October 8, 2025

Perry Stein of the Washington Post: “Nearly a quarter of FBI agents across the country are currently assigned to immigration enforcement, with the number climbing to upward of 40 percent in the nation’s largest field offices, according to data from the FBI obtained by Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Virginia) and shared with The Washington Post. The large number of reassignments reflect a vast reshaping of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, which has focused on national security threats since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.... Agents have been pulled from duties related to cybercrimes, drug trafficking, terrorism, counterintelligence and more, the statistics show The intense focus on immigration has raised alarm among current and former FBI agents who say morale is low across the bureau as agents have less time to dedicate to the often complex cases they were hired to work on.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Gee, you mean it's demoralizing to have to dedicate your career to chasing down gardeners & roofers and home healthcare workers?  

Sarah Fortinsky of the Hill: “Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) suggested that ... [Donald] Trump is deploying federal troops in Chicago because he is 'suffering dementia.' In an interview Tuesday with The Chicago Tribune, the outspoken Trump critic ... [said], 'This is a man who’s suffering dementia.... This is a man who has something stuck in his head.... He doesn’t read. He doesn’t know anything that’s up to date.... It’s just something in the recesses of his brain that is affectuating to have him call out these cities.... And then, unfortunately, he has the power of the military, the power of the federal government to do his bidding, and that’s what he’s doing.'”

Salvador Rizzo & Jeremy Roebuck of the Washington Post: “Former FBI director James B. Comey arrived Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, for his first appearance in a case that has roiled the Justice Department and prompted alarm about its independence from White House interference. Comey is expected to plead not guilty to charges he made false statements to Congress in an arraignment hearing before U.S. District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff scheduled for 10 a.m. Eastern time.... Donald Trump demanded prosecutors pursue the case, despite concerns within the Justice Department over the strength of the evidence.” 

     ~~~ Update. New Lede: “Former FBI director James B. Comey pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges he lied to Congress in a case that has roiled the Justice Department and prompted alarm about its independence from White House interference.” Politico's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's the pinned item (at 10:15 am ET) from the New York Times liveblog: “James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director reviled by ... [Donald] Trump and targeted as part of his retribution campaign, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Wednesday morning in federal court in Alexandria, Va. Mr. Comey’s lawyer, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, entered the plea on behalf of his client and requested a trial by jury. The judge set a trial date of Jan. 5.”

Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, both Democrats, accusing them of “failing to protect” Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers who have been sent to the city. His comments mark another escalation — at least in rhetoric — against Democratic leaders in Illinois who have been pushing back against his immigration crackdown there. There is no evidence that either Johnson or Pritzker has done anything to warrant jail time.... 'Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!' Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. Trump has often called for the jailing of his political adversaries in social media posts. But in recent months, he has repeatedly pushed the Justice Department to pursue prosecutions in several cases.”

Tom Nichols of the Atlantic: "Trump and his valet at the Defense Department, Secretary of Physical Training Pete Hegseth, are now making a dedicated run at turning the men and women of the armed forces into Trump’s personal and partisan army.... Trump clearly wants to use military power to exert more control over the American people, and soon, top U.S.-military commanders may have to decide whether they will refuse such orders from the commander in chief. The greatest crisis of American civil-military relations in modern history is now under way.... This new and dangerous moment has arrived for many reasons, including Trump’s antics in front of young soldiers and sailors, through which he has succeeded in pulling many of them into displays of partisan behavior that are both an insult to American civil-military traditions and a violation of military regulations. Senior military leaders should have stepped in to prevent Trump from turning addresses at Fort Bragg and Naval Station Norfolk into political rallies; the silence of the Army and Navy secretaries, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and some top generals and admirals is appalling." Thank you to akaWendy for this gift link.

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⭐Robin McAlpine in Brave New Europe describes scholarship by Luke Kemp of Cambridge University who "analyses 5,000 years of history and finds that, left to their own devices, humans are surprisingly egalitarian and much less violent than we are generally led to believe. For example, there is pretty good evidence that intertribal conflict in the first hundred thousand years of nomadic homo sapien existence was actually rare. What sets off the collapse in large civilisations is the same thing that makes them large in the first place – wealth accumulation.... Our biggest national security threat may now be the rich." MB: McAlpine may be writing about Scotland, but she keeps using the U.S. as her bad examples. We all are aware there is a compelling moral rationale for equality. But as Paul Krugman & Robert Reich & some other liberal economists have been trying to teach us, there is also a practical, even self-serving, rationale for equality: it makes societies strong. Thank you to RAS for the link.

Marie: Thomas Edsall has had long careers as a journalist & as a professor of journalism. It is therefore disheartening that since he began working at the NYT in 2011, every column he has written has been bor-ing. The column linked below -- though following his usual dull habit of stringing together a lot of experts' opinions on what his topic o' the day is -- covers a topic so dynamic and so chilling that even Edsall can't entirely ruin it. ~~~

~~~ Thomas Edsall of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has unleashed new weaponry in his war against Democrats, liberals and the left. Over the past four weeks, he has initiated what amounts to a unique form of partisan civil war designed to amass power in a nominal democracy and defang, decimate and defund the opposition. Trump’s assault on the left combines the use of the available tools of violent conflict — the military, the Department of Homeland Security and ICE in particular — with the prosecution of critics (and people he just doesn’t like), cuts of essential funds for liberal institutions, the use of regulation to threaten businesses with bankruptcy, the criminalization of free speech and the blackmailing of corporate America into obedience.... The assault is relentless.” The link appears to be a gift link.

Tony Romm of the New York Times: “Hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers may not automatically receive back pay once the government reopens..., [Donald] Trump signaled on Tuesday, prompting renewed fears that the administration might try to circumvent federal law and maximize the pain of the shutdown. The president’s comments, which echoed a draft memo that has circulated at the White House, contradicted the administration’s own guidance that furloughed employees would receive retroactive pay shortly after Congress strikes a funding deal. Following the longest shutdown in history — a five-week closure that began under Mr. Trump at the end of 2018 — Congress adopted a law that guaranteed back pay for the millions of federal workers who often bear the financial brunt of funding lapses.... Mr. Trump signed that measure into law in 2019. But ... in the draft memo..., the administration indicated that only the workers who are deemed essential may be automatically entitled to pay once the stalemate ends. That includes military service members, air traffic controllers and others who are currently required to report for duty during the closure.” The AP's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Andrew Solender of Politico: “Members of Congress in both parties bristled Tuesday at a White House memo arguing that federal workers who have been furloughed as part of the government shutdown are not necessarily entitled to back pay.... The threat has had little apparent impact with its intended target — congressional Democrats — who expressed confidence that ... [Donald] Trump would ultimately lose any legal fight to deny shutdown pay.

Tony Romm of the New York Times: “Throughout the government shutdown..., [Donald] Trump and his top aides have repeatedly threatened to conduct another round of mass federal layoffs, insisting at times that they may have to shed workers to keep essential services from closing down. But the firings now under consideration may be unlawful or unnecessary, according to a wide range of budget experts, legal scholars and union officials.... 'If this keeps going on, it’ll be substantial. And a lot of those jobs will never come back,' Mr. Trump said on Tuesday, as he appeared to threaten for the first time that those who keep their jobs — but have been furloughed — may not receive back pay. Unions ... preemptively sued the administration over its pursuit of mass layoffs last week, arguing that the White House could not legally carry out the dismissals at a moment when the government is only supposed to operate essential services. On Tuesday, the judge in that case told the administration to respond by Oct. 10, and to address 'the status of any currently planned or in-progress' firings.”

Karoun Demirjian & Christine Chung of the New York Times: “Air traffic staffing shortages were disrupting air travel around the nation Tuesday for a second consecutive day, with delays at airports in Nashville and Chicago. The disruptions came a day after the transportation secretary warned that the government shutdown could lead to delays and cancellations, but neither the cause nor the severity of the shortages was immediately clear. The Federal Aviation Administration said in an advisory that air traffic control facilities in Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Nashville, Chicago, Houston and Boston were short-staffed. The F.A.A. slowed traffic at Nashville International Airport, where a ground stop caused delays of more than two hours, and at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, where incoming flights were delayed by 40 minutes.” An NBC News report is here.

Dasha Burns & Jordain Carney of Politico: “One week into the government shutdown, top Republican leaders appear to have lost the plot.... Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are straining to project a united front against Democrats, just barely concealing tensions over strategy.... In one stark example, Trump scrambled the congressional leaders’ messaging Monday when he told reporters in the Oval Office he would 'like to see a deal made for great health care' and that he was 'talking to Democrats about it.' Within hours, Trump walked it back: 'I am happy to work with the Democrats on their Failed Healthcare Policies, or anything else, but first they must allow our Government to re-open,' he wrote on Truth Social hours after his initial comments. Johnson said Tuesday he 'spoke with the president at length yesterday' about the need to reopen agencies first, while Thune told reporters there have been 'ongoing conversations' about strategy between the top Republicans....

“The White House and Hill Republicans have been crosswise on strategy and seemingly not communicating in advance about their key moves. Many of those instances have concerned hardball tactics coming from White House budget director Russ Vought seemingly aimed at cornering Democrats by threatening blue-state spending and the federal workforce.Not only have those moves so far failed to move Democrats off their positions, they have left Johnson and Thune flat-footed....”

Catie Edmonson & Carl Hulse of the New York Times: “... Democrats believe they have the political upper hand in the shutdown fight, and why they are refusing to back down from their demands, at least for now. They believe that Mr. Trump, who has long been sensitive to the political perils of health care issues for Republicans, could be the key to winning a commitment on the expiring subsidies that could end the crisis. Democrats are keenly aware that Republicans in Congress are divided on extending the subsidies, with some of them, including those from competitive states and districts, sounding the alarm about the coming premium increases.... According to KFF, a health policy research group, more than half of all people receiving insurance through the Affordable Care Act live in congressional districts represented by Republicans, with particularly high concentrations in southern states....”

Robyn Pennacchia of Wonkette: Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) just found out that her party's cruel decision to end Obamacare subsidies means that her own adult children's health insurance premiums will double at the end of this year. Miss Margie is upset enough by this personal problem that she might vote to extend the subsidies. But only for AMERICANS! She "won’t vote for illegals to have any tax payer funded healthcare or benefits." (Yo, Margie, "illegals" are not eligible for benefits. Instead, when they desperately need medical care, hospitals cover the costs and pass them on to premium-payers & taxpayers. So we're all still paying, Margie, but indirectly.) (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Ryan Nobles, et al., of NBC News: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene isn’t backing down from her very public break with fellow Republicans on health care that shook up Washington. In an extensive interview Tuesday, Greene, R-Ga., accused her party of not having a plan on health care and made the case that it should be working to fix the problem now.... GOP leaders in Congress are desperately working to keep their ranks unified amid Republican efforts to reopen the federal government without making any concessions to Democrats. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., forcefully pushed back against Greene's argument, saying she isn’t informed on the topic.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Johnson is right; Miss Margie isn't well-informed on any topic. But she knows enough that when health insurance costs double for young people, somethin' ain't right. 

Heather Cox Richardson looks at all this & more. She makes Trump seem a little like one of the country's other remarkably incompetent presidents: Warren Harding. "Harding celebrated his anti-intellectualism and the fact that, even after a world war, he knew nothing about Europe. He told one of his secretaries he couldn’t make heads or tails of fights over taxes, and he was ... a terrible speaker...."

Marie: Attorney General Pam Bondi sat for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday. The New York Times story, by Devlin Barrett, is here. The Washington Post story, by Jeremy Roebuck is here. Both stories used words like "contentious" and "sparring" and "clashing" to describe the hearing. But this language has been used to describe many Congressional hearings, and it doesn't reflect what really happened in that hearing room. It was a disaster in which the committee chair -- 92-year-old Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) -- let Bondi get away with refusing to answer senators' questions, berating, belittling and insulting senators, speaking/shouting over them, and attacking senators with wild accusations from an oppo-research binder she brought with her. So in lieu of relying on print reports, you might want to listen to what Lawrence O'Donnell & Chris Hayes had to say about all this. (Hayes & O'Donnell show a few of the same clips, but they clips are short, so they won't kill much of your time.):

 

(The video above is a pirated copy, so it may be taken down. At 1:00 am ET, it's all I've got. The part to listen to is the first segment.)  

     ~~~ This report, by Glenn Thrush & Devlin Barrett of the New York Times, is more on point than Barrett's general report, linked above: “Attorney General Pam Bondi’s approach on Tuesday to fielding hostile questions posed by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee about the perceived political weaponization of the Justice Department was simple and brutal: Don’t answer, just attack. Ms. Bondi attempted to cast more than four hours of stonewalling senatorial queries about decisions on her watch as an aggrieved defense of ... [Donald] Trump, herself and other administration appointees.Ms. Bondi’s calculated bombast at the oversight hearing reflected an effort across the Trump administration to flip potentially damaging — or revealing — moments of public accountability into opportunities to savage political opponents. The approach taken by Ms. Bondi, and previously by the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, has been different from that taken by any of their predecessors. It is characterized by a contemptuous refusal to even cursorily address inconvenient questions and the use of prepared attacks against Democrats to change the subject and drown out criticism.... 

“Republicans on the panel ... largely seemed unconcerned about Mr. Trump’s efforts to erode the department’s independence. Their focus instead was on the actions of the previous administration, and what they saw as the weaponization of the department under former Attorney General Merrick B. Garland against Mr. Trump and other Republicans.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Update. RAS found some genuine close-up photos taken by Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst of a page from Pam Bondi's oppo research notebook. ~~~

      ~~~ Marie: BTW, as I see it, Bondi has effectively admitted that she has seen photos of Donald Trump with half-naked young women in the Epstein files. As O'Donnell pointed out, Bondi refused to give a yes-or-no answer to the question of whether the FBI had found such photos and whether she had seen them; yet she readily said "yes" when a GOP senator asked if she had seen video of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick talking about Jeffrey Epstein. ~~~

~~~ Among the questions Democrats tried and failed repeatedly to get Bondi to answer was what happened to that $50,000 in taxpayer dollars the FBI handed to border czar & all-around thug Tom Homan in a sting which the Trump administration shut down. So then there's this: ~~~

     ~~~ Avi Asher-Schapiro, et al., of ProPublica: "... several industry executives ... said at least half a dozen companies vying for a slice of the $45 billion Congress has allocated for immigration detention work had hired [Tom Homan's business partner Charles] Sowell because he had led them to believe his connections to Homan would help their chances of winning government work.... Once named as the border czar, Homan said he would recuse himself from contracting.... [But r]ecords of internal meetings obtained by ProPublica showed that over the summer Homan was in conversation with industry executives about the government’s contracting plans.... Government officials in Homan’s position are required to steer clear of any activity that could impact their former business associates for a year after entering government.... In 2017, [Homan] declared assets totaling a maximum of just $250,000 on his ethics disclosures following a career in federal service.... By 2025, his net worth had grown to between $3 million to $9 million, the disclosure documents show." Thanks to RAS for the link.

Josephine Walker of Axios: Donald "Trump called Democrats 'insurrectionists' Tuesday and slammed the left for what he described as 'kamikaze' attacks on America, invoking increasingly warlike rhetoric to describe the opposition party.... The president has repeatedly floated the idea of invoking the rarely used Insurrection Act to send federal troops to blue cities like Chicago and Portland without local approval.... 'These Democrats are like insurrectionists, their policy is so bad for our country,' the president said in the Oval Office Tuesday, specifically targeting Democrats on immigration and crime prevention."

If [President] (Biden) is willing to [federalize the National Guard at the U.S./Mexico border], and to take away my authority as governor as commander in chief of those National Guard (troops), boy, we do have a war on our hands. -- South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, on Fox "News," February 4, 2024

The president knows that [Gov. Gavin Newsom] makes bad decisions, and that's why the President chose the safety of this community over waiting for Governor Newsom to get some sanity. And that's one of the reasons why these National Guard soldiers are being federalized so they can use their special skill set to keep peace. -- Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, on CBS News, June 8, 2025 ~~~

~~~ Erin Hooley & Christine Fernando of the AP: “National Guard troops are positioned outside Chicago and they could be in Memphis by Friday as the Trump administration pushes ahead with an aggressive policy toward big-city crime whether local leaders support it or not. National Guard members from Texas had settled in at an Army Reserve center in Illinois by early Wednesday, despite a lawsuit and vigorous opposition from Democratic elected leaders.... In Memphis, Tennessee, police Chief Cerelyn Davis said a small group of commanders were [was!] already in the city, planning for the arrival of Guard troops. [Tennessee's] Republican Gov. Bill Lee has said troops will be deputized by the U.S. Marshals Service to 'play a critical support role' for local law enforcement, though that role hasn’t been precisely defined yet.” ~~~

~~~ Blake Jones & Shia Kapos of Politico: “Donald Trump’s continued deployment of National Guard troops to major cities over the objections of their Democratic state leaders is shattering a decades-long norm of cooperation between presidents and governors. What began this year as a one-off deployment to Los Angeles has spread to Washington, Portland, Oregon and Illinois, spurring furious pushback from local and state officials. Governors, including potential 2028 presidential contenders Gavin Newsom in California and JB Pritzker in Illinois, have said they were notified at the last minute that Guard troops were being dispatched to American streets.... Newsom and Pritzker both threatened to withdraw their states from the National Governors Association on Monday, accusing the bipartisan group of silence in wake of Trump’s test of states’ rights.... The call-ups, the first against sitting governors’ wishes since the racial integration of American schools in 1965, have infused uncommon partisanship into the use of the military branch.”

Judd Legum of Popular Information highlights some stories of Trump officials detaining U.S. citizens, sometimes even when they presented evidence they were citizens. RAS calls these "Kavanaugh Stops," and that's what they are. Congrats to Bart for finally becoming famous for something besides his youthful indiscretions -- which include (alleged!) gross sexual abuse. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo posts video of Trump officials beating one young man who was walking down the street -- he had to be hospitalized -- and of other Trump officials violently detaining young men in Chicago & Colorado. Watch the videos. Thank you to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Scott Dance of the New York Times: “The Senate on Tuesday evening confirmed a new leader of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, installing Neil Jacobs, the acting director during the hurricane forecasting controversy of the first Trump administration known as 'Sharpiegate.' Senators voted, 51-46, to confirm a bloc of nominees that also included U.S. attorneys and foreign ambassadors. Dr. Jacobs, an atmospheric scientist and meteorologist..., is generally respected across NOAA.... At the same time, he has faced criticism and rebuke for his tenure during ... [Donald] Trump’s first term.... [An] investigation found he had bowed to political pressure in releasing a statement critical of National Weather Service forecasters in Alabama, who had stressed on social media that Hurricane Dorian was not expected to affect that state, despite warnings to the contrary from Mr. Trump.” The NBC News story is here. ~~~

~~~ Alec Dent of the Washington Post: “Herschel Walker, the former National Football League player and Heisman Trophy winner who lost a scandal-ridden bid for Senate in 2022, was confirmed Tuesday by the Senate to serve as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas. Walker, a close ally of ... Donald Trump, was confirmed in a 51-47 vote as part of a larger batch of nominees for various executive branch roles.” The CBS story is here. Dear People of the Bahamas: Please don't think we hate you. Marie 

Robert Davis of the Raw Story: “A House leadership aide undercut Speaker Mike Johnson's claims that he plans to swear in a new Congressional lawmaker as soon as possible. Earlier on Tuesday, Johnson told CNN that he would move to seat Rep.-Elect Adelita Grijalva, who recently won a House race in Arizona. Grijalva is expected to be the 218th lawmaker to support a bipartisan bill authored by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.... 'We will swear in Rep.-Elect Adelita Grijalva as soon as the House returns to session when Chuck Schumer, Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego decide to open up the government,' [the] leadership aide told [CNN]. The move to challenge Grijalva's seat in Congress over whether certain Democrats vote to reopen the government represents 'an extraordinary power play to deny a sitting member a seat,' CNN reported.”

They're Veterans. They're Fraudsters. Craig Whitlock, et al., of the Washington Post: “Military veterans are swamping the U.S. government with dubious disability claims — including cases of brazen fraud totaling tens of millions of dollars — that are exploiting the country’s sacred commitment to compensate those harmed in the line of duty, according to a Washington Post investigation.... The Post found that millions of the claims are for minor or treatable afflictions that rarely hinder employment, such as hair loss, jock itch and toenail fungus. About 556,000 veterans receive disability benefits for eczema, 332,000 for hemorrhoids, 110,000 for benign skin growths, 81,000 for acne and 74,000 for varicose veins.... Collectively they cost billions of dollars a year. In contrast, far fewer veterans receive compensation for certain combat-related injuries....

“The investigation exposed an increasingly costly disability program prone to rampant exaggeration and fraud, which make it harder for veterans with legitimate claims to get their benefits processed. Bipartisan political indifference and a weak array of checks and balances have compounded the dysfunction. Veterans’ advocates, for-profit companies and VA itself encourage vets to file as many claims as possible to milk the system.” ~~~

~~~ They're Veterans. They're Fraudsters, Ctd. Craig Whitlock, et al., of the Washington Post: “VA’s $193 billion disability program — one of the biggest line items in the federal budget — has become a rich target for fraudsters, according to a Washington Post investigation. Each year, the agency’s inspector general opens dozens of criminal cases into veterans ... who are suspected of faking injuries or illnesses for money.... Prosecutors acknowledge VA’s disability program is prone to abuse, emphasizing in court documents that it 'operates on an honor system.'” MB: On the upside, this is a group of veterans Trump would not call suckers & losers, because they're slimy fraudsters happy to bilk the U.S. taxpayer -- just like Trump. 

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Sweden. Christian Edwards & Katie Hunt of CNN: “A trio of scientist have been given [has received!] the 2025 Nobel Prize in chemistry for the development of 'metal-organic frameworks,' a new form of molecular architecture likened to something from the Harry Potter novels. Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi will share the prize for providing chemists 'with new opportunities for solving some of the challenges' the field faces, the Nobel Committee announced Wednesday at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. Announcing the prize, Heiner Linke, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said the laureates had found ways to make completely new materials 'with large cavities' inside that function 'like rooms in a hotel, so that guest molecules can enter and exit again from the same material.' He said the chemistry functions like Hermione Granger’s handbag in the Harry Potter books, which appears small on the outside but is large on the inside.”

Sweden. Katrina Miller & Allie Watkins of the New York Times: “John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday in Sweden for showing that two properties of quantum mechanics, the physical laws that rule the subatomic realm, could be observed in a system large enough to see with the naked eye. 'There is no advanced technology today that does not rely on quantum mechanics,' Olle Eriksson, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said during the announcement of the award. The laureates’ discoveries, he added, paved the way for technologies like the cellphone, cameras and fiber optic cables. It also helped lay the groundwork for current attempts to build a quantum computer, a device that could compute and process information at speeds that would not be possible with classical computers.”

Sweden. Gina Kolata & Allie Watkins of the New York Times: “Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discoveries of peripheral immune tolerance — the system that explains how the immune system prevents rogue cells from attacking tissues and organs. Their research, the prize committee said, has contributed to medical advances in cancer and autoimmune treatments, and may help with organ transplants.”

Marie: A particular irony in bellicose Trump's ridiculous quest for the Nobel Peace Prize: he has done all he can to make sure Americans have little chance in the future to make the advances & breakthroughs that win the scientific Nobel prizes.