from investors."

"Listen, if you're running a business and someone who does run a business the last thing you want is unpredictability, right?" he continued. "And there's a tremendous amount of unpredictability. So when companies start to say we're going to freeze hiring or they have to wait to figure out what's happening at the port with shipments of goods, that has a tremendous effect on that company and ultimately on the consumer."

"I think that the president is in a hell of a pickle right now, and I don't actually know how he's going to solve it," he asserted. "The Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessett's theory now would be the best possible outcome is that you use a very messy situation to leverage European countries and South Korea and Japan and others to create almost a free trade zone with no tariffs between all of us in exchange for not doing business with China."

"Okay, in theory, that sounds like a great idea," he added skeptically. "Except for if you're a European company or you're a European country, or you're South Korea or you're Vietnam, do you trust that the United States now is a more trustworthy partner?">

<The international trade war unleashed by Donald Trump’s massive set of tariffs on China is starting to present a growing dilemma for U.S. soybean farmers – and it could come at a political cost to the president.

That’s according to a new report in the Atlantic, which detailed Wednesday how Trump’s tariffs not only have the ability to weaken soybean production in the U.S., but also could “turbocharge deforestation in the Amazon” in the process.

“Now global-trade tensions threaten to further accelerate the ecological destruction,” Atlantic climate journalist Sarah Sax told readers. “President Donald Trump’s 145 percent tariff on imports from China and China’s 125 percent reciprocal tariffs on U.S. goods could reroute a significant share of China’s demand for American commodities.”

If the tariffs on soybeans stick, China is likely to purchase more of the product from Brazil, which experts fear could lead to further deforestation, according to The Atlantic. It could also bring blowback from soybean farmers in states that voted overwhelmingly for the MAGA leader.

ALSO READ:'We know where this leads': How Trump’s crackdown puts Jewish people in peril

“Growing frustration from American soybean farmers and industry associations, who operate primarily in red states, could prove to be politically damaging, especially given that soybean farmers were hard-hit by tariffs in Trump’s first term, and many are still recovering,” according to The Atlantic. “But if the tariffs stick, their most lasting effects for Brazil—taxed at only 10 percent even under the original plan—will likely be not geopolitical, but environmental.”

But behind the political ramifications at home that the tariffs could have on Trump, Sax wrote that a surge in soy exports from Brazil “could undermine the very climate goals that world leaders will gather to discuss” as the country gears up to host a global climate conference later this year.

That, she concluded, “would be a dilemma for Brazil—and for the world.”>

<One Democratic member of the U.S. Senate is urging the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to enforce its recent order on President Donald Trump's administration — even if it means putting someone behind bars.

Earlier this month, SCOTUS issued a 9-0 decision calling on Trump to "facilitate" the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the administration admitted was mistakenly put on a plane to an El Salvadoran prison for terrorists. On Wednesday, Colorado Newsline reported that Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) is now expressly demanding the nation's highest court force the administration to comply with a contempt ruling.

"The Supreme Court’s got to step up and say, ‘All right, we’re going to start holding people in contempt of court.’ They have the ability to sanction," Hickenlooper told the outlet. "They can take the people, the officials who deny any culpability or any responsibility, they can bring them in and force them to testify, to come to the court. And if they don’t come, they’re in contempt, and then you lock them up."

“I agree that that’s the most hideous, heinous act I’ve seen, where you can take an innocent person, pick them up for the wrong reason … and they put him in one of the most dangerous, insect- and vermin-infested prisons in the Western Hemisphere,” he continued. “That prison in El Salvador is notorious for how dangerous it is. And now they’re saying that they can’t get him out of there. I’m fully aware, and that will not stand. I cannot believe the Supreme Court’s going to allow that to stand.”

The Colorado Democrat appeared unaware that Trump — during a recent Oval Office meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele — suggested sending "homegrowns" to El Salvador's CECOT prison. When Hickenlooper said he "disagree[d]" with the notion that Trump was referring to U.S. citizens, a reporter clarified to the senator that Trump indeed repeated the remark in a Fox News interview. Hickenlooper was reportedly aghast.

“No, he wants to send U.S. citizens down to …?” he said. “Well, again, if this doesn’t get the Supreme Court in action, I don’t know what will. But obviously at a certain point, and we’re close to that point, the country’s going to rise up.">

<Banners fly forever. When you win a championship, every bad move that came along the way is wiped clean off the slate. It's why Joe Dumars has largely gotten a pass from Detroit Pistons fans and the wider NBA world for drafting Darko Miličić over Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. It led to a title. When we measure Dumars' legacy as a general manager decades from now, that championship is in the first sentence.

Dumars, as it was reported Tuesday, is set to take over his first lead executive position since leaving the Pistons more than a decade ago. He is going to be the new president of basketball operations for the New Orleans Pelicans.

As he moves into the new role, it's worth asking ... have the Pelicans bothered looking at everything Dumars did after winning that championship? Because that title came all the way back in 2004, and the 21 years that have passed since Dumars has hoisted the Larry O'Brien Trophy haven't been nearly as kind to him as the years leading up to it. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single, unquestionably successful move of his in the two decades and change since that championship.

So please, join me on this deep dive into Dumars' later work as we attempt to explain why the Pelicans make one of the strangest front-office hires in recent NBA history, and, more importantly, why that hire looks like such a bad idea on paper.

Dumars' post-2004 draft history

Joe Dumars made eight first-round picks for the Pistons after winning the 2004 championship. Let's go through each of them and evaluate not just what they got out of each player, but what they could have had at those draft slots.

2005: Jason Maxiell at No. 26 overall was a decent enough pick. He turned into a solid NBA role player. But four picks later, at Maxiell's position of power forward, the New York Knicks got a future All-Star in David Lee.

2007: Rodney Stuckey at No. 15 was another reasonable if underwhelming choice. He played in the NBA for a decade, averaged 16.6 points per game at his peak, but never grew into an All-Star or even a good starter on a winning team. There were no obvious alternatives available on the draft board.

2007: Arron Afflalo at No. 27. Solid pick. A good 3-and-D role player at the end of the first round is solid value. We'll get to where this went wrong in a little bit.

2009: Austin Daye at No. 15 is where the regrets start to set in. Daye didn't do much as a professional, but do you want to know who did? Jrue Holiday at No. 17 overall and even Jeff Teague at No. 19 overall. Either would have been entirely plausible picks considering the Pistons had just traded team legend Chauncey BIllups less than a year earlier and needed to replenish the backcourt. Instead, they land on a forward who spent most of his career abroad.

2010: Greg Monroe at No. 7 overall was a reasonable pick at the time, but it was one that Dumars didn't yet realize was starting to become outdated. Monroe was a post-up scorer in a league that was shifting away from post-up scoring. Two picks later, the Utah Jazz nabbed Gordon Hayward. One pick after that, the Indiana Pacers got Paul George. Those sorts of versatile wings were where the league was headed, and the Pistons missed out on both. Sure, Monroe would go on to get a max contract as a 2015 free agent... but it was with the Milwaukee Bucks.

2011: Brandon Knight at No. 8 is the heartbreaker. Knight was a fine player. But one pick later, at the same position, the Charlotte Bobcats took Kemba Walker, who would become an All-Star. Two picks after that, the Golden State Warriors took another star guard: Klay Thompson. The dagger? At No. 15, the San Antonio Spurs took Kawhi Leonard. All three would have been plausible Detroit picks. All three went on to far greater careers than Knight, who would go on to hurt the Pistons in another significant way a few years later (again, we'll get to that).

2012: Andre Drummond at No. 9 overall is *probably* the best decision Dumars made after the 2004 championship. He made an All-Star Team, at least. But his teams never won more than 44 games, and perhaps more importantly, he directly clashed stylistically with Monroe. They were both traditional, non-shooting big men in a league that was increasingly moving toward lineups in which only one such player could survive on the floor at a time. This was another example of Dumars failing to forecast where the league was going. Ultimately, the Pistons lost Monroe for nothing because he wasn't interested in continuing to play power forward next to Drummond.....>

<....2013: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at No. 8 overall proved to be a good, winning player, but he was yet another high draft pick the Pistons lost for nothing in free agency at the first available moment, so the team didn't exactly extract much value out of the choice. They likely would have gotten more out of C.J. McCollum, who went No. 10. They certainly would have gotten more out of Giannis Antetokounmpo, who went No. 15. Now, you might argue that Antetokounmpo would have been an outside-the-box pick that high, and that argument is valid. However, take a look at these eight players. Notice a trend? All eight of them were products of the American college system. That might be a coincidence. It might also suggest that Dumars missing on Miličić scared him off of riskier international prospects. The truth is probably somewhere in between.

There are some good players on this list, but among them, only Drummond can be said to have had a remotely decorated career as a Piston, and even he never won a playoff game for Detroit. To fail to land a single, long-term difference maker over a decade's worth of drafts is pretty indefensible. In fairness, though, we only covered first-round picks here. The best player Dumars drafted in this stretch actually came in the second round, and he did go on to become a reliable All-Star for a consistent contender, which segues us into Dumars' record on trades.

Dumars' post-2004 trading history

In July of 2013, the Pistons and Bucks swapped point guards who had been drafted in the lottery. The Pistons got Brandon Jennings, the No. 10 pick in 2009. The Bucks got Brandon Knight, who went No. 8 in 2011. Jennings was more proven at that point, but as a restricted free agent, he also needed to be paid. Knight still had two years left on his rookie deal. At the time, a one-for-one swap seemed roughly fair, but Milwaukee convinced Detroit to throw in two under-the-radar prospects to seal the deal. Viacheslav Kravstov didn't accomplish much in the NBA. But the No. 39 pick in the 2012 NBA Draft wound up accomplishing quite a bit. That was Khris Middleton.

This was a frustrating tendency of late-Detroit-era Dumars. He'd find good prospects only to give them away before they could develop. A similar, albeit far less painful move came in 2009, when he traded a then-22-year-old Amir Johnson to the Toronto Raptors for a 34-year-old Fabricio Oberto, whom they would immediately waive. Johnson went on to become a key role player for the Raptors during the early Kyle Lowry-and-DeMar DeRozan era. Arron Afflalo started 17 games in his first two seasons, was traded to Denver for a second-round pick in that same 2009 offseason, and immediately became a full-time starter and strong 3-and-D role player.

These were meaningful misses, but they began as moves on the margins. It's important to hit on the margins, especially as a small market, but executive tenures are defined by the big moves. The biggest post-2004 trade that Dumars made came early in the 2008-09 season. Coming off of a trip to the Eastern Conference finals, Dumars flipped Chauncey Billups to the Denver Nuggets for Allen Iverson. The move worked out wonderfully for the Nuggets. Billups took them within two games of the NBA Finals.

But for Detroit? Not so much. The Pistons fell to 39-43. Iverson steadily lost playing time to Stuckey, who at the time looked like Detroit's possible point guard of the future. The real damage from that trade, though, came over the summer. Part of the motivation for trading Billups was to clear out cap space so the Pistons could become free-agent players. At the time, the organization had a strong reputation within the league. There were rumors that they might even try to get into the famed free-agent derby of 2010 and pursue LeBron James or some of those players they missed out on in 2003, Bosh and Wade. Let's look at whom they signed...

Dumars' post-2004 free agency history

Dumars didn't wait until 2010 to spend his newfound cap space. He instead chose to splurge in the underwhelming 2009 market, signing Ben Gordon to a five-year deal worth between $55 and $60 million and Charlie Villanueva to a five-year, $40 million pact. Those raw numbers look small, but remember, the cap is roughly 2.4 times higher today than it was back then. In 2024-25 dollars, that Gordon contract would have been worth between $134 and 146 million while the Villanueva deal would have come in at around $97 million.

How'd those deals work out? Well, Gordon averaged 12.4 points across three Detroit seasons. He was then cap dumped on the then-Charlotte Bobcats for Corey Maggette. Detroit convinced Charlotte to take Gordon by dangling a 2014 first-round pick in the deal. That pick wound up coming in at No. 8 overall, a pretty hefty price for what amounted to one year of savings. Villanueva, meanwhile, started 27 games across five seasons with the Pistons. He never averaged 12 points per game in Detroit....>

<....Amazingly, neither of these deals would be the worst Dumars signed in his later Pistons tenure. With the money saved dumping Gordon in 2012, Dumars signed Josh Smith to a four-year, $54 million deal in 2013. That contract proved so disastrous that Dumars' replacement, Stan Van Gundy, used the waive-and-stretch provision to dump Smith early in his second season as a Piston. That decision saved them money in the short term, but resulted in them paying out the remainder of his contract in installments until 2020.

Those were some of the bad deals Dumars decided to give out, yet it's also worth remembering one of the ones that he didn't. In 2006, fresh off of a loss in the Eastern Conference finals, the Pistons elected to let Ben Wallace walk as a free agent to sign a four-year, $60 million contract with the Chicago Bulls. On paper, this decision made sense. Wallace was starting to decline, and 2006 proved to be his final All-Star and Defensive Player of the Year season. The deal ultimately proved to be an overpay.

However, the Pistons were still trying to contend in 2006. They made it all the way to the 2007 Eastern Conference finals, where they lost to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. In the now-historic, series-altering Game 5 of that series, James scored Cleveland's final 25 points to seal the victory. Would that have happened with Wallace protecting the rim? It's hard to say, but it's possible that this decision cost Detroit another trip to the NBA Finals and perhaps even a second Dumars-era championship.

To replace Wallace, the Pistons gave Nazr Mohammed the full mid-level exception, five years and $30 million. They wound up trading him midway through his second season on the deal. They reached the Eastern Conference finals again in 2008, but this is where the decline began in earnest. With it came a string of coaching changes.

Dumars' post-2004 coaching hires

Losing Larry Brown in 2005 stung, but it was pretty predictable. Larry Brown never stays in one place for long. Hiring Flip Saunders as his replacement mostly worked. He went 176-70 in three seasons and reached the Eastern Conference finals in each of them. Had Detroit retained Wallace, he might have made the Finals in 2007. Nonetheless, he was fired after that third consecutive Eastern Conference finals loss in 2008. This is where things went off the rails.

Michael Curry was promoted off of Saunders' bench to replace him as head coach. He went 39-43 thanks to the disastrous Iverson trade and got fired after one year. John Kuester, a journeyman assistant who worked on Brown's bench in 2004, was brought in to replace him. He went 57-107 across two years, but that doesn't quite do his tenure justice.

Right before the All-Star break in 2011, several Pistons players reportedly planned a boycott of a shootaround as a sort of mutiny against Kuester. They called off that boycott, allegedly, because they were informed Kuester would be laid off during the All-Star Break... except he wasn't, so later in February, they boycotted a different shootaround. When Kuester was ejected that night, Pistons players were seen laughing from the bench.

The Kuester era ended soon after, but things didn't improve. Lawrence Frank went 54-94 across two seasons. Mo Cheeks got just 50 games after replacing him, going 21-29 before getting dismissed himself. Dumars resigned at the end of that year, the 2013-14 season. In the 10 seasons that followed the 2004 championship, the Pistons went 409-395, just a hair above .500. He has not been an NBA general manager since then.

Dumars post-Detroit

Thus far, we have focused solely on the facts of Dumars' stewardship of the Pistons. From here forward, we're dealing with reporting and speculation. Dumars did not accept an official role with another team immediately after leaving the Pistons, but reports heavily linked him to... the New Orleans Pelicans.

In 2014, Dumars was attended several New Orleans Saints games with Mickey Loomis, their chief football decision-maker, according to Fletcher Mackel of WDSU. Both the Saints and Pelicans were then and still are owned by the Benson family, and until 2019, Loomis was technically the head of basketball operations for the Pelicans as well, though he largely delegated day-to-day duties to his general manager. On May 5, 2015, Grantland's Zach Lowe reported that Dumars could be brought in for a supervisory role above then-general manager Dell Demps. No official title materialized. A week later, though, CBS Sports' Ken Berger reported that Dumars, "a Louisiana native, has been providing input with the team and has a close relationship with Loomis and owner Tom Benson."....>

<....The exact nature of Dumars' influence in New Orleans has never fully been clarified, and the rumors gained and lost steam as time passed. In April of 2016, John Reid of the Times-Picayune reported there had been no discussions between Dumars and the Pelicans about a formal job offer. A year later, Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders hinted that the Pelicans could make sweeping changes, and mentioned that the Pelicans had long been linked to Dumars. It was a simmering rumor for several years that never officially boiled over.

Here's what we do know: the New Orleans front office at that time was officially led by Dell Demps. It was largely unsuccessful. Between the 2014-15 and 2018-19 seasons, which span Dumars' exit from Detroit and his next official job, the Pelicans made the playoffs twice and only won a single playoff series. This era ended with Anthony Davis forcing a trade. In this entire period, the Pelicans pushed desperately to try to win right away with Davis. They made only a single first-round pick between 2014 and 2018: Buddy Hield, who was traded in the blockbuster for DeMarcus Cousins.

In February, 2019, the Pelicans fired Demps. Danny Ferry, not Dumars, was named interim general manager. In April of that year, the Pelicans hired David Griffin. Two months after that, in June, Dumars accepted his first official position with another front office, joining the Sacramento Kings.

Little needs to be said of Dumars' time with the Kings because, as was the case in New Orleans, how much influence he had is unknowable. He stayed in Sacramento under two different lead basketball executives, Vlade Divac and Monte McNair. He held multiple titles across three years, from 2019 through 2022. Sacramento never made the playoffs in that span, and their only very notable moves were drafting and then trading Tyrese Haliburton.

While we can't speculate on how much influence Dumars held in Sacramento, we can at least acknowledge that the Kings would be an unusual team to rebuild a career with. Notable figures in basketball often join winning organizations after getting fired to help rehabilitate their image and learn from the most successful minds in the sport. That Kings certainly don't have that reputation. When his time in Sacramento ended, he joined the league office as its head of basketball operations.

So... what are the Pelicans thinking?

We've covered almost 3,000 words worth of negatives here. In the interest of fairness, we should at least acknowledge the positives. Early Dumars, before and leading up to that 2004 championship, was a genuinely great general manager. The manner in which he built that title team, a historically significant one given its lack of a true superstar, was fairly unorthodox.

The bulk of that 2004 Pistons core was built simply by Dumars identifying winning players in losing circumstances. Chauncey Billups is a perfect example of this. He was the No. 5 pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, so he was clearly talented. But Rick Pitino traded him 50 games into his rookie season, and he wound up playing for four teams in his first five seasons. Point guards take time to develop, and stability helps quite a bit. The league had mostly given up on Billups. Dumars saw an opportunity and grabbed it.

Rip Hamilton broke out in his second season in the NBA, but in his third, he was forced to share the floor with Michael Jordan in Washington. He handled it well, but it took the spotlight off of him and perhaps hid how valuable he was becoming. Jerry Stackhouse, meanwhile, was a two-time All-Star and a former scoring champion, but Dumars saw he was declining. He flipped the more proven player for the ascending one. Stackhouse never made another All-Star team. Hamilton became an essential Piston.

Ben Wallace was acquired opportunistically. When Grant Hill became a free agent in 2000, he could have signed with another team outright, leaving Detroit with nothing. Instead, he agreed to a sign-and-trade that sent Wallace back to the Pistons. Had Hill gone elsewhere, or if the Magic would have just come up with a contract structure in which he didn't need to be signed-and-traded, Wallace would have stayed in Orlando. This was quick and creative work on Dumars' part. He turned what could have been nothing into a whole lot of something.

Even the decision to draft Miličić, as poorly as it wound up going, was a high-upside swing based on league-wide trends at the time. Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol were recent home run lottery picks out of Europe who did not develop in the American college system. There was a belief at the time, one that has proven true, that they were the beginning of a new wave of foreign stars. Dumars tried to ride that wave. He crashed because the player ultimately wasn't good enough. But this was an example of the more creative, nimble Dumars of those early years. He was willing and able to adapt with the times....>

<....But right around that 2004 championship, that changed. The Pistons got stale. Between 2008 and 2014, the Pistons never ranked higher than 22nd in 3-point attempts. They drafted multiple big men who needed the ball near the basket and forced them to play together even as the league was shifting away from the post. When other teams hoarded cap space to chase stars, the Pistons used theirs on middling role players. Spotty drafting was ignorable in the early years because of how successfully Dumars traded. With time, that core aged out. Dumars didn't keep finding similar diamonds in the rough, and suddenly, his shaky draft history became more of a problem.

This sort of thing happens in every sport. The more we learn about them, the faster they change, there has been a concerted effort throughout most of the 21st century to use data and experimentation to discover what really leads to winning in just about every major, competitive endeavor. This tends to lead to turnover among unsuccessful executives clinging to strategies that no longer work. Brad Pitt said it best as Billy Beane in the Moneyball movie: "adapt or die."

But this is ultimately a human enterprise. Decisions are made by human beings. And when the human being making those decisions is in a position to do so because of their wallet rather than their history in the sport, they can be swayed by success in the old world even if it may not be compatible with the new one. Dumars has won a championship ring as a general manager. The Pelicans could go out and interview a dozen of the smartest, up-and-coming minds in basketball and the one thing most of them would have in common is that they haven't.

We've seen versions of this story play out in other sports. It generally ends badly. Jon Gruden was a great coach in the late 90s and early 2000s. The end of his tenure with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went badly, and he then spent a decade out of coaching. The Raiders brought him back in 2018 and gave him full control over personnel. He went 22-31. He was ultimately fired for off-field conduct, but his coaching and roster decisions were frequently panned. The Chicago White Sox took a similar approach in 2021 when they hired Tony La Russa as their manager 10 years after his retirement from the St. Louis Cardinals. They won at roughly the same rate as they had before his hire in his first season, and then played .500 baseball in his second. The general consensus at the time was that the game had passed him by, and he received blowback for criticizing one of his own players for hitting a home run on a 3-0 count.

These situations are all unique, but what they have in common is that they were somewhat relationship-driven. Mark Davis hired Gruden to coach the Raiders because his father, Al Davis, employed him almost two decades earlier. Jerry Reinsdorf hired La Russa in 2015 because he believed his greatest regret was firing him in 1986. Human beings are not always rational. A desire to fix an old mistake can be strong enough to lead to a new one.

We don't know the specifics of the relationship between Dumars and the Pelicans prior the Monday's news. The reporting has suggested that there was one. The timing of Dumars taking the Kings job, two months after Griffin got hired by the Pelicans but a full five years after he left the Pistons, is certainly curious. Perhaps he was quietly a candidate for the job then. Perhaps, after all of those years of rumors, the Pelicans feel some measure of regret for not considering him more seriously during the process that led to Griffin's hiring.

That is, of course, speculation. So is trying to predict how well a general manager will perform in a new job, which is ultimately what a team is doing when it hires one. But that hire is so important that it's worth evaluating the criteria that they are seemingly using to do so. While we can't say anything definitively about the influence Dumars may or may not have had with the Pelicans last decade, we can point to his underwhelming more recent track record, and more importantly, suggest that anyone's track record becomes less meaningful the less recent it gets.

There is a big difference between hiring a recent champion and a distant champion. The Pelicans are hiring a general manager for 2025 and beyond. Joe Dumars really hasn't been an effective general manager since 2004 and before. Is it possible that he's learned the lessons of his mistakes in Detroit and will be better the second time around? Sure.

<A prominent Republican U.S. Senator delivered candid and heartfelt responses to leaders of nonprofit groups in her state expressing concern over the massive and sudden cuts to federal agencies, programs, and the federal workforce—along with President Donald Trump’s tariffs, executive orders, and legal battles.

“We are all afraid,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), apparently referring to both her colleagues in Congress and her constituents, before pausing in thought. The Anchorage Daily News first reported her remarks.

“It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right. But that’s what you’ve asked me to do. And so, I’m going to use my voice to the best of my ability.”

Murkowski, a moderate Republican who has held her seat for nearly a quarter of a century, also said that she “is just trying to listen as carefully as I can to what is happening and how it is happening and the impacts it is having on the ground.”

She admitted that “we don’t have all the answers, but we’re trying to unlock at different opportunities and in different ways as much as we can. And it is as hard as anything that I have engaged in in the 20 plus years I’ve been in the Senate.”

Explaining that she is trying “to figure out how I can do my best to help the many who are so anxious and are so afraid,” Murkowski, an Alaska native, shared stories of encounters with constituents and others.

“I’ve been an airports, I’ve been in meetings, I’ve been in hallways, and in my own office, in Washington, D.C., or where people have shared what has happened within their world, where they end up in tears, in tears because they thought that they were in a profession they’d given so much to, and thought that they were doing well and literally no notice whatsoever are terminated and told that their work performance was not satisfactory,” she noted. “Which was not true, and [they] didn’t know what was going to happen.”

The Anchorage Daily News also described Murkowski as being “exceptionally candid” when “criticizing aspects of the Trump administration’s approach to implementing policy measures and service cuts, some of which she described as ‘unlawful.'”

Murkowski also shared that she has heard “fear” from “people who have said, ‘I’m afraid to, I’m afraid to talk to my coworkers about the status of where we are, because will I be viewed as questioning my supervisors or my commitment to the agency here.’ These are unscripted moments where I am not soliciting them, and people are not planning on sharing them with me, almost serendipitous in an airport. And so these are real emotions, these are real people, these are real fears, and they need to be heard.”

Republican former U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock, responding to Murkowski’s remarks, wrote: “This is real. I and so many members – present and former – have heard these conversations privately, so it is refreshing to hear it publicly.”

Attorney Alex Morey also weighed in, calling it a “stunning admission by a sitting U.S. senator. Senators speak for their constituents, with an oath to defend against ‘all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ Any threat to her ability to do her job demands transparency, bravery, and action — not self-interested self-censorship.”

Columbia University professor of history Simon Schama called it “extraordinary” that a Republican Senator was admitting to being “afraid of her President and government.”

The Senator also acknowledged that the GOP-controlled House and Senate are not fulfilling their oversight responsibilities.

“It’s called the checks and balances. And right, now we are not balancing as the Congress,” she said.

Just last week in a speech on the Senate floor, Murkowski told her colleagues, “I think it’s time for Congress to reassert itself. We owe that to those that we represent, as well as to this institution, for the long-term good of the nation.”>