September 12, 2026

Marie: I swear when I saw this headline -- “Trump Demands Smithsonian Install ‘Colossus’ George Washington Statue” -- I thought it was an Onion-style spoof. It is not: ~~~

 ~~~ He Doesn't Know Much About Art, But He Knows What Kind of Schlock He Likes. Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times: “In his latest salvo against the Smithsonian Institution..., [Donald] Trump called on the organization to honor [link fixed] George Washington with a 30-foot 'Colossus statue' outside its National Museum of American History, along with a five-year exhibition about Washington’s legacy 'beginning now.' The proposed statue would replace 'Infinity,' an abstract sculpture by José de Rivera that was dedicated in 1967. The Smithsonian describes that work as the first piece of modern art commissioned by the federal government under the Art in Architecture Program for the National Mall in Washington. 'That strange modernist sculpture tells visitors nothing about America, inspires no one, and honors none of our Great American Heroes,' Mr. Trump wrote. 'George Washington does. He is easily America’s Greatest Hero. Without him, our Country and our Freedoms wouldn’t exist.' In an additional post on Friday, Mr. Trump said he was also asking the Smithsonian to install an 11-foot statue of Washington in the museum’s Flag Hall in time for Constitution Day on Sept. 17. The statue was created for the recent Freedom 250 IndyCar race.”  The link is a gift link, because, by god, this is something everyone has got to know. MB: Wait. If Washington is “America's Great Hero,” where does that leave Trump, who rates himself a better president* than Washington? ~~~

~~~ Gentlemen, Start Your Engines! The really wonderful thing about this statue of Washington is that the old boy came out for the "Freedom 250" race in just the classiest outfit ever donned by anyone who has directed traffic in D.C. I mean, just compare that flowing cape to the cheesy orange vests traffic cops wear when standing in traffic! Which looks better? And that cane or scepter or whatever it is: a traffic cop could use it to whack the windshields of drivers who disregarded his directions. My only question is: why would one want this statue stuck inside a building -- even a grand hall -- unless the intent is to have it point the direct to the restrooms. ~~~

~~~ Here is well-known public sculptor Barton Rubenstein saying how Rivera's "strange modernist sculpture" inspired him even when he was a child. The sculpture was not moving the day Rubenstein recorded the short video linked here, but according to Art Intel, the stainless steel ribbon still rotates on its base, completing a full rotation every six minutes. Here's the D.C. Preservation League's blurb about "Infinity." Maybe if President* Bobblehead had read just this brief description of the sculpture he would not have wanted to replace it with an embarrassing colossus of a man who already has one gigantic memorial on the Mall and doesn't need yet another in a city that is named for him. (P.S. I still find the sculpture "Blue" silly and not especially appropriate to display at a memorial to a slain president. In a public park for families? Yeah, fine. Kids may see the fun in it. AND, as a literally cubist interpretation of Tube Man, it says something -- what, I'm not sure -- about sleazy American consumerism. As always, eye of the beholder.... [See September 9 page for context.]) 

Does Anybody Brief This Bumbling Idiot? Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: “Shortly after setting foot in Dublin..., [Donald] Trump on Saturday said it would be 'fantastic' if Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland unified, breaking with decades of U.S. neutrality on an issue rooted in a long history of violence. 'I don’t want to cause any problem. I will tell you, I’d love to see it unified,' Mr. Trump said in Dublin alongside Micheál Martin, Ireland’s taoiseach, or prime minister. 'It’s going to happen eventually.' He later seemed to acknowledge that he had stepped into a politically problematic topic.... 

“The United States has long supported the U.S.-brokered 1998 Belfast Agreement, also known as the Good Friday Agreement, which brokered a fragile peace that ended roughly three decades of violence between those seeking a united Ireland and unionists who wanted Northern Ireland to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Part of that peace agreement was that Northern Ireland would remain part of the United Kingdom until a majority of its people voted otherwise in a referendum. For the island to be reunified, a majority of voters in the Republic of Ireland would also have to cast ballots in favor of the initiative. Reunification is highly divisive in Northern Ireland, a nation carved out of the island of Ireland by the British after the Republic of Ireland became independent, because some fear a return to violence. And while a majority of citizens of the Republic of Ireland support the initiative, successive Irish governments have trod cautiously around the delicate issue.” The link is a gift link. The NBC News story is here. ~~~

Nick Robertson & Lauren Kent of CNN: “The desperate pleas for air cover from Yemeni generals started coming mid-morning on Thursday. An advance by the Iran-backed Houthis toward Yemen’s strategic port city of Mocha was in full swing, and backup support from chief ally Saudi Arabia was nowhere in sight.... A senior Yemeni source ... said he contacted the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and was assured the US was 'watching the situation closely and that Saudi air support was coming.... But the air support never came,' the source said. 'And Mocha has now fallen.' Hours later, on Friday, the Houthis captured another key coastal asset, Perim Island, at the mouth of the Red Sea. The island splits the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in two, giving Tehran de facto control over another key shipping route.... Now, Yemen and the Red Sea have the potential to become a true second front in the Iran war....

“Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke twice on Thursday with ... Donald Trump and urged him to strike the Houthis, another source familiar with the matter told CNN Friday. Trump declined to intervene, according to that source.... The swift fall of Mocha and the lack of resistance have led to finger-pointing and recriminations among US allies. 'The failure this time is not with the Yemenis,' a regional source told CNN on Thursday. 'It’s a disaster made in (Washington) DC and Riyadh.'... 'It’s a Saudi-American f**k up of epic proportions.'”

Mike Isaac of the New York Times: “Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development in a 3,800-word essay on Saturday, just days after one of the company’s employees quit over concerns about the safety of the technology. The leaders of two other top A.I. companies quickly signed on to the effort. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, and Elon Musk, whose SpaceX rocket company has been ramping up spending on A.I., said in social media posts that they agreed on the need for a slower pace.... 'Over the last few months, I have become convinced that fully addressing the risks requires even more prudence — not just investing in risk prevention, but pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up,' Mr. Amodei said.... Mr. Amodei has warned about A.I. safety risk for years. But his essay amounted to one of the most full-throated calls for urgent action from a leading A.I. company executive to date. He called for independent auditors to check the companies for safety standards and urged global cooperation in creating rules around A.I. development. The appeal for an industrywide pause follows months of escalating concerns across the technology industry....” The link is a gift link.

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Michael Wilson of the New York Times: “A quarter-century after the terrorist attacks that shook New York City and the world ... dignitaries and mourners gathered once again in Lower Manhattan to read aloud the names of those killed when hijackers crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center.... Four living former presidents, from Bill Clinton to Joseph R. Biden Jr., stood silently [during the ceremony]. Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, was also in attendance, despite a petition signed by thousands of people, including victims’ family members, urging him to stay away. He was joined by former Mayors Bill de Blasio, Michael R. Bloomberg and — awkwardly — Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was in office on Sept. 11 and earlier this week said that Mr. Mamdani’s presence at the ceremony 'offends me.' Mr. Mamdani nonetheless approached Mr. Giuliani at the ceremony. The two men shook hands, and Mr. Giuliani’s position seemed to have softened. Cameras captured him apparently telling Mr. Mamdani: 'I’ll pray for you. It’s a really hard job.' Vice President JD Vance stood in for Mr. Trump, who instead attended a ceremony at the Pentagon.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

Self-portrait.

~~~ Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: Donald Trump “marked the 25th anniversary of the attacks by praising the country for coming together in the aftermath of the tragedy. As he did so, he linked his Iran policy with the George W. Bush administration’s 'war on terror.' The words marked a striking shift for a leader who rose to power in part on his willingness to criticize the invasion of Iraq that followed the 9/11 attacks.... 'Today we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago: We will never, ever forget. That’s why we fight today. We don’t have a choice,' Trump said. 'On days like 9/11, we learn what a country is truly made of. We’re learning right now what we’re made of, and we have to be strong, and we have to be smart.'... He returned repeatedly to his own decision to attack Iran in February, a war that he says was necessary to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon but that his critics say recapitulated some of the foreign policy mistakes that followed 9/11....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is rich coming from a person who has done more than any other single person to divide the nation and to demonize both individual leaders and large swaths of the population, among them Democrats and Muslims. Just this past Thursday, Trump said Democrats (and here we're talking about ordinary citizens, not political rivals) “cheat like hell” when they vote, whatever that means. Trump's Muslim bans that defined the first days of both of his terms in office are infamous. As Chris Stein of the Guardian reported a few days ago, “When he first campaigned for the presidency in 2016, Trump repeated a story that 'thousands and thousands' of Muslim Americans 'were cheering' in Jersey City, New Jersey, on the day of the attacks in 2001.... No evidence has been discovered to back up this claim.” And for almost two decades, Trump has referred to President Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama,” treating his middle name as a pejorative. 

Birnbaum, BTW, refers to Trump's praising American unity without even alluding to his years of stoking conflict & acrimony. That's not straight reporting, IMO; that's inaccurate reporting, because it provides no context. He did write, "Trump at times appeared to be struggling to keep his eyes open." Take a peak at the next story and I think you'll find that Trump lost the "struggle," a fairly obvious fact that Birnbaum fails to mention. ~~~

     ~~~ Politico's report on Trump's and Pete Hegseth's remarks is here. The accompanying photo shows Trump sleeping as Hegseth speaks during the commemorative event/presidential* naptime. ~~~ 

~~~ In an article by Sarah-Jane Collins, the Daily Beast publishes numerous photos of Donald Trump sleeping throughout the memorial ceremony at the Pentagon. ~~~

~~~ From the “I Can Do Whatever I Want” File. Mallory Wilson of the Hill: Donald “Trump said Friday he’s '99 percent' sure he could have given a speech at the New York City 9/11 ceremony if he wanted to, while pushing back on reports that said he didn’t attend because he wouldn’t be able to give a speech. 'It’s just not true. I didn’t demand to speak,he told Sid Rosenberg on 77 WABC on Friday. 'I’m sure if I wanted to speak, they would have let me,' he said, adding that he’s president and he knows 'the guys down there.'... The New York Times reported last month that the president’s team told the organizers of New York City’s ceremony that he would like to speak. The National September 11 Memorial and Museum has banned speeches from politicians at the ceremony since 2012....

“Some presidents in the past visited all three sites — New York City; Arlington, Va., for the Pentagon; and Shanksville, Pa., for United Airlines Flight 93 — including former President Biden in 2021 for the 20th anniversary, former President Obama in 2011 for the 10th anniversary and former President George W. Bush on the first and fifth anniversaries.”

Jalal Baig in an MS NOW opinion piece: “Even 25 years after 9/11, Islamophobia remains a mainstream feature in American politics. Disgusting Islamophobic statements have been routinely uttered at the highest levels of government. And though the political rise of both Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed has challenged a bigoted glass ceiling, many of the attacks against them remind us of the continued chasm between the nation’s ideals and its sobering reality. After the attacks, President George W. Bush maintained that 'Islam is peace' and 'terror is not the true faith of Islam.'... But even under Bush, the federal government surveilled mosques, conducted mass arrests and used a registry ... to track and deport thousands from mostly Muslim-majority countries.... And since Bush’s tenure, this gentler rhetoric has been supplanted by vitriol. Islamophobia is hitting deafening decibels....” 

Julian Barnes of the New York Times: “Tucked at the end of a Sept. 10, 1998, intelligence report sent to President Bill Clinton’s White House was a warning about Al Qaeda that more than a quarter-century later seems prescient. Al Qaeda, a C.I.A. analyst wrote, 'may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a U.S. city.' On Friday, the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the C.I.A. released 69 never-before-seen presidential intelligence briefs detailing what it had discovered about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the run-up to the day. The release, according to agency officials, is their largest focused on the Sept. 11 attacks. The intelligence analyses that were sent directly to the president and senior policymakers are among the agency’s most closely guarded documents, and the C.I.A.’s standard practice is to release them only after about 40 years, to ensure no sources are compromised and minimize any potential tension with allies. The documents do not appear to contain major new revelations, and they remain redacted to obscure the sources of the information. But the briefings provide details of what the C.I.A. was telling Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush in the months and years before the attacks, along with an intelligence report provided in the early morning hours of Sept. 12.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Links to PDFs of the released documents are here, in date order, via the CIA. Includes the infamous August 1, 2001 presidential daily brief titled, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US," first leaked to CBS News in 2002 and later declassified & released by the 9/11 Commission in 2004.    

Luke Broadwater & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: Donald “Trump was heading to Ireland on Friday for a weekend at his golf resort, after two days spent trying to energize Republicans to turn out in the midterm elections in November. The president will attend the Irish Open golf tournament, held at his Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in County Clare. Some diplomatic business will be included in the trip: He is expected to speak with President Catherine Connolly, who has criticized U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, and with Micheál Martin, the prime minister.... 'He can’t be bothered to care about economic concerns of the American people but when it comes to the Trump family business, he’s ready to take a trip and go to Ireland for a golf tournament,' said Sarah Matthews, a deputy press secretary in Mr. Trump’s first term. 'This just shows where his priorities lie.' Asked if the midterm elections were not just as important as his own race, Mr. Trump said, 'It’s never as important. Look, I’m campaigning for other people.'” The link is a gift link.

Jim Rutenberg & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: “The Justice Department has sent F.B.I. agents to reporters’ homes to serve subpoenas and, in at least one case, flashed a warrant to seize devices. The Pentagon has fired the editor and publisher of its traditionally independent newspaper, Stars and Stripes, and blocked access to other journalists who refused to sign pledges that would limit their reporting. Regulatory agencies are using their powers to pressure media organizations over their content. The administration has stripped funding from public television and radio. Angry over stories he does not like..., [Donald] Trump has sued major news organizations and the White House has taken control of the previously independent press pool that tracks the president, deciding which outlets can participate. 

“Almost 20 months into Mr. Trump’s second term, his long-running media clashes have grown into a sweeping campaign to control speech in America that stands out for applying so many levers, so fast, all at once.... Reporters Without Borders[, which] maintains an index that tracks press freedom in 180 countries..., now ranks [the United States] at its lowest since the organization started the index in 2002 — 64th, just above Panama and just below Botswana.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a very short video of Trump just this past Thursday lunging toward and insulting a reporter (I think she's Rachel Scott of ABC News) who asks a question about his $5,000/person "dividend." He just shuts her down. "Not you," he says, "Not you. Your network and you, you're the worst." He then turns to another reporter. 

David Fahrenthold & Maxine Joselow of the New York Times: “The contractor that renovated the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has told the Trump administration that errors in its own work and flaws in the repair plan, not vandalism, caused the pool’s new blue liner to peel and break loose, according to government documents reviewed by The New York Times.... [Donald] Trump has repeatedly blamed vandals wielding knives or box cutters for damage to the pool’s 'American flag blue' liner, even after the Justice Department dropped charges that it had brought against people accused of vandalizing the national landmark. But the documents ... make clear that the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, found problems in both the design and the execution of the renovation. The documents include Atlantic’s reports to the government as well as daily progress updates from the National Park Service over the past two months. Atlantic blamed its own errors in a report dated Aug. 14 and then provided more detail on Sept. 2, the documents show. The Justice Department, which had charged several people with vandalizing the pool in early July, began moving to dismiss the cases on July 31.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: You can read on, but I think your conclusion still will be, "Duh. Obviously." A derivative Axios report is here.  

Jake Spring of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration has blocked more than 130 projects in national parks across the country worth at least $25 million, according to internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post — funding that had already been secured for some of the most visited parks for work such as fire preparedness in California, prehistoric mound protection in Iowa and sled dog care in Alaska. The Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Service, said in a statement it 'disapproved' a raft of planned agreements with groups it said work against administration priorities. The agreements were rejected last month and would have allowed the parks, including Yellowstone, Yosemite and Zion, to pay outside partners for various projects in the next fiscal year that begins Oct. 1....

“The changes appear to most affect Joshua Tree National Park, which had at least 10 planned partnership agreements blocked. That park’s partnership agreements would have hired at least 16 people, helped recover areas in the park burned in wildfires and removed rodents that carry hantavirus from historic buildings, among other activities listed in the documents.... [A DOI spokesperson] did not respond to questions on whether the agreements or organizations specifically ran afoul of ... administration-wide policies ... to purge the government of work on ... DEI, climate change and other areas deemed to be 'woke' or liberal causes.... 'The real question is where did this $25 million go to?' said Elaine Leslie, a former Park Service acting superintendent and wildlife biologist who reviewed the disapprovals list.” 

     ~~~ Marie: I can tell you that the cost of wrecking the Reflecting Pool has already hit $16 million, so that's a hefty chunk of the $25 million. Did I mention that Joshua Tree is in California, a state for which Trump has heaps of animosity? (The report also specifically mentions disapproving grants for Yosemite, which is in California, too. However, DOI has rescinded funds for parks in Alaska, Iowa & Utah, none of them on Trump's hit list, as far as I know.) 

The “New Red Scare.” Tim Balk of the New York Times: “One by one, Republican speakers at ... [Donald] Trump’s midterm convention in Dallas this week turned to a far-fetched argument with echoes of the Cold War.... And when Mr. Trump, the ringleader of this new Red Scare, took the stage, he returned — again and again and again — to baseless claims that Democrats were running as communists in the midterms. 'It’s going to be a communist country if they win,' he predicted, one of at least 60 times a speaker at the convention mentioned communism or communists.... No credible midterm candidate identifies as a communist. And there is little momentum behind any communist movement in U.S. politics at the federal level. Still, for months now, Mr. Trump and Republicans, staring down a daunting political environment and the potential loss of one or both houses of Congress, have been trying to cast Democrats as communists, deploying a charge that has little overlap with Democrats’ actual platforms.” The link is a gift link.

“Schrödinger’s Convention.” James Poniewozik of the New York Times: “Donald J. Trump has long operated on the principle that there is no problem so big that it cannot be solved by more Donald J. Trump on TV. That apparently applies even when the problem, arguably, is Donald J. Trump.... Thus we got Schrödinger’s Convention, made in the paradoxical hope that it would be both watched and not watched. It was carried in its entirety on C-SPAN and in considerable part by conservative outlets including Fox News and Newsmax. It was also up against high-profile N.F.L. games each night, which one could see as a challenge or a blessing. Surely at least some Republicans would have been just as happy if no one watched.... There was no convention in this convention. No one was nominated, no ballots cast, no running mates picked. The strongest energy onscreen was negative, the speeches more warning than promise, the jeers for Democrats rivaling the cheers for the G.O.P.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

~~~ State TeeVee Ratings Dip. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos: “Donald Trump’s strange and self-congratulatory midterm convention in Texas was a ratings dud on the network most likely to be watched by his die-hard supporters: Fox News. On Wednesday, Fox’s ratings for the first night of Trump’s event pulled in an average of 2.3 million viewers during primetime. During Trump’s speech, it rose to an average of 2.5 million viewers, but that is smaller than the typical audience for the programs that usually run in those time slots, 'Hannity' and 'Gutfeld!' The ratings on CNN, which aired some of the speech, also saw its ratings dip more than 100,000 viewers on average from the average in September 2025. MS NOW, which aired very little Trump speech coverage, had 1.1 million viewers, well above last year’s average of 810,000 viewers during primetime. The ratings stand in stark contrast to Trump’s proclamation on Thursday that the event had 'really big numbers' and that the 'overall numbers beat the NFL.' While ratings are not yet in for the kickoff of the NFL season, they are extremely likely to be much higher than the anemic numbers for Trump’s event.” ~~~

~~~ Speaking of Ratings! Selome Hailu of Variety: "Jimmy Kimmel‘s pulled TV interview with James Talarico, the Texan Democrat running for the U.S. Senate, has crossed 5 million views in the 24 hours since it was posted to YouTube." MB: According to Art Intel, Kimmel shows average "1.6 million to 2.1 million viewers" on broadcast TV, although he does often get millions of extra views on YouTube. Still, it looks like the Trump administration's attempt to silence Kimmel & Talarico was a major fail. In fact, it may be that more people viewed Kimmel's Talarico interview than saw President* Motormouth droning on at his fake convention. So thanks to those of you who clicked on the Kimmel/Talarico YouTube video. You have foiled the rats again.

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul. Steve Kopack, et al., of NBC News: “... Donald Trump’s promised $5,000 'dividend' for all U.S. adults would not be paid for with taxpayer dollars, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Thursday.... He ... told NBC News ... that the administration could 'earn the money that Donald Trump wants to pay out, not from the deficit and not from taxpayers.'... He referenced the Trump Platinum Card, an upcoming Commerce Department program allowing wealthy individuals to sign up to pay $5 million in order to extend their U.S. visas for an additional 270 days. 'We have a waitlist of more than 100,000 people who want to come, Lutnick said. 'That’s $500 billion.' Lutnick also cited an investment in Intel the administration made last year. 'Everybody knows we got just about 500 million shares, and the stock was $20, and now it’s $100, so we’re up $50 billion,' he said.... Other Trump administration officials have offered different explanations for where the promised $5,000 checks would come from.” ~~~

     ~~~ Herb Scribner of Axios also looks into Lutnick's and others' ideas of where the bribe money could come from and several reasons why the checks would no likely to be issued even if Republicans did win the midterms.  

Digby republishes a portion of a New Republic report: “A Florida county’s mail-in ballot envelope design was almost rejected by the U.S. Postal Service for less than two-hundredths of an inch. Leon County, Florida’s mail ballot envelope design placed the words 'return service requested' 0.236 inches away from its election office’s return address, when it was supposed to be a quarter-inch, leading the USPS to reject it on September 2, the Tallahassee Democrat reports. The county’s supervisor of elections, Mark Earley, called it 'ridiculous.'” Digby notes that Earley had to appeal the USPS ruling several times before post office officials agreed to let the two-hundredths of an inch discrepancy stand. Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Jim Saksa of Democracy Docket: “... the snafu offers a taste of what will likely happen if the U.S. Supreme Court lifts an injunction blocking USPS from implementing its new design rule, which stems from Trump’s March executive order attacking mail voting: States and counties will have to scramble to get their ballots approved — and they can face petty, technical rejections that could prevent voters from casting mail ballots. While the federal court’s injunction remains in place, seeking USPS approval for mail ballot envelope designs is voluntary. The judge’s order also prevents USPS from refusing to mail non-conforming ballot envelopes. The Supreme Court could rule at any moment.” ~~~

~~~ Jacob Knutson of Democracy Docket: “In a recent declaration, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) told a federal judge that, during the week of Sept. 6, it expected to launch an online portal that’s crucial to enforcing and complying with its new mail voting restrictions. 'We anticipate being in a position to make the Portal available to users for voluntary use by sometime next week,' Steven Monteith, USPS’s chief customer and marketing officer, told U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in a Sept. 3 statement. However, as of Friday evening — nearly a week after its statement to the judge — USPS’s portal is nowhere to be found, even as the Department of Justice (DOJ) continues to press the U.S. Supreme Court to force states to comply with the agency’s new mail ballot regulations.”

Say, I remember when Todd Blanche declared repeatedly that Trump's slush fund was dead, a declaration that he nevertheless refused to put in writing, asserting that as an aspiring attorney general, he had no idea why the parties would need to sign, seal and deliver a document attesting they all had voided their billion-dollar-plus agreement. Now hear this: ~~~

~~~ Your Friday Night Docudump: It's Alive! Jacob Knutson of Democracy Docket: “The Department of Justice (DOJ) told a federal judge Friday it’s appealing a scorching court order against ... Donald Trump’s attempt to sue himself to create an almost $2 billion fund for his political allies. In July, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams found that Trump and his two eldest sons’ $10-billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of the Treasury was 'improper' and brought only to legitimize an extraordinary settlement between the DOJ and the Trump family. As part of the settlement, the DOJ was set to establish a $1.776 billion slush fund to compensate the president’s allies — including his supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But in a notice to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams Friday evening, acting Deputy Attorney General R. Trent McCotter said the DOJ is now taking her ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.... McCotter’s appeal marked the first time the DOJ appeared in the lawsuit.... In her order, Williams slammed the department for its explicit inaction in response to Trump’s suit, saying it served as clear evidence of the president’s double-dealing in the case.”

D.C. Appeals Court Saves Americans' Lives And Expenses from One of Trump's Dangerous Retro Projects. Evan Halper of the Washington Post: “In a blow to the Trump administration’s plan to revive coal power, a federal appeals court ruled that its order forcing a major plant to stay open is illegal. The decision throws into peril several other such orders at coal plants, efforts that underpin the administration’s strategy to boost the fossil fuel. The case involved the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan, which the Energy Department blocked from closing in May 2025. The administration’s order has cost ratepayers more than $259 million, according to the plant’s owner.... Donald Trump’s administration has forced several other coal plants to stay open, with costs to ratepayers totaling nearly $1 billion, according to utility filings.... Frank Sturges, senior attorney at Clean Air Task Force, said ... that allowing plants scheduled to close by 2028 to retire on schedule would save more than $28 billion in health-related costs and prevent nearly 2,000 deaths across the country.”

Gregory Schmidt of the New York Times: “A drone attack launched from Iraqi territory led Saudi Arabia to shut down a critical oil pipeline on Friday, heightening fears that widening clashes in the region could further disrupt energy supplies. The global price of oil briefly jumped to about $110 a barrel. The Saudi Arabian Energy Ministry said that the shutdown of the East-West pipeline, an increasingly vital means to shuttle oil from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, was a precautionary measure. The country’s foreign ministry said it would not immediately retaliate at the request of the Iraqi government, which said it would work to find the source of the attack. Concerns over disruptions to oil supplies set off by the U.S. war against Iran broadened this week with reports that the Houthi militia had seized a strategic Red Sea island and a port city, which could further choke shipping in the area. A spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry told Iranian media outlets on Friday that Persian Gulf states planned to meet with Iran on Monday in Oman to discuss the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

Iran to the east of me,
Houthis to the west.
Here I am,
Stuck in the middle with oil.
Yeah, I'm stuck in the middle with crude,
And I'm wondering what I can do, dude.
The pipeline's shut tight,
And nothing ain't right.
Here I am,
Stuck in the desert with oil.  

     ~~~ Rachel Chason, et al., of the Washington Post: “A key Saudi Arabian pipeline to the Red Sea was shut down after it was hit by 'several drones' launched from Iraq, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement early Saturday, as Iranian-backed Houthi fighters claimed major victories in Yemen, expelling Saudi forces from the country’s Red Sea coast. The separate attacks posed new challenges to the region’s ability to export oil amid the ongoing U.S. war with Iran, and further unnerved global oil markets. The price of oil briefly jumped above $110 per barrel, its highest level since May. 'This is the first day that Iran really started winning the war,' said a Yemeni official, who is part of the country’s internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government.”

Salvador Rizzo of the Washington Post: “A woman with lawful-permanent-resident status has been deported to Afghanistan after conceding she was an 'alien terrorist' in a secretive federal court that was established three decades ago but held its first hearing only this year.... The Justice Department alleged that Nazira Haji Zada, 47, supported her son and son-in-law as they planned a mass shooting inspired by the Islamic State, set for Election Day 2024. The plot was not carried out, and the two men were arrested and convicted of terrorism offenses. Haji Zada, who resided in Fort Worth, was not charged with a crime. Although she agreed to be deported, her attorneys continued to assert that the process denied them access to classified evidence and infringed on key constitutional rights. Her case was the first to be heard by the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, which Congress established in 1996 as an avenue to quickly remove suspected terrorists without airing too much classified information in public proceedings. The case effectively ended with a plea bargain last month, according to court records unsealed Friday.”

Nathan Borney of Axios: "The record price of diesel threatens to stoke inflation at a time when consumers are already price-sensitive and businesses are reeling from higher costs due to trade tensions.... The national average price of a gallon of diesel topped $6 for the first time ever, AAA said Friday, Axios' Ben Berkowitz reports. That's up 60% from a year earlier. Food prices could be among the first places consumers feel the ripple effects, executives said this week."

Nathaniel Weixel of the Hill: “The country’s largest outbreak of cyclosporiasis has ended, federal health officials said Friday. The foodborne illness linked to contaminated lettuce sickened 12,883 people across 21 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with more than 500 people hospitalized. Two people died in Michigan, which was the hardest-hit state, though health authorities said they had 'significant underlying health conditions.'”

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Ohio Senate Race. Liz Goodwin of the Washington Post: “A top campaign staffer for Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) once used a photo of SS soldiers as his Facebook profile photo and recently added to a public playlist of songs celebrating Rhodesia, a defunct White-minority-ruled nation often venerated by white supremacists, according to publicly available social media activity. The staffer, 25-year-old Stephen Woytek, was tapped in August to serve as Husted’s political director in the closely contested Senate race between Husted and former senator Sherrod Brown (D). In a statement on Friday, after being contacted by The Washington Post, a spokeswoman for Husted said the campaign had decided to 'part ways' with Woytek.” The link is a gift link. If you read on, you'll learn that Woytek only likes the nice stuff about the SS, like “dedication to duty” and “loyalty.” Also SS uniforms are very attractive. The Guardian's story is here.