September 9, 2025

Garrett Hague & Megan Lebowitz of NBC News: “... Donald Trump declined to discuss the letter to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that House Democrats released on Monday, calling it a 'dead issue.'” MB: Wait a minute. How can something that Trump still says is worth $10BB be a “dead issue”? Trump “filed a $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal for earlier reporting on his link to the letter.” Yesterday, Karoline Leavitt wrote on X, “President Trump’s legal team will continue to aggressively pursue litigation.”

Lauren Gurley of the Washington Post: “Job growth the year ending in March was far weaker than previously reported by the federal government, in a warning sign that the labor market had soured more than expected under President Joe Biden and the first few months of ... Donald Trump’s term. U.S. employers created 911,000 fewer jobs from April 2024 through March 2025 than initial reports showed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the biggest initial revision to federal jobs data on record going back to 2000. The figures are preliminary and will be finalized early next year.... The revisions are part of a routine annual process, in which monthly jobs figures based on surveys of businesses are adjusted based on more comprehensive statistics from state unemployment office records.” The AP story is here. 

Jesse Drucker of the New York Times: “The Trump administration is quietly dismantling efforts by the Internal Revenue Service to shut down a slew of aggressive tax shelters used by America’s biggest multinational companies and wealthiest people. The administration, bowing to pressure from industry groups, right-wing activists and congressional Republicans, is quickly rolling back several I.R.S. law enforcement efforts, including one aimed at a lucrative tax shelter used by companies like Occidental Petroleum and AT&T. The I.R.S. crackdown was projected to raise more than $100 billion over 10 years. In April, the I.R.S. said it would rescind Biden administration rules that had required companies using such tax strategies to report them to the agency, a change making it more difficult for auditors to find the transactions. The agency also eased a pair of rules that target abusive shelters, including one that imposes penalties on wealthy Americans who used an insurance tax scheme that multiple courts have tossed out.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So that's $100BB more ordinary taxpayers will have to shell out. (More, if we don't pay our bills on time and have to borrow. But thank goodness, rich people & big corporations are spared.)

Patrick Marley of the Washington Post: “A Michigan judge threw out charges Tuesday against Republicans who claimed to be presidential electors for Donald Trump in a state he lost in the 2020 election.... A month after Trump lost the 2020 race, his supporters gathered in Michigan and other swing states and signed documents claiming they were the state’s presidential electors. That paperwork was forwarded to the National Archives and used to argue Congress should certify Trump as the winner or withhold certification while the results were reviewed. Those claims fueled the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.... At a hearing Tuesday, Ingham County Judge Kristen Simmons determined prosecutors had not shown that the Republicans had intended to defraud anyone and dismissed the cases. 'I don’t believe there’s evidence to prove intent,' she said from the bench.”

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~~~ Michael Gold of the New York Times: “A key congressional committee on Monday obtained a note and sexually suggestive drawing apparently signed by Donald J. Trump and included in a book for the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday in 2003 — a drawing that Mr. Trump has insisted is fake. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee ... posted a photo of it on their official social media account.... Representative Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a statement[,] It’s time for the president to tell us the truth about what he knew and release all the Epstein files.' White House officials denied that the image was created by the president.... But several pieces of personal correspondence reviewed by The New York Times that Mr. Trump signed with just his first name decades ago, closer to the time period of the birthday book, look remarkably similar to the signature on the drawing, with more distinct individual letters and a long tail of ink at the end of the final 'd' in “Donald.” (Also linked yesterday.) The AP report is here. ~~~

~~~ Russ Buettner & Lazaro Gamio of the New York Times dedicate a story to comparing Trump's signature on his birthday greeting to Epstein & on other documents. Here's one graphic they published:

 

     ~~~ Marie: Do you suppose that back in 2003 somebody made this line drawing, wrote this note, expertly forged Donald Trump's signature/pubic-hair-graphic and sent it off to Ghislaine Maxwell for her to bind into a birthday book for Epstein? This was a period when Trump was just an obnoxious tabloid figure and failed real estate mogul and before he got a fake remake on "The Apprentice." Obviously, Trump and his staff are lying about this note being a fake. And if Trump is lying about this -- which he is -- what other aspects of his relationship with Epstein is he lying about? I'd guess "All of it."  ~~~

     ~~~ Matthew Goldstein, et al., of the New York Times: “The 238-page [Epstein birthday] book, littered with candid photos, drawings and collages, was released on Monday by the House Oversight Committee among the documents turned over by Mr. Epstein’s estate after being subpoenaed by the committee. It offers a vivid portrait of how Mr. Epstein’s lewd and lecherous behavior with young women was both widely known and widely celebrated by people who described themselves as his closest friends and associates. After an introduction by Ms. Maxwell, the book opens innocently with Mr. Epstein’s birth certificate and a letter from his mother, who wrote about his bar mitzvah and his being named one of Cosmopolitan magazine’s most eligible bachelors at the age of 27. There are report cards from his grade school and photos from his childhood. But as the book continues, the submissions become crude and dark, containing numerous references to Mr. Epstein’s sexual conquests and female genitalia.” Politico's story is here. The ABC News report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ You can see/read the book here, via this House Oversight Committee page. (It's the first of four pdf docs linked on the page.) MB: I found the easiest way to access the book was to download it, but I didn't take the time to actually look at the entries. Maybe if I accidentally poison myself and need an emetic, I'll read the download. ~~~

~~~ Connect the Dots. There's a direct line between Trump's partying/friendship with a serial sex abuser and his expressed belief that domestic violence shouldn't be a crime. ~~~

~~~ Trump Says Domestic Violence Isn't Serious -- at the Museum of the Bible. Really. Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: Donald “Trump suggested on Monday that offenses that 'take place in the home' should not count against his record of crime reduction in Washington.... During remarks at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, Mr. Trump made a series of false statements about the level of crime in the nation’s capital.... The president claimed without evidence that there was now zero crime in Washington. While crime is, in fact, declining in the capital — and Washington’s mayor has credited the federal law enforcement surge with contributing to the decline — there are still robberies, assaults and thefts occurring on a daily basis. On Sunday alone, there was a homicide, six motor vehicle thefts, two assaults with a deadly weapon, four robberies and more than 30 thefts, according to police statistics....

“While Mr. Trump has made such false claims before, on Monday he sounded particularly aggrieved that domestic violence crimes were counting against him. 'Things that take place in the home they call crime,' he said. 'They’ll do anything they can to find something. If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime scene.' Those comments provoked quick criticism. 'Just a casual dismissal of domestic violence as a crime,' Sarah Longwell, a longtime Republican political strategist, wrote on social media.” The ABC News story is here. ~~~

~~~ Connect the Dots. There's a direct line between Trump's expressed belief that domestic violence shouldn't count as a crime and his treatment of E. Jean Carroll -- the original assault AND the more recent incidents of defamation.  ~~~

~~~ Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: “A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a $83.3 million jury award against ... [Donald] Trump for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019, after she accused him of a decades-old rape in a Manhattan department store — an attack for which he was separately found liable of sexual abuse. The court also rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that the Supreme Court’s decision last year affording presidential immunity for official acts barred a finding of liability in Ms. Carroll’s lawsuit. The unsigned ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan was unanimous. The president had assailed Ms. Carroll after she accused him of the assault, continuing his verbal attacks on her on social media, at news conferences and even during the trial, during which Ms. Carroll’s lawyers had urged the jury to impose a large award in order to stop him.”

Marie: Mike Johnson is backpedaling as fast as he can. Last week he told reporters that Trump "was an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down," the "stuff" being Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse and trafficking of young girls. Sunday his office released a statement that read, in part: 'The Speaker is reiterating what the victims’ attorney said, which is that Donald Trump — who kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago — was the only one more than a decade ago willing to help prosecutors expose Epstein for being a disgusting child predator.'...” WashPo story linked yesterday. Now, we have this update: ~~~

     ~~~ Meredith Hill of Politico: “Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday revised his claim last week that ... Donald Trump was an 'FBI informant' in the Jeffrey Epstein case, telling reporters that he possibly didn’t use the 'right terminology.' 'What I was referring to in that long conversation was what the victims’ attorney said more than a decade ago,' Johnson said, adding that Trump 'kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago' and was generally helpful in law enforcement investigations of the convicted sex offender.” Okay then. (Also linked yesterday.)

Calling Doctor Trump. Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: Donald “Trump posted a video to his social media platform on Monday asserting that vaccines were linked to autism, an argument he has been making — despite scientific evidence to the contrary — for nearly 20 years. The video, which appears to be old, features Dr. Mark Geier and his son David, who together published numerous studies purporting to show a link between vaccines and autism. David Geier was accused in 2012 of practicing medicine without a license alongside his father in Maryland. He has been installed in the federal government by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, to work on a study on the causes of autism, expected to be released this month.”

Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump praised the alumni association at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Monday for 'smartly' canceling an awards ceremony for Tom Hanks, an actor and advocate for veterans. 'Important move!' Trump wrote on social media. 'We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our cherished American Awards!!!' Trump posted two days after The Washington Post reported that the ceremony was nixed. The West Point Association of Graduates had been set to honor Hanks on Sept. 25 with the Sylvanus Thayer Award, which recognizes an 'outstanding citizen' who did not attend West Point and embodies the academy’s ideals of 'duty, honor, country.'” MB: Right. Because we wouldn't want to honor anyone who doesn't agree that soldiers are "suckers" and "losers."

The road to fascism is paved with bad intentions. One of the biggest paving stones is coming out of the inaptly named Department of Justice. ~~~ 

~~~ Devlin Barrett & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: “The Justice Department is compiling the largest set of national voter roll data it has ever collected, buttressing an effort by ... [Donald] Trump and his supporters to try to prove long-running, unsubstantiated claims that droves of undocumented immigrants have voted illegally, according to people familiar with the matter. The effort to essentially establish a national voting database, involving more than 30 states, has elicited serious concerns among voting rights experts because it is led by allies of the president, who as recently as this January refused to acknowledge Joseph R. Biden Jr. fairly won the 2020 election. It has also raised worries that those same officials could use the data to revive lies of a stolen election, or try to discredit future election results.” ~~~

~~~ Heather Cox Richardson: “On Friday, September 5, Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell told Southern Baptist pastor and Newsmax host Tony Perkins that Trump may try to declare that 'there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States' in order to claim 'emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward,' overriding the Constitution’s clear designation that states alone have control over elections.... In August, Jim Saksa of Democracy Docket explained that through intimidation, harassment, and delays, troops could keep large numbers of voters from casting ballots.... [Monday] in Mother Jones, Ari Berman noted the administration has dismantled efforts to promote election security and is working to stack state elections boards with loyalists.” ~~~

~~~ Paul Krugman: "The Trump administration is obviously attempting to follow the familiar playbook by which autocracies consolidate their power, effectively turning America into a one-party state where almost everyone accepts that resistance to the regime is futile and is afraid to show any signs of opposition. And by and large America’s elites have offered no more resistance to authoritarian consolidation than a wet Kleenex. But historically, anti-democratic parties that establish lasting autocracies have done so with considerable initial support from the broader public. At least at first, they’re actually popular, especially because they deliver, or seem to deliver, major economic gains. That’s not happening for Trump, at all. And the big question — to which I don’t know the answer — is whether a regime that inherited a good economy but ruined it and whose non-economic policies are deeply unpopular can still consolidate autocratic rule." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So far, I'd say the answer is yes, so long as Trump retains control of the Congress, the Supremes remain supine, AND Trump controls election. 

Hamed Aleaziz & Julie Bosman of the New York Times: “The Trump administration said on Monday that it had begun a crackdown on illegal immigration in Chicago, though local officials and advocates for immigrants around the city said they had seen only a handful of arrests. The Department of Homeland Security issued a news release announcing the operation, which it called Operation Midway Blitz, and said it would target undocumented immigrants who had criminal records.... To some degree, local officials said, the actions so far in Chicago looked to have a typical pace of ICE arrests on a given day.... On a plaza downtown, faith leaders from around the city gathered to show solidarity with immigrant communities and to decry the Trump administration’s announced deployment of ICE agents.... Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, said on Monday that his office had received no formal communication from the Trump administration.” A CBS News Chicago story is here.

Thune Goes Nuclear. Michael Gold of the New York Times: “Republicans took the first step on Monday toward changing the Senate’s rules to speed the confirmations of Trump administration nominees being slowed by Democratic opposition, touching off the latest in a yearslong tit for tat between the two parties that has weakened the filibuster. The move is a response to Democrats’ refusal to allow ... [Donald] Trump’s nominees to be considered.... But its consequences will reach beyond Mr. Trump’s tenure, effectively whittling down the ability of the minority to register any opposition to executive branch nominees below the cabinet level. Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader, made the first move on Monday by introducing a resolution that would group 48 of Mr. Trump’s nominees together to allow them to be considered and voted on as a group. That will queue up a complex series of floor votes this week and next that, if successful, would create new Senate precedents meant to help Republicans clear a growing backlog of nominees.”

Kadia Goba, et al., of the Washington Post: “Democrats named the members of their caucus to serve on a new subcommittee reinvestigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — a Republican-led probe that threatens to reignite tensions over one of the most divisive events in American political history. Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) announced Monday that Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-California), Jared Moskowitz (D-Florida) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) will participate in the eight-member committee and Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) will serve as an ex officio member. 'Donald Trump and House Republicans are now determined to whitewash that day that will always live in infamy,' Jeffries said in a statement. 'House Democrats will not let it happen....'”

⭐The Supremes Were on a Trump Roll Yesterday: 

(1) Court Endorses Racial Profiling: Adios, Amigos -- You Just Look “Illegal.” Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: “A divided Supreme Court on Monday lifted a ruling by a lower-court judge who placed limits on immigration raids in the Los Angeles area after finding federal agents were indiscriminately targeting people based on race and other factors. The justices sided with the Trump administration, which argued that a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge in California was hampering its ability to crack down on illegal migration and that the stops by authorities were not unlawful. The majority did not offer a rationale for the decision, which is common in cases decided on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion that illegal immigration is a major issue in the Los Angeles area. He opined that race can be considered along with other factors in forming reasonable suspicion to stop someone for an immigration check, such as where people are gathering and what jobs they are working.

“The court’s three liberal justices sharply dissented. 'We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job,' Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the dissent. 'Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.'” MB: Pappy John & His Band of Whistlin' Minstrels are carryin' us on back to the glory days of the Taney court and Dred Scott. (Also linked yesterday.) 

     ~~~ Charlie Savage of the New York Times explains the ruling, which puts a giant asterisk on the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable search & seizure. Now, IMO, if a law enforcement officer happens to see you and reckons you "look like" someone s/he thinks might possibly maybe perhaps have done something unlawful, s/he can detain you. This shadow-docket decision affects all of us, not just those who "look like immigrants."

(2) Josh Gerstein of Politico: “Chief Justice John Roberts is allowing ... Donald Trump to put a Joe Biden-appointed member of the Federal Trade Commission out of her post while the Supreme Court considers a longer-term resolution of the legal battle over her firing. Roberts issued a one-page administrative stay Monday that temporarily set aside a federal appeals court’s ruling last week reinstating FTC member Rebecca Slaughter to her position.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to allow it to freeze billions of dollars in foreign aid, potentially setting up the biggest test yet of the president’s bid to assert sweeping authority over federal spending. The emergency filing in the rapidly moving case comes after a federal appeals court upheld a preliminary injunction requiring Trump officials to spend the money for food, medicine and development assistance before it begins to expire at the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.Since beginning his second term in January..., Donald Trump has claimed broad powers to refuse to spend congressionally allocated money for transportation projects, health research, education, 'sanctuary cities' and more, saying the spending was wasteful or not aligned with the administration’s values.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Allison McCann of the New York Times: “...  a growing number of county jails and other local facilities ... now house a sizable chunk of ICE detainees, many of whom have never been charged with a crime. The agency’s use of these facilities has more than doubled since ... [Donald] Trump took office, and jails held about 10 percent of all detainees, or 7,100 people, on average, each day in July.... Many sheriffs are eager to assist in Mr. Trump’s mass deportation plans — and to shore up their budgets — by offering up their beds.... Legal groups and immigrant advocates say local jails are ill-equipped to house immigrants, whose needs for legal, language and medical services are often different from those of other inmates. Inspections at some local facilities have turned up violations of ICE standards....” (Also linked yesterday.)

If you often wonder, "How can American voters be so stupid?", here's a good part of your answer: ~~~ 

~~~⭐Is Our Children Learning? Nope. Dana Goldstein of the New York Times: “The reading skills of American high school seniors are the worst they have been in three decades, according to new federal testing data, a worrying sign for teenagers as they face an uncertain job market and information landscape challenged by A.I. In math, 12th graders had the lowest performance since 2005. The results, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, long regarded as the nation’s most reliable, gold-standard exam, showed that about a third of the 12th-graders who were tested last year did not have basic reading skills. It was a sign that, among other skills, may not be able to determine the purpose of a political speech. In math, nearly half of the test takers scored below the basic level, meaning they may not have mastered skills like using percentages to solve real-world problems.”

Annals of “Journalism,” Ha Ha Ha. Succession, the Final Season. Jim Rutenberg & Jonathan Mahler of the New York Times: “The Murdoch family’s epic, decades-long succession battle has reached a multibillion-dollar finale. Lachlan Murdoch has completed an agreement to secure control of his family’s sprawling media empire for decades to come, the family announced on Monday. The deal ensures that the empire’s various outlets, including Fox News, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, will remain conservative after his father Rupert’s death. It is valued at $3.3 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations. The deal comes months after Rupert and Lachlan’s audacious bid to unilaterally change the terms of the Murdoch family’s irrevocable trust and disenfranchise Lachlan’s oldest siblings, Prue, Liz and James. The bid initially failed in court, but ultimately brought the two sides to the negotiating table. 

“The agreement gives the 94-year-old Rupert, who built a single Australian newspaper into the world’s most powerful media empire, what he has long sought — to preserve what he has called the 'protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world' under the leadership of his chosen heir, Lachlan. Under the terms of the deal, Lachlan’s three oldest siblings will receive $1.1 billion each for all their shares in the empire, according to the person with knowledge of the negotiations. Those shares are currently held in the existing family trust, which will be dissolved.” The Guardian's story is here.

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North Carolina. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: A “video, captured by a security camera in Charlotte, N.C., shows a 23-year-old woman named Iryna Zarutska sitting on a light-rail train one night in late August.... Suddenly, a man sitting behind her stands up, gripping a knife in his raised right hand. Moments later, the police say, he stabbed and killed Ms. Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee, in what appeared to be a random and unprovoked attack. The police arrested Decarlos Brown Jr. soon after and charged him with first-degree murder. But the brutal killing did not capture widespread attention until the security footage was released on Friday, at which point it became an accelerant for conservative arguments about crime, race and the perceived failings of big-city justice systems and mainstream news outlets in the Trump era.

“The outrage over the Charlotte killing is a part of a pattern in which ... [Donald] Trump and his allies highlight horrific crimes to bolster their case that the country is plagued by 'American carnage,' as Mr. Trump put it in his first inaugural address, despite statistics that show crime is dropping. In Charlotte, overall crime was down by 8 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, according to the police, while violent crime was down by 25 percent.” The NBC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Jacob Wendler of Politico: “The president blamed her killing on policies by Democrats including former Gov. Roy Cooper, who is running for Senate in North Carolina in one of the most closely watched races of 2026. 'The blood of this innocent woman can literally be seen dripping from the killer’s knife, and now her blood is on the hands of the Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail, including Former Disgraced Governor and “Wannabe Senator” Roy Cooper,' Trump wrote.... In his social media post, the president reiterated his endorsement of former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley in the Senate race, writing that 'only Republicans will deliver' on crime and order for North Carolina. Whatley ... has seized on the attack to assail Cooper’s record on crime, falsely suggesting that a 2020 executive order signed by the former governor was responsible for the release of Decarlos Brown Jr., the suspect in Zarutska’s killing, from prison after a five-year sentence for robbery.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Every single time Trump rails against crime and people "born to be criminals," etc.,  reporters should ask him what should be done about men who are found guilty of the crimes he committed -- including violent crime like sexual assault. 

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France. Now What? Aurelien Breeden of the New York Times: “... in France this week ... the government lost a confidence vote in the National Assembly, the country’s lower house of Parliament, forcing the prime minister, François Bayrou, and his cabinet to resign. Mr. Bayrou, a centrist ally of [President Emmanuel] Macron, had unexpectedly called the vote last month. He hoped to force lawmakers’ hands as he tried to push through cost-cutting measures meant to address France’s ballooning debt. But his bid failed. The collapse of the government now leaves Mr. Macron with an assortment of imperfect, even unpalatable, options. Each holds its own challenge. The presidency is in many ways France’s most powerful political office. But prime ministers and their cabinets, who answer to the National Assembly, are formally in charge of domestic policy, including the budget.”