November 12, 2025

Maryclaire Dale of the AP: “The U.S. ended production of the penny Wednesday, abandoning the 1-cent coins that were embedded in American culture for more than 230 years but became nearly worthless. When it was introduced in 1793, a penny could buy a biscuit, a candle or a piece of candy. Now most of them are cast aside to sit in jars or junk drawers, and each one costs nearly 4 cents to make. 'God bless America, and we’re going to save the taxpayers $56 million,' Treasurer Brandon Beach said at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia before hitting a button to strike the final penny. The coins were then carefully placed on a tray for journalists to see. The last few pennies were to be auctioned off.”

Mike Lillis of the Hill: “The House on Wednesday passed a sweeping spending package to reopen the government, setting the stage to end a marathon shutdown — the longest in U.S. history — that churned economic turmoil around the country and sparked an internal battle among Democrats over the future of the party and how best to take on ... [Donald] Trump. The vote in the lower chamber was 222-209, almost strictly along party lines. Only two Republicans opposed the measure, to protest deficit spending, while six Democrats hopped the aisle to support it, citing the importance of getting federal funding flowing again.” 

“Operation Midway Blitz”? How About “Operation Midway Bust.” Mitch Smith of the New York Times: “A federal judge in Chicago indicated on Wednesday that he would order the release of hundreds of immigrants who were arrested during the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz. Earlier this year, the judge, Jeffrey Cummings of U.S. District Court, identified several instances in which immigration agents made arrests without warrants issued in advance, in apparent violation of a consent decree. Judge Cummings said that he planned to order the release of most people in a group of 615 immigration detainees. Those released would have to post a bond and would be electronically monitored while their cases proceeded in immigration court. It was not clear how many of those people, many of whom are believed to have been arrested during the administration’s recent crackdown on illegal immigration in the Chicago area, are still in the United States. The judge agreed to give government lawyers time to note anyone they believe poses a public safety threat but barred the government for now from deporting anyone in that group.” The Guardian story is here.

Marie: Scroll down. I've added some stuff (before the break). 

Nicholas Wu of Politico: “The House is on track to vote on disclosing files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after a newly sworn-in Democrat completed a bipartisan effort Wednesday to sidestep Republican leaders over the opposition of ... Donald Trump. Rep. Adelita Grijalva of Arizona signed the discharge petition immediately after she was sworn in by Speaker Mike Johnson after a record 50-day wait and delivered remarks critical of the GOP attempts to keep Justice Department files under wraps.... The vote is expected in early December, according to aides from both parties.” ~~~

So then this:

Steve M. writes about a YouGov survey and explains why he's not writing about a few Epstein emails. I think he's right. 

In today's Comments, Akhilleus highlights this post by Joe DePaolo of Mediaite, which transcribes or reproduces some of Jeffrey Epstein's email correspondence regarding Donald Trump and the entire Epstein sex enterprise. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released the emails. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, said in a statement, “The more Donald Trump tries to cover-up the Epstein files, the more we uncover.... These latest emails and correspondence raise glaring questions about what else the White House is hiding and the nature of the relationship between Epstein and the President.” MB: I think you'll want to read the emails. They aren't "evidence" in that they're merely Epstein's (and Maxwell's) assertions about Trump's participation in the sexcapades. And even then, they leave a good deal to the imagination. But, as Garcia writes, they do "raise glaring questions." I think you'll figure out the answers. ~~~

~~~ Update. The New York Times is now on the story. ~~~

     ~~~ Michael Gold of the New York Times: “House Democrats on Wednesday released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that ... [Donald] Trump had 'spent hours at my house' with one of Mr. Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested that the convicted sex offender believed Mr. Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged. Mr. Trump has emphatically denied any involvement in or knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.... In one of the messages, Mr. Epstein flatly asserted that Mr. Trump 'knew about the girls,' many of whom were later found by investigators to have been underage. In another, Mr. Epstein pondered how to address questions from the news media about their relationship as Mr. Trump was becoming a national political figure.” The AP story is here. the Guardian's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ This press release from House Democrats on the Oversight Committee contains all the emails that mention Donald Trump. ~~~

     ~~~ Marcy Wheeler: "The most damning [email] describes Epstein, discussing with Ghislaine Maxwell in 2011 one of the victims spending 'hours at [Epstein’s] house with['] Trump.... That conversation transpired in April 2011, just a month before Trump dropped out of the presidential race." Wheeler then traces bread crumbs that suggest why Trump may have decided to make sure Maxwell got some new plum prison digs & privileges. ~~~

~~~ NEW. Annie Karni & Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: Donald “Trump and his administration on Wednesday ramped up a pressure campaign on congressional Republicans who are pushing for a full release of the Justice Department’s files about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, rushing to head off a House vote on the matter. Top officials met in the White House Situation Room on Wednesday with Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican who is backing an effort to force a House vote on whether to demand the release of the files. She was summoned to sit down with top Justice Department and F.B.I. officials, according to two people familiar with the matter. One of the people said the session included Attorney General Pam Bondi and F.B.I. Director Kash Patel. Both people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on the private discussions." Read on. The link is a gift link to a story about an administration in full panic mode. ~~~

     ~~~ The story has been updated to add the following right after the lede sentence: “But even as the White House made last-ditch moves to block action, proponents of a vote reached a critical threshold to force [a vote], winning the final signature on a petition that will require the House to bring up the matter in the coming days. By Wednesday night, Speaker Mike Johnson, who has opposed considering the measure, said he would relent and bring it to a vote next week.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I never imagined I would say this about Lauren Boebert, of all people. But what that update means is that despite all of Donald Trump's efforts to persuade her to remove her signature from the discharge petition -- a phone call he made to her Tuesday, a summons to the White House Wednesday, a visit to the imposing Situation Room, pressure from the Attorney General of the United States, pressure from the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation -- despite all that -- nevertheless, she persisted. ~~~  

     ~~~ AND wouldn't it be something if Trump cared at least half as much about millions of children going hungry or millions of Americans going without affordable health insurance as he does about the public learning more about his own sordid sex stories? The Situation Room? Really?

Kyle Cheney & Nahal Toosi of Politico: “Nearly a month before ... Donald Trump met Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018, Jeffrey Epstein attempted to pass a message to Russia’s top diplomat: If you want to understand Trump, talk to me. I think you might suggest to putin that lavrov can get insight on talking to me,' Epstein wrote in a June 24, 2018, email to Thorbjorn Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway who was leading the Council of Europe at the time of the exchange. Lavrov was an apparent reference to Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s longtime foreign minister. In the email exchange, one of hundreds released Wednesday by congressional investigators, Epstein indicated he had previously talked about Trump with Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s forceful ambassador to the United Nations, before Churkin died in 2017.”

Rebecca Falconer of Axios: Donald "Trump said in a Fox News interview that aired Tuesday evening H-1B skilled worker visas are necessary because 'you don't have certain talents' in the U.S." Read on. MB: Trump makes a good argument. ~~~

     ~~~ BUT MAGA is very upset. MB: One of the biggest problems on the right is that wingers are completely unreasonable. This is partly because Republicans have fed them a pack of lies and partly because the little MAGA-ts bought the lies and in general are susceptible to tall tales that fit into a wholly unrealistic and simplistic worldview. One result is that when anyone -- even their Dear Leader -- tries to reason them out of a prejudice, s/he will fail. 

Jeremy Kohler of ProPublica: "In his second term..., Donald Trump has largely used his clemency power to benefit allies, donors and culture-war figures — including Jan. 6 defendants.... Few of Trump’s pardons have gone to people who met the Justice Department’s criteria and properly petitioned the Office of the Pardon Attorney.... Trump could have reformed clemency by moving it out of the Justice Department and having an independent panel in charge of it. Instead, experts say he has exploited it."

Ivan Penn & David Gelles of the New York Times: “Top U.S. government officials are skipping the annual United Nations climate summit for the first time in 30 years. And many American corporate executives appear to be following their lead. Though few executives have joined ... [Donald] Trump in calling climate change a hoax, some have recently suggested that it is perhaps not deserving of as much attention as it has been getting. Their attitude is not so much climate denial as it is a rejection of the past framing of the issue, a stark shift from the advocacy and commitments made at summits held under different political conditions.... At this year’s U.N. climate summit, no prominent American leaders made the trip to in Belém, Brazil, a city on the edge of the Amazon rainforest. 'Obviously, it has to do with the political climate in the U.S.,' said Sonia Dunlop ... of the Global Solar Council, a trade organization.” ~~~

Somini Sengupta of the New York Times: “Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Tuesday cast himself as the 'stable and reliable' American partner to the world, called a reported White House proposal to open offshore drilling in the waters off California 'disgraceful' and urged his fellow Democrats to recast climate change as a 'cost of living issue.' Mr. Newsom, a Democrat who is widely considered to be weighing a 2028 presidential bid, used his appearance at the United Nations climate summit in Belém, Brazil, to paint ... [Donald] Trump as a threat to American competitiveness by letting China dominate electric vehicles, solar panels and other clean energy technologies of the future. 'The United States of America better wake up at that,' Mr. Newsom said at one of his many packed sessions at the climate conference, known as COP30. 'It’s not about electric power. It’s about economic power. We, as the state of California, are not going to cede that race to China.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I suppose Barack Obama remains, in most people's minds, the leader of the Democratic party, but Gavin Newsom, of whom I am not a particular fan, certain is making himself at least a close second. And generally, he says the right things.

Sopan Deb of the New York Times: “Cleto Escobedo III, a saxophonist whose childhood friendship with the comedian Jimmy Kimmel led to a decades-long role as the leader of the house band on Mr. Kimmel’s late night show, 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!,' died on Tuesday. He was 59.” ~~~

~~~ Here's another kind of obituary for Cleto. (Yes, it's sad. But like an Irish wake is sad.) ~~~

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Marie: I was updating till 9:40 am ET, so if you came by earlier, you might want to skim the page again. 

Robert Mackey of the Guardian: “Donald Trump promoted the false claim that Barack Obama has earned $40m in 'royalties linked to Obamacare' in a post to his 11 million followers on Truth Social on Sunday. The fictional claim that the former US president receives royalty payments for the use of his name to refer to the Affordable Care Act, which he signed into law in 2010, has been repeatedly debunked since at least 2017, when it was featured on America’s Last Line of Defense, a satirical website that produces fake news reports designed to generate engagement from outraged conservatives.... On Sunday morning, Trump posted a screenshot of an earlier post with an image of Obama and the text: 'BREAKING: DOGE halted a yearly payment of $2.5 million to Barack Obama for “royalties linked to Obamacare.” He’s been collecting it since 2010, for a total of $40 million in taxpayer dollars.'... A White House spokesperson refused to answer questions about whether the president was aware that the report he shared was fictional, or was concerned about misleading his followers, replying instead with a broadside against Obama....” Thanks to Akhilleus, who linked to this report in a comment titled, “He IS as stupid as you think.” ~~~

Everyone says he is crazy – which maybe he is – but the scarier thing about him is that he is stupid. You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don’t. -- Fran Lebowitz, ca. March 2018 (thanks to Patrick for the link)

It's a shame President Obama didn't earn $40 million off Obamacare^TM  because he's worth it. Here's what he was doing on Veterans Day yesterday: ~~~ 

By contrast, here's what the fake president was doing: ~~~

     ~~~ “We’re the One that Won the Wars.” Sarah Ewall-Wice of the Daily Beast, republished by Yahoo! News: “... Donald Trump declared on Tuesday that he was giving Veterans Day a new name while speaking at a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. 'As you know today is not only Veterans Day, but it’s my proclamation that we are now going to be saying and calling Victory Day for World War I,' Trump said. The president said he was recently at an event and saw that European countries were celebrating Victory Day, but the U.S. was not. 'I saw France was celebrating another Victory Day for World War II, and other countries were celebrating,' Trump rambled. 'They were all celebrating. We’re the one that won the wars.'... Tuesday was not the first time Trump has signaled he wanted to rename Veterans Day. He also brought it up in a Truth Social post on May 1. 'I am hereby renaming May 8th as Victory Day for World War II and November 11th as Victory Day for World War I,' Trump wrote. 'We won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance, but we never celebrate anything.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Andrew Feinberg of the Independent: “First observed on Nov. 11, 1919 — a full year after hostilities were officially ended when the WWI Armistice ending the war with Germany went into effect — the holiday was known as Armistice Day in the United States until 1954, when Congress officially changed the name of the holiday to Veterans Day at the urging of American veterans organizations.” Emphasis. MB: It is hardly surprising that a person who calls veterans suckers and losers but likes to congratulate himself for "so much winning" would try to erase the celebration of the veterans who fought and died "to save the world for democracy" (an ideal he also is trying to wipe out) and replace it with a false claim that the U.S. single-handedly won WWI & WWII. Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~   

~~~ Marie: When he got through dissing our allies in the world wars, everybody sang "God Bless America." Well, everybody but Trump who could get only as far as "God bless American, my home sweet home." I grew up at the same time & in the same country that Trump did, and I can assure you that all of us who were schoolchildren in the 1950s learned the lyrics to the main stanza of "God Bless America." Plus, Kate Smith was all over the teevee belting it out. Ergo, for those of us of a certain age -- unless we have dementia or are extraordinarily stupid -- it is almost impossible to be unable to sing along. ~~~

~~~ To be fair, Trump's disrespect for the sacrifices and contributions of our allies to the world wars is hardly the only reason they have to turn their backs on Trump & his administration. ~~~ 

~~~⭐Natasha Bertrand of CNN: “The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal.... The UK’s decision marks a significant break from its closest ally and intelligence sharing partner and underscores the growing skepticism over the legality of the US military’s campaign around Latin America. For years, the UK, which controls a number of territories in the Caribbean where it bases intelligence assets, has helped the US locate vessels suspected of carrying drugs so that the US Coast Guard could interdict them, the sources said. That meant the ships would be stopped, boarded, its crew detained, and drugs seized.... The intelligence pause began over a month ago, sources said.” More on U.S. Caribbean attacks linked under “Venezuela” below. ~~~

     ~~~ Washington Post Editors: “Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly angered his counterparts at [Britain's] MI5. He had promised to protect a key FBI agent who was working with the British agency on surveillance technology. Yet that job was slashed by the White House’s budget cuts anyway, the New York Times reported on Monday. All of this comes amid a seemingly never-ending fight over trade.... Since [the U.K. & U.S. reached a new trade agreement which Trump forced], the president has added a flurry of product-specific tariffs that British officials have struggled to cope with.... In a world full of enemies, the U.S. does itself no favors by alienating allies for no good reason.”

Margot Sanger-Katz & Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times: “The longest government shutdown in U.S. history is coming to an end, but the central issue that caused it — the staggering cost of health care — isn’t going away anytime soon. It will continue to bedevil ... [Donald] Trump, especially as the midterm elections draw closer....  Despite repeated promises to offer an alternative to Obamacare, Mr. Trump has nothing much to show on the issue, beyond a vague plan to send money directly to policyholders....  Like Mr. Trump, Republicans in Congress who have spent years attacking Obamacare have not offered up a serious alternative, since their failed effort to repeal the law in 2017.... The evidence that [Mr. Trump's] approach could significantly lower costs is not strong.” MB: Maybe Trump would come up with more than “a concept of a plan” if he thought he could get millions of dollars in royalties for Trumplecare. ~~~

~~~ Ah, Republicans Do Have a Diabolical Plot. Kelly Hooper & Robert King of Politico: “Republicans are putting their own spin on subsidizing Americans’ health care: Route money away from insurers and put cash directly in consumers’ hands to give them more choice over their coverage. Economists and policy experts suspect ... Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers are presenting this alternative to extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies because they want to undermine or even replace Obamacare — something the party has repeatedly failed to do in the past. With direct cash payments from the federal government into special accounts, 'healthy people could get much cheaper insurance that has medical underwriting and doesn’t cover preexisting conditions, but that would leave much sicker people in the ACA pool, and likely send it into a death spiral,' said Larry Levitt ... of KFF, a nonpartisan research organization. If younger, healthier consumers choose such so-called junk health plans — with lower costs and less robust coverage — or don’t use the money for health insurance, it could throw off the balance of risk and prompt insurers to exit the market entirely, Levitt and others said.” ~~~

     ~~~ And Maybe Some Subplots. Like This One. Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "Senate Republicans say they’re open to extending a pot of Affordable Care Act funds that will expire at the end of the year — but only if Democrats acquiesce to stricter abortion restrictions on insurance plans. The demand presents a significant hurdle to reaching a bipartisan deal to extend ACA funding designed to avoid major premium hikes next year for more than 20 million Americans, as Democrats are adamant that existing abortion guardrails under Obamacare are sufficient." ~~~

~~~ Annie Karni of the New York Times: “... even some of the Democrats most outraged by [eight Senate Democratic defectors] are not so certain that their party’s aborted fight was all for naught. They assert that in hammering away at the extension of health care subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of next month, they managed to thrust Mr. Trump and Republicans onto the defensive.... And in holding out for weeks while Republicans refused to extend the health tax credits and Mr. Trump went to court to deny low-income Americans SNAP food benefits, Democrats also honed their main message going into 2026: that Republicans who control all of government have done nothing to address voters’ concerns that the cost of living is too high.... Senate Democrats believe that they held together long enough for Mr. Trump to reveal a new level of callousness in his refusal to fund food stamps for 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. And they believe all of that helped contribute to a mini-blue wave last week....” ~~~

~~~ BUT, as digby writes, there's a way to "lose well": She cites Brian Beutler in a podcast he did with Greg Sargent: "... there’s strong ways to cave and then there’s weak ways to cave. And what we’ve seen is Democrats say, essentially, we tried to fight Donald Trump and it didn’t work, so we give up. That was Angus King’s line, essentially. But if they had reached the same decision but from a different posture, it might not have appeared to everyone like surrender, right? If Jeanne Shaheen or Angus King, or ideally just Chuck Schumer, went to the mics and said: We have tried everything we can to make Republicans give you back your health care. They refuse to do so. The only way you’re going to get your health care back is to elect Democrats.

In the meantime, Americans need their government to be working for them. The problem with that is that Donald Trump can’t be trusted with a full-year budget. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to give him one month of budget authority. And if he doesn’t break the law, we’ll give him another month. And we’re going to keep him on a very short leash to keep him in line with the law. And if he and Russell Vought break the budget law even one more time, there will be no more Democratic votes for even a month of budget, of budget runway. Then at least you’re setting the terms — you’re saying, Look, like they are completely irrational about health care and you’re going to pay for it and we’re sorry about that, vote for us next time." Thanks to RAS for the link.

~~~ Lawrence O'Donnell begin his A-block segment by tell us how Donald Trump essentially wrote that 65 percent of Americans were fools, but he goes on to back Chuck Schumer for holding the Democratic caucus together for so long during the shutdown. (This is the second day O'Donnell has stood up for Schumer.) He -- and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse -- are worth hearing out. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: O'Donnell asserted that only six percent of Americans get health insurance through Obamacare. According to Google's Art Intel, "Approximately 7.6% of Americans have health insurance from the individual market plans created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces, while a larger number, about 1 in 6 (16.4%) of non-elderly people, are covered through either the ACA Marketplace or the Medicaid expansion program." 

Look Who's Coming to Washington! Michael Gold of the New York Times: “The House of Representatives will finally return to session on Wednesday after a hiatus that stretched on for 54 days, as lawmakers take up legislation that would end the longest government shutdown in American history.... But Republicans’ narrow margin of control and strong opposition from most Democrats [to the legislation] are likely to make for an uncomfortably close vote.... While the representatives went on break..., hundreds of thousands of federal workers went without pay, millions of low-income Americans wondered whether they would receive food assistance and exasperated air travelers dealt with disruptions.... Democrats’ ranks will be bolstered after Mr. Johnson swears in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who was elected seven weeks ago, whom he had refused to seat. Citing [MB: fake] precedent, the speaker declined to swear her during a House recess that he called and prolonged.” ~~~

     ~~~ Andrew Solender & Kate Santaliz of Axios: "Johnson will perform Grijalva's ceremonial swearing in at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday at 4pm ET, his office said in a statement.... The delay will have been the longest in more than a decade, per Axios' Jessica Boehm.... Grijalva has pledged to be the final signature on a discharge petition that would trigger a vote on forcing the Justice Department to release documents from its case against the late convicted sex offender and billionaire financier [Jeffrey Epstein]." ~~~

~~~ Michael Luciano of Mediaite:  “On Tuesday, the [House] Rules Committee met to take up the [Senate-passed] bill.... Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) welcomed back his Republican colleagues.... ~~~

'Well hello, Madam Chair. Welcome back. Long time no see. I hardly recognize you guys. Where the hell have you been? It’s good to see you back in the Capitol building We’ve been looking everywhere for you guys. Seriously, we were worried. We actually started handing out missing person posters. Nobody has seen you for eight weeks. But hey, I’m glad that you’re ok. I’m glad you survived your nice two-month paid vacation while Democrats stayed in Washington to try to end this shutdown.

'But here’s the deal. Most Americans think that what Republicans did, skipping town in a shutdown, has been one of the most disgraceful, embarrassing, pathetic eras in the modern history of the House of Representatives. For eight weeks, eight weeks, Speaker Johnson let you all stay home while Americans missed paychecks, skipped meals him, and watched their costs explode. Republicans quiet-quit their jobs.'”

Mark Berman of the Washington Post: “The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday kept in place a pause on a lower-court order that had directed the Trump administration to pay full food assistance benefits to millions of Americans, preventing federal officials, for now, from having to provide the aid. The high court’s order said it was keeping the lower court’s ruling paused through 11:59 p.m. Thursday. The Supreme Court’s order Tuesday evening provided no explanation, as is typical in the court’s responses to emergency requests.... The legal issue over the funding could be rendered moot soon if a deal advancing on Capitol Hill to end the shutdown is adopted.”

Secretary Scott Bessent Makes Sure Investor Scott Bessent Doesn't Pay Medicare Taxes. Andrew Duehren of the New York Times: “Like many on Wall Street, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent used a limited partnership to avoid Medicare taxes.... Mr. Bessent’s hedge fund, Key Square Capital Management..., avoided paying roughly $910,000 in Medicare taxes ... in 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to a memorandum prepared by Democratic Senate staff for Mr. Bessent’s confirmation hearing in January....  Mr. Bessent paid Social Security taxes in full.... Mr. Bessent has stood by the tax maneuver. During his confirmation process to lead the Treasury Department, which oversees the I.R.S., Mr. Bessent said he would not follow the I.R.S. position that limited partners like him owed those self-employment taxes. Instead, he said he wanted to see how ongoing legal challenges [to the IRS's attempted crackdown on the tax avoidance] would pan out.... Mr. Bessent’s decision to not pay the additional tax has now put him in the unusual spot of personally opposing — and having a personal stake in — how the I.R.S. interprets tax law. And since he took office, the Treasury and I.R.S. have backed away from developing regulations to address it.”

Coming to a City Near You. Dana Goldstein & Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: “The Trump administration plans to further expand the presence of immigration agents in American cities, deploying the U.S. Border Patrol to Charlotte, N.C., and New Orleans.... A two-month enforcement blitz [in Chicago] has led to thousands of arrests and frequent confrontations between residents and federal agents. Border Patrol agents at times used force, including tear gas and pepper spray.... Last week, a federal judge in Illinois, Sara L. Ellis, restricted the Border Patrol’s use of crowd-control weapons, saying, 'The use of force shocks the conscience.'” MB: I suppose it's immaterial that the cities the violence-prone Border Patrol will hit next are led by (1) Black (2) Democratic (3) women. ~~~

~~~ Richard Luscombe of the Guardian: “An Illinois man said his US citizen family – including his one-year-old daughter – were pepper-sprayed in their car by federal immigration agents during a shopping trip in a Chicago suburb. Video of the encounter outside a Sam’s Club in Cicero shows Rafael Veraza clutching at his face after he was allegedly sprayed through his open window with a cloudy substance fired by a masked agent from a pickup truck traveling in the opposite direction. Veraza, 25, told reporters his wife told him to stop their car because she, their daughter, and sister were also hit. The images show the aftermath of the episode with the girl in distress in her mother’s arms with her eyes streaming. 'My daughter was trying to open her eyes. She was struggling to breathe,' Veraza told reporters at a press conference on Sunday, a day after an operation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the store.”

Sam Levine of the Guardian: “Ethics officials at Fannie Mae were removed from their jobs as they investigated whether a top Trump ally improperly accessed mortgage documents of Letitia James, the New York attorney general, and other Democratic officials, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. William Pulte, a staunch Trump defender and the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), has accused James, Adam Schiff, a California senator, and Lisa Cook, a federal reserve governor, of mortgage fraud.... Individualized mortgage data is highly sensitive and protected.... Ethics and internal investigation officials at Fannie Mae, the mortgage financing provider, had received internal complaints that senior officials at FHFA had ordered employees to access the mortgage documents of James and others, the Journal reported on Tuesday. They passed on their investigation to the inspector general’s office, who subsequently forwarded it to the US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia. 

“Trump installed an ally, Lindsey Halligan, in that job last month. Halligan was unhappy to have been sent the information, which could become part of discovery she would be required to hand over to James’s lawyers, and forwarded the communication to the White House, according to a person familiar with the matter....  Halligan ... denied forwarding information to the White House. Joe Allen, who was serving as the acting inspector general, was asked to step down from his role. The inspector general’s website currently says that the office is vacant. About a dozen ethics and internal investigations staff from Fannie Mae were fired last month, the Journal reported, including Suzanne Libby, the agency’s chief ethics officer.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Levine so hangs his hat on the passive voice that there's no way to tell who fired all those ethics officials who were investigating Bill Pulte. But according to this Nov. 10 story by Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post, the person who fired them was ... Bill Pulte. (Siegel reported that a complaint alleged that Pulte had fired the ethics officers to protect “a high-ranking officer close to Pulte.” Turns out, really close. Right in the same skin.)

Edward Wong of the New York Times: “A Democratic senator has criticized Secretary of State Marco Rubio for paying $7.5 million to the government of Equatorial Guinea to agree to take deportees from the United States who are not its citizens. The senator, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent a letter to Mr. Rubio on Monday saying that the 'highly unusual payment — to one of the most corrupt governments in the world — raises serious concerns over the responsible, transparent use of American taxpayer dollars.' The $7.5 million is by far the largest payment the Trump administration is known to have made to another government to take deportees who are not its citizens. Ms. Shaheen noted that Transparency International, a research group, ranked Equatorial Guinea 173 out of 180 countries for corruption. And the State Department itself said in its 2023 human rights report that the country’s 'president and members of his inner circle continued to amass personal fortunes from the revenues associated with monopolies on all domestic commercial ventures' and that 'corruption at all levels of government was a severe problem.' A State Department report from 2025 on human trafficking pointed to multiple 'credible sources' who had said government officials were involved in trafficking, including for sex.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Okay, so my senator isn't completely useless. She writes pointed, accusatory letters to government officials -- just as we do. As for Little Marco, during his time in the Senate, I thought he was a lightweight and a two-faced phony. Until he became Secretary of State, I didn't realize how generous that assessment was. 

Jane Timm of NBC News: "A Utah judge late Monday night rejected new congressional district lines drawn by Republican state lawmakers, instead approving a map with a solidly Democratic seat ahead of next year's midterm elections. The ruling is a major blow for Republicans, who had designed a map to protect the state’s all-GOP congressional delegation. And it gives Democrats a boost as they attempt to respond to Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting efforts around the country and win control of the House in 2026.... Utah District Court Judge Dianna Gibson tossed that map in favor of one suggested by the plaintiffs in the case. She concluded that Republicans had impermissibly considered political data and gerrymandered in favor of their own party."

Rylee Kirk of the New York Times: “ByHeart, a maker of organic baby formula, expanded a voluntary recall on Tuesday to include all of its products sold nationwide after federal health regulators found botulism infections in two additional infants, bringing the number of reported cases to 15. The expanded recall was announced days after the Food and Drug Administration told caregivers to stop using two batches of ByHeart’s powdered Whole Nutrition Infant Formula after health agencies found an increase in the number of botulism infections in infants who had consumed it. The F.D.A. said on Saturday that 13 infants had been hospitalized in 10 states. On Tuesday, the agency asked ByHeart to expand the recall to include all of its powdered formula after the number of hospitalized infants rose to 15 in 12 states.”

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Kansas. Livia Albeck-Ripka of the New York Times: “A county in central Kansas has agreed to pay more than $3 million and apologize for a 2023 raid on local newspaper that raised press freedom concerns and turned the small town of Marion, Kan., into a battleground over the First Amendment.... On Aug. 11, 2023, police officers and county sheriff’s deputies raided the office of The Record and the ... homes [of the editor of the Marion County Record and the city's vice-mayor].... During the raid, officers searched the newsroom, rifling through drawers and removing computers, cellphones and other materials. [Editor Eric] Meyer told The New York Times in 2023 that seven law enforcement officials spent more than two hours in his home, which he was sharing with his 98-year-old mother [-- former editor and publisher of the newspaper --] at the time. The authorities said the search was part of an investigation into how the newspaper had obtained a government document that contained information about a local restaurant owner’s steps to restore her driver’s license. The acquisition of that document, the authorities said, may have constituted identity theft and other crimes.”

New York Congressional Race. Maya King of the New York Times: “Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy, said he would run for the congressional seat being vacated by Representative Jerrold Nadler, joining the crowded Democratic primary in an influential New York City district and continuing his family’s legacy in electoral politics. Mr. Schlossberg, 32, is perhaps best known as a social-media political commentator and provocateur who has frequently weighed in on national issues. He shared the news of his campaign in an email to supporters on Tuesday night. In an interview earlier on Tuesday, he said he felt the Democratic Party needed more voices to push back on perceived abuses of power by ... [Donald] Trump and his allies, arguing that a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives was the only way to restore democratic norms.” Schlossberg already has a large social-media presence. An NBC News story is here.

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Venezuela. Tara Copp, et al., of the Washington Post: “The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier has entered waters near Latin America, prompting Venezuela to put the entire country’s military arsenal at the ready, as the U.S. naval buildup fuels speculation that the Trump administration intends to dramatically escalate its deadly counternarcotics campaign there.The Ford and its three accompanying warships arrived in the region Tuesday, the Navy said in a news release.... The objective is to place 'the entire country’s military arsenal on full operational readiness,' [Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir] Padrino López said. The preparations include 'massive deployment of ground, aerial, naval, riverine and missile forces' with the participation of all security forces and militia.... Last week, [U.S.] administration officials hoping to quash bipartisan legislation aimed at restraining [Donald Trump]’s ability to unleash military force there told lawmakers no active preparations were underway for ... an attack — a declaration that persuaded enough Republicans to vote down the measure.”