Wafaa Shurafa, et al., of the AP: “... Donald Trump on Friday ordered Israel to stop bombing the Gaza Strip after Hamas said it had accepted some elements of his plan to end the nearly two-year war and return all the remaining hostages taken in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Hamas said it was willing to release the hostages and hand over power to other Palestinians, but that other aspects of the plan require further consultations among Palestinians. Senior Hamas officials suggested there were still major disagreements that required further negotiations. There was no immediate response from Israel, which is largely shut down for the Jewish Sabbath, and Hamas’ response fell short of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demands that the group surrender and disarm. Israel had earlier accepted Trump’s plan in its entirety.”
I do believe Barbie Kristi Gnome has screwed up. Again: ~~~
~~~ Oops! Grace Ashford & Tyler Pager of the New York Times: “The Trump administration will restore $187 million in cuts it had made to law enforcement funding, which would have devastated New York’s intelligence and counterterrorism operations, following a bipartisan push to reinstate the funds. The cuts, which represented the largest federal defunding of police operations in New York in decades, were made by the Department of Homeland Security, without explanation and without the approval of ... [Donald] Trump, White House officials said. Indeed, [Mr.] Trump was blindsided by the decision to defund the police, not learning of the cuts until Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York called him on Sunday to protest the change after the fact.... The frantic effort to undo the rolling cuts made to the Homeland Security Grant Program, with the last $100 million slashed over the weekend, underscored the chaos unfolding as the Trump administration moves to punish political adversaries by stopping the flow of billions of dollars in federal funds that had already been allocated nationwide.”
Michael Stratford of Politico: “The Treasury Department is considering producing a one-dollar coin featuring ... Donald Trump to commemorate the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence next year, a spokesperson confirmed on Friday. The draft design of the coin, which was overseen by the Office of the U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach, features Trump’s profile on one side of the coin. The opposite side depicts Trump with a clenched fist in front of an American flag alongside the words 'FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT.'” Thanks to Ken W. for the link. MB: There is no way I would accept this coin as legal tender.
Ann Marimow of the New York Times: “The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for the Trump administration to lift protections for more than 300,000 Venezuelan immigrants who had been living in the United States without risk of deportation.... The three liberal justices noted their dissent, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sharply criticizing her colleagues for a 'grave misuse' of the emergency docket.,,, It was the second time in four months that the justices had agreed to allow the migrants to be deported. In an earlier iteration of the case, the justices in May agreed to temporarily block a judge’s order to retain the protections. That order was unsigned and gave no reasons. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. The case then returned to Judge Edward M. Chen of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California, who ruled for a second time last month in favor of the immigrants after reviewing a new claim and receiving additional evidence. Judge Chen said he was not bound by the Supreme Court’s order from May, noting it 'did not provide any specific analysis.'”
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: “The U.S. military killed four men aboard a boat in international waters near Venezuela, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Friday, in the first such strike since the Trump administration told Congress that the United States was engaged in a formal “armed conflict” with Latin American cartels. In his posting, Mr. Hegseth accused the four dead men of having been smuggling narcotics, without offering evidence. He also asserted that they were “affiliated” with one of the cartels and gangs that the Trump administration has designated as foreign terrorist organizations, but did not specify which. The strike was the fourth known attack by the U.S. military on boats in the Caribbean Sea dating back to Sept. 2.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I have no idea if those four men were bad guys, but I know that we are.
Paul Krugman: “Nixon, who was a piker by comparison to Donald Trump, was repudiated by his own party. Not only is Donald Trump a wannabe dictator, surely the worst person on multiple dimensions ever to occupy the White House, but he made his intentions clear in the January 6th insurrection and his promises of retribution if re-elected. But unlike Nixon, Trump is backed by a Republican party that has become so extreme, so unwilling to acknowledge that opposition is even legitimate that none of his actions matter. Today’s Republicans show no hesitation whatsoever in adopting the Führerprinzip, the leader principle', in which Trump’s diktats override all written law and democratic norms.... It’s the nature of Trump’s party, not his personal depravity, that is responsible for the decline of American democracy.... The threat to U.S. democracy is much bigger than Trump himself. And it won’t end when he leaves the scene.” This is Krugman, so naturally he provides some statistics to make his point. ~~~
~~~ Krugman's "essay of the day" yesterday was excellent, too. It begins, "If America still had a fully functioning democracy, Donald Trump’s speech Tuesday to the assembled generals would have ended his presidency. Trump treated the event like a political rally and was clearly taken aback by the refusal of the audience to applaud or laugh at his jokes. Delivering a nakedly partisan speech to a mandated assembly of military officers was a gross violation of the Hatch Act. The content — telling the officers to be ready to use force against U.S. citizens — was clearly an impeachable offense. In an earlier era, Trump’s incoherent ranting would have paved the way for his immediate removal from office under the 25th Amendment." And the essay only gets better from there.
~~~~~~~~~~
Zachary Basu of Axios Has No Illusions. Donald "Trump is seizing on the government shutdown as an 'unprecedented opportunity' to consolidate control in the Oval Office, accelerating a trend toward unchecked power.... Goading Democrats, Trump flaunted [OMB Director Russell] Vought's role in Project 2025 ('he of PROJECT 2025 Fame') — the hard-right blueprint for expanding executive power that Trump disavowed on the campaign trail after it became a political liability.... As Axios has documented, the shutdown is only one front in Trump's broader campaign of consolidation.... Government shutdown or not, Trump has spent his presidency methodically erasing the independence of institutions that once served as checks on executive power." ~~~
~~~ Jill Colvin of the AP: “... Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states. In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, 'Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.' he comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.”
New York Times liveblog on the federal government shutdown. From the pinned item at 5:00 am ET today: Donald “Trump on Thursday called the government shutdown an 'unprecedented opportunity' to enact sweeping cuts to agencies as part of a pressure campaign that halted billions of dollars in funds to Democrat-led states and used federal websites and workers to wage political attacks. Democrats showed little sign of budging from their demand for concessions on health care, including extending Obamacare subsidies and reversing cuts to Medicaid and other programs made at Mr. Trump’s direction. The Senate is due back on Friday, but lawmakers could go home for the weekend if Democrats again block the Republican plan. Mr. Trump redoubled his threat to use the shutdown to make lasting changes to the federal bureaucracy, with Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, saying on Thursday that job cuts were 'likely going to be in the thousands.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Margot Sanger-Katz & Alicia Parlapiano of the New York Times: Health insurance premium “subsidies, first passed in 2021 and extended in 2022, make health insurance less expensive for nearly all those who buy their own coverage. Since the subsidies’ creation, enrollment in Obamacare markets has more than doubled. Without them, premiums will increase for more than 20 million people next year, and an estimated two million people are expected to lose coverage. Extending the subsidies would cost the federal government around $23 billion next year and about $350 billion over the next decade, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. But, without them, many Americans will face much higher costs before the midterm elections next fall — in some cases, increases of more than a thousand dollars per month.” AND THAT is what Trump & Thune & Johnson & your very own GOP Congresscritter do not want you to know. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ AND NiskyGuy, at the top of today's Comments, explains why premiums also will rise for people who obtain their health insurance through avenues other than the ACA exchanges.
Government by Thuggery. Dan Mangan of CNBC: "The Trump administration has put on hold $2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought said in a social media post on Friday.... Vought in a post on X wrote, '$2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects--specifically the Red Line Extension and the Red and Purple Modernization Project--have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting.... More info to come soon from @USDOT,' Vought added, referring to the Department of Transportation." @8:00 am Friday, this was breaking news. It isn't clear whether Vought write his X post on Thursday (as indicated in one line of the report) or on Friday (as stated in the lede). But who cares?
Government by Thuggery. Brad Plumer & Maxine Joselow of the New York Times: “The Energy Department said on Wednesday night that it would cancel more than $7.5 billion in Biden-era awards for hundreds of energy projects, with the vast majority located in states led by Democrats. The move underscored how the Trump administration appeared to be using the government shutdown as a pretext to punish its political opponents.... [Donald] Trump said this week that if Democrats in Congress did not vote for a funding bill to keep the government open, he would 'do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them.' In its Wednesday announcement, the Energy Department did not specify which projects would see their funding terminated. But according to an agency document reviewed by The New York Times, the list of affected projects include major upgrades to electrical grids in California, Minnesota and Oregon; efforts to reduce methane leaks from oil and gas operations in Colorado; and large hubs to produce clean-burning hydrogen fuels in California and the Pacific Northwest.” (Also linked yesterday.)
JayDee thinks it's funny that the POTUS* is using your taxpayer-funded official White House Website to insult Mexicans, to belittle, mischaracterize & insult Congress's top two Democratic leaders, to falsify remarks supposedly made by the Senate leader, including inserting obscenities he does not use in public. ~~~
Natasha Korecki, et al., of NBC News: “Education Department employees furloughed this week discovered their email accounts had been manipulated while they were out of office to include partisan talking points that blamed the government shutdown on Democrats. Five employees ... said the wording was altered from how they originally had composed [their out-of-office messages]. All of [these employees] are civil servants, not political appointees.... On Wednesday, NBC News reported that some employees at federal agencies were being offered partisan language blaming Democrats for the shutdown to use as their out-of-office messages. A number of federal websites also now display language going after Democrats or the 'radical left.' But what the Education Department is doing goes further, pulling individual civil servants into the political talking points even if they don’t agree with them.”
Marie: Hard to say how this happened, but Lutnick definitely did not get a Very Important Memo. ~~~
~~~ Josh Christenson of the New York Post: “Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in a notable break with the Department of Justice, claimed late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was 'the greatest blackmailer ever' — and may have traded the feds video of his rich and well-connected associates getting massages from young women in exchange for a controversial 2008 plea deal. Lutnick made the shocking allegations to The Post’s Miranda Devine on the latest episode of 'Pod Force One,' out now. The 64-year-old cabinet secretary said Epstein himself showed off his notorious 'massage room' while giving Lutnick and his wife a tour of the infamous East 71st Street townhouse after the couple moved in next door to the since-disgraced financier in 2005. 'I say to him, “Massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage?”' Lutnick recalled. 'And he says, “Every day.”’ And then he gets, like weirdly close to me, and he says, “And the right kind of massage.”'...
“When asked by Devine whether Epstein’s rich and powerful associates ... 'could hang around him and not see what you saw, or did they see it and ignore it,' Lutnick responded, 'They participated.... They get a massage, that’s what his MO was. “Get a massage, get a massage,” and what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video,' the commerce secretary went on. 'This guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That’s how he had money.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Video of the full podcast is here. The interview runs more than an hour, but the Epstein part is right at the beginning. ~~~
“Best Friends Forever.” Joe Heim of the Washington Post: “A 10-foot-tall statue of ... Donald Trump and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein — holding hands and each with a foot raised behind him — returned to the National Mall on Thursday afternoon, a week after the National Park Service removed it for not being compliant with an issued permit. During the removal, parts of the statue were broken and Trump and Epstein’s hands were no longer joined. But the statue, spray-painted bronze, appeared fully restored Thursday, with only minor damage still apparent and the hands once again clasped together.
“Each change [previous presidents have made] deepened the building’s role as a national symbol while respecting its civic purpose. The symbol of democracy — that the very place belonged to the American people — remained intact. Mr. Trump’s proposed ballroom, by contrast..., will challenge the integrity of the White House and convert the house of the people into a stage for personal aggrandizement.” Millman likens Trump's grotesque ballroom to the extravagant edifices erected by Louis XIV, Mussolini, Saudi princes & Russian tsars. ~~~
~~~ Royal Corollary: One must not displease Donald I. Did you know you could be fired from your government job for declining tfo give away national treasures that belong to the people of the USA? Well, you can and you will get booted if in the course of carrying out your duties you fail to bow to a whim of King Donald's. ~~~
~~~ Jennifer Schuessler & Minho Kim of the New York Times: “Ahead of his state visit to Britain last month, the administration began looking for an artifact relating to President Dwight D. Eisenhower that the president could give the British monarch.... An administration official approached the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum, and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kan., which has at least one Eisenhower sword in its collection, given to him in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. But the library declined to release it or any other original artifact in its collection, on the grounds that they are the property of the U.S. government, which the library is obligated by law to preserve for the American public. Instead, Mr. Trump wound up giving King Charles a replica sword. And this week, the director of the Eisenhower library, Todd Arrington, was forced out of his job.... Mr. Arrington, reached by telephone on Thursday, confirmed that he had been pressured to resign. He said that he had been told that he 'could no longer be trusted with confidential information.'” The CBS News story is here. ~~~
~~~ And then there are the standard-issue Trump-retribution firings, none of which is justified or prudent: ~~~
~~~ Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post: “The Justice Department in recent days fired two longtime prosecutors who had risen to leadership positions within the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, said the three people, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The firings came shortly after Trump installed a new interim U.S. attorney in the district, Lindsey Halligan, who got a grand jury to indict [former FBI Director James] Comey last week despite objections from career prosecutors who deemed the evidence too flimsy. Maya D. Song, a 12-year veteran of the office who until recently was its second-highest-ranking leader, was demoted to a line prosecutor position last month and then fired in recent days.... Michael P. Ben’Ary, who had a decade of experience in the office and was serving as chief of its national security unit, also was fired.... Ben’Ary and Song had worked as senior advisers to Lisa Monaco, who was deputy attorney general, the No. 2 post in the Justice Department, during the Biden administration. Trump last week called on Microsoft to fire Monaco from her position as president of global affairs, calling her one of 'the architects of the worst ever Deep State Conspiracies against our Country.'” ~~~
~~~ THEN there are the RFKJ quackery firings: ~~
~~~ Benjamin Mueller of the New York Times: “Three weeks after a leading scientist at the National Institutes of Health filed a whistle-blower complaint against the Trump administration, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy fired her.... Her dismissal was the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken against government scientists and environmental experts after they warned that administration policies were endangering public health and safety. That scientist, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who had directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases..., was one of several senior N.I.H. officials who said that their tenures at the agency had ended in recent days. Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable, who had directed the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, told the publication Science that he received a letter from the N.I.H. director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, stating that his appointment was ending this week. And Dr. Diana Bianchi, who had directed the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, indicated on social media that her tenure at the N.I.H. had ended, too. Those scientists had all been in limbo since being placed on administrative leave in the spring.... Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for Dr. Marrazzo, said in a statement that the firing was retaliatory.” MB: In my ignorant, unlawyerly opinion, whistleblower protections should cover Dr. Marrazzo. ~~~
~~~ AND you can be fired for being a normal human being: ~~~
~~~ Carol Leonnig & Ken Dilanian of MSNBC: “FBI Director Kash Patel on Wednesday fired an agent in training for displaying a gay pride flag on his desk while appointed to a field office in California last year, according to three people familiar with the matter. The trainee, who previously worked as an FBI support specialist in Los Angeles, received a letter — dated Oct. 1 and signed by Patel — claiming he had displayed an improper 'political' message in the workplace during his assignment in California under President Joe Biden, according to a copy of the letter shared with MSNBC.”
⭐Generalissimo Trumpo Goes to War against Chicagoans. Julie Bosman, et al., of the New York Times: “... early on Tuesday, federal agents, using drones, helicopters, trucks and dozens of vehicles, conducted a middle-of-the-night raid on a rundown apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, leaving the building mostly empty of residents by morning and neighbors stunned. 'It felt like we were under siege,' said one bystander, Darrell Ballard, 63, showing videos on his cellphone of officers entering the apartment building in the dark. A U.S. Border Patrol official involved with the operation ... said that the effort involved nearly 300 federal agents from various agencies. The agents came from various directions around the building. The operation that night targeted an apartment complex that federal officials said was frequented by members of the Tren de Aragua gang. The Border Patrol official said that snipers rappelled down from helicopters on top of the apartment complex, as a precaution from potential violence. Federal authorities said that at least 37 people without legal immigration status were arrested, including some with criminal records.
“But activists and lawyers for some of those arrested in recent weeks said that the administration has rounded up people, including some U.S. citizens, with no history of violence in its sweeps. D.H.S. officials acknowledged that four children who are U.S. citizens were taken into custody amid the operation at the apartment complex on Tuesday until they could be placed in the care of guardians.... [Chicago Mayor Brandon] Johnson said in a statement on Wednesday that he rejects any attempt to militarize American cities. 'Chicagoans are not test subjects for the president to train our military,' he said. 'The brave men and women who sign up to serve our country do not want to be deployed against their neighbors.'” Thanks to RAS for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Heather Cox Richardson: “Cindy Hernandez of the Chicago Sun-Times reported on the raid, noting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said some of those arrested 'are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes and immigration violators.' It also said the neighborhood was 'a location known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates.' But, as Hernandez reports, DHS did not offer any evidence to support its assertions. Some of the people detained during the raid are U.S. citizens.” Read on.
Chris Cameron of the New York Times: “Apple has removed from its App Store several programs that alert users to sightings of immigration agents amid a furious pushback from the Trump administration over the services. Most prominently, ICEBlock, a free app with hundreds of thousands of users, was no longer available as of Thursday evening to download on the App Store. ICEBlock allows people to anonymously share the locations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents within a five-mile radius, and its creators had recommended the App Store as the only safe venue from which to download and use it. In a statement, Apple said it had taken down ICEBlock, and other similar apps, after being contacted by 'law enforcement,' but it did not specify which agency or agencies had contacted it and did not say which other apps it had removed.” A CNBC report is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Gosh, this is an even better gift to Trump than that plaque Tim Cook gave him. (But, okay, maybe not better than the $100BB investment Tim promised to make in U.S. industry.)
King Donald I Is Arbiter of Everything. Charlie Savage & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has decided that the United States is engaged in a formal 'armed conflict' with drug cartels his team has labeled terrorist organizations and that suspected smugglers for such groups are 'unlawful combatants,' the administration said in a confidential notice to Congress this week. The notice ... adds new detail to the administration’s thinly articulated legal rationale for why three U.S. military strikes the president ordered on boats in the Caribbean Sea last month, killing all 17 people aboard them, should be seen as lawful rather than murder. Mr. Trump ... is cementing his claim to extraordinary wartime powers.... Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired judge advocate general lawyer who was formerly the Army’s senior adviser for law-of-war issues, said drug cartels were not engaged in 'hostilities' — the standard for when there is an armed conflict for legal purposes — against the United States because selling a dangerous product is different from an armed attack.... 'This is not stretching the envelope,' he said. 'This is shredding it. This is tearing it apart.'” ~~~
~~~ Leo Shane, et al., of Politico: “The White House insisted Thursday that ... Donald Trump was merely explaining the legality of his actions — not setting new policy — when he told Congress that the nation is engaged in an 'armed conflict' with foreign drug smugglers.”
Wherein the NYT obliquely notes that Donald Trump is a dangerous, anti-American ass: ~~~
~~~ Helene Cooper of the New York Times: “In the middle of Tuesday’s rambling speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia..., [Donald] Trump told hundreds of the country’s military commanders his latest thinking on where they should next set their sights.... The president chose San Francisco. Chicago. New York. Los Angeles. 'We’re going to straighten that out one by one, and this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room,' Mr. Trump ... [said], referring to what he has described as crime-filled urban hellscapes. 'It’s a war from within,' he said. In that moment, the president again pitted himself against the wishes of the country’s founding fathers, historians and former military leaders say. Mr. Trump’s suggestion that 'we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military' is in tension with a core principle that the country’s armed services ... should be nonpartisan. This principle, with its deep roots in American democratic traditions, is meant to ensure that the standing army initially feared by the country’s founding fathers serves the nation as a whole, and not one political party or leader.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Are you willing to die for Qatar? What about sacrificing the life of a son or daughter to safeguard or avenge an emir? (Bear in mind there is an upside to your sacrifice: Trump got a snazzy, gold-plated plane! [Alas, when you die, Trump will remember you only as a sucker & loser.]) ~~~
~~~ S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: “Just months after soliciting and receiving a $400 million luxury airliner for himself from Qatar..., Donald Trump has now quietly granted the oil-rich autocracy a NATO-like defense guarantee, promising a U.S. response if it is attacked. 'The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,' the Trump-signed order decrees. 'In the event of such an attack, the United States shall take all lawful and appropriate measures — including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military — to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability.'
“The order was signed the same day Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, during which Netanyahu called the Qatari prime minister to apologize for the Sept. 9 attack on Doha to kill Hamas officials. A Qatari national was also killed in the strike. The security guarantee — possibly unique in its promised protection to a country that has been treated as a partner but not a treaty ally — was not mentioned that day and was not publicized at all by the White House; instead, it came to light on Wednesday in press reports.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Funny thing: Trump doesn't seem all that willing to make the same commitment to NATO countries -- even though we have a long-standing mutual defense compact to do just that and even though we are the only country that has benefited from the compact (after 9/11). P.S. News reports asserted that Trump had told Bibi to apologize to Qatar. See also Akhilleus' commentary (in two separate entries) in yesterday's thread.
Lois Beckett of the Guardian: “Any California universities that sign the Trump administration’s proposed 'Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education' will 'instantly' lose their state funding, California governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. The Trump administration on Wednesday offered nine prominent universities, including the University of Southern California [-- a private university --], the chance to sign a 'compact' that asks the universities to close academic departments that 'purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas', limit the proportion of international undergraduate students to 15% , accept the administration’s definition of gender and ban the consideration of race or sex in hiring and admissions, in exchange for 'substantial and meaningful federal grants'. Newsom’s office described the offer as nothing short of a hostile takeover of America’s universities'.... Trump’s proposed 'compact' was offered to schools that were seen by Trump as 'good actors', May Mailman, a senior White House adviser told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday..., who have 'really indicated they are committed to a higher-quality education'....” ~~~
“””“On Wednesday, the Trump administration sent letters to nine major universities proposing a 'compact.' As The Times reports, the agreement would, among other things, require these universities to freeze tuition rates for five years, limit the enrollment of foreign students and be bound to specific definitions of gender.... In exchange, these universities would receive 'multiple positive benefits,' including 'substantial and meaningful federal grants.'... A senior White House adviser indicated that the administration wants to extend this compact to all institutions of higher education.
“This is extortion, plain and simple.... The future of higher education in America requires that every university reject it.... The Supreme Court has been clear that Congress can set conditions on federal funds so long as the requirements are constitutional, clearly stated, related to the purpose of the program and not unduly coercive. Mr. Trump’s compact fails every part of that test.”
Marie: At some point yesterday, I posted a link to the following story. And at some point yesterday, I must have deleted it. So here it is again for the first time! ~~~
~~~ Pam Belluck of the New York Times: “The Food and Drug Administration has approved a generic version of the abortion pill mifepristone, expanding its supply at a time when the Trump administration is under pressure from abortion opponents to sharply restrict access to abortion pills. The approval, issued on Tuesday without a public announcement, means that three American companies can now produce mifepristone for abortion. The F.D.A. approved the original pill 25 years ago and in 2019 approved the first generic version.... Currently, nearly two-thirds of abortions in the country are carried out with medication. Access to abortion pills, especially through telemedicine, is a major reason that the number of abortions in the United States has not decreased since the Supreme Court decision [overturning the right to an abortion].” MB: I wonder if RFKJ will fire somebody over this, too.
Trump, Wasting Your Taxpayer Dollars on an Unwinnable Lawsuit. Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times: “A federal judge, rejecting the Trump administration’s position, has dismissed a lawsuit accusing a United Nations agency of providing more than $1 billion that enabled Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. In a ruling this week, the judge, Analisa Torres of Federal District Court in Manhattan, said the organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, was protected because it was part of the United Nations, which enjoys immunity from such lawsuits. The lawsuit claimed that the agency, known as UNRWA, allowed Hamas to siphon off the agency’s funds to help construct a terrorist infrastructure that included tunneling equipment and weapons to support the attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and roughly 250 were taken hostage. The Biden administration had argued in court papers last year that UNRWA was protected by immunity and could not be sued. But in April, the Trump administration told the judge that neither UNRWA nor several of its officials named in the lawsuit, including Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, were entitled to immunity.”
Colby Smith of the New York Times: “Lisa Cook notched a temporary win in her legal battle against ... [Donald] Trump this week when the Supreme Court said she could remain a governor on the Federal Reserve Board. But the threat to the Fed’s longstanding independence will continue to loom large over the central bank for at least the next several months.... The court agreed to wait to rule on Ms. Cook’s status until after it hears arguments on the matter in January.” (Also linked yesterday.)
Star Voter Fraudster Outed. Marisa Kabas of the Handbasket: "I have a brand new scoop up on Slate about Jack Posobiec, the influential MAGA personality and prominent conspiracy theorist best known for amplifying 'Pizzagate.' It’s about how public records, such as FEC political contribution filings, appear to show that this leading voice against voter fraud has been living in Maryland but voting in Pennsylvania for years, using his parents’ address in the swing state. If the story the records tell is accurate, experts say he would be violating voting laws." Here's the link to the Slate story, which is firewalled.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here's a story that shows (a) that policing can be improved, (b) that when policing is improved, crime may drop, (c) that when policing is improved, costs may drop, and (d) that Donald Trump is stupid and cruel. (MB: Yeah, I knew, you definitely already knew [d]). ~~~
~~~ New Jersey, et al. Tracey Tully of the New York Times: “A federal judge said Thursday that she was prepared to release Newark from the U.S. Justice Department’s decade-long oversight of its police department, a step that will mark the end of a court-imposed overhaul of an agency that was for years both feared and reviled. The judge, Madeline Cox Arleo, acknowledged the city’s 'vast improvements in policing' since 2011, when the federal government began a sweeping investigation that found the police regularly used excessive force and conducted unconstitutional stops and searches.... [Today] the 1,100-member force is far more racially diverse — 83 percent of its officers are Black or Latino — and better trained.... Payouts stemming from excessive-force lawsuits have plummeted. So has crime....
“A release from the consent decree will represent not only the end of an era in New Jersey’s largest city, but also at least a temporary pause in other similar policing efforts nationwide.... [Donald] Trump, upon taking office in January, backed away from consent decrees in place in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky., as his Justice Department shifted its focus toward legal actions against Ivy League universities and liberal cities. The change in priorities also led the government to halt investigations of alleged civil rights violations by the police in other cities, including Phoenix; Memphis; Oklahoma City; Trenton, N.J.; and Mount Vernon, N.Y.; and at the Louisiana and New Jersey State Police departments.”
Texas. Jin Yu Young & Alexandra Petri of the New York Times: “Robert Morris, the founder of a Texas megachurch with one of the nation’s largest congregations, pleaded guilty on Thursday to sexually abusing a girl in the 1980s, according to court documents. According to prosecutors, Mr. Morris, 64, began abusing Cindy Clemishire, who was 12 years old at the time, in 1982.... Mr. Morris resigned from his role as the senior pastor of Gateway Church, based in Dallas, last year after Ms. Clemishire publicly accused him of abuse.... Mr. Morris was indicted in March on five counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child.” An NBC News story is here. MB: Megachurch pastors (1) are natural-born scammers so engaging in various sorts of illegal activity fits their profile, and (2) may have gotten into the whole Christian fundamentalism thing as a result of having unhealthy sexual inclinations. So nothing surprising here, folks.
~~~~~~~~~~
U.K. Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: “An attacker rammed a car into people outside a synagogue in Manchester, England, and then went on a stabbing spree on Thursday, killing two people in what the police called an act of terrorism on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. The police said officers responded within minutes and shot and killed the attacker, whom they identified as Jihad al-Shamie, 35, a British citizen of Syrian descent. Though the police described the assault as a terrorist attack, they said that counterterrorism investigators were still 'working to understand the motivation.' Three other people were arrested, the police said, on suspicion of commission, preparation and instigation of terrorism in connection with the assault outside the synagogue, the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation.” This is an update of entries in a liveblog linked yesterday. ~~~
~~~ Steve Hendrix & Karla Adam of the Washington Post: “One of two victims slain during the attack on a synagogue in northern England on Yom Kippur was killed by a bullet fired by the police, apparently as they gunned down the attacker who had stabbed people and appeared to be wearing an explosive belt, the authorities said Friday. One of three victims seriously injured in the incident and still hospitalized was also struck by a bullet, the police said. The attacker was not believed to have had a gun....”
Karla Adam of the Washington Post: “Sarah Mullally was named the new archbishop of Canterbury on Friday, becoming the first woman to serve as the spiritual leader of the Church of England, and of the global Anglican community, in the church’s nearly 500-year history. The position has been vacant since last November when Justin Welby announced his resignation after an investigation found he failed to sufficiently report, investigate and contain a man who for decades ran evangelical summer camps and subjected boys to sexual, physical and psychological abuse.”
12 comments:
The health insurance premium increases will not be restricted to ACA users. When millions of Americans cancel their insurance because they can't afford it, we will be back where we started. People will go to the emergency room, they won't be able to pay for this more expensive treatment, and the costs will be passed along to everyone else with insurance.
On Bluesky, a link to a trump post on the shutdown:
Don't Fear the Reaper
ooops ^ another comment in bold...
Toluse Olorunnipa & Jonathan Lemire, for The Atlantic, on the shutdown:
The president is boasting
"The president previewed the political nature of the push in the hours before the shutdown began, saying on Tuesday that a closed government would allow him to “do things” to Democrats that would be “bad for them and irreversible by them.” He said to reporters at the White House, “We’d be laying off a lot of people that are going to be really affected, and they’re Democrats; they’re going to be Democrats.” Had there been any ambiguity about his plans, he also said that the shutdown would allow his administration to “get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want. And they’d be Democrat things.”"
Wendy,
Yeah, and even though Fat Hitler is gleefully bragging about how he’s dismantling the government and willfully hurting millions of Americans while specifically targeting members of the entire Democratic Party, most of the MSM still treats him like a normal person, albeit with some tiny quirks.
The frog is boiling.
Gee, another member of the MAGA morality police guilty of sexually a usu in a little girl. What a surprise.
Release the Epstein Files!
Is there anyone left in the congress of the ununited states of amerika that thinks Dumb Donald did not know about project 2025 months before he was "elected" and thinks he was not lying his fcking head off? Is there anyone anymore who doubts that as soon as they off the various "democrat agencies" on this week's kill program they will do more? Is there anyone left in the congress who thinks the bloodsuckers will "agree to negotiate the terms" of their deaths AFTER two or three more idiots in the dem party agree that okay, we'll go ahead and vote for future negotiations on health care in this country? Is there anyone anywhere that thinks the MAGA party does anything good for the people, instead of the filthy rich? If so, he or she belongs in the Smithsonian-- there will be many slots to fill after they burn all the costly exhibits. IF they haven't burned all those buildings too. Vought IS the Grim Reaper and it makes him so happy to see so much destruction. Do not doubt what he and Dumb Bunny (sorry, Bad Bunny-- and yes, PR is part of America, dumb MAGA people--) say-- the "congress" and high court will rubber stamp any notion that pops up in Idiot Face's mushy brain and put there by the Grim Reaper. He is far worse than Miller.
Wendy,
Yeah, great use of his time. The country is melting down, armed, masked thugs are disappearing people whose looks they don't like (unless they can run fast and have a bicycle handy to easily evade the fat, out of shape, weapons-loaded ICE turds trying to grab them), the federal government is closed for business, grocery prices are skyrocketing, tens of millions of Americans are set to lose their healthcare and/or pay through the nose for whatever kind of care they can afford, and this indolent mound of blubber is spending time posting puerile AI fantasy videos featuring the venomous, vindictive Vought as the Grim Reaper.
We are officially post-fucked.
Back to that article about Facebook's assault on vulnerable teenagers (I guess there's more than the Trump-Epstein way to fuck young girls)...
At one point, the writer uses the term "tech panopticon" to describe the insidious ubiquity of social media and it's effect on our lives. This immediately brings to mind the original panopticon, an idea for surveillance and control designed as a thought experiment by the English philosopher, Jeremy Bentham. Bentham hoped his thought experiment would become a reality. And guess what?
It has, only not the way he was thinking.
Bentham's essential utilitarian bent brought him to an idea for the construction of a cost effective, and psychologically impactful system he envisioned as being used mostly in prisons: a circular structure with cells on the inside surrounding a single tower with a viewing room that allowed the jailer to see directly into any cell at any time, without being seen. The idea was that if prisoners felt they were being watched all day every day, every hour and minute of the day, they would begin to self-regulate. Thus, the panopticon was seen as a tool for control, forcing a sense of psychological intertia and quiescence.
MAGA has taken the panopticon idea to heart. You may recall how excited the Teenage Mutant Dogebags were to get their greasy, pizza covered fingers on the Social Security information of all US citizens, as well as rifling through a long list of other previously siloed databases so as to create a complete dossier on every American citizen. The perfect surveillance tool. Not a concrete tower in the middle of a circular prison, but a digital tower allowing Musk or Trump or Miller or Vought, or any other MAGA monster, to peer directly into the inner workings of our homes, our professional lives, even down to our voting and purchasing habits, all the better to control us.
French structuralist critic and philosopher Michel Foucault, in the 70's, saw the panopticon idea as way to gain social control and to discipline a population into obedience and submission.
This is why Fatty is demanding local and state officials who oversee voting rolls turn over all their data to his regime. This is why the Dogebags seized all those databases.
The digital panopticon is here. And it's being weaponized against us. They watch whatever you do. And if they can't see it, they are deputizing neighbors, Stasi-like, to rat you out if you aren't abiding by MAGA mandates.
I'm guessing this isn't what Bentham had in mind, but there ya go, best laid plans, and all that.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/03/treasury-department-trump-dollar-coin-00593368
What's not to like?
Maybe the penny, as long as it will be taken out of circulation as promised?
A short while ago, a statue of DiJiT and Epstein holding hands and dancing together, "Best Friends", showed up on the Washington Mall, with a proper permit. Days later it was removed with no explanation. Today, it's back, slightly the worse for wear, with some super-glue fixes, with a proper permit as before. Enquiries to the US Park Service (the folks who run the Mall) meet the recording that "Sorry, shutdown, ...".
Looks like there are still people in the USG who follow the law more than the urges of fat old men.
The paper WaPo has the story on B16, pretty far back in the woods there.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/10/02/trump-epstein-statue-returned-national-mall/
Ken,
I'm sure the tiny Trump member is vibrating like some kind of weird microscopic benthic organism at the thought of his very own Caesar coin. Just what we need to be spending money on, more MAGA hagiography of a traitor and rapist.
Post a Comment