Good morning. I’m Corinne Straight, and this is AlterNet America. Please take a moment to click the ❤️ and restack this post. The oligarchs’ platforms are trying to keep stories like the ones below from hitting your feeds, and this helps us break through.
Trump appeared to forget about the January 6 Capitol insurrection when a reporter asked him about his own social media post. Mitch McConnell returned to the Senate on Monday after a 92-day absence. A DHS inspector general report confirmed that detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz” were locked in cages the size of phonebooths. And the EPA repealed Biden-era rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
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He can identify an elephant on a flashcard but not the worst day of his presidency.
On Friday, Trump posted a video on Truth Social of his January 6, 2021, speech from the White House lawn, in which he told the rioters who had stormed the U.S. Capitol to go home. When a reporter asked him about it a few days later on Air Force One, he had no idea what she was talking about.
Trump responded by saying he had posted about 30 items and asking which one the reporter meant. When she tried to explain the video, he asked “Who?”
Trump has cited that speech for years as evidence he was trying to stop the violence, not incite it. The January 6 congressional committee later revealed he was forced to record it and wouldn’t read the script his aides had prepared for him.
Trump, 80, has been showing signs of cognitive decline for months. He’s been falling asleep in public all year, including at his own Cabinet meetings and onstage during the Pentagon’s September 11 memorial ceremony last week. He’s had a chronic bruise on his right hand for months that the White House blames on aspirin use and handshaking.
Trump has bragged that his perfect score on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment is proof of his “extreme intelligence.” The test is a 10-minute screening tool to detect signs of dementia.
We are not ruling out a Weekend at Bernie’s situation until we see him blink.
Senator Mitch McConnell returned to the Capitol on Monday after 92 days out of public view, casting his first vote since June and ending months of speculation about whether he was still alive.
The 84-year-old former Republican Senate leader was hospitalized June 14 after falling at his Washington home. The fall knocked him out for a moment but doctors found he had not suffered a heart attack, stroke or concussion. Later he was diagnosed with what his office called “a mild case of pneumonia.”
Since entering the Senate in 1985, McConnell has voted against medical leave at least 23 times. He was one of only 27 senators to vote against the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which guarantees workers 12 weeks of unpaid leave to recover from an illness or care for a sick family member.
He collected his full Senate salary for the entire 92 days he was gone.
They named it after one of the most infamous prisons in American history, and it still managed to be worse.
Detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the now-defunct immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades, were kept in small metal cages for as long as two hours at a time, according to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General. The report found the practice “does not meet standards for humane treatment.”
Between July 2025 and January 2026, 79 detainees were held in small metal enclosures with about 18 square feet of floor space each for periods ranging from several minutes to nearly two hours. The photographs accompanying the report show a cage that looks to be only slightly larger than a telephone booth.
The Guardian reported on these same conditions back in December, citing an Amnesty International document that described multiple human rights abuses at the facility. A DeSantis spokesperson called those claims “fabrications.”
The facility opened July 3, 2025, and closed in late June of this year after DHS cited concerns related to hurricane season and moved all detainees to other facilities. Apparently that was the line.
The Clean Air Act is now just the Air Act.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin flew to the G20 summit in Houston Monday to sign a rule eliminating climate controls on coal and gas-fired power plants. The rule repeals President Joe Biden’s regulations mandating plants reduce their emissions through technologies like carbon capture and storage.
When the EPA finalized those standards in 2024, it estimated they would provide $370 billion in climate and health benefits over their lifetime. The industry would have paid a cost of around $18 billion, or about one-twentieth of the benefits.
Trump’s EPA is also arguing that power plant greenhouse gas emissions do not endanger human health or the environment, a stance that could deprive the agency of its authority to regulate those emissions under the Clean Air Act. If courts accept that argument, no future administration would ever be able to roll back these rules.
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** House Democrat Forces a Vote on Impeaching Trump Over ICE Killings.** On Monday, Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas took procedural steps to bring a vote to impeach Trump to the House floor within two legislative days. Green’s article of impeachment charges Trump with allowing ICE and Border Patrol agents to carry out unwarranted killings in Operation Metro Surge, citing the deaths of four U.S. citizens at the hands of immigration officers. Green has filed articles of impeachment against Trump at least three other times since his reelection and all have failed, but Democratic leaders have not ruled out pursuing impeachment if they take the House in November.
** Supreme Court Blocks Trump’s Mail-In Voting Restrictions for the Midterms.** The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Trump’s bid to use the U.S. Postal Service to impose new restrictions on mail-in ballots for the midterm election. The ruling means the Postal Service will keep delivering ballots as usual. Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion saying the rule might fall within the Postal Service’s statutory authority, but that it would be “arbitrary and capricious” to implement it now. Voting has already started in Alabama, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
** Pennsylvania Democrats Are Already Lining Up to Replace John Fetterman. **Pennsylvania Democrats have unified behind a candidate to replace John Fetterman after he sent a taped video message to the Republican midterm convention last Wednesday. Rep. Chris Deluzio, who represents the Pittsburgh area, is the favorite to win in 2028 and has support from both allies of Gov. Josh Shapiro and the progressive wing of Sen. Bernie Sanders. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries went even further on ABC this weekend and said that Democrats have not ruled anything out regarding Fetterman’s future in the party.
Virginia School Board Reverses Club Ban After Students Sue Over Gay-Straight Alliance. A school board in King George County, Virginia voted unanimously on Friday to let middle school students form extracurricular clubs again, reversing a ban it imposed last November after students tried to form a Gay-Straight Alliance. The ACLU sued in August on behalf of two students and their parents, arguing that the board banned all clubs because of the GSA while allowing six other student groups to continue meeting. Earlier this month the parties reached a settlement, and students can now form clubs with parental permission.