May 2, 2026

 

Erica Green & Megan Mineiro of the New York Times: Donald “Trump sent letters to Congress on Friday making the case that a Vietnam-era law requiring him to seek congressional authorization to continue military operations in Iran did not apply because the conflict was in a cease-fire. In the letters — sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the president pro tempore of the Senate — Mr. Trump said that he was writing to inform them 'of changes in the posture of United States Forces' and reiterated his administration’s position that a cease-fire he declared on April 7 had stopped the clock on the war.... But Mr. Trump’s letters made the case that there had 'been no exchange of fire between United States Forces and Iran since April 7,' and that hostilities the United States and Israel began on Feb. 28 'have terminated,' in an apparent attempt to avoid having to seek congressional approval. He did not mention that U.S. forces fired on an Iranian-flagged cargo ship on April 19. And just hours later on Friday, the president undercut his own argument. 'You know we’re in a war,' Mr. Trump said in remarks in Florida. 'Because I think you would agree we cannot let lunatics have a nuclear weapon.'

“Senior Democrats immediately rejected the assertion that the cease-fire had paused the clock, an argument the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, first put forward on Thursday.... On Friday, speaking to reporters outside the White House, Mr. Trump asserted that he didn’t need to ask Congress to extend the war 'because it’s never been sought before,' and he claimed that the requirement was 'unconstitutional.'... Congress has, in fact, authorized deployments into major hostilities past 60 days since the enactment of the War Powers Resolution, including major operations like the Persian Gulf War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as smaller operations like a 1983 peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.” ~~~

~~~ Megan Mineiro of the New York Times: “Key Republicans in Congress are growing impatient about the complex and costly conflict in the Middle East as the war reaches its 60-day mark, pivoting after weeks of deferring to ... [Donald] Trump to a more skeptical posture.... [They are] faced with a tough political landscape made more challenging by the unpopular war and the resulting rise in gas prices and consumer goods.... [The] statutory deadline ... also comes as concern about the cost of the conflict is rising and lawmakers are bracing to be asked to approve a request in the tens of billions of dollars or higher to pay for it.” MB: Count me as unimpressed. Mineiro points to a certain degree of handwringing among a few GOP senators to mollify their constituents. But it seems the most aggressive threat any Republican has made is to demand a Senate debate and/or pass a resolution approving the war but putting some squishy limits on it that Trump & Drunk Pete could easily ignore.

Julian Barnes & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: “Pentagon officials said on Friday that they were pulling 5,000 troops from Germany and would redeploy them to the United States and other posts overseas. The Defense Department is also canceling a plan developed under the Biden administration to place a missile-equipped artillery unit in Europe. The moves will return U.S. forces in Europe to the level they were in 2022, before Russia began its war in Ukraine, the officials said.... Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that the withdrawal would be completed over the next six to 12 months.... The Defense Department — particularly during both of ... [Donald] Trump’s terms — has for several years considered decreasing the military presence in Germany. But senior defense officials privately made it clear that they wanted the move to be seen as a punishment for Germany, whose recent comments about the U.S. war in Iran have annoyed Mr. Trump. Earlier this week, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Iran had 'humiliated' the United States, and he questioned how Mr. Trump planned to end the conflict.” ~~~

     ~~~ Everything Trump Does Is Stupid. Before the Pentagon's announcement, Victor Jack & Chris Lunday of Politico pointed to costs & difficulties of pulling troops from Germany. For instance, “... a 2025 law ... prevents the president from leaving fewer than 76,000 troops in Europe. With up to 85,000 soldiers on the continent, that gives him a legal maximum of 9,000 soldiers. But even doing that would take 'four years at the minimum' and could cost 'hundreds of billions' of dollars when accounting for indirect expenses as well, said retired Gen. Mark Hertling, the former commanding officer of U.S. Army Europe who helped manage a significant American drawdown between 2003 and 2011. That doesn’t account for broader complexities and costs, he argued, including shifting thousands of soldiers’ families, firing local German workers, closing down hospitals and leaving newly upgraded bases abandoned.” Thanks to Akhilleus for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: As usual, the people who will be hurt most by Trump's pique are ordinary people: soldiers & their families who will be uprooted, small German vendors who supply the U.S. bases, and U.S. taxpayers who have to pay for the disruptive moves. 

Marie: I'm not much of a fan of Steve Rattner, but Joe Jervis/Joe.My.God points to a useful MS NOW segment Rattner did on MS NOW that outlines how Trump suckered his fans. Rattner explains the crux of the scam: “... [Trump] created something called a $Trump coin. And ... there was a $Melania coin a little bit later. It is a coin that means nothing. It is like buying a pet rock, except you don’t even get a rock; it has no value. It has no trading value, it’s not used in commerce — nothing. They sold them initially at $7 and went all the way up to $45. Not surprisingly, it crashed.... So there have been found to be 45 what are called whale wallets, huge buyers of this stuff early on in the process. Then as crypto went up, these whales, and it could include Trump ... they made $1.2 billion. Trump, we know, made about $600 million in trading fees and so forth on this.... Who lost were two million innocent Americans who bought this thing because they thought Trump was great or whatever. They lost $4.3 billion by buying [when the coins were trading at high prices] and now [they own] something that is worth less than $3.” ~~~

     ~~~ RAS, who linked Jervis's post, suggests that Trump may have tipped off or colluded with whales -- for a price. You can watch the MS NOW segment on Jervis's post or here on YouTube.

Marie: Oh, here's a Trumpian "beautification" project that slipped my mind: ~~~ 

Luke Broadwater & Zachary Small of the New York Times: Donald “Trump’s vision for his National Garden of American Heroes is growing larger and most likely more expensive than his initial estimates, with the latest plans calling for reflecting pools, dining facilities and an amphitheater alongside 250 life-size statues of notable Americans. The plans have expanded to the point that they could require significant redevelopment of West Potomac Park, an area of mostly sports fields near the National Mall.... The statues alone could cost more than the $40 million approved for the project by Congress, according to the Trump administration’s estimate. Based on the latest renderings, the Garden of Heroes could rank among the more expensive and time-consuming projects Mr. Trump has undertaken as he works to remake the nation’s capital in his own style. Construction has yet to begin, raising questions about whether Mr. Trump will run out of time — and money — to deliver on his ambitions before the end of his second term.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I suppose tourists from Kansas might enjoy dining at the Trumpomat and looking at their faces in the Narcissists' Pools, so to hell with the locals who might enjoy playing a game in a free national park baseball field. As you will have guessed, Trump's "heroes" don't include Barack Obama. But Canadian/teevee personality Alex Trebek & British filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock (both of whom became dual U.S. citizens, maintaining their citizenship in their birth countries) do count as American heroes. (I have nothing against either Trebek & Hitchcock, but do they bring to mind "American heroism"? I don't think so.)  

Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: Donald “Trump has spent the past year using the federal government to target those he considers his political enemies. Now, in a series of primaries this month, he is turning his ire on fellow Republicans by asking voters to punish those who have crossed him. Contests in Indiana, Louisiana and Kentucky in the coming weeks all feature Trump-backed challengers trying to oust Republican incumbents who have earned Mr. Trump’s ire. The fights have soaked up energy and cash from the president’s allies and his political operation, pulling attention away from the broader battle with Democrats over control of Congress this fall.”

Marie: re: the 8647 crime of the century, RAS was trying to figure out just what's illegal. As RAS discovered, the Lincoln Project also was unsure. I scrolled on down the page of responses to the Lincoln Center's Bluesky post and found a number of other -- quite humorous -- possibilities. This was my favorite (and yes, I had Art Intel do the math; I can't remember how to find the square root of a number, even when I'm pretty sure I know the answer) (Also linked yesterday): 

Marie: I thought I knew the meaning of "86," (and I did), but I thought I should look for an expert opinion. So I turned to Merriam-Webster: "Eighty-six is slang meaning 'to throw out,' 'to get rid of,' or 'to refuse service to.' It comes from 1930s soda-counter slang meaning that an item was sold out. There is varying anecdotal evidence about why the term eighty-six was used, but the most common theory is that it is rhyming slang for nix." After giving numerous examples and offering some theories on the earliest usages of the term, M-W writes, "Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of 'to kill.' We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use." ~~~

     According to Art Intel, ""While popularly known as restaurant jargon for running out of an item, it is considered, a at times, deadly mafia-related term for murder, particularly in urban legends where it implies taking someone '8 miles out and 6 feet under,' as noted in and on Quora. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Since our president* is a mafia-style boss, I guess it's not surprising that he would adopt the mafia-related meaning. As Evan Hurst of Wonkette wrote yesterday, "It makes sense, of course, that the mob boss president would be clinging to references like that. Because he’s old. And sad. And his brain is expired." Hurst notes that in the Oval Office Wednesday, in response to a reporter's question, Trump said,

"Well if anybody knows anything about crime, they know 86, you know, 86, it’s a mob term for kill ‘em, you ever seen the movies? 86 ‘em! The mobster says to one of his wonderful associates, '86 ‘em, that means kill ‘em! It’s uh, I think of it as a mob term, I don’t, people think of it as something having to do with disappearing, but the mob uses that term to say, when they want to kill somebody, they say “86 the son of a gun!” I’m trying to keep the language nice and clear, they don’t use that term “son of a gun” they use another term, but that’s a mob term for kill ‘em."

Isabella Kwai, et al., of the New York Times: “The F.B.I. and prosecutors shared on Thursday new footage of the man charged with trying to assassinate ... [Donald] Trump during the White House correspondents’ dinner at the Washington Hilton last weekend, leading up to when shots were fired. The video contains more than five minutes of edited and annotated surveillance footage.... It was shared on social media by the F.B.I. and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. In her post on Thursday, Ms. Pirro asserted that the video resolved uncertainty about whose gunfire had struck a Secret Service officer, who was protected by his bulletproof vest. The video, she wrote, showed that the man charged in the case, Cole Tomas Allen, had shot the Secret Service officer, and that there was 'no evidence the shooting was the result of friendly fire.'... Law enforcement and administration officials had previously stopped short of definitively saying whose gunfire had struck the officer’s vest, and the charges lodged against Mr. Allen on Monday ... did not include shooting a federal officer, only with firing a weapon.” ~~~

Debra Kamin & Santul Nerkar of the New York Times: “When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was seeking the nomination to become health secretary, he consulted with a crisis communications firm that has been accused of running a smear campaign against the actress Blake Lively, according to records unsealed on Friday in Manhattan federal court. The records show that a strategist associated with the firm, The Agency Group, promised in late 2024 to help suppress negative stories about Mr. Kennedy, boost positive ones and create an algorithm 'to manage concerns' related to negative publicity. It was not clear whether the firm, which is also known as TAG PR, performed any work on Mr. Kennedy’s behalf. The documents were gathered by Ms. Lively’s legal team [for a suit having nothing to do with Mr. Kennedy].... The records include a deposition that quotes an email from the strategist, Jed Wallace, to a TAG executive in which Mr. Wallace explicitly describes pushing positive stories and burying negative ones about Mr. Kennedy. The same email also noted that Mr. Wallace believed positive coverage might draw the attention of ... [Donald] Trump.... At the time, Mr. Kennedy had abandoned a bid to become president and was facing questions about his past behavior.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So for our next question: will Trump dump Kennedy because Kennedy conned him? It's not the right reason to fire Kennedy, of course, but I'm not sure I care. I'm just hoping for Kennedy's ouster.

Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: “A National Institutes of Health employee who was put on paid leave after organizing a public letter that criticized the Trump administration said on Friday that she had been reinstated — a move that followed the reinstatement of 14 Federal Emergency Management Agency employees who had signed a critical letter of their own. The employee, Jenna Norton, was a key organizer of 'The Bethesda Declaration,' issued in June 2025 and signed by nearly 500 N.I.H. employees, which deplored the degradation of medical research under Mr. Trump. The document spawned a wave of other public letters, including one known as the Katrina Declaration, signed by the FEMA employees, which warned that the agency risked repeating mistakes it had made during the Hurricane Katrina disaster more than two decades ago. Dr. Norton, a program director at the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, was sent home with pay in November, when she tried to return to work after a 43-day government shutdown. She subsequently filed a whistle-blower complaint.... She has emerged as a high-profile critic of the administration, speaking out on social media and in interviews. This week, she received a four-sentence email telling her to return to work on Monday, she said, but it gave no reason for the reinstatement.”

Ana Ley & Ashley Ahn of the New York Times: “A federal judge in New York on Friday blocked the Trump administration from revoking temporary legal protections next week for Yemeni migrants. The decision offered the migrants a fragile victory as the government seeks to end pathways for people fleeing humanitarian crises. In a strongly worded opinion, Judge Dale E. Ho of Federal District Court in Manhattan said that the government had ignored the law when it tried to deport people who had been rigorously vetted in order to receive Temporary Protected Status.... 'T.P.S. holders from Yemen are not “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies,’” Judge Ho wrote in the decision. 'They are ordinary, law-abiding people who have been granted status to be here because the government has repeatedly determined, in accordance with the T.P.S. statute, that Yemen is subject to an ongoing armed conflict, and that, due to that conflict, requiring them to return would pose a serious threat to their safety.' In March, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the U.S. government on behalf of seven Yemeni nationals after Kristi Noem, then the homeland security secretary, announced Yemen’s removal from the T.P.S. program.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Although the reporters don't bother to explain it, Judge Ho's reference to “killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies” cites an X tweet Noem wrote in December 2025: “I just met with the President. I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”

Pam Belluck of the New York Times: “A federal appeals court issued a ruling on Friday temporarily halting the ability of abortion providers to prescribe pills using telemedicine and send them to patients by mail, blocking what has become a major avenue for women seeking abortions in recent years. The order comes in a case in which the state of Louisiana is suing the Food and Drug Administration, seeking to sharply curtail access to the abortion pill mifepristone. In the order, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted Louisiana’s request for a temporary stay of the F.D.A.’s decision several years ago to remove a requirement that patients see a medical provider in person before the pills could be prescribed. The court order, citing Louisiana’s claims that making pills available by mail has allowed patients there to access the medication despite the state’s near-total abortion ban, said that 'Louisiana has shown that it is irreparably harmed without a stay.' In April, a Federal District Court in Louisiana had declined to pause the availability of pills by mail....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Louisiana has always been a bug, festering swampland both literally and figuratively, but it's becoming worse now. (See also Callais v. Louisiana, Alito opinion.)

Vimal Patel of the New York Times: “The president of Bard College, who has run the unorthodox liberal-arts school for more than a half century, announced his retirement on Friday, after the release of documents that showed he had a closer relationship with Jeffrey Epstein than previously known. The president, Leon Botstein, was known for his fund-raising prowess and outsize personality.... The [Epstein] files showed Dr. Botstein had exchanged messages and visits with Mr. Epstein for years, including after Mr. Epstein’s conviction on solicitation of a minor for prostitution. In one 2013 note, Dr. Botstein signed off with 'Miss you.' He spoke of his cherished 'new friendship' with the financier, and wished him well after the publication of news article that detailed his abuse. The college commissioned an independent review..., and the findings were released on Friday. The review found that Dr. Botstein had done nothing illegal but that his relationship with Mr. Epstein raised concerns about his leadership. The review said that Dr. Botstein had ignored the concerns of a senior faculty member who advised him that Bard should avoid Mr. Epstein.” 

Niraj Chokshi of the New York Times: “Spirit Airlines turned off the lights for good Saturday morning. The airline canceled all flights effective immediately and told passengers not to go to the airport, according to a notice posted on its website shortly after 2 a.m. Eastern. On the homepage, where customers could previously make reservations, a bright yellow banner declared that Spirit was 'winding down all operations.' The budget airline had lost billions of dollars in recent years, filing for bankruptcy in 2024 and 2025. Spirit hoped to emerge from its second bankruptcy this summer as a smaller company, but those plans fell apart as fuel prices rose in recent weeks. As Spirit’s fate became clear, the Trump administration offered a $500 million federal lifeline, but the airline’s investors and government officials could not reach an agreement on how to structure a deal to save the company. [Earlier this week,] the airline’s creditors ... urged the company’s board to begin shutting down....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If you had a Spirit ticket, you'd be justified in blaming Trump -- at least in part -- for losing your ride: “'Unfortunately..., the recent material increase in oil prices and other pressures on the business have significantly impacted Spirit’s financial outlook,' the airline said.” Emphasis added.

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Iran. Farnaz Fassihi of the New York Times: “Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate and prominent human rights activist, was transferred to a hospital in the city of Zanjan, where she was in prison, after collapsing and losing consciousness on Friday, according to a statement by her family. Ms. Mohammadi is currently in the hospital’s intensive care unit. But the judicial authorities have refused requests from her family and her lawyer to transfer her to a better-equipped hospital in the country’s capital, Tehran, where she could be cared for by her longtime cardiologist, according to a statement by her foundation, the Narges Foundation, and her husband, Taghi Rahmani.”