October 7, 2026

Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times Wants to Know: “The shuttered John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a deadly place. Just ask ... [Donald] Trump. This week he said it was 'a great danger to anyone who walks inside.' Last month he said that a security guard had narrowly avoided 'certain death' after a storm brought down a five-foot piece of ceiling plaster, injuring no one. The center, he said, is in a 'virtual state of collapse.' And yet on most weekday mornings, 100-odd members of the National Symphony Orchestra arrive for rehearsals in the shell of their former home. This week they are rehearsing in the center’s main concert hall for upcoming performances in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs of Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, Haydn’s Symphony No. 85 (“La Reine”) and Stravinsky’s Scènes de Ballet. The theme, as advertised on their website, is 'music that finds hope and vitality in the face of adversity.'” MB: Clever. The link is a gift link.

~~~~~~~~~~ 

In today's Trump news, there are so many Trumpy contradictions that, like Harry Truman in search of "a one-handed economist," you will be looking for a one-handed news analyst.

Trump Thinks Up Yet Another Scheme to Profit Off the Presidency*. Meryl Kornfield of the Washington Post: “... Trump wants to transform his West Palm Beach golf club into a presidential retreat modeled after Camp David. The plan calls for a parcel of the private club to be designated a permanent, official sanctuary for foreign leaders and future U.S. presidents, designed to host international summits and house presidents when they take vacations in Florida, according to a proposal presented to Palm Beach County officials by Trump International Golf Club’s legal counsel. Future presidents would also be offered comped memberships to the Trump club.... Harvey Oyer, a lawyer representing the Trump course..., asked the county, which owns the property the course is on, to provide a piece of the land to the federal government, and he promised Trump would pay for the construction of a presidential residence and facilities on that land....

“The county is seriously considering the proposal and is seeking more information, Palm Beach County Administrator Joseph Abruzzo told The Washington Post.... Trump’s club would continue to operate under the Trump family company and likely benefit from more business if it becomes a site of long-lasting presidential importance.”

Shane Goldmacher & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: “A day after ... [Donald] Trump said his super PAC would pay for television ads promoting him that had been funded by taxpayers, White House officials said the group did not plan to reimburse the government for the more than $10 million it had already spent on the ads. Mr. Trump announced on Monday evening that he was planning to have his super PAC, MAGA Inc., pay for the ads, which had drawn backlash from members of both parties. The White House officials later said that his promise would only apply 'moving forward.' Then, on Tuesday, a new taxpayer-funded ad — bragging about the American success in taking out Venezuela’s former leader Nicolás Maduro — began airing on television. The new ad features Mr. Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.” The link is a gift link. Politico's report is here. MB: IOW, we get to pay for more than half of ads (probably including the new one) and maybe all of them because there's no way to know for certain -- at least during this GOP-controlled Congress -- if Trump's superPAC actually pays for any of the ad buys. 

Shawn McCreesh of the New York Times gives the White House a chance to clean up Trump's stated hope that if Iran attacks the U.S. with nuclear bombs, it would "take out" San Diego & Los Angeles. The link is a gift link. Trump said what he said, and I would have let his words stand rather than allow White House communications director Steven Cheung to defend and "interpret" them (after which McCreesh adds another mitigating interpretation Cheung didn't think of). The only upside to the story is that it drags out attention to this particular Trump insane villainy. ~~~

~~~ Lawrence O'Donnell on the same topic: ~~~

I can’t believe we have to say this, but the annihilation of two major American cities — more than 5 million people — is not a ‘small price to pay’ for Trump’s illegal war. -- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt,) on X ~~~

~~~ Marie: Here's the best sanewashing of Trump's remarks I can recall seeing, and it comes from FactCheck.org. If some other doddering old codger had said exactly what Trump said and if that doddering old codger had personally issued an apology and explanation, I might have been willing to give him or her the benefit of the doubt. But not Trump. He bashes California (or at least every bit of it that isn't his golf course) all the time and without provocation. He resents "California culture" (and there are many California cultures) the way he resents Manhattan's elite. His promised retribution campaign against those he decided were his "enemies" is so extensive it gets a Wikipedia page. That he deems two of California's major cities -- and the millions of people who live in them -- expendable does not even surprise me. ~~~

~~~ Lindsey Holden of Politico: “Gavin Newsom [Tuesday] said he was directing California’s emergency preparedness center to monitor possible threats to the state after ... Donald Trump’s comments about Los Angeles and San Diego the previous evening. 'Donald Trump’s remarks were dangerous — if not treasonous — putting a target on two of our biggest cities and one of America’s largest naval hubs,' Newsom said in an X post. 'I am directing the State Threat Assessment Center to actively monitor the situation in the event that foreign actors interpret the President’s remarks as an invitation to target California.'... Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential contender..., post[ed] Tuesday that 'The SILENCE from JD Vance and Marco Rubio today is deafening' and criticizing others for not immediately denouncing Trump’s remarks.”

Lucky Luckey Gets Luckier. Pranshu Verma, et al., of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a nearly $7 billion deal with a defense firm founded by one of his most prominent political supporters to expedite submarine shipbuilding, an unexpected arrangement that thrusts a largely autonomous-weapons company into a more traditional defense manufacturing role. During an address at the industrial hub in Sparrows Point in Maryland, Trump said the new project with Anduril Industries will transform the Baltimore-area port site into 'one of the most significant shipyards' in the world.... The deal is backed by a $3.7 billion investment from Anduril coupled with a $2.9 billion U.S. Navy contract, Trump added. He also said that U.S. taxpayers 'will receive a 40 percent stake in the new shipyard,' without providing specifics of the potential equity arrangement. Anduril was founded by the prominent Trump supporter and billionaire Palmer Luckey. It holds billions in Defense Department contracts to provide AI software services to the military, and Luckey was named alongside Elon Musk last week as a key member of a Pentagon project tasked with planning for the future of warfighting.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'd say this means submarines have just become part of "the future of warfighting."

Heather Cox Richardson points to numerous signs that Trump is panicking over the midterm elections. MB: Frankly, I think the "signs" point to Trump's panicking over his own waning popularity. In fact, as ~~~

~~~ Ashley Parker writes in an Atlantic essay, "[Trump] doesn’t seem to really care how Republican candidates fare in the midterms, but he’d rather they win than lose, if only because it would save him the headache of congressional investigations." Thanks to akaWendy for this gift link. Read on. Parker spoke to one vendor who reckoned she had sold merch at 260 Trump rallies since 2016. This reminds me that I recently heard some teevee commentator allege that scads of Trump rally-goers are repeat attendees. Some show up at rallies all over the country. So rally attendance does not necessarily anticipate general voter enthusiasm for Trump & his preferred candidates. Nevertheless, Trump is not entirely disinterested in elections outcomes. Otherwise, he wouldn't let crazy ladies in the door: ~~~

~~~ Crazy Election Deniers Get a Meeting in the Oval -- to Discuss Crazy Election Interference Scheme. Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket: "... anti-voting lawyer Cleta Mitchell and convicted election denier Tina Peters are pushing a scheme to have Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick seize voting machines, as part of a broader effort for the Trump administration to interfere with the midterm vote.... On Monday, Peters reportedly met with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss election security issues, according to former U.S. Department of Justice pardon attorney Ed Martin. Peters, Martin and other conspiracists have long pushed the false claims that voting machines are compromised because they use some foreign-made parts. Election deniers claim that poses a national security risk. Now, they want the Trump administration to use that as justification to seize voting machines. And they believe that the commerce secretary already has authority to do that — a view that legal experts say is way off base. Martin claims that Peters discussed this scheme with Trump during this week’s White House visit." ~~~

On the Other Hand. Kenneth Vogel of the New York Times: “As ... [Donald] Trump crisscrossed the country last week trying to help his party avoid a blowout in next month’s midterm elections, two of his top political advisers were in the Balkans helping a pro-Russian government looking to tighten its grip on power. James Blair and Chris LaCivita, who are leading a big-money midterm advertising campaign for the Trump political operation, spent some of the past few days in a small self-governing territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina called Republika Srpska ahead of elections there on Sunday.... The engagement is the latest example of Trump advisers profiting from far-right politicians abroad who have sought favor from the U.S. president while bucking the international community. Mr. Blair and Mr. LaCivita were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each through a Washington-based law firm that was retained by Republika Srpska’s government to provide counsel on voting issues.... They said the work was for the government and not the nationalist party that controls it, though they are essentially one and the same.

“Under the control of that party, Republika Srpska has aligned itself with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, while spending heavily to court Mr. Trump and his supporters. Mr. Trump’s allies have promoted the party’s embrace of Christian conservatism and its resistance to joining the European Union.” The link is a gift link. MB: I don't think the problem is how much money these guys made but who they got the money from. This is yet another example of Trump's helping out Putin, as Blair & LaCivita certainly would not have gone to Srpska without Trump's approval. As I've said before, the POTUS* is a traitor to his country. Moreover, he is leading others -- like JayDee -- down the Putin path.

BUT. Tara Suter of the Hill: “The U.S. is refreshing its call for Americans not to travel to Russia in the wake of a suspected case of pneumonic plague in Siberia. In a post on the social platform X on Tuesday, the State Department said, 'The U.S. Embassy is aware of press reports from the Irkutsk region of suspected pneumonic plague resulting in the death of an individual and of associated quarantine measures in, and closures of, hospitals in Irkutsk.'”

Salvador Rizzo & Warren Strobel of the Washington Post: “A former senior executive at the CIA admitted in court Tuesday that he unmasked a clandestine human source and stole more than $195 million from U.S. coffers by launching fake classified operations, a stunning set of revelations that raised questions about CIA vetting and internal controls. The former official, David J. Rush, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in federal district court in Alexandria, Virginia, and faces a maximum prison term of 20 years at his sentencing on Jan. 28. Prosecutors revealed for the first time at Tuesday’s hearing, which was partially sealed to discuss classified records, that Rush leaked top-secret defense information to an official from a foreign government who was not entitled to have it. Rush, 49, admitted in his plea agreement that he disclosed 'the existence and certain descriptive information of a U.S. government clandestine human source.' That usually refers to a foreign government official or other individual who provides secret information to the CIA.” This is an update of a story linked yesterday.

Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: “Lawyers for a former Olympian who was cleared of charges of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool are asking internal government watchdogs to investigate the conduct of senior Justice and Interior Department officials, accusing prosecutors of indicting him despite knowing that a renovation of the pool was failing. In a letter sent on Tuesday to the inspectors general for those agencies, lawyers for the former athlete, David Hearn, say the agencies ignored their own evidence in a rush to satisfy ... [Donald] Trump’s desire for criminal charges. Prosecutors then provided a court 'blatantly false' information about when they became aware that the real culprit for the badly peeling liner in the pool was a botched renovation overseen by Mr. Trump, his lawyers wrote. 'Because of the actions of various D.O.J. and D.O.I. employees, Mr. Hearn was deprived of his liberty, indicted for a crime he did not commit, threatened with incarceration of up to 10 years and endured the defaming of his name and reputation by high-ranking government officials,' Mr. Hearn’s lawyers wrote. Among the lawyers requesting the investigation is Michael R. Bromwich, a former inspector general at the Justice Department.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I hope this works, and I hope it teaches Toady Todd, et al., a lesson. Unfortunately, Todd, like the tyrant he serves, recognizes no shame and learns nothing from his mistakes.

DOJ Civil Rights Division Hires Dingbats. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: One hundred thirty people “have recently joined the Justice Department’s short-staffed civil rights division as the Trump administration has struggled to fill the depleted ranks of a unit that was once a magnet for legal talent. Since early 2025, upward of 300 nonpolitical career employees, representing decades of experience, have left the division after its leader, Harmeet Dhillon, repurposed it to pursue ... [Donald] Trump’s agenda. As a consequence, the division has opened its doors to recruits, many of them conservatives, some with education and work histories that might have disqualified them from being hired in the past, former officials said. Some have left a trail of hyperpartisan, conspiratorial and, in some instances, bizarre statements, according to an examination of about a dozen recent hires based on court records, social media posts and interviews.” The link is a gift link.

They Really Don't Know What They're Doing -- Because Nobody Told Them. Silvia Foster-Frau of the Washington Post: “The Department of Homeland Security sped up training for police officers making immigration arrests by scaling back instruction on the nation’s immigration laws and real world scenarios they might encounter, according to emails reviewed by The Washington Post. The Trump administration reduced training for officers whose departments agreed to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from four weeks of in-person education to 40 hours of virtual training last year as part of a broader effort to expand the agency’s footprint across the nation.... The partnerships between local police and ICE, known as 287(g) agreements, have expanded exponentially since last January. Under the Biden administration, ICE had 135 active agreements across 16 states. Now, there are more than 2,600 agencies signed up.” MB: This still does not excuse or explain the violence officers have perpetrated on random people (usually people who "looked foreign"); common sense & fundamental morality says you don't beat up or shoot to kill people who may or may not have violated a civil law like overstaying a visa.

Isaac Arnsdorf of the Washington Post: “Since Labor Day, when ... Donald Trump opened up his war chest for the midterms, Republicans have pumped half a billion dollars into competitive House and Senate races. A month later, the polls haven’t moved in their direction. High-quality public surveys show Democratic Senate candidates tied or leading in Alaska, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas — the same as before Labor Day. Democrats’ lead on the generic congressional ballot has slightly widened since, from about six points to roughly nine, according to analyst Nate Silver’s polling average.Notably, the surge of attack ads has not sunk the Democrats at the center of some of the most expensive races.... In a cycle with so many advantages for Democrats — an unpopular president, an unpopular war, inflation, the usual pattern of midterm swings — money was supposed to be the GOP’s ace.”

Jeff Toobin of the New York Times: “The courts have provided mixed verdicts on Mr. Trump’s attempts at vote suppression in advance of the 2026 midterms. But the rulings have handed him an unambiguous gift: a road map for shaping the universe of eligible voters to his liking in the presidential election year of 2028. Last month, the Supreme Court gave tentative approval to one of the administration’s attempts to ferret out improperly registered voters, including noncitizens.... The Trump plan could have been a potential tool for mass disenfranchisement of legal voters in the midterms. But in a ruling on Sept. 25, the Supreme Court, with the three Democratic appointees dissenting, overruled those courts and allowed the regulation to go into effect — but with an important limitation. Because another federal law limits major changes to voting rules within 90 days of an election, the database can be used only to inquire about specific individuals, not to conduct 'bulk searches.' But there is plenty of time for 'bulk searches,' and thus mass voter purges, in 2028.” (Also linked yesterday.)~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Since the Constitution clearly gives the states the sole power to run elections, the federal government should have nothing to do with it. It does sound "Constitutional" to me for states to request federal assistance in identifying people who are ineligible to vote -- say, obtaining information about federal prisoners if felons are not allowed to vote in a particular state. Conversely, the feds should not be able to order the state to purge from their voter roles felons serving time. But that's logical, and "justices" like Sam Alito are bound neither by logic nor by law. Allow me to provide an example. ~~~

     ~~~ Yesterday, Heather Cox Richardson wrote that during an interview, “Alito ... [told Jan Crawford of CBS News] that he does not anticipate that the court will overturn the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision recognizing the right to same-sex marriage. That case is different from Roe v. Wade, he said, because people have come to rely on Obergefell as they organize their lives. 'One of the important factors we take into account in deciding whether we should reexamine a past decision is the degree to which there has been reliance on the decision,' Alito said. 'Obviously a great deal had changed in the country as a result of Obergefell. There was a lot of reliance in various ways on the decision in Obergefell.'... Crawford pointed out that people thought Roe was settled law and had organized their lives around it, just as people had organized their lives around Obergefell.... “After Obergefell, people of the same sex got married and entered into contracts…it was much more concrete,” Alito told Crawford. 'Whereas with Roe, the argument was made that it had an effect on people’s ideas, women’s ideas about the kind of society that they were going to live in, that this would have an effect on the society. It was much more abstract than what would’ve been involved had we been asked to overrule Obergefell.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Got that? Having an abortion is just an "idea" women have, while getting married is "concrete." May I suggest to Insufferable Sam that a couple can legally dissolve a marriage, they can "cancel the contract." Can a woman dissolve or cancel a baby, Sam? Well, yes, if she has an abortion. But not if she has a live baby. And there's this: Sam will have read Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 decision which modified Roe, but allowed abortion to stand based largely on this reasoning: "The Roe rule’s limitation on state power could not be repudiated without serious inequity to people who, for two decades of economic and social developments, have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail." (Emphasis added.) IOW, the text of the decision itself uses the same language and logic as Sam used to assure Crawford that Obergefell would not be overturned. So, no logic, no stare decisis/law. Oh, and no morality.

ABC Cowers & Kowtows to the Dictator. John Hendel of Politico: “ABC programs are already tempering their election coverage ahead of the midterms to avoid angering ... Donald Trump, a lawyer for the broadcast company told a federal judge on Tuesday, but any possible reprieve is still likely weeks away. ABC is accusing FCC Chair Brendan Carr of threatening to impose a corporate death penalty on its eight stations in the nation’s largest TV markets by hauling in its licenses for a review years ahead of schedule. That’s forcing the Disney-owned network to second-guess how it covers the midterm elections for fear of angering the administration, ABC’s lawyer told a federal judge in Washington Tuesday, a consideration seeping into decision-making around whether to air presidential speeches and what the political line-ups should look like on daytime shows like 'The View.'... The outcome [of the case] could be a bellwether for other national networks, which have faced similar threats from Trump and Carr over their coverage.”

Cassandra Vinograd of the New York Times: “Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for solving a longstanding mystery about mirror images in molecules. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences called their discoveries 'decisive for chemists who design reactions for the manufacture of pharmaceuticals.'... Mr. Kagan, 95, is French and a professor emeritus at Université Paris-Sud in France.Mr. Soai was born in Hiroshima, Japan, and is a professor emeritus at the University of Science in Japan.” The link is a gift link.

Scott Nover & Miriam Waldvogel of the Washington Post: “After months of battling fellow bidders on Wall Street and state attorneys general in court, Paramount Skydance — the media conglomerate owned by tech scion David Ellison — has closed its $110 billion merger deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, creating a new megacorporation in Hollywood, streaming and news. The new company, called simply Skydance, will house the Paramount and Warner Bros. film and TV studios, Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming services, and news giants CNN and CBS News. Ellison will be the company’s chairman and CEO while Ynon Kreiz, formerly the top executive at Mattel, is co-CEO. The duo now helms one of the most powerful forces in American media.” MB: Rest assured that if you maintain your current array of media consumption, unless it's zero (and even if it doesn't include any of the entities in Ellison's conglomerate), it will become more expensive.

Aljean Harmetz of the New York Times: “Eva Marie Saint, who won an Academy Award in 1955 for her gripping movie debut as the shy love interest of Marlon Brando’s longshoreman in 'On the Waterfront,' and who proved equally convincing as a stylish siren opposite Cary Grant in the romantic Hitchcock thriller 'North by Northwest,' died on Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 102.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Scott Tobias of the New York Times lists ten films [gift link] you can watch in which Eva Marie Saint appeared. Tobias links places to watch the films, but he prefers the paid sites. Some, like “On the Waterfront” are free on YouTube or elsewhere. The YouTube version I linked doesn't appear to have any ads, though I suppose Google might sell some ads when the suits learn of Saint's passing.

~~~~~~~~~~ 

Arizona. Jennifer Kelleher of the New York Times: “The University of Arizona has put its fraternity chapters on a form of suspension [link fixed] that severely limits their activities, citing reports of misconduct that the university said had persisted despite warnings. In a letter dated Monday to the university’s fraternities and sororities, Chrissy Lieberman, the dean of students, said she was putting the university’s 21 interfraternity council chapters on 'interim activities suspension' as reports of misconduct continued. Several chapters that were found responsible for code of conduct violations last spring remain on disciplinary status or are currently under investigation, Ms. Lieberman said. Those chapters are on 'activities suspension,' she said. 'The alleged behaviors range from physical assault, drugs and alcohol, hazing and creating unsafe environments for our students,' Ms. Lieberman wrote. 'Some cases are also under criminal investigation.'” The link is a gift link.

Maine Senate Race. Lisa Lerer, et al., of the New York Times: “Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Troy Jackson, the Democratic former president of the State Senate who is challenging her in the midterm elections, faced off on Tuesday night in their first of four debates, exchanging barbs over President Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, abortion rights and health care. It’s not often that an incumbent agrees to multiple debates against a challenger. But Ms. Collins appeared to be betting that Mr. Jackson, who is known as a bit of an uneven campaigner and has never run in a statewide general election, would stumble. Instead, he held his own against a five-term senator in a duel that was, at times, quite testy. Here are five takeaways from the debate in Maine, a crucial state in the battle for Senate control.” The link is a gift link. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Read the takeaways. Jackson can think on his feet. Where Collins hit him with gotcha barbs and excuses that might have left me with a homina-homina response, Jackson was not phased. I hope he can keep it up over the next three debates. A Guardian story is here.

New York. Debra Kamin of the New York Times: “Cornell University named Sally Yates, the former acting U.S. attorney general, on Tuesday to lead an independent internal review of a former student’s rape claim amid growing outrage about how it was first handled. Ms. Yates, 62, will also examine the school’s policies related to sexual assault allegations, including how they are investigated and what support is given to students, the university said in a statement. Anne Smalling, the head of the committee that hired Ms. Yates, told The New York Times the university was obligated to the woman who had filed the rape complaint.” The link is a gift link. (Also linked yesterday.)

Tennessee. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: “Christa Pike, who survived two doses of a lethal injection drug last week during a botched execution in Tennessee, is conscious and speaking, her lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday. Ms. Pike continues to receive critical medical care at a Nashville hospital, the lawyers said. The prognosis remains unclear, they said, but they expect a long recovery. Ms. Pike, 50, is believed to be the first person to have survived doses of a lethal injection drug. She has been hospitalized since the execution attempt on Sept. 30, after it became clear to witnesses that she was still breathing after two doses of pentobarbital, the drug used in lethal injection executions. She had been unconscious and on a ventilator in recent days as medical staff members worked to rid her body of the drug. The lawyers pointedly noted that Ms. Pike, who they said had sustained burns and other injuries to her arm, remained handcuffed and shackled to her bed.” The link is a gift link.

~~~~~~~~~~

France. Lynsey Chutel & Zane Irwin of the New York Times: “There are no signs of slowing in weekslong student protests [link fixed] against poor school conditions and teacher shortages in France. Demonstrators marched on Tuesday in dozens of cities and towns..., drawing roughly around 250,000 people, according to the Interior Ministry. Union activists, who have rallied in solidarity with high school students, have put the number or demonstrators at around double that. Officials say nearly 900 schools were closed on Tuesday, while a student union has claimed 1,800. Hundreds of people have been injured since the protests began last month amid escalating clashes with riot police. Thousands have been arrested, most of them minors, law enforcement officials said. The protests erupted ... as the government tries to pass a belt-tightening budget and as France approaches presidential elections next year. The French government has called some of the students’ demands legitimate but has condemned 'urban violence' and accused far-left party France Unbowed of stoking the demonstrations. The party has rejected the accusation.” The link is a gift link.