Good morning and welcome to Raw America. We’ve got a lot to get through today, so let’s set the table. The Trump administration is moving forward with a plan that looks a lot like a permanent military occupation of Gaza. A neo-fascist congressional candidate in Texas is getting a war chest from some of the most dangerous money in American politics. Trump is dangling UFO files in front of the public, almost certainly to try to change the subject. And Kristi Noem may be eyeing the exit door at DHS before Democrats can show her to it. So let’s get into it.
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Trump’s Tariffs Ruled Illegal
The Supreme Court just voted 6-3 to strike down Donald Trump’s tariffs. At least, the way he’s been doing them. This is a developing story, so stay tuned.
The Gaza Occupation Nobody’s Calling an Occupation
On Thursday, President Trump held the inaugural meeting of the so-called Board of Peace, the international body ostensibly created to oversee the Gaza ceasefire. But leaked contracting documents obtained by sources in the press tell a very different story about what this organization is actually building.
The documents detail plans for a sprawling military base covering 350 acres in southern Gaza, with capacity for about 5,000 personnel. That base would serve as the headquarters for the International Stabilization Force, a military operation drawing troops from more than 20 countries that have signed onto the Board of Peace. Notably absent from that coalition? The United Kingdom, the European Union, France, Germany, and Spain. The EU’s foreign policy chief said directly at the Munich Security Conference last week that the Board of Peace’s plans don’t match the original UN mandate, which was supposed to be time-limited, was supposed to give Palestinians a say, and was supposed to be confined to Gaza. The Board of Peace’s own charter, she said, makes no reference to any of those things.
The base itself, as described in the leaked documents, includes 26 armored watchtowers, a network of bunkers, a small-arms range, and a barbed-wire perimeter. So much for peace, eh? The documents also describe plans for a geophysical survey of the site to identify tunnels and underground cavities, and they include a formal Human Remains Protocol, because approximately 10,000 Palestinian bodies are believed to be buried under rubble across Gaza.
Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian former peace negotiator, cut right to it: “Whose permission did they get to build that military base?” A Trump administration official denied U.S. troops would be stationed there and declined to discuss the leaked documents.
At the meeting Thursday, Trump said the so-called Board of Peace would “strengthen up the United Nations” and would “almost be looking over the United Nations.” He also said the U.S. would contribute $10 billion to the effort, which he gets to decide how to spend, with no explanation of where that money comes from or whether Congress has been consulted. The Constitution, by the way, requires any money appropriated to come out of Congress.
More than 75,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel’s bombardment began, and approximately 81 percent of structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed. The ceasefire has not stopped those attacks.
When an American president starts building fortified bases in a devastated foreign territory, without congressional authorization or international legitimacy, that’s not peace-keeping. That’s imperial muscle-flexing that erodes both global democracy and our own constitutional guardrails here at home.
The Neo-Fascist Running for Congress — With Billionaire Backing
In Texas’s 32nd congressional district, a nine-way Republican primary has produced a candidate named Jace Yarbrough who is doing something unusual: He’s saying the quiet part loud and getting rewarded for it.
At a candidate forum earlier this month, Yarbrough told the audience that critics might call his politics “bigoted and backward and oppressive and Nazi-ish,” and said he is “past trying to placate that in any way, shape or form.” He called for repealing the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, which ended race-based immigration quotas. That’s a longtime white nationalist policy demand that’s increasingly migrated into mainstream MAGA rhetoric. On Islam, he told the crowd that Muslim immigrants are “attempting to set up Sharia law” in the United States.
Now look at who’s funding him. Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire and Palantir founder, gave the maximum allowable contribution. So did Thomas Klingenstein, the chair of the Claremont Institute’s board, who has previously funded videos calling on conservatives to join a “cold civil war.” Charles Haywood, who has publicly mused about becoming a “warlord” (his word) leading an “armed patronage network” in open warfare with the federal government, also donated. In the past month, Haywood’s social media posts have called for an “authoritarian reset” of America, praised Francisco Franco, and declared that Trump’s people “cannot hand power back to the Left, ever.”
Yarbrough was subsequently endorsed by Donald Trump on Truth Social.
A sociology professor at the University of Oregon who studies fascism described Yarbrough as one of the most militant figures in the MAGA movement and said that if there is a neo-fascist political movement in the United States, Yarbrough is one of one of its chief would-be architects.
At the same forum, Yarbrough called January 6th a “peaceful protest” and lamented that participants went to prison for it. The 32nd district of Texas was redrawn to favor Republicans. Yarbrough’s donors aren’t backing a long shot. They’re investing in someone they expect to win.
When billionaires bankroll candidates who openly flirt with fascism and promise permanent minority rule, they’re not just buying a seat in Congress. They’re leveraging a campaign finance system warped by Citizens United to convert extreme wealth into political power, drowning out the voices of ordinary Americans, and turning representative democracy into an auction where the highest bidder doesn’t just influence policy, but reshapes the ordinary rules of who, and what counts in America.
UFOs, Distractions, and the Epstein Files
President Trump said Thursday that he would ask the Pentagon to release files on UFOs and extraterrestrials, responding to a viral interview with former President Obama in which Obama discussed what he knew about unidentified aerial phenomena. Trump said there’s “a lot of interesting things” out there and signaled he’d push for declassification.
Read the timing on this one carefully. The administration has stonewalled the release of the Epstein client files. War with Iran is looking increasingly possible, with sources now putting the odds of a strike in the next few weeks at around 90 percent. Dangling UFO files is a reliable and time-tested way to flood the zone. Don’t let it work.
Authoritarian politics thrives on spectacle and distraction. Always has. Because when the public is chasing flying saucers, they’re not watching the backroom deals, the varied scandals, and the march toward another endless war.
Kristi Noem Eyes the Exit
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem may be looking for a way out of the Trump Cabinet, and it’s not hard to understand why. Sources tell reporters that Noem is weighing a challenge to Senator Mike Rounds in South Dakota’s June Republican primary. The calculation is pretty straightforward: leaving on her own terms beats being pushed out or impeached.
More than 100 House Democrats have already expressed support for impeachment articles against Noem, citing obstruction of Congress, alleged self-dealing involving $220 million in contracts awarded to a firm connected to her spokesperson’s husband, and permitting ICE to violate the constitutional rights of detainees. She’s also facing backlash for attempting to label two U.S. citizens shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis as “domestic terrorists.”
People close to Rounds say he would win that race going away. An adviser to Noem dismissed the whole idea. But the fact that it’s being floated at all says everything about how badly her tenure at DHS has gone.
When the head of Homeland Security treats constitutional rights as optional, and accountability as a political inconvenience, it’s not just a Cabinet problem, but a flashing warning light that the rule of law itself is under siege.
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Stay with us. More Raw America ahead.
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Texas Republican Denies Having Affair with Staffer Who Died By Suicide. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) is denying rumors of having an affair with former staffer Regina-Ann Santos Aviles, who self-immolated last year. Gonzales is in a tight primary race against far-right YouTuber Brandon Herrera in the March 3 Texas Republican primary.
Stephen Colbert Platforms Former CBS Anchor Who Left in Response to Bari Weiss. Late-night comedian Stephen Colbert will co-host an upcoming episode of his show with former CBS star John Dickerson, who was replaced as the anchor of CBS Evening News by Tony Dokoupil. Dickerson will join Colbert on next Tuesday’s episode of The Late Show, which will air immediately after President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.
American-born Olympian Takes Jab at JD Vance. Skier Eileen Gu, who is representing China in the 2026 Winter Olympics, shrugged off criticism from Vice President JD Vance when he criticized her decision to not represent the United States. Gu, who has won two silver medals in Italy, said: “So many athletes compete for a different country … People only have a problem with me doing it because they kind of lump China into this monolithic entity, and they just hate China. So it’s not really about what they think it’s about.”
German Soccer Team Cancels Trip to Minneapolis Due to Trump’s Crackdown. Germany’s Werder Bremen, which is one of the founding teams of the Bundesliga, will no longer play an upcoming match in Minneapolis, citing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in Minnesota. Team spokesperson Christoph Pieper said: “Playing in a city where there’s unrest and people have been shot, that does not fit with our values here at Werder Bremen.”
