One day at a time

“The Department of Justice is investigating Gavin Newsom. Newsom found out, went on camera, and told Donald Trump he had picked the wrong target.

Federal agents have been knocking on doors for days, the governor said in a video posted Monday. Friends. Family. Former employees. They have demanded records and pulled what Newsom called years and years of random documents. The agents have not found a crime, he said. They are simply trying to find one.

The thing that put Newsom in front of a camera is what they are doing to his wife.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom is a documentary filmmaker who runs nonprofits on gender equity and the representation of women. DOJ is now examining her tax filings.

Newsom did not hide what he thought of that. "If they can't intimidate me, they'll go after the mother of our children," he said. "Donald Trump picked the wrong target."

The president has been working on a list.

James Comey, the FBI director who investigated him.

Letitia James, the New York attorney general who sued him.

Adam Schiff, the senator who led his first impeachment.

Jerome Powell, the Fed chair who would not lower interest rates.

Tim Walz, the governor he lost an election to.

Each of them has been investigated, accused, or harassed by the federal government since Trump took office, and each fits the same description: someone who got in his way.

Newsom is the latest. Last year, after the governor called out the Los Angeles immigration raids, Trump publicly endorsed the idea of arresting him. This year, his DOJ is reading the family's mail. Newsom is not pretending it is a coincidence.

"Donald Trump isn't just coming after me because of my mean tweets," he said. "He's coming after me because I'm considering running for president."

Reporting on the probe is complicated.

Career officials in California have told reporters the investigation traces back to whistleblowers and was not ordered from Washington. Newsom's office has filed a public-records request to find out exactly how the probe was opened. But it does not change what’s going on. A long list of people who have crossed this president are being investigated by his government.

The list keeps growing.

"You can subpoena my records, you can investigate me, you can harass me, put my name on every and any enemies list you have," Newsom said. "But leave my wife and family out of your personal vendetta."

At the Milken Institute conference in Beverly Hills this week, Cruz called Trump Accounts, the baby savings accounts created under last year's GOP budget law, "Social Security personal accounts," then added: "Here's the dirty little secret: Trump accounts are Social Security personal accounts."

This wasn't a slip.

Cruz spelled out the endgame: once kids grow up with these accounts, Republicans pitch parents on diverting their payroll taxes, the money that funds YOUR current Social Security into private Wall Street investment accounts instead.

His prediction: within five years, that becomes a "really compelling constituency."

Cruz isn't the first to brag about it. At a Breitbart forum last summer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the accounts as "a back door for privatizing Social Security."

And while Republicans were telling the public these were just cute little baby bonds, Axios reports the idea of replacing or augmenting Social Security with Trump Accounts has been discussed behind closed doors with lawmakers for some time, they just didn't want to "touch the third rail" publicly.

Now they're not bothering to hide it.

The strategy is two-pronged: build up Trump Accounts with one hand, and gut the Social Security Administration with the other, so when the agency collapses under DOGE cuts, they can point at the wreckage and say "look how broken it is."

Polling shows just 15% of Americans support privatizing Social Security. The other 85% better start paying attention.

They've been plotting this for 50 years. Cruz just told you exactly how they plan to finally pull it off.

For the richest men on Earth, everything is free and nothing matters.

https://archive.is/20260507145232/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/05/billionaire-consequence-free-reality/686588/

"Let’s start with the facts, because the facts matter and they are not what the Trump regime has been selling you all morning.

"Cole Allen, a 31-year-old from Torrance, California, allegedly approached a security checkpoint at the Washington Hilton Hotel during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night. He was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and knives. He did not get through. He was stopped at the perimeter.

"Here is the critical detail that is getting lost in all the noise: the incident happened on a floor above where the dinner was actually taking place. Not in the room. Not near the room. Up a flight of stairs, past multiple security layers, in a part of the hotel that was open to the general public because the Secret Service only secured the specific areas of the WHCA event — not the entire building. Law enforcement officials confirmed this. The suspect never breached the secured zone. The president, vice president, cabinet officials, and guests were nowhere close to this.

"That is not a minor footnote. That is a major part of this story.

"And yet, within thirty minutes of the incident, Donald Trump was at a podium holding a press conference, not to reassure the public, not to thank law enforcement, but to demand his golden ballroom. He and his officials were all smiles. Karoline Leavitt had a grin on her face. Pete Hegseth was photographed beaming. Alina Habba posted on Instagram that she “slayed on the look” with a photo of herself from the event, captioned “10/10.” These are the people who want you to believe this was a harrowing, historic moment of danger.

"And then there was Dan Scavino. As guests were still processing what had just happened, Scavino decided the moment called for a rousing “USA! USA!” chant. It did not land. The response from the room was total silence. Not even Trump’s own allies joined in. The only thing audible, per footage reviewed from inside the room, was a wave of “shhhhs” from the audience and people telling him to shut up. This is the man as close to Trump as anyone in the regime, and his read on the room in that moment was to try to start a rally chant. It was perhaps the most accidentally revealing and cringeworthy moment of the entire night."