October 5, 2026

Marie: Sorry, extremely late start this morning. 

If you have friends who can't decide how to vote, Jeff Danziger of the Rutland (Vermont) Herald suggests some themes that may be persuasive. Thanks to RAS for the link:

Middle East War Expands, as Does U.S. Role. Vivian Nereim, et al., of the New York Times: “The Saudi-backed government of Yemen on Sunday announced a major military campaign against the Houthi militia, a key Iranian ally, plunging the Middle East deeper into war. The new operation threatens to open a new front in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and further entangle the United States in the widening regional conflict that it began more than seven months ago. More than 200 U.S. intelligence and military analysts are assisting the Saudi government in command centers inside the kingdom, helping to analyze and select targets in support of its Yemeni allies, according to one current and one former U.S. official.... The United States is also providing aerial refueling for Saudi warplanes conducting defensive air patrols, they added. In a televised speech, Rashad al-Alimi, the leader of the internationally recognized Yemeni government — which depends heavily on Saudi Arabia for financial and military support — said that his armed forces were seeking to reclaim the territory lost to the Houthis over the past 12 years.” The link is a gift link.

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: “The United States rushed over the weekend to withdraw all 12 B-1 Air Force bombers from an air base in southern England after commanders received new threats about an Iran-backed plot against the installation, two U.S. officials said on Sunday. The withdrawal was highly unusual: Such moves are rarely made so quickly from an allied air base in a peacetime country thousands of miles from a combat zone. The need to move the bombers out of the base, R.A.F. Fairford, was deemed so urgent that some of the planes and their flight crews left while aerial refueling aircraft were still being scrambled to support their flights to the United States. At least three of the planes had landed at their home base in South Dakota by Sunday....” The link is a gift link. A Politico report is here.

Kaia Hubbard of CBS News: "Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that ... [Donald] Trump was 'well aware of the risks to energy flows' before launching the war in Iran earlier this year, but argued 'the world cannot sustain a nuclear-armed Iran.' 'He knew it was going to elevate energy prices in the short run, he said, "I'm going to take a hit there, but I got to do the right thing,"' Wright said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." MB: Sorry, Chris, anybody who claims Donald Trump is a man of principle is a proven liar.

Heather Cox Richardson: “On Friday night, just before 11:00, Trump announced that his administration 'will, immediately, begin sending “Checks” of nearly $100 to over 20 MILLION wonderful Seniors to help pay for their Medicare Part B premiums, which we have already reduced by significant amounts. This money will come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, a pointless “Slush Fund that has only been used by Dumocrats in Congress to pay for the Waste, Fraud, and Abuse for their Special Interest friends, and drive up Healthcare costs.'... The fact that he is openly using taxpayer money to buy votes in the election suggests just how worried Trump is about Democrats winning control of Congress in the upcoming midterms.” Richardson moves on to other topics. For instance, she cites examples to show that “under Trump there does not appear to be a line between foreign affairs and Trump family business deals.” She also writes about the hack into the FBI's jobs portal, a breach that is “one of the worst in U.S. history.” The cause of the breach was “definitely incompetence.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Richardson's overview provides a good example of why the public thinks Democratic administrations are as bad as Trump's. The stories Richardson skims over (and I'm not criticizing her here) are major scandals all, yet they are instantly forgettable -- unless they affect you directly (where is that check or “Check,” Donald?) -- because you only read about them once. The next day -- or later that same day -- there's news of another scandal. Stories like these -- Remember the Emails! -- could go on for weeks or months when a Democrat was the principal person involved. The continuing coverage makes the Democratic scandals seem far worse than the one-day-story Trump scandals. But that isn't true. Hillary Clinton's arrogant refusal to use the cumbersome government protocol is hardly equivalent to Jarhead & Witless's making lucrative personal deals at the Kremlin while pretending to be volunteer diplomats spreading peace and joy on Earth. ~~~

~~~ Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: “... a slew of pro-Trump ads that has been airing since last Wednesday.... As [the ads end], you are informed that [they were] 'Paid for by the U.S. Government.' It is against the law to use taxpayer dollars for propaganda and explicitly partisan purposes.... The president is showing his deep contempt for a fundamental norm of American democracy: We don’t use government to glorify our political leaders, at least not while they’re alive.... If this propaganda campaign — among many other offenses — isn’t worthy of an article of impeachment, then nothing is.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

~~~ Krugman, nonetheless, points out that news of some of Trump's scandals is getting through: ~~

~~~ Paul Krugman: "The cesspit of corruption that is Donald Trump’s presidency is finally getting the attention it deserves.... The level of corruption that Trump has engaged in and enabled in others is completely unprecedented – self-dealing that, as Trump would say, is like nothing anybody has ever seen before. America currently has a Republican president who, along with his family, has raked in billions, possibly close to $10 billion in personal gain from office in less than two years. He has effectively sold criminal pardons to scammers, invalidating the legal claims of their victims for restitution. His son-in-law Jared Kushner has become a billionaire running an investment fund for Gulf petro-state autocrats despite having no discernible investment skills.... And then there’s Trump’s Secretary of the Commerce, Howard Lutnick, whose family has doubled its net worth to over $7 billion, largely through its investments in Tether, the crypto-currency of choice by Iran, terrorists and rogue states.

During the Sunday morning, family-friendly news hour, Sen. Foghorn Leghorn calls the POTUS* & leader of their party an asshole. This would be the same interview, BTW, in which he lets on he reckons that he himself is a presidential* sort of fellow. But then, isn't that what most U.S. senators figure? Maybe he thinks calling the current president* an asshole is a good way to start a campaign.)/p>

Jack Smith gets around. This week, we found out he enjoys going to basketball games with his friends from work (and with the U.S. marshals who must protect him because Trump). The next thing you know, he's at the Power to the People Festival, also in Maryland. Maybe he thought the Hawks or the Hawkeyes were playing. Thanks to akaWendy for the link:

Jack Smith….man of the people at the Power to the People concert hanging out on the lawn….no fancy pavilion seats or backstage laminate pass

[image or embed]

— WuTangIsForTheChildren (@wutangforchildren.bsky.social) October 4, 2026 at 10:59 AM

Julian Mark & Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: “The Supreme Court kicks off a new term Monday that could significantly shift the law on guns, religion and immigration. The court may take up additional cases involving a range of controversial policies by ... Donald Trump. And it could load up on other big constitutional issues, such as a Texas law that requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms. Also be on the lookout for potential retirements by Republican-appointed justices, and for a push by Democratic lawmakers to implement changes to the Supreme Court. Both may depend on how the midterms shake out.”

Will You People Please Stop Intimidating the Supremes? Cheyanne Daniels of Politico: “Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Sunday expressed concerns about the future of the nation’s highest court amid growing calls to reform the storied institution. 'There has been a concerted effort to intimidate the court — and justices on the court — to try to influence us to decide cases differently from the way in which we have been deciding them and I am concerned about the future of the court,' Alito said in a pre-recorded interview with 'Fox News Sunday.'” (Also linked yesterday.) The New York Times report is here; this is a gift link. ~~~

~~~ Jan Crawford of CBS News reports on her interview of Sam Alito. Crawford is a "conservative" and a veteran Supreme Court reporter. Not surprisingly, she manages to make Alito sound like a lovely fellow.

Sure, Most People Could Die, But I Have a Bunker! Christine Mui & Brendan Bordelon of Politico: “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said there remains a fundamental difference in worldview between his company and rival Anthropic on artificial intelligence regulation, arguing in an exclusive interview with Decoded by Politico that the technology’s benefits justify accepting some risks — and that AI should remain broadly accessible to the public. 'I think there’s a lot of daylight,” Altman told [Politico's] Brendan Bordelon. Asked specifically where he diverges from Anthropic and its CEO Dario Amodei, Altman said, 'we believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.'”

Leo Sands of the New York Times: “Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discoveries in neuroscience. The three scientists researched light-gated ion channels, a type of proteins, to establish the field of optogenetics, a pioneering technique that uses tiny lights to activate discrete groups of neurons in the brain, said Abdel El Manira, a member of the Nobel Committee that awarded the prize. The discovery has illuminated how specific circuits function in the brain and provides clues for the treatment of conditions such as blindness, depression, addiction and dementia.” The link is a gift link.

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Arizona. Adeel Hassan of the New York Times: “An appeals court in Arizona on Wednesday threw out the prison sentence of a man convicted of manslaughter after a video created by artificial intelligence depicting the victim forgiving his killer was played in court. The three-judge panel reaffirmed the conviction of Gabriel Horcasitas, 55, who had been sentenced to 10.5 years in prison, but said that he must be resentenced in the 2021 road-rage shooting death of Christopher Pelkey, 37. The judges concluded that the sentencing judge committed a 'fundamental error' by allowing and relying on an A.I. video that generated a likeness of Mr. Pelkey’s voice and appearance. The appeals court found the video did not 'reflect actual events' while presenting statements in the footage as if they were coming directly from the victim.” The link is a gift link. MB: So you mean, you can't use fake testimony to impose a sentence?

Georgia Elections. Jessica Huseman of Votebeat: “Last week, the Georgia State Election Board sent letters to the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security asking the Trump administration to order major changes to the state’s voting equipment just weeks before the midterm election. But the board’s chair says its members did not authorize the letters, review them in advance, or know they were being sent. While the letters have been widely understood as an outgrowth of a Sept. 28 resolution authorizing Executive Director James Mills to seek federal assistance over concerns about Georgia’s voting system, Chair John Fervier told Votebeat that Mills drafted and sent the letters on his own and that they went well beyond what the board had approved in a 3-2 vote two days earlier. 'We have no control over our executive director, and he does whatever the hell he wants to,' Fervier said. Asked whether that was an ongoing problem, Fervier said, 'You have no idea.'” (Also linked yesterday.)

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Brazil Elections. Ana Ionova & Adam Ellick of the New York Times: “Brazil’s heated presidential election was forced into a runoff on Sunday, according to election officials, with the right-wing challenger leading over the leftist incumbent in a narrow race that may have sweeping consequences far beyond the country. The challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro, received 47 percent of the vote, compared with 45 percent for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. With all of the ballots counted, neither succeeded in capturing the more than the 50 percent needed for outright victory. The two candidates will now face each other head-on in an Oct. 25 runoff. But Mr. Bolsonaro, son of a former president imprisoned for attempting a coup after losing the last election, appeared to be closing in on his goal.” The link is a gift link. Politico's report is here.

Russia. Alex Isenstadt of Politico: “The White House is monitoring reports of a suspected plague case and related quarantines in Russia, a Trump administration official told Axios on Sunday.... On Sept. 25, 28-year-old Daria Shipilova, who worked at an anti-plague research institute in Russia's Irkutsk region, broke a test tube containing the pneumonic plague pathogen, local reports said. Shipilova was admitted to a hospital on Sept. 29 with symptoms of severe pneumonia and died overnight between Oct. 1 and Oct. 2.< After her death, authorities imposed quarantines at several medical facilities in the region and placed nearly 200 people who had come into contact with Shipilova under medical observation. Irkutsk Gov. Igor Kobzev said those being monitored showed no signs of illness and had tested negative. Russian media reports suggested Shipilova may have contracted pneumonic plague, but health authorities have not confirmed the diagnosis.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So our best chances of being spared another plague lie with Bleach Boy Donald Trump and/or Worm Brain Bobby Kennedy, Jr.

U.K. William Booth of the Washington Post: “In the mouth of the River Thames, just downstream from London, a team of elite marine salvors has been busy trying to stabilize one of the world’s most dangerous shipwrecks. The SS Richard Montgomery, a U.S. military cargo ship, dragged anchor, broke its back on a sandbar, flooded and sank in late summer 1944, a few months after D-Day, with 1,500 tons of explosives still in the holds.... There are still thousands of World War II munitions inside the Montgomery’s broken hull, including 2,000-pound blockbusters, fragmentation bombs, white phosphorus smoke ordnance and crates of pressure fuzes.... Old bombs, even underwater, can still detonate under the right conditions, and one thing certain about the Monty is that its conditions constantly change in the fast-moving tides and shifting sands of the estuary.”

U.K. Some Guy Formerly Known as Prince Sues U.K. Cops. Megan Specia of the New York Times: “Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, has begun legal action against the British police force that arrested him this year as part of its investigation into his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles III, was arrested in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office over accusations that he had shared confidential information with Mr. Epstein, the convicted sex offender. Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor was later released without charge.” The link is a gift link.