Politics
The ‘gift’ Democrats think Trump just gave them
Democrats are frothing at the mouth to center President Donald Trump’s tariff chaos in their affordability messaging as they charge into the midterms.
The party was already planning to slam Republicans over the economy on the campaign trail, riding the playbook that helped propel New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani to victories last year. Then, on Friday, the Supreme Court in a remarkable rebuke slapped down Trump’s tariffs — declaring illegal his favorite lever to bend the global economy to his will.
But for Democratic strategists and party officials who spoke with POLITICO, it’s not just the high court’s ruling that could open a new avenue — it’s also Trump’s doubling down, moving to levy 15 percent tariffs worldwide under a different authority. “Now we have a new data point that Trump is not going to relent,” said a person familiar with Democrats’ strategies, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Democratic operatives see it as a massive windfall.
“It’s such a gift,” the person familiar said. “The gift of it is how politically inept it is.”
Doug Herman, a Democratic strategist based in California, said Trump’s renewed tariff saber-rattling provides “tailor-made” messaging on affordability for Democrats. “Every American has borne the cost of these Trump tariffs,” he said. “It’s the kind of thing that everybody needs to take advantage of in their campaigns.”
The crop of potential Democratic 2028 presidential candidates leapt into action immediately. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker released an “invoice” demanding that the White House pay more than $8.6 billion in “past due” tariff revenue, which he calculated out to $1,700 per family in his state. “The President owes you an apology — and a refund,” Pete Buttigieg said on X. California Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters that Trump “should return that money immediately.”
“They imposed a sales tax on the American people,” veteran Democratic strategist James Carville told POLITICO. “What did you get? Nothing.”
That messaging — branding the tariffs as illegal taxes that Trump must repatriate to voters (which, he said Friday, he did not intend to do) — is expected to become a core component of Democrats’ strategy as they fight to retake majorities in Congress.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if tariffs made it in 50 percent of our paid advertising,” said one Democratic strategist working on House campaigns. Another who works on Senate campaigns said they’re preparing to rev up their ads on affordability as well.
“We have a very clear line that we can draw from [voters] struggling to make ends meet, and things that Trump is doing intentionally,” Third Way’s Matt Bennett said. “It is a uniquely easy story for Democrats to tell.”
It’s also not lost on the party that the states whose economies have been hit hardest by the tariffs are home to some of the most contentious Senate races that could make or break the GOP’s majority. “We’ve not only lost our markets and gotten lower prices selling corn and soybeans, particularly soybeans, but we have also, at the same time right now, we have the misfortune of having very high inputs, a lot of uncertainty,” Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart told POLITICO. “We’re talking about real hardship where people are going to be really negatively affected financially.”
Trump, of course, is not on the ballot in November, but multiple Democratic operatives told POLITICO they’re planning to skewer any Republican who has defended his tariffs. “It’s this very, very easy to understand action that the president took, and that congressional Republicans backed,” the Democratic strategist working on Senate races said. So the line for Dem candidates will be cut and dried: “This is where my opponent is not fighting for you,” they said.
The RNC is fully prepared to defend against any Democratic attacks. “The Supreme Court’s decision does not change the reality: President Trump’s trade agenda is working, and Republicans are united in strengthening the economy for American families,” RNC spokesperson Kiersten Pels said in a statement. “His tariffs have helped lower inflation, raise wages, and drive historic investment into U.S. manufacturing and energy. As we head into the midterms, Republicans are focused on building on these gains and putting workers first — while Democrats oppose the policies bringing jobs back home.”
The White House, too, is brushing off the idea that Democrats have been handed a messaging victory.
“President Trump has powerfully used tariffs to renegotiate broken trade deals, lower drug prices, and secure trillions in manufacturing investments for American workers — all things Democrats have promised to do for decades,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. “It’s not surprising Democrats care more about having a phony talking point than these tangible victories for the American people, because talking is all Democrats have ever been able to do.”
But the economic picture over the last year has soured, with key indicators released Friday showing slowed growth and rising inflation. Recent polls find that costs and the economy remain a central concern going into November. And though Trump is visiting battleground states to pitch his economic message, he has thus far struggled to acknowledge voters’ concerns. In Georgia on Thursday, the day before the Supreme Court’s ruling came down, Trump claimed he had “won affordability” and told voters his tariffs were “the greatest thing that’s happened in this country.”
On Tuesday, Trump will stand before Congress for his State of the Union address — one of the largest platforms that the presidential bully pulpit provides. Trump said last week he would focus on the economy in those remarks.
Democrats have a tsunami of counterprogramming planned — including anti-SOTU rallies. Multiple Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, will bring as their guests some small business owners who’ve been affected by Trump’s tariffs, guaranteeing the issue will be front and center, regardless of the substance of the president’s remarks
DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) previewed what this messaging will sound like on the campaign trail. “House Republicans rubber stamped President Trump’s tariffs and are responsible for the painful affordability crisis they have unleashed on American families,” DelBene said in a statement. “Voters will not soon forget Republicans are the reason everything is more expensive.”
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There is something operatic about the way the word ‘poverty’ is deployed in 2026. It is invoked with the gravity of a famine appeal, as though Darlington has quietly become Darfur and Croydon is one failed harvest away from catastrophe. When Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf told Sir Trevor Phillips on Sky News last Sunday that ‘real poverty does not exist in this country’, the metropolitan reaction was instantaneous – outrage on cue, moral denunciation on tap.
Yusuf argued that relative poverty means that ‘you could increase everybody’s incomes 10-fold and that statistic would stay the same’. He added that ‘absolute poverty does exist in very, very small pockets’ and that the focus should be on encouraging social mobility, rather than policies that seek to reduce poverty according to relative measures alone.
Among Yusuf’s loudest critics was Green Party leader Zack Polanski. He treated the remark as evidence of Reform letting ‘the cat out of the bag about who they are… lecturing that poverty and people’s every day struggles with rising bills and rent is exaggerated’. Left-wing publication the Canary went further, telling Yusuf: ‘Shut the fuck up, you oily, little nerd… You sound like a Star Trek android, and not the good one. We can tell you what poverty is, Zia, because most of us here at the Canary have experienced it.’ With prose like that, where to start!
What drives me mad is the way sections of the Russell Group-educated, comfortably insulated liberal class attempt to will absolute poverty into existence through definitional gymnastics. By leaning on concepts like ‘relative poverty’, they construct a permanent moral emergency in a country whose median income is high by global standards. A statistical threshold becomes a humanitarian catastrophe. It’s Dickens reborn.
My maternal grandmother is 89. She grew up in a two-up, two-down in Chadderton, Lancashire, with six siblings. The second bedroom was uninhabitable because there was a hole in the roof. All seven children slept on a single mattress on the floor of their parents’ room. They had an outdoor toilet shared by multiple families and no hot water. My great-grandfather, scarred by the horrors of the Second World War, drank heavily.
We often joke that my grandma is addicted to salt. When she was a child, the only food she could reliably count on was bread with salt or bread with brown sauce. She chose the salt. It wasn’t a preference in the modern sense. It was about survival.
That isn’t a quaint family anecdote. It is a reminder of a childhood shaped by deprivation, in an era when poverty meant malnutrition, when minor infections turned fatal, and when children died from conditions that today are either eradicated or easily treated. When she tells the story, she does so without self-pity. Her life was not an anomaly. Whole communities lived like that.
Meanwhile, my paternal grandparents knew rural, colonial-era Ghana. It was a place without infrastructure, safety nets or reliable public services. When I speak to my 93-year-old grandfather about his childhood, he reminds me thatg while his and my late grandmother’s families sat in the upper tiers of Ghanaian society, related to political leaders and hereditary chieftains, pay was low, infrastructure poor, disease rife and opportunity so limited that emigrating to Britain in the late 1950s – despite the racism and loss of status he would have to face – was still worth it.
Both of my surviving grandparents grew up in what would plainly qualify as absolute poverty in both the historical British and present-day global sense. They raised my parents amid regular power cuts, meaning homework by candlelight and no central heating. Strikes at the docks meant staples like sugar were scarce. This was not Victorian England, it was the 1970s. When I ask my grandparents, despite the economic, political and social challenges Britain has endured since 2008, whether life is better now or when they were children, they answer without pause: ‘Today.’
Official income data for 2023 to 2024 shows that 21 per cent of people in the UK were in relative poverty after housing costs, and 18 per cent were in absolute low income after housing costs. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies explains, relative poverty will always exist in an unequal society because it is defined as income below 60 per cent of the contemporary median. Meanwhile, the UK’s material wealth is substantial by international standards. Latest estimates place UK GDP per capita at around $52,600 in 2024, consistent with high-income OECD economies, but similar to the 2008 figure.
According to the Health Survey for England, around 64 per cent of adults in England were overweight or living with obesity in 2022, 29 percent were obese specifically. Government statistics show that in the most deprived areas, 71.5 per cent of adults are overweight or obese and 35.9 per cent are obese. Clearly, Britain’s deprivation problem is causing ill health, but not malnutrition.
I spend time on the airwaves every week as a broadcaster. The arguments dominating phone-ins are not about war, famine, infant mortality or sanitation. They are about whether it is unfair to fine parents for taking their kids on holiday during term time; whether children should be allowed smart phones; whether people with anxiety or depression should be allowed to queue jump at Alton Towers; whether too many people are going to university. Those are not the debates of a country facing widespread malnourishment or systemic destitution.
If you want to understand ‘real’ poverty, travel to the Global South. Or, if you are lucky enough to have living grandparents, listen to some of their stories. You will hear about hunger that was constant, children who did not survive, and illnesses that killed because there was no healthcare. This is not to deny that hardship exists in the UK – it does, and in one of the richest countries on Earth, this is a significant failure. But we should be honest about scale. As Yusuf said, it exists in ‘very, very small pockets’.
When national debates centre on queue-jumping, smartphone usage and social media, it is a sign of how far we have come within a single lifetime. My grandparents’ Britain was poorer and harsher. Ours, for all its flaws, is markedly more prosperous. For that I am grateful. The reaction to Zia Yusuf’s comments, however, suggests that this sense of perspective is not widely shared by our political and media class.
Albie Amankona is a broadcaster and financial analyst, best known for his work on Channel 5, BBC, ITV and Times Radio. Follow him on X: @albieamankona.
Have you ever been trapped on a train carriage with someone watching TikToks from their phone without headphones? Or seated on a plane by a passenger blasting music? Or even stuck in a doctor’s office waiting room as a fellow patient broadcasts radio commentary on a sports stream?
If so, you’ve experienced what some call “bare beating”. This term refers to the act of playing music, videos, podcasts or other audio out loud in public without headphones – essentially treating shared space like a personal living room.
“This. Is. Rude. There just is no other way to slice it,” said Nick Leighton, an etiquette expert and host of the Were You Raised by Wolves? podcast.
“You’re imposing your choices on a captive audience. Nobody decided they wanted to listen to that YouTube video, and yet here we are all having to endure it without our consent.”
Jodi R.R. Smith, the president of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting, agreed, emphasising that bare beating is “unequivocally rude”.
“The presumption that everyone wants to listen to what you are listening to is simply unacceptable,” she said. “This is doubly so if others are unable to move away from you – at work, in an elevator, on public transportation, etc.”
In those tight quarters, what might even seem like low or moderate volume to you can feel disruptive to someone sitting inches away.
“Whether the distraction is visual, or noise related, when someone is intruding on another person’s public space, it’s not easy to look away and ignore,” said Diane Gottsman, the author of Modern Etiquette for a Better Life and founder of The Protocol School of Texas.
“Think of it this way: if a child was doing it in a public space, tight quarters or a restaurant, others would be annoyed and blame the parents for not adjusting the behaviour. When an adult does the same thing, it’s important for them to self adjust and be respectful of others in close proximity.”
Children might get grace for this behaviour because they aren’t as aware of social norms, but for adults who should know better, it’s simply rude. And depending on where you are, it might even be subject to legal penalties.
“Some people just aren’t mindful of how their behaviour affects others and simply have no idea how far phone speakers can carry sound,” Leighton said. “Spoiler alert: It’s way farther than you think.”
AleksandarGeorgiev via Getty Images
Indeed, “bare beaters” don’t necessarily have negative intent and are sometimes blissfully unaware.
“The reason people are doing this is because they are trying to pass the time or may not even realise their volume is offensive,” Gottsman said. “But when you’re sitting inches away from another person, even lower noises are amplified.”
There may even sometimes be understandable reasons for the behaviour. Someone with hearing difficulties may not realise how loud their device is, or they may be experiencing technical issues. Still, Gottsman said, unless it’s an emergency, the courteous move is to wait to listen to the audio when you’re in private.
“Of course, using earbuds and utilising captions is a reasonable option,” she added.
And while bare beating feels like a modern behaviour, it’s not entirely new.
“Forcing strangers to become your unwilling audience has been an issue that’s plagued humanity since the dawn of time,” Leighton said.
Smith pointed out that methods and norms have shifted over the decades.
“Back in the ’80s, being a DJ to those in your surrounding area was actually considered the norm,” she said.
“The person with the giant boombox would play it so that everyone nearby could enjoy the sound,” she said.
“But times change and nearly everyone has the ability to listen to what they like almost anywhere – so long as they are wearing headphones or earbuds.”
For those who flout modern etiquette rules by bare beating, sometimes all it takes is a gentle nudge.
Smith recalled a recent experience at an airport gate where a man was loudly streaming a soccer game on his phone as it was time to board.
“After a few minutes, I turned and asked him what he was watching,” she said. “He excitedly told me his favourite team was playing. I told him that I was having a hard time hearing the boarding announcements and asked if he could use earbuds. He gave his head a quick shake and looked around sheepishly.
“He had not realised how loud his phone was or how many people were giving him ‘the look.’ He apologised to me and the others around him as he put in his earbuds.”
Still, Gottsman emphasised that deciding whether to speak up is a judgment call.
“Is it rude to intrude on other people‘s personal space? The answer is yes,” she said. “But understand that we cannot determine another person‘s reaction, and if you can ignore it for a very short subway ride, it’s probably best to do so.”
Regardless of whether you choose to confront someone over this behaviour, the important thing is to avoid bare beating yourself. Remember: Just because you can press play doesn’t mean everyone else signed up to listen.
Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has been a massive failure. As a result, voters have started looking at the Green Party. In response, Labour have decided to knuckle down and offer policies which actually improve people’s —
— no —
— we’re just fucking with you.
They’ve gone with Yank-style attack ads:
Fuck sake so we are getting war on drugs from Labour, I thought they may be a bit more sane on this issue than that.
Harm reduction beats out criminalisation.
Experts on drug policy specifically state that poor underfunded execution of legislation/decriminalisation worsen drug… https://t.co/tFcPZiucgc
— JimmyTheGiant (@jimthegiant) February 21, 2026
Greens Vs the War on Drugs II
Labour is asking you to imagine what it must be like to live in a country where drugs are plentiful and easy to get hold of. The problem is we already live in a country where drugs are plentiful and easy to get hold of.
The War on Drugs was won by drugs.
There’s an obvious parallel to all this, and it’s the Prohibition Era in the United States. During that time, they made it illegal for citizens to drink alcohol. Did that stop people drinking?
No, of course not.
But it did give organised crime access to fast, easy cash, and this is precisely what’s happened here with drugs.
To be clear, the Greens aren’t saying you should be able to buy smack from a vending machine. They’re proposing a system in which drugs are treated seriously, but are available for people to partake of in a controlled fashion. Under Keir Starmer, you can buy crack from a guy called ‘Spez’ and OD under a motorway bridge.
Which sounds more grown up to you?
Oh, and if you think Starmer is the man who can finally end the War on Drugs, we’ve got bad news for you; you’re on drugs right now.
You are literally smoking crack.
You are off your head.
And speaking of people who are off their heads, please take a gander at this exchange involving Labour’s Mike Tapp:
That same conversation devolved into this, by the way:
Don’t think you’re on particularly solid ground here Mike, they are literally calling Labour the Paedo Party on the doorstops https://t.co/DStFbLeRz9
— Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb) February 22, 2026
Mike Tapp — the great defender of women. Here he is refusing to say a bad word about Epstein associate Donald Trump:
.@MikeTappTweets refuses to say that the US should not attack Denmark and Greenland.
Moments later he declares that sticking to international law is what we stand for as a country. pic.twitter.com/5JsmGSLEfQ
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) January 5, 2026
Oh, and let’s not forget this either:
2 years ago, when people were calling him boring, Keir Starmer impishly implied that he had tried drugs as a young man (“I had a good time”).
In 2020, he said he supported decriminalising cannabis.
But now? He wants police to crack down on smoking weed.
What a joke!
— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) March 28, 2023
How serious do you think Starmer is about preventing drug use when he’s openly admitted to enjoying drugs?
Bad VS Worse
As bad as Labour’s take is, it’s still not as bad as this:
This is full blown libel.
I hope Zack Polanski sues her. An AI-generated image that could be mistaken as a real image of Zack Polanski advocating for children to snort drugs, this is another level of libel. https://t.co/61HpH7fVYq
— ruva🌼 (@ruviexo) February 22, 2026
Earlier this year, we covered that Samantha Smith spoke out against deepfakes on X/Twitter. We agreed with her then and we still do, but it seems like Smith isn’t against all fakery — just that which impacts her personally.
Be prepared for more of this anyway.
Whether it’s the Labour Party or the reactionary right, there are forces in this country who are zealously opposed to anything getting better.
Featured image via Barold
The UK recently woke up to the fact that we’re facing a Student Loan crisis. The crisis is that interest on debt is so high most students will never pay their loan off, and will suffer a massive tax on their earnings as a result.
If you were wondering what Labour will do to fix this issue, the answer is…
*DRUM ROLL*
…sweet fuck all:
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is asked what she’s going to do about the scandal of student loans/debt.
Phillipson blames the Tories for the mess but explains the govt won’t be doing anything to sort it out. pic.twitter.com/TiH7DsmklO
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 22, 2026
Crisis
Trevor Phillips put the following to the education secretary:
What are you going to do to help the graduates stuck on the so-called Plan 2 loans, which came in in 2012, and which means that some of them… owe more than they’ve borrowed?
Honestly, you can just stop reading at this point, because the answer is ‘nothing‘.
Here’s how Phillipson responded:
Look, I recognise the challenges of the system that’s there. I would just point out, I gather the Tories have had something to say about this today.
Phillips quite obviously agrees with what the Tories have said, because he noted:
They’re going to do what sounds completely reasonable, which is not to punish people for getting a degree.
Phillipson hit back:
Which might sound a bit more reasonable if they hadn’t been the people that had introduced this system in the first place.
Blaming past governments is fine when you’re trying to get elected, but it has a limited shelf life when you’re in power.
If Phillipson said ‘the Tories caused this mess, but we’re going to fix it’, then fair enough; what she actually said was ‘the Tories caused this mess, and we’re going to ignore it and hope no one blames us‘.
In terms of actual solutions, Phillipson did say they plan to bring in “maintenance grants for less well-off students”. When asked if this Labour government will provide relief to graduates who’ve been stuck with “massively expensive loans” for 12-14 years, Phillipson said:
Look, I get the problem. I see the issue. In reality, as a government, you have to look at a question of priorities and what you can do and how fast you can do it… Given the shape of what we have in the public finances, this is really hard. But I do find it a bit rich that the people who design-
Good lord.
YOU.
ARE.
IN.
GOVERNMENT!
If you can’t come up with a solution, step down, because you’re clearly not up to the job.
Phillipson had a similar car crash on the BBC:
#bbclaurakk on student debt “This is not a tolerable situation, is it”
Phillipson “it is really difficult”
“you’ve made it harder”
“no”
Phillipson later admits the govt is freezing the thresholds & they don’t have any plans to help graduates but its all the Tories fault pic.twitter.com/N0MTxUMabJ
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 22, 2026
Student Loan tax
As HG wrote for the Canary on 18 February:
Martin Lewis has accused the Labour Party of turning student loans into a tax on young people.
At the Autumn budget, Labour froze the student loan repayment thresholds for Plan 2 loans at £29,385 from April 2026.
Lewis pointed out that this was either a targeted tax rise on young people, or a:
“retrospective rewriting of the terms of a private contract.”
HG added:
Rachel Reeves claimed the freeze was “fair and reasonable” – which is, of course, bullshit.
Mainly because rich kids who had the bank of mummy and daddy to pay their tuition fees up front are now exempt from this additional tax.
Essentially, if your parents are rich, you’ll earn a significant percentage more than your peers, even if you get paid the same. We could have flipped this and said ‘if your parents are poor you’ll earn less‘, but let’s face it — even moderately well off people can’t afford to pay their kids’ tuition fees up front.
As noted, this is not a new issue. Labour have had over a decade to prepare for this. It’s certainly the case that the 2019 Labour Manifesto was better than Starmer’s offering in that it set out to abolish future fees, but even Corbyn’s Labour didn’t have a plan for existing graduates.
A Labour problem
Every year, there are more and more people who are suffering this unfair tax.
And the more of us there are, the harder it will be for these coward politicians to ignore us.
Because I’m telling you now, I won’t be voting for any politician who plans to maintain a 9% tax on my salary.
Featured image via Trevor Phillips
Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease that has uniquely devastating effects on the people who have it and their loved ones.
Common symptoms include memory loss; struggling to plan, complete tasks or solve problems; feeling confused; experiencing new problems with speaking and writing; misplacing items; making poor judgment calls; social withdrawal; and more.
While those symptoms are ones we often hear about, they aren’t the only ones. There’s a symptom that many caregivers aren’t aware of and think is a result of “bad” caregiving: agitation.
“It’s critical to first appreciate that agitation is a symptom of brain changes caused by Alzheimer’s disease, not poor caregiving,” said Dr. Richard Stefanacci, the medical director of Inspira LIFE, a senior living program.
“The brain damage from Alzheimer’s makes people prone to agitation regardless of how loving caregivers are,” said Stefanacci, who also specialises in older populations and Alzheimer’s.
According to information the Alliance of Aging Research sent to HuffPost, “agitation” in this sense can present itself in a variety of ways: pacing, trying to leave, angry outbursts, profanity, hitting, mood swings, throwing items and more.
Caregivers may blame themselves, AAR continued, thinking it’s a result of their burnout, introducing a new routine or not being patient enough.
Dr. Nikhil Palekar, the director of the Stony Brook Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease at Stony Brook Medicine, said there’s a stigma when it comes to this specific symptom.
“Caregivers often feel they might be doing something wrong, which is causing their loved one with Alzheimer’s to react in an uncooperative, hostile or agitated manner, without realizing that agitation in Alzheimer’s is very common, with rates ranging from 56% in early stages to 68% in the moderate-severe stage of the disease,” he said.
How Alzheimer’s can cause agitation symptoms
Like with other Alzheimer’s symptoms, it all comes down to the brain.
“Alzheimer’s disease is the result of brain damage to areas of the brain that control emotions, decision-making and behavioral responses,” Stefanacci said.
“This neurological damage explains why people with Alzheimer’s may react strongly to situations that wouldn’t have bothered them before the disease progressed to this point.”
More specifically, we’re looking at neurotransmitters. “Alzheimer’s disease results in dysregulation and a decrease in three neurotransmitters (chemical messengers) in the brain – serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine – resulting in symptoms of agitation,” Palekar said. Keeping in mind that those neurotransmitters help with mood, motivation, energy, anxiety and more, this makes sense.
We also have to consider environmental factors. For example, the holiday season – or other high-commotion events – can exacerbate agitation and its causes.
“Large gatherings with unfamiliar faces, disrupted routines, unusual foods and changes to previously familiar environments can cause agitation in someone with Alzheimer’s, especially [in] later stages of the disease,” Stefanacci continued.
“Most critical is to make adjustments and accommodations to reduce the stress, such as maintaining routine and familiarity.”
There is hope for Alzheimer’s agitation
Whether you experience agitation from Alzheimer’s or love someone who does, know that hope is not lost. Below, doctors share tips and other helpful information that can help you manage this symptom together:
Create and maintain routines
Consistent daily schedules with meals, activities and bedtime are key, according to Stefanacci. When you do have to prepare your loved one for a change, he encourages doing it ahead of time if/when you can and trying to maintain other routines.
Avoid arguing when possible
If the person with Alzheimer’s has a harmless belief, Stefanacci recommended not arguing with them about it. Rather, he said to focus on the emotion behind what they’re saying and remember that you can’t reason with an Alzheimer’s-damaged brain.
Use calming approaches
While difficult at times, staying calm and helping the person with Alzheimer’s stay calm is important. Speak in a calm, reassuring voice, play familiar music they enjoy and reduce confusing noise, Stefanacci said.
Know that there are helpful treatments available
It’s easy to feel hopeless when someone has Alzheimer’s, and to think that small interventions won’t make a difference. That’s understandable – and thankfully not true.
“This symptom can be effectively treated with behavioural interventions as well as medication, which is FDA-approved for the treatment of agitation in Alzheimer’s disease,” Palekar said.
To get to that point, he recommended discussing any agitation-like symptoms with the patient’s medical provider.
Similar to the tips above, Palekar listed some specific, non-pharmacological interventions that can decrease agitation, too:
-
Maintaining a daily routine and structure
-
Reducing noise and clutter
-
Gentle touching
-
Soothing music
-
Reading
-
Walking (ideally outside in the sunlight)
-
Staying busy with distractions, like snacks, objects or fun activities
-
Avoiding stimulants, such as caffeine, late in the day.
Take care of yourself as a caregiver
Being a caregiver is hard work, to understate it. Stefanacci urges these individuals to seek support from other caregivers, support groups and counselling. He also mentioned giving yourself permission to simplify or skip holiday traditions that are simply too overwhelming.
In short, it’s “normal” for someone with Alzheimer’s to show agitation – and that’s on Alzheimer’s, not anything the caregiver has done.
As someone with Alzheimer’s or their loved one, know that you are not alone, and that people are available and want to support you.
As promoted by Carol Vorderman, StopReform.Vote have endorsed the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer in the Gorton & Denton by-election:
StopReformUK.vote backs the Green Party
StopReformUK.vote provide regular updates on who to vote for in local and national elections. As is clear from their name, their aim is to prevent Reform from winning seats. In aid of that, they promote the candidate with the best chance of winning.
Vorderman included the following message with her post:
BREAKING: The Official TACTICAL VOTE to beat Reform in Gorton and Denton is
HANNAH SPENCER…
GREEN PARTY
…This is based on accurate and recent polling in the constituency.
Our tactical voting website is StopReformUK.vote
Formerly branded as StopTheTories.voteWe annihilated the Tory party with tactical voting in 2024 general election and Reform is EASILY beatable with tactical voting too.
The Canary CEO Steve Topple wrote about StopTheTories.vote in relation to the 2023 local elections:
Currently, the larger parties – along with other groups – hold the following numbers of seats:
- Tories – 3,363
- Labour – 2,140
- Lib Dems – 1,221
- Independents – 954
- Green Party – 240
- Residents Associations – 112
So, it’s surely time to try and boot some of these Tories out. While Labour is no opposition in the national government, in some local areas their councillors do good work. Meanwhile, the Green Party will be hoping to build on its success in 2022. However, if your primary goal in these local elections is to remove your Tory councillors, then one website can direct you to who best to vote for to do that.
The above figures were the seats being contested in the 2023 local elections. The overall picture is currently as follows (ignoring parties with under 25 seats):
Clearly there has been a big shift away from the Tories. What people like Vorderman want to avoid is a shift towards Reform UK.
‘A very real threat’
In her post, Vorderman finished:
As it stands, there is a very real risk of Reform winning in this seat as the rest of the vote is largely split between Labour and Green. We are urging Labour, Lib Dem, and other party supporters who do not want a Reform MP, to lend their vote to the Green Party this time. We have carried out extensive research, and it points to this being our best chance of stopping a very real threat from Reform.
Please share to help spread the word!
You can sign up to receive “the latest tactical voting advice” from StopReformUK.vote here.
Featured image via StopReformUK.vote
Right-wing US commentator Tucker Carlson has claimed that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu threatened him and his family:
CARLSON: “Benjamin Netanyahu has personally threatened me and at least two members of my family.” pic.twitter.com/efk9il9Tmj
— Stew Peters (@realstewpeters) February 22, 2026
Carlson is an outspoken critic of the relationship between the US and Israel.
Tucker Carlson — Amalek
Carlson was speaking about trying to arrange a meeting with Netanyahu:
I really pushed hard for this meeting. And I called a lot of people who know him and who are in regular contact with him. In fact, I went to go see some of those people directly.
‘Please, can you help me get a sit down for five minutes with Benjamin Netanyahu?’
And I probably called or met with six, seven, eight, maybe more people on this question. People in official capacities, people in the Israeli government. I know a number of people in the Israeli government – people in Israel – a friend of mine in California who knows him. I mean, I really, really tried. And I did so for two reasons.
One, because there was a threat to my family. The Israeli government, and Netanyahu himself, tried to punish two members of my family. I won’t be more specific, but actually punished two members of my family. Because he, as he has said in public many times, believes in blood guilt, Amalek. You know, when someone commits a crime against you, you punish not just him, but his family, his bloodline.
The following video shows Netanyahu referencing ‘Amalek’:
If it was not obvious from the carpet bombing, use of white phosphorus and indiscriminate killing that the Zionist government of Israel have clear genocidal intentions, then the following reference to Palestinians as Amalek in @netanyahu‘s speech describing his plans for Gaza… pic.twitter.com/NHEWea6oHO
— Hamza A. Tzortzis (@HATzortzis) October 30, 2023
James Wright reported the following on this for the Canary in October 2024:
Another striking example of genocidal intent was Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself stating in November “you must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember”.
This is a genocidal dog-whistle established on Israel’s far right. The Old Testament reads: “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys”.
Carlson has also said the following about Netanyahu and his influence over the US:
Tucker Carlson blasted US leaders for letting Israel dictate American policy, saying Netanyahu brags about controlling Trump and the US, and called it humiliating that Americans are being forced into harmful decisions for another country.
Carlson said the “humiliation ritual” pic.twitter.com/Acjq2IDtXF
— Irlandarra (@aldamu_jo) October 4, 2025
Featured image via WEF (Flickr) / Gage Skidmore (Wikimedia)
Politics
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and CNN’s Clarissa Ward on the state of the war | The Conversation
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and CNN’s Clarissa Ward on the state of the war | The Conversation
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BRUNSWICK, Maine — The fireplace crackled as Democratic Gov. Janet Mills laid out her vision for beating Susan Collins to a room of supporters in late January. Then came the questions about her primary opponent, Graham Platner.
Platner, one attendee noted, was very successful on social media. A second pointed to his support among young people and asked Mills whether she would support him if he became the party’s nominee.
“I am a Democrat,” Mills answered, before pivoting to how she sought as governor to make the state more affordable for young Mainers.
Mills’ Democratic primary opponent isn’t her favorite subject. She would rather talk about how she expanded Medicaid, bolstered protections for reproductive rights, and, most recently, challenged President Donald Trump over the surge of immigration enforcement in the state — issues that conveniently allow the governor to draw contrast with Collins, the five-term Republican who Democrats must unseat in order to take back control of the Senate.
But Platner, a political newcomer, has made himself all but unavoidable in conversations about the Maine Senate race. The 41-year-old oyster farmer and combat veteran is unlike any other recent popular candidate the state has seen: He is brash. He is progressive. He has drawn crowds of hundreds of people, national attention and millions in campaign dollars.
Platner’s meteoric rise reflects a growing frustration with the Democratic establishment and voters’ interest in a new generation of leaders. He is campaigning not just against Collins but against a “billionaire class,” running a campaign in the style of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who endorsed him.
His battle with Mills comes at a moment when the stakes for Democrats could hardly be higher. Though the Maine Democratic Party doesn’t take positions in primaries, some establishment figures like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have backed the moderate governor, who they believe is their best shot at defeating Collins to win back the Senate in 2026.
The challenge for Platner is that he is running on a vision of disruptive progressivism and generational change in Maine, the oldest state in the nation and one with a long track record electing senators perceived as moderates within their parties. Mills would largely fit that image; Platner would blow it up entirely. But he is betting that voters now want what he is offering — and his early support makes it hard to ignore the possibility.
“If you look at everyone from Bill Cohen to Angus King to George Mitchell to Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, there’s a strong, moderate streak there when it hits November,” said Adam Cote, a Maine lawyer and veteran who ran for governor in 2018, coming in second to Mills in the Democratic primary. “In the primary, I don’t know.”
While public polling in the race has been relatively scarce, an internal poll released by Platner’s campaign last month had him up by double digits over Mills. He has 283,000 followers on Instagram compared to 61,000 for Mills and 25,000 for Collins. His campaign boasts of a 15,000-person strong volunteer network. Through the end of December, he raised $7.8 million to $2.7 million for Mills, enough to begin running TV ads more than four months in advance of the June primary.
“My wife makes this joke. I’ve been just saying the same bullshit for years, ranting on about structural inequality, ranting on about, like, American history and how we need to reconnect with things. Nobody cared about me because I was a random dude in Sullivan, Maine,” Platner said in an interview. “I’m now running for United States Senate, and I get to have this conversation at a national level.”
Both in style and substance, Platner is unlike any candidate who has risen to the highest levels of Maine politics in recent decades. Even before he faced a litany of controversies in the fall — including a series of offensive old Reddit posts for which he apologized and a tattoo of a Nazi symbol that he had covered up — the Sullivan oysterman was building an operation different from any Maine Democrat.
Platner does not like the label of progressive, but where he differs with Mills on policy, his positions are largely to her left. He has backed progressive priorities like Medicare for All, described Israel’s military actions in Gaza as a genocide, and favors abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Asked whether progressives can win in Maine, Platner pointed to polling showing Sanders’ popularity despite his finishing narrowly behind Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential primary.
Although more progressive state lawmakers have been elected from southern Maine over the past few election cycles, further-left candidates finished far behind the more moderate ones in statewide primaries for governor in 2018 and Senate in 2020.
“There’s a reason why [Rep. Chellie] Pingree never ran for governor,” said Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine. “She recognizes it would be very difficult for someone that’s as far to the left as she is to win statewide in Maine. And when we look at the Democrats who do win statewide, they look like Janet Mills.”
Some of Platner’s appeal may come less from his specific progressive stances than from his ability to capture the energy of Democratic voters upset about the state of the country — and at their own party for not doing enough to stand up to it. Trump’s second term led even people who were not previously politically active to show up for protests, with many aligned with Platner’s style of economic populism, said Andy O’Brien, a Maine writer and activist supporting Platner.
“The Trump administration has just been so extreme that I think it’s really radicalized average, ‘normie’ voters,” O’Brien said.
In an interview, Platner recalled going to a local Democratic party meeting in early 2025 and coming away frustrated that attendees were talking about bylaws, not Trump. In his view, there was pent up grassroots energy to fight the administration — shown, for example, by large No Kings protests in the state — but few organized outlets to turn it into action.
His campaign proved one outlet for that energy. Following a surge in ICE activity in Maine in January, Platner led a protest at Collins’ offices in Portland and Bangor, calling on the senator to cut funding to the agency. Dozens of supporters showed up in single-degree temperatures.
“I’m a supporter of Graham Platner because we need a U.S. senator to represent Maine who will be honest with us, who will be truthful with us, and will work for us,” said Laura Neal, a Bar Harbor resident who attended the protest with a sign reading “My Cat Hates ICE.”
Like many Platner backers, Neal doesn’t dislike Mills, but thinks it is time to move on. “I think Governor Mills has done a great job, and it’s time for new energy,” she said.
In much of the national conversation about the Maine Senate race, Mills has been the less talked about candidate. It’s an odd position for a well-vetted two-term governor.
Her diagnosis for why Maine Democrats have not been able to knock off Collins is straightforward: Past nominees have been “untested.” The GOP senator has never had to face a Democrat who has won statewide before. If Collins has won in part because of her deep history in the state, Mills matches her.
“Each of us probably knows everybody in Maine, one way or other,” Mills said in an interview.
Mills started as district attorney in rural, more conservative western Maine before being elected to the state legislature, then served as attorney general for much of Republican Paul LePage’s tenure as governor, frequently clashing with him. In 2018, she became the first gubernatorial candidate in Maine in 20 years to win the general election with at least 50 percent of the vote, as well as the state’s first female governor. Four years later, when LePage attempted a comeback, she beat him by 13 percentage points.
Governing with a Democratic trifecta, Mills expanded Medicaid and enacted a string of other priorities, including free community college, universal school meals and expanded abortion access following the Dobbs decision.
Since Trump’s return to office, Mills has faced off with him several times. In a White House confrontation last year, the president threatened to withhold funding from Maine over the state’s continued allowance of transgender participation in youth sports, Mills fired back: “See you in court.” The Trump administration paused certain agriculture department funding to Maine; the state sued and the money was restored.
The episode provided a theme that underlies the governor’s Senate campaign: Collins has not stood up to the president, but Mills will. Her latest TV ad describes her as “the one who took on Donald Trump and won.”
“Susan Collins is formidable,” said Trish Riley, a retired health policy expert who hosted Mills in her Brunswick home last month. “And the only person who can beat a formidable candidate is another formidable candidate, and that’s Janet.”
Mills’ tenure as governor has not been free from conflict with other Democrats. She at times disagreed with progressives in the legislature, issuing more than 50 vetoes, with the most prominent conflicts around labor and tribal sovereignty. That created openings for Platner to hit her record from the left, and his prominent endorsers have included several labor unions.
The bigger challenge for her in the primary may be the support from national Democrats like Schumer. Sara Gideon’s 2020 loss to Collins, despite strong national Democratic support which helped her far outspend the Republican, led to a sense in the state that the national Democratic actors did not use money wisely and did not understand Maine. For some, that distrust has only compounded since Trump returned to office.
“There’s a reaction among a lot of Democrats to what they see as the weakness of the establishment leaders in Washington,” said Amy Fried, a retired political science professor from the University of Maine and longtime Collins critic. “The fact that Chuck Schumer is the one who recruited Mills — maybe she would have run anyway, but he’s definitely associated with her. And then you have a lot of people who are on the Left who are really unhappy with what Democratic leadership has done when it comes to pushing back on Trump.”
Mills maintains that she made no promises to Schumer, and the decision to run was hers. She bristles at the idea that she would be considered part of the political establishment.
“I got elected to the legislature, not because somebody said, ‘You should be anointed to his job.’ I worked for it, I ran for it, and I won,” she said in an interview. “When I ran for district attorney, I defeated three guys for the primary, and then another guy for the general. Nobody ever gave it to me on a silver platter. Again, when I ran for governor: Seven-way primary. And I won. I’m used to that. Bring it on.”
Republicans have been gleeful at the prospect of a grueling primary.
“Maine Democrats are in a race of extreme vs more extreme — the only question is which of their candidates will run farther to the left to claim victory in this messy primary,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Kristen Cianci said in a statement.
Whoever prevails in June will have to take on the electorally resilient Collins. If Democrats fail to knock off the GOP senator, there will be recriminations from whichever side loses the primary that their candidate would have been able to defeat her.
Most supporters of Platner and Mills say they would back the eventual Democratic nominee regardless, with defeating Collins the most important priority. But a nasty primary could still risk alienating some voters, when every vote will count in November.
“The differences are really pretty big between the two candidates, and I think it’s probably going to get strongly oppositional towards the end,” said Cote, the former gubernatorial candidate. “And how the victor is going to unite the party afterwards is going to be a huge challenge.”
The post ‘If we can win here, we can win anywhere’ appeared first on spiked.
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