My Message to Trump and Fox…

Ben Meiselas and MeidasTouch Network Dec 5

By Ben Meiselas

You both started this week by attacking Meidas. It did not end well.

Donald: You went on an unhinged rant posting MeidasTouch interviews and then demanding that the GOP abolish the filibuster because of our reporting. You got so worked up over our reporting you then made 400 posts in an hour that showed how utterly deranged you are.

Rupert Murdoch and Fox: You spent hours of your programming this week attacking the reporting of Meidas Health, where Dr. Vin Gupta exposed Trump’s fake MRI doctor’s note and reported on Trump’s deteriorating physical and mental condition. Guess what? Now everyone is asking about Trump’s health and if he’s covering up Alzheimer’s like his dad had or some other degenerative cognitive condition.

In both cases, where Trump and Rupert attacked Meidas, it backfired. More people are paying attention to Trump’s failures and his pathetic behavior. Trump has never looked weaker. The regime is in chaos. Fox looks utterly lost, so it’s back to doing segments on Sydney Sweeney getting a “Mar-A-Lago makeover” or something like that.

The MeidasTouch Network is showing the power of the people versus the declining right-wing oligarchs. As we reach the end of the year, the regime and its benefactors are circling the drain while the people are taking back their power.

And Donald and Rupert, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. If you think the people rose up in 2025, watch what we will do in 2026. This is just the beginning. The peaceful protests will get bigger. The MeidasTouch Network will grow exponentially. The blue wave that’s coming will be unprecedented in its scope. We will put an end to the regime.

Thanks to all our subscribers to this Substack who have made the MeidasTouch Network the top news network in 2025 with more views and engagement than Fox and every other network.

If you haven’t subscribed yet, we need your help now more than ever, so please subscribe today and help us grow and expand. Your subscription makes all the difference in what the MeidasTouch Network does, and it will help us continue to beat Fox and Joe Rogan and all right-wing media.

Thanks everyone. Time to record my next video.

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‘It couldn’t come at a worse time’: Legislature strips casino mitigation funds amid municipal budget woes

 

New from CommonWealth Beacon SUIT HITS SJC: On Friday, the Supreme Judicial Court will be the first state high court in the nation to consider whether Meta’s platform designs, which Attorney General Andrea Campbell claims keep kids hooked on addictive online content, are shielded by a law protecting publishers from being sued over the content of their websites. Jennifer Smith has more.   OPINION: Oversight of special education is weakening, graduation requirements are loosening, and student performance has fallen to historic lows. The truth is that both liberals and conservatives are failing our children, and the “village” has eroded, meaning parents are being left to figure it out alone, writes parent, clergywoman, and education advocate Manikka Bowman.

‘It couldn’t come at a worse time’: Legislature strips casino mitigation funds amid municipal budget woes     December 5, 2025 By HALLIE CLAFLIN

For the second year in a row, the Legislature has directed gaming revenue used for mitigating the local impacts of casinos into its own coffers, leaving city and town leaders frustrated amid worsening municipal budget strains.

The move falls in line with the Legislature’s penny-pinching efforts to alleviate state budget pressures amid a host of federal funding claw backs nearly a year into the second Trump administration. Gateway Cities with budgets already nearing a breaking point will now lose out on funds they have used for nearly a decade for projects that address the adverse local impacts of casinos, such as increased crime, traffic, and regional gambling addiction.

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The Community Mitigation Fund (CMF), established in 2015 and used to award millions of dollars in grants to municipalities that host a casino or are next to a community that does, normally receives 6.5 percent of the annual revenues collected from a tax on casinos.

In the 2025 state budget, lawmakers allowed a temporary redirection of those gaming revenues – a move Gov. Maura Healey branded as a one-time maneuver to free up $100 million for state spending during a tight budget year. But the 2026 state budget saw the Legislature again redirect the funds to priorities like transportation, education, economic development, and tourism.

“Retrospectively, I think that's when we should have really voiced concern that they're touching the money at all,” Springfield’s chief development officer Tim Sheehan said in an interview. “From the Legislature's standpoint – we did it once and we didn't have any pushback, therefore, we're going to take it again.”

With funding for the CMF now stalled for two consecutive years, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission will use the small remainder of the funds – around $5 million – to award grants for fiscal year 2027. Those allocations will be significantly smaller than the ones in previous years, leaving the mitigation fund to run out of money unless funding is restored.

The gaming commission has awarded nearly $80 million in grants from the CMF to eligible municipalities and entities since 2015. In 2024, the total amount awarded was approximately $22 million. Eight Gateway Cities are eligible for the funding, including Everett, Chelsea, Revere, Malden, and Lynn, because of their proximity to the Encore Boston Harbor casino in Everett, as well as Springfield, Holyoke, and Chicopee, because of the MGM Springfield casino.

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More Context Municipal budgets at the breaking point (November 2025)  ‘No margin for error’: State economic check-in spotlights tricky balancing act (September 2025)

More from CommonWealth Beacon BEING GREEN: The MBTA will soon have enough equipment in place to roll out the first Green Line trolleys featuring on-board alerts about stalled vehicles or other obstacles on the tracks, more than 16 years after a fatal crash prompted federal regulators to recommend the system.  Chris Lisinski has more.  SENIORITIS: A bill that would prioritize high-performing and bilingual teachers over seniority during layoffs is hitting some early resistance. Senate Education Committee chair Jason Lewis questioned whether it could undermine traditional tenure protections. Sam Drysdale with the State House News Service has the details.  OPINION: The SJC, considering Andrea Campbell’s suit against Meta for its platform design, should not interpret the online publisher protection law Section 230 to be a catch-all, get-out-of-jail free card for Big Tech, write Megan Iorio, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center; Laura Edelson, assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University; and Yaël Eisenstat, policy director at Cybersecurity for Democracy.

What We're Reading ENVIRONMENT: The Federal Emergency Management Agency wants to buy flood-prone homes in Massachusetts, but some residents are reluctant to sell. (WBUR)  HOUSING: Boston landlords who rent to tenants through the federal Section 8 voucher program will only get 25 percent of their December payments from the Boston Housing Authority as the country continues to recover from the federal government shutdown. (GBH News)  CHILD CARE: An effort to simplify state aid for early child care costs is underway, with officials calling the current scale "complex" and "a lot for a family to understand.” (State House News Service – paywall)   COURTS: A federal judge in Boston dismissed a lawsuit filed by Harvard Business School graduate Yoav Segev accusing the university of antisemitic discrimination on Thursday. (The Boston Globe – paywall)   IMMIGRATION: As ICE agents continue to detain immigrants nationwide, many are applying for citizenship or opting to leave the country instead. The Immigrants’ Assistance Center is handling three times more citizenship applications than this time last year. (The New Bedford Light)

Published by MassINC

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