by Keith Reed | May 22, 2026 | Opinion, Politics, Sports
The NAACP called for Black collegiate athletes to boycott playing for the flagship public institutions in eight southern states this week, giving a boost of legitimacy to a problematic idea that had been circulating on social media for weeks. The proposed boycott is the civil rights organization’s response to Republican-controlled state legislatures in Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia redrawing or threatening to redraw congressional maps to eliminate some or all of their majority-Black voting districts.
Those states, whose economies have long benefited from the toil of Black athletes at the public institutions funded by those legislatures, began rushing to change those maps after the Supreme Court’s recent gutting of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice. NAACP PRESIDENT AND CEO DERRICK JACKSON
“The NAACP will not watch the same institutions that depend on Black athletic prowess to fill their stadiums and their bank accounts remain silent while their states strip Black communities of their voice,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in the statement announcing the initiative it’s calling “Out of Bounds.”
Boycotts have always sought to break the machinery of oppression by choking off the funding that lubricates it, and the money these states make on sports dominated by Black athletes is hefty. Louisiana State University, which produced athletes including WNBA star Angel Reese, Olympian Sha’Carri Richardson and NFL wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, released a study that claimed its sports programs generated nearly a half-billion dollars in economic
by Steve Benen | May 21, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
After the Trump administration unveiled an unprecedented $1.776 billion fund made up entirely of taxpayer money that is expected to benefit the president’s allies with no meaningful oversight, a great many Democrats, legal experts and even some Republicans agreed that Team Trump has created a corrupt and legally dubious “slush fund.”
Sen. Ed Markey, however, went further than most. The Massachusetts Democrat described the developments as an impeachable offense. From the senator’s online statement:
Trump’s “weaponization fund” … is his latest impeachable offense: using the machinery of government and billions in taxpayer dollars to reward allies, pay off insurrectionists, and shield himself, his family, and associates from accountability. This is exactly the kind of corruption and abuse of public trust the Framers feared most. Impeach now.
At the outset, it’s worth acknowledging basic political realities: There’s a Republican-led Congress, which remains loyal to the Republican White House, so it’s simply unrealistic to think Donald Trump will face a serious impeachment push anytime soon.
But Markey didn’t suggest otherwise. Rather, he simply made the point that the underlying misconduct is itself the kind of abuse that warrants impeachment, whether such action is imminent or not.
What’s more, the senator’s case is hardly unreasonable. Not only is the scheme legally dubious, as a lawsuit filed Wednesday hopes to prove, but the editorial board of The New York Times also made a compelling case that the entire gambit is itself “threatening to constitutional order.” The board added, “It is worth pausing to put the fund into the larger context of Mr. Trump’s political project: He is destroying pillars of American democracy to empower himself.”
Complicating matters, the president and his team aren’t even
by Steve Benen | May 21, 2026 | Maddowblog, News, Politics
Donald Trump’s political career is defined by a series of ugly qualities. The president is known for being a dishonest and ignorant authoritarian, obsessed with conspiracy theories, self-aggrandizement, petty grievances and an indifference to election results and the rule of law.
But perhaps most important of all is the unavoidable word that describes Trump better than any other: To a breathtaking degree, this guy is corrupt.
Unfortunately, there have been other corrupt American presidents, but we hardly have a frame of reference for someone as brazen and shameless as the Republican incumbent. Writing for Rolling Stone this week, John Avlon argued, “Let’s say it plainly: There has never been a president as corrupt as Donald Trump. There is no close second in our history.”
To appreciate the scope and scale of the president’s corruption is daunting, because the broader indictment covers so many scandals over the course of many years, but it’s worth pausing to consider the evidence that’s emerged this week.
Reports this week showed stock purchases made by Trump, which were followed by federal actions or specific statements by the president that affected the price of those stocks.
The administration this week unveiled an unprecedented $1.776 billion fund, made up entirely of taxpayer money, that is expected to benefit the Republican’s allies with no meaningful oversight.
Trump’s Justice Department this week announced the Internal Revenue Service would no longer scrutinize past or present alleged tax irregularities surrounding the president and his controversial businesses. The development, among other things, freed Trump from having to worry about a potential $100 million penalty.
A Trump-aligned super PAC received $5 million from a leading tobacco company, and then days
by Steve Benen | May 21, 2026 | Congress, Maddowblog, News, Politics
In November 2015, congressional Republicans launched a pointless crusade to repeal the Affordable Care Act, indifferent to the fact that Barack Obama would inevitably veto their plan if it reached his desk. GOP lawmakers plowed forward anyway, using the budget reconciliation process that allowed them to circumvent the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
There were, however, procedural pitfalls. In order for a reconciliation bill to advance, it has to meet a series of stringent conditions, which Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough said the Republican bill failed to meet.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, in his first year on Capitol Hill, offered a straightforward solution to the party’s problem: GOP leaders should simply fire MacDonough and replace her with someone who would tell them what they wanted to hear.
That didn’t happen, though more than a decade later, Donald Trump is thinking along the same lines. NOTUS reported:
President Donald Trump pressed Senate Majority Leader John Thune to fire the Senate parliamentarian after she ruled Republicans could not include funding for the president’s ballroom in a budget bill, two sources familiar with the request told NOTUS.
The president called the South Dakota Republican on Monday to express his frustrations with the decision, according to a third source. The call between Trump and Thune was first reported by Semafor.
Those behind-the-scenes details were provocative, but they also burst out into the open on Wednesday morning when the president published a lengthy and furious rant to his social media platform, calling out MacDonough by name and adding, “Over the years, she has been brutal to Republicans, but not so to the Dumocrats — So why has she not been replaced? …
by Katelyn Burns | May 21, 2026 | Opinion, Politics
Former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, a gay political trailblazer, died Wednesday at 86. Frank was the first member of the U.S. House of Representatives to publicly come out as gay and the first member of Congress to marry a person of the same gender.
Frank was undoubtedly a legend of his time. He represented his Massachusetts district in Congress for more than 30 years, and his high profile helped pave the way for the broader acceptance of gay people we see today. He founded the Stonewall Democrats, a pro-gay caucus focused on advancing LGBTQ rights within the party. He helped pass several pieces of landmark legislation. He was the “Frank” in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 and helped shape the legislation as a co-writer of the bill. He also played a key role in loosening federal regulations on marijuana use and helped pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded federal hate crime protections to include LGBTQ people. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in 2008, he helped bail out the banking system during the Great Recession.
Frank was undoubtedly a legend of his time.
For all the above reasons, Frank was a memorable and monumental lawmaker.
But as eulogies marking his passing begin to flow, many queer people in the U.S. — particularly transgender people who were around for the fights on Capitol Hill in the late 2000s — will be remember other aspects of Frank’s political career with far less fondness and, indeed, with disappointment.
Even as he fought for protections for gay Americans, Frank insisted that trans rights not be
by Steve Benen | May 20, 2026 | Congress, Maddowblog, News, Politics
After Sen. Bill Cassidy fell far short in his Louisiana primary, the longtime Republican lawmaker delivered a concession speech that took some unsubtle shots at the president who orchestrated his defeat. “When you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn’t turn out the way you want it to,” the senator said. “But you don’t pout, you don’t whine, you don’t claim the election was stolen.”
In the same concession speech, the Louisianian said, “Let me just set the record straight: Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans, and it is about our Constitution. And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others by using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader.”
Cassidy didn’t mention Donald Trump by name, but he didn’t have to. His point wasn’t exactly subtle.
The next question was whether the senator was prepared to follow through on his Saturday night remarks and become a thorn in the side of the president responsible for ending his career.
As the week got underway, the Republican lawmaker, who still has 228 days remaining in his term, downplayed the idea that he would use his office to retaliate against the White House. Since then, Cassidy has:
Publicly condemned the Trump administration’s so-called anti-weaponization fund, calling it a “slush fund” that needs congressional scrutiny.
Announced his opposition to a pending proposal to direct millions in taxpayer money to Trump’s vanity ballroom project.
Switched his position and voted with Democrats on a war powers resolution related to Trump’s war in Iran.
Voiced his disapproval of
