U.S. Government & governance September 2026-

Times/Siena Poll Data
U.S. Government & Governance – primaries, midterms & special elections 2026

Regime Change and Corruption with Anne Applebaum (video)
Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum
…a clarifying and thoughtful conversation with historian and journalist Anne Applebaum, built around her September 14 Atlantic article, MAGA Is Making the World Safe for Corruption.
What does it mean to say the United States is undergoing a genuine regime change, and what does that change look like when it is exported abroad?
Tim opened by asking whether the article was really describing regime change at home, with a state refreshed by elections and guided by some notion of national interest giving way to overlapping oligarchical and ideological clans. Anne described a coalition of actors who have never before controlled the federal government: those bent on destroying the administrative state, Christian nationalists, white supremacists, and tech and crypto oligarchs. While they have different agendas, they share one project, which she called a revolution.
…some high-level themes that emerged during the conversation:
Extraction as the organizing idea. Tim argued that these clans treat the U.S. as a zone of extraction, and that the same logic naturally extends to every other country. Anne agreed, noting that for oil, gas, mining, crypto, and tech interests, foreign states are simply obstacles: the EU as a regulator, Brazil as a government that might restrict a social media platform. Anne also pointed out that foreign policy is increasingly run by businessmen with personal ties to Trump rather than by diplomats bound by ethics rules.
Canada as a case study. Anne laid out a coordinated pattern when it comes to the U.S. government’s posture toward Canada: constant demeaning of Canadian sovereignty, MAGA influencers whose business model runs on outrage, open encouragement of Alberta separatism, and punitive tariffs that make little sense for Americans. She likened the two-track approach, normal diplomacy alongside support for movements that undermine a country’s sovereignty, to Bolshevik foreign policy. …

29 September
At White House, Trump Asks A.I. Titans to Police Themselves
President Trump’s meetings with tech leaders produced some voluntary safeguards and a commitment to rebrand artificial intelligence as “super intelligence,” the term that Mr. Trump prefers.
(NYT) President Trump summoned the world’s most powerful technology executives to the White House on Tuesday, and praised the assembled billionaires as “very brilliant” minds who wanted to make the world a better place through job creation, the construction of data centers and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence.
As president, Mr. Trump faces questions about whether A.I. should be regulated, and particularly whether restrictions should be put in place to protect humans from technology that has learned to outmaneuver existing safeguards.
But in the end, convening all of those billions and all of that brain power did not result in a commitment to formal regulation. Instead, they signed a voluntary agreement to adopt safety policies that include risk reviews, auditing and evaluations of systems by third parties. They also agreed to adopt Mr. Trump’s preferred rebranding of A.I.: “super intelligence.” …

Trump touts America.gov, but its government-sourced AI answers undercut many of his statements
(AP) — The Trump administration has lauded its revamped website America.gov as a way to simplify Americans’ access to information and services scattered across a plethora of agency sites, but President Donald Trump probably won’t like some of the answers his new site says are sourced from government information.
Asking the site — which says it’s sourced via artificial intelligence from “official government sources” — questions about who won the 2020 election or about the name of the federal department that operates out of the Pentagon yields answers contrary to those Trump himself frequently proclaims.
As Trump was still speaking at Tuesday’s launch event, however, the site began modifying its answers. Asked again about the 2020 election, it replied that it couldn’t answer “political questions,” a response it also gave to inquiries about whether Trump had been impeached or convicted of felony charges.

25-29 September
Dems eye extra leverage
(Axios newsletter) Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) is eyeing the year-end appropriations process to force Senate Republicans and the White House to accept new restrictions on the Office of Management and Budget’s use of “pocket rescissions.”
Why it matters: Congress needs to reach a bipartisan agreement to fund the government before Dec. 11, when a short-term stopgap expires.
Senate appropriators in both parties are furious over OMB’s Friday night notification that it will cancel $810 million that Congress and Trump agreed to spend in fiscal 2026.
For Democrats, OMB’s decision to use pocket rescissions for a second time was entirely predictable — and is fresh evidence that Congress needs to put clear guardrails around their use.
What they’re saying: “I have been saying throughout all of our appropriations process, throughout all the CR negotiations, we have to have language in there about rescissions,” Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters today.
“I have been told ‘no’ time and time again.”
Trump Proposes $810 Million in Education and Health Cuts, Defying Congress
The attempted clawback represents the second time in as many years that the White House has sought to cancel funding approved by lawmakers.
(NYT) The White House on Friday night informed Congress that it intended to cancel about $810 million that lawmakers had approved for education and health-related programs, its latest attempt to use a legally untested power to unilaterally rescind spending without the approval of lawmakers.
The 12-page notification, sent to lawmakers and viewed by The New York Times, builds on a $4.9 billion clawback of funds that lawmakers approved for foreign aid programs that the Trump administration set in motion last year.
Both times, the administration waited so late in the fiscal year to make the request that lawmakers would not have time to reject it before the funding expired.
The fiscal year ends on Sept. 30, before the 45-day period when Congress is required to consider a rescission request from the White House. Republicans could bring the matter to a vote sooner, but House lawmakers are set to be campaigning until the midterm elections in November.
The rescissions appear to target pots of funding that have the weakest constituencies on Capitol Hill, including $25 million of $52 million appropriated for migrant students.
They would also affect $27 million for health research under the Department of Health and Human Services.

6 September
Iran war likely to drag on for another six months, ex-US defense secretary warns
Leon Panetta tells Guardian US is risking ‘forever war’ and says Pentagon ‘turmoil’ sending message of weakness
… Panetta spoke to the Guardian days after the US army secretary, Dan Driscoll, abruptly resigned, departing amid the conflict, following reports of tensions with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, over a series of firings.
US service members “are going to war at a time when there’s tremendous turmoil at the Pentagon, in the command structure, which really creates a sense that there’s nobody in charge”, Panetta, who served as defense secretary from 2011 to 2013, added. “And I just think that, whether it’s Iran, or whether it’s our adversaries, they’re now looking at the United States, and see weakness in terms of our ability to be able to really implement our military capability of defending our country.”
He said: “My biggest concern right now is we live in a very dangerous world, with the primary threats coming from China, from Russia, from North Korea, and from terrorism, and yes, from Iran as well. But what I’m concerned about is that we’re sending a message of weakness to our primary adversaries.

4 September
Hegseth Has Turned the Army Into a Rudderless Ship
Adniral (Ret’d) James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of NATO, and vice chairman at Carlyle.
(Bloomberg) The sudden departure of Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll, following months of tension with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is a serious blow to American security. Worse, his resignation follows the forcing out of several top Army generals, including Chief of Staff Randy George, Vice Chief James Mingus and the highly regarded combat commander of US Army Europe, Chris Donahue.
The leadership of the US Army is being eviscerated right in the middle of a war with Iran.
… There was a troubling report this week that Christopher LaNeve, the vice chief, ordered an Army unit in Europe to stop specializing in drone warfare.
… Hegseth may have individual reasons for the departures of so many senior leaders across the services — he has also forced out the chief of naval operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, among many others. And he has sapped morale by denying the advancements of younger officers who had been selected for promotion to one-star admiral or general.
But this latest damage to a major department in the middle of combat operations is stunning. Clearly, Hegseth needs to nominate a stable team of new Army leaders, get them confirmed by Congress and give them steady support. He simply cannot try to run the massive department himself — that is too heavy a lift for a secretary of defense even in peacetime.
20 August
Army will shut down a unit in Europe focused on learning drone warfare

3 September
When a nightmare scenario becomes the most likely scenario
Things are now officially bad for Republicans. It’s just a matter of degree.
(Charlie Cook Politics) With 64 days before Election Day (although the first mail-in ballots will go out in a matter of days), Republicans should brace themselves: The three most plausible outcomes are that it will be bad, really bad, or truly horrible. Conversely, a Democrat should at least briefly consider that the good fortune they may have in November will come compliments of the president, not as a result of much that they have done.