Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:
“Getting America back to work full speed, getting you to work longer, if you desire—that builds trillions of dollars of value to the GDP,” Oz added. “And that’s the goal of the health system.”
Two Planned Parenthood affiliates have moved to challenge the Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) from prohibiting their participation in Medicaid.
Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio and Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region requested an administrative hearing to challenge the state agency’s decision to block them from participating in the federal health insurance program.
According to a Friday press release, ODM sent letters to both Planned Parenthood affiliates in late September informing them of the termination. The release said the change would prevent over 27,000 people “from receiving affordable care” across Ohio.
“We hope the hearing will clarify that the federal funding prohibition is purely a political attack on Planned Parenthood and does not provide any basis for ODM to terminate Planned Parenthood from the program,” Melissa Cohen, general counsel for both Planned Parenthood affiliates, said in the release.
The ‘big, beautiful’ bill — a large spending and tax bill signed into law by Trump in July — included provisions that prevented Planned Parenthood and other organizations offering abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for at least the next year.
Planned Parenthood affiliates challenged the bill’s provisions in court. A federal judge ruled in their favor and issued a nationwide injunction in July blocking the Trump administration from cutting Medicaid funding to the organizations.
But a federal appeals court overruled this decision in late September, allowing the Trump administration to proceed with its plans.
[…] Several Planned Parenthood affiliates around the country have faced cuts in services or health center closures. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said it would pause abortion services due to Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ bill. Multiple affiliates sent notices to patients in July that Medicaid would no longer be accepted at their locations.
“My fundamental concern with regard to how much voting control I have at Tesla is, if I go ahead and build this enormous robot army, can I just be ousted at some point in the future?” he said. “If we build this robot army, do I have at least a strong influence over this robot army? Not control, but a strong influence … I don’t feel comfortable building that robot army unless I have a strong influence.”
“EXCLUSIVE: Average Obamacare premiums are set to rise 30 percent, documents show”
“The price increases — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — are by far the largest annual premium increases in recent years.”
Premiums for the most popular types of plans sold on the federal health insurance marketplace Healthcare.gov will spike on average by 30 percent next year, according to final rates approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and shown in documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
The rise in prices — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — are by far the largest annual premium increases in recent years. The higher premiums, along with the likely expiration of pandemic-era subsidies, mean millions of people will see their health insurance payments double or even triple in 2026.
The premium spikes, mirroring the rising cost of private employer-sponsored plans, arrive during a protracted and bitter congressional battle over health insurance costs that prompted a government shutdown since Oct. 1.
Democrats have urged an extension of enhanced subsidies for plans sold through the Affordable Care Act to soften the blow of rising insurance costs, while Republicans have said the additional assistance was never meant to be permanent.
The spike in premiums will become visible to more Americans on Monday when the Trump administration is expected to open Healthcare.gov for window shopping to browse the price of plans ahead of the Nov. 1 start to open enrollment.
[…] Congressional Democrats have refused to vote for a funding bill without extending the extra subsidies to help cushion consumers against the rising costs. Republicans — who have long criticized the 2010 health care law that set up the marketplaces — say the subsidies should either expire or be negotiated at the end of the year.
“Social Security increase is in line with inflation but trails key expenses”
“Millions of Americans who collect retirement, disability, survivor and dependent benefits will see a 2.8 percent bump in 2026.”
[…] On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said prices rose 3 percent in September, year-over-year, compared with 2.9 percent in August. [graphs at the link]
While the increase is in line with overall inflation for the year, it trails categories that are particularly relevant to older adults. Friday’s CPI reading showed that medical care climbed 4 percent from a year earlier, while electricity and piped gas jumped 5 and 11.7 percent, respectively.
[…] the benefits bump will fall short of filling seniors’ needs in today’s economy. […]
Reactions to Friday’s announcement were mixed. Martin O’Malley, who led the Social Security Administration during the Biden administration, slammed the increase as insufficient in a statement on Friday. President Donald “Trump’s economy is forcing seniors and people with disabilities to choose between paying for food or medicine or utilities. The COLA increase won’t even come close to covering the rising costs seniors and people with disabilities face — and Trump’s inflation is only predicted to get worse in coming months,” he wrote. […]
“Hegseth said Friday that the U.S. struck a boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea, marking at least the third time this week that the U.S. has attacked a vessel it says was involved in drug trafficking.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed an aircraft carrier strike group to move to the Caribbean to support President Donald Trump’s effort to dismantle “Transnational Criminal Organizations” and to “counter narco-terrorism,” according to Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.
The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group and embarked carrier air wing are moving to the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility, Parnell said in a post on X.
Parnell said the enhanced military presence will “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere.”
The Gerald R. Ford is the U.S. Navy’s largest aircraft carrier and is currently stationed in the Mediterranean with three destroyers, according to two U.S. officials. They have not left that region, but once they do, the transit will take about one week to get on station in the Caribbean, the officials said.
The military’s deployment of the carrier strike group is a notable escalation of U.S. policy in the region as Trump has promised to target more cartel members and has firmly said these actions don’t require congressional approval.
It will nearly double the number of U.S. forces afloat in the area as part of the counter-drug mission. The U.S. has eight surface ships there now, plus a nuclear-powered submarine, which adds up to about 6,000 sailors and marines in the region. The Ford Carrier Strike Group will add between 4,500 and 5,000 more sailors and marines to the mission.
The carrier is more than just people, aircraft and firepower — carriers are often sent as a show of presence or force. The officials said this deployment is also about sending a message to cartels that the U.S. military can move a huge presence to the area quickly. […]
The U.S. has said it has conducted 10 strikes on drug-carrying boats since early September, killing 43 people so far. Eight strikes have been in the Caribbean Sea and two in the eastern Pacific. […]
Asked whether Trump would go to Congress to ask for a declaration of war to authorize the ongoing strikes against boats, the president declined to do so.
“Well, I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.”
“We’re going to kill them,” Trump added. “They’re going to be, like, dead.”
Lawmakers from both parties have said the administration has failed to provide sufficient information about the strikes and the strategy and intelligence underlying the attacks, six sources told NBC News earlier this month. […]
birgerjohanssonsays
Physiological signs of domestication / reduced aggression that show up in the fossil record.
A Russian scientist domesticated foxes, and revealed something amazing
.https://youtube.com/shorts/CHH4kaOmPbs
The human fossils show signs of self-domestication indicating early humans got less aggressive. There is also a link to debunking the whole “alpha” nonsense as it was based on a flawed study.
Paul Fellows has this fascinating clip here –
Have we caught stellar evolution in action? which is twelve minutes and twenty -seven seconds long and covers somethingt hat is really unusal and the nature of red turned yellow hypergiant star WOH G64 with abreif mention at the end of anotjer simialr star W26 inthe Westerlund star cluster.
KGsays
Lynna, OM@7,
Moving an aircraft carrier strike group to the Caribbean suggests the real target is not random smugglers (or fishing boats). An attack on Venezuela aimed at regime change, or the seizure of the Panama Canal, seem plausible alternatives. Of course, such is the irrationality and incompetence of both Trump and Hegseth, there may be no real plan or goal at all.
The National Symphony Orchestra has begun to open all its performances with the national anthem, the latest indication of how President Trump is putting his imprint on the Kennedy Center, the orchestra’s home.
Steve Bannon, the MAGA broadcaster and [former] adviser to President Donald Trump, just gave an interview to The Economist where he openly discussed a potential “plan” for a third term.
“Well, he’s going to get a third term. So, Trump ‘28,” Bannon said. “Trump is going to be president in ‘28 and people just ought to get accommodated with that.”
This isn’t the first time Bannon has mused about Trump serving for 12 years — or more. Other high-level Trump allies have also hinted at the possibility and, as we’ve already told you in this very newsletter, the official campaign store even has “TRUMP 2028” merch ready to go.
Many observers have dismissed all of this out of hand given that the 22nd Amendment seemingly serves as a hard line enforcing the two term limit. There are, however, actual legal experts who think there could be loopholes to this including a technique essentially pioneered by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, where the president joins a ticket as the vice president with the tacit understanding their running mate would move aside or serve as a mere figurehead. Another potential avenue experts have raised involves challenging whether the 22nd Amendment means solely two terms or actually only two consecutive terms.
Most experts argue these various end runs violate the clear intent of the constitutional amendment. However, if we’ve learned anything about Trump and the Supreme Court that he has increasingly made over, it’s that they are willing to push legal boundaries to serve his interests.
[…] “There’s many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is, but there’s a plan and President Trump will be the president in ‘28,” Bannon said.
Bannon also cast the effort to erode one of the core traditional curbs on presidential power in positively Biblical terms.
“President Trump will be the president of the United States and the country needs him to be president of the United States,” he said. “We have to finish what we started and the way we finish it — through Trump … He’s a vehicle of divine providence. He’s an instrument. He’s very imperfect. He’s not churchy, not particularly religious. but he’s an instrument of divine will.”
Bannon also offered a distinctly dictatorial vision for the “endpoint” of what he termed the “Age of Trump.” He said it would include Trump allies taking “control” of both “the institutions” and the “political process” en route to establishing “an entrepreneurial capitalism paradise.” [eyebrows raised]
“We have to seize the institutions, seize them and then purge them,” Bannon said. “It’s not the DOGE crap, this is serious people like Russ Vought and others that have spent years thinking this whole plan through.”
Despite all of this talk of defying term limits, taking total power, and enacting dramatic purges, Bannon insisted the whole thing somehow isn’t blatant authoritarianism.
[…] might make it tempting to dismiss. However, Trump allies continue to send loud and clear signals that this is something they are considering. […] Why doubt he would try to destroy term limits when Trump has literally demolished the White House? […].
Via fb. Not a fan of things that have any whiff of Conspiracism but I do find this scarily plausible and makes a horrid kind of sense here :
“People. Please. Let me say this loud and clear. IT WAS NEVER ABOUT A BALLROOM. By Glee Violette
The East Wing was built in 1942 to disguise the simultaneous construction of an underground bunker and operations center, underneath it.
And just like then, the Ballroom being built now is a ruse. A decoy. A distraction. To cover up a new and improved bunker.
SO Of COURSE Trump did not go through the National Monuments historical preservation channels. The plans for his bunker would have been exposed to too many people. There would be no way to disguise the ballroom plans to hide it. There would be too many clues for experts to see.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Why the rush? THOSE clues are all around us, too. Fully exposed.
Trump has Congress, the DOJ, and the Supreme Court in his pocket right now, but IF elections happen next year, he WILL lose Congress.
Elections must not happen. While PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS cannot be canceled or postponed, MIDTERM elections can be,
if both chambers of Congress and the President ALL sign on, for emergencies like “war”. So, Trump is trying to create such an emergency.
And of course, recreating the military leadership in his image, and staging a nationwide military coup under the guise of putting down a “rebellion” or “insurrection” would serve him nicely as well.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hegseth has now barred both the Press and Congress from the Pentagon. And barred ALL Pentagon staff from communicating with either the Press or Congress as well.
He has also been purging the Military of any leader with even a HINT of “disloyalty”. Accusations by far-right influencers like Laura Loomer have resulted in firings. He has run multiple lie-detector tests. He even has a new excuse – his recent threat to fire “fat generals”. And now he is having ANY service member discharged for postings on social media mocking Charlie Kirk or other MAGA leaders.
And he and Trump have been seeing how far they can push officers to follow illegal orders by having our ships fire on and destroy boats in international waters and kill the people on board. Now, for the first time, he has had an AIRSTRIKE take out an 8th boat, killing its two occupants.
The idea that these are terrorists taking drugs to America is laughable. They do not have enough fuel. They are headed in the wrong direction, to Trinidad and Tobago for the cocaine trade. And they are not carrying fentanyl. That comes up through Central America and enters through Mexico. EVERY EXPERT KNOWS THIS.
All international laws are being ignored. These boats are not boarded. Nothing is taken in evidence. There is no identification made of the occupants. There are no arrests or charges. There is no due process for their lawful prosecution.
Most importantly, any crimes they COULD be charged for DO NOT CARRY THE DEATH PENALTY.
They are not being “executed”. They are being murdered.
Trump and Hegseth are seeing JUST how loyal their new military commanding officers are, and how far they can push them to obey their illegal orders.
Will they kill random foreigners in international waters, if Trump says they are criminals and terrorists threatening America?
Will they kill the SAME foreigners IN our country, ON our soil, if Trump says they are criminals and terrorists?
Will they kill ANY foreign immigrants IN our cities, on his orders?
Trump said Hegseth should use our own cities as “training grounds” for the Military. He has attempted to send troops into several cities with Democratic mayors, and has even said out loud he wanted them to use full strength. That means live ammunition. On our own people.
And they are also arming Homeland Security and ICE. Federal purchasing logs show ICE spent $71,515,762 on “small arms, ordnance, and ordnance accessories,” including military supplies, weapons, and ammunition, in the nine months between Jan. 20 and Oct. 18, according to the Daily Beast.
While ICE denies a viral report that the purchases included “guided missile warheads”, the codes on what WAS purchased are unclear. For instance, “chemical weapons” could refer to tear gas and pepper balls. Or…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
What IS clear is THIS. Trump keeps “floating” a declaration of the Insurrection Act almost every single day. He threatens the military invasion of American cities almost every single day.
He and his VP and his cabinet heads and the Republican leaders of the House and Senate have upped their rhetoric of ALL Democrats being the “enemy within” and “antifa terrorists” and “Hamas (as in, non-Christian foreign agents) and “radical violent lunatics” – all of it intended to make MAGA folks in “red states” fear and hate the people in “blue states”.
The whole idea of red states and blue states is nonsense – most statewide elections are pretty close – not only are our states pretty evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, so are our communities and even our own families.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
But the GOP and far-right media rhetoric becomes ever more sensationalized and unhinged, day by day. Trump has been planning on taking and KEEPING the presidency from the moment he lost the 2020 election. THAT is why January 6th happened.
The January 6th riot – the assault and breach of our Capitol – was a last ditch effort to STOP the certification of the election that was happening that day, after the scheme to replace official state electors with slates of FAKE electors failed, and Vice President Pence refused to go along with Trump’s order to overturn the election.
Trump will use ANY means – ANY MEANS – to hold on to the office this time around. He has proven that. He has three goals that motivate him – personal power, wealth, and revenge. Nothing he does is for the MAGA folks – they are just his pawns. And he is not here to make America “great”, but to PLUNDER it and OWN it.
So, there must be NO midterm elections next year. For that he needs war-time conditions. And that war will be RIGHT HERE.
So he needs himself a proper bunker. Not the 60 year old WWII bunker he hid in last time. A lavish, opulent, HUGE bunker, in the style to which he has become accustomed.
Oh, and the Ballroom he is building over it will be a nice place to serve as a proper Great Hall and Throne Room, afterwards, in order to receive tributes from future supplicants, as well.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
EDIT – CBS just confirmed it.
“The bunker under the East Wing will also be upgraded, sources told CBS News. The White House Military Office is handling the renovation of the bunker, which is known as the President’s Emergency Operations Center.”
And the price tag has just jumped to $300 million dollars.”
From a post on Facebook by Andrew Kerr, a licensed architect with 20+ years experience, who has worked on several Federal projects.
1. With a projected size of 90,000 sf and a budget of $300M, the cost per square foot would be $3,333. No building costs anywhere near that. $1,000/sf is astronomical.
2. Assuming a drawing in the classical style according to the Golden Ratio, the building footprint is 380feet by 235feet.
3. It’s supposed to be a ballroom for 999 people. 20sf/person is pretty comfortable. That’s only 20,000 sf. Add in 10,000 sf for support functions and another 10,000 sf for pre-function, extraordinarily generous, that’s still only 40,000 sf. Leaving 50,000 sf.
4. The renderings of the building exterior and interior don’t match. The interior shows a room of about 200×100. The exterior is 4.5 times that size.
“Newsmax Guys Wax Nostalgic For Days When ‘Being A Woman’ Was A Legit ‘Pre-Existing Condition’ ”
Hey! Did you guys know that congressional Democrats have psychic powers? It’s true, at least according to Newsmax host Carl Higbie and Dr. Robert Malone, anti-vaxx vaccine advisor to the CDC.
You see, back in 2022, when the Democrats used the reconciliation process to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, they purposely and nefariously decided to make the act’s Obamacare (or ACA) subsidies expire in 2025, so that it would make Donald Trump look bad in the first year of his second term. Because of how they knew, psychically, that he would be president and also that Republicans would have majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Either that or, like, both the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act were passed through reconciliation and the Byrd Rule prevents measures that could increase the deficit for a fiscal year beyond the budget window covered by the reconciliation from being made permanent? No, it’s probably that they’re psychic.
Here, let host Carl Higbie explain (you can watch the video over on Media Matters):
“The reason the government shut down is because Democrats want to do all these subsidies for health care for the ACA, specifically for illegal immigrants [lie] and things like that. But the expiration of these health credits, these tax credits and stuff like that, Democrats voted to have it sunset in the first year of the Trump administration for solely political purposes. And now they’re using it to say that Trump is bad. It’s like those people are the ones who made it sunset in the first place.”
[…] neither Trump nor any congressional Republicans are actually required to “look bad.” They are perfectly capable of saying they want to open up the government and make the enhanced subsidies permanent, just like — and I can’t believe I’m saying this right now — Marjorie Taylor Greene has done.
In fact, every time Republicans talk about Democrats trying to make them look bad, the power to not look bad has been within them all along. We really don’t have to do anything to make them look like terrible people who don’t care if Americans live or die.
ROB MALONE (GUEST): So your problem is that Democrats lie, mislead, and manipulate information? This is like saying, I have a problem, that the sun rises in the morning.
HIGBIE: Yeah. But the staggering thing here is all these people — and, you know, as a health care guy, you clearly know this — is that health care worked. Not everybody had it because not everybody was forced to have it and not everybody wanted it. Yes, it was a tragedy for some people when they, you know, had a serious injury or illness or something like that. However, it was their choice.
[…] Prior to the ACA, as you likely know, insurance companies were allowed to refuse to cover people who had “pre-existing conditions,” refuse to cover said pre-existing condition, or charge you up the wazoo for having said pre-existing condition. This meant that if you had a chronic or ongoing health condition and you had to change jobs for whatever reason, your new health care provider could refuse to continue your treatment. According to one study, 27 percent of non-elderly adults with pre-existing conditions literally could not get insured, for any amount of money, by anyone. Many of your Wonkette writers were among them!
Health insurance companies were also free to cut off coverage entirely for women who became pregnant, or refuse to cover women who were pregnant. They would also, when people needed to use their health insurance for something major, go through their history to try to find something they didn’t tell the insurance company in order to have an excuse to cancel their policy. This “rescission” is what happened, quite famously, to a woman named Robin Beaton. Beaton was diagnosed with breast cancer and required a double mastectomy that would have cost $30,000 out-of-pocket, only to find out right before surgery that her insurance had been canceled because she had visited a dermatologist for acne treatment and a word on her chart was incorrectly “interpreted to mean pre-cancerous,” even though the dermatologist called them to say that’s not what it meant. The company then went further through her medical history to find she had not put the correct weight down and had once, but not currently, taken a medication for a heart issue.
The idea that people “chose” not to have health insurance simply because they decided to fly by the seat of their pants is absolutely absurd. [!] They were either unable to afford it or were denied coverage for being sick (or getting pregnant).
[…] let’s let him continue, shall we?
“Obamacare comes in. Yes, you have to have health care. Then they brag about how many people are on health care because it’s the law, but then they’re shocked when premiums go up, because now men have to pay for maternity leave because or, you know, lady doctor appointments that they shouldn’t have to pay because it’s a one size fits all. How do we get back to sanity in a health care system that actually works?”
First of all — what health insurance company does he think is covering maternity leave? Who does he think we are? Some kind of civilized nation that ensures that new parents have a few weeks off in order to care for and bond with their newborn child? Please.
I assume he’s actually referring to maternity care, and also that he has yet to learn how babies are made. Wouldn’t be too surprising coming from someone who can’t even land on the word “gynecologist.”
It is true that women often had to pay up to 45 percent more for insurance than men — as simply being a woman was basically considered a “pre-existing condition.” The idea that anyone now would harken back to that as “the good old days” is … well, I don’t quite have the words for what that is. It’s certainly an interesting take from the side of the aisle that wants to bar women from having abortions and won’t shut up about how they want women to have more babies.
[…] The Right’s approach to health care is a lot like their approach to everything else. They want things to be harder for women, they want to reward people born in ideal circumstances (ie: healthy and male) with lower premiums, and they want severe punishment for failure — ie: having a pre-existing condition, not living a perfectly healthy lifestyle (which practically no one does), […] It’s all about reward and punishment and hierarchy … with a little dash of eugenics thrown in there.
As it turns out, only about 39 percent of Americans know that the ACA is what prevents companies from totally fucking us with “pre-existing conditions.” [!!] So I’d actually like to thank these fellas for reminding me that we really need to be talking about that more, as well as the provisions that allowed insurance companies to cut women off for getting pregnant. Because, you know, I just don’t think most people would like to go back to that.
“Donor Who Gave $130 Million to Pay Troops Is Reclusive Heir to Mellon Fortune”
“Timothy Mellon is a billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump.”
Timothy Mellon, a reclusive billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump, is the anonymous private donor who gave $130 million to the U.S. government to help pay troops during the shutdown, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Trump announced the donation on Thursday night, but he declined to name the person who provided the funds, only calling him a “patriot” and a friend. But the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the donation was private, identified him as Mr. Mellon.
[…] “He doesn’t want publicity,” Mr. Trump said as he headed to Malaysia. “He prefer that his name not be mentioned which is pretty unusual in the world I come from, and in the world of politics, you want your name mentioned.”
[…] Mr. Mellon, a wealthy banking heir and railroad magnate, is a longtime backer of Mr. Trump and gave tens of millions of dollars to groups supporting the president’s campaign. Last year, he made a $50 million donation to a super PAC supporting Mr. Trump, which was one of the largest single contributions ever disclosed.
A grandson of former Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, Mr. Mellon was not a prominent Republican donor until Mr. Trump was elected. But in recent years, he has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting Mr. Trump and the Republican Party.
Mr. Mellon, who lives primarily in Wyoming, keeps a low profile despite his prolific political spending. He is also a significant supporter of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who also ran for president last year. Mr. Mellon donated millions to Mr. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and has also given money to his anti-vaccine group, Children’s Health Defense. [Proof that money does not make a person intelligent.]
The Pentagon said it accepted the donation under the “general gift acceptance authority.”
“The donation was made on the condition that it be used to offset the cost of service members’ salaries and benefits,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement.
Still, the donation appears to be a potential violation of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from spending money in excess of congressional appropriations or from accepting voluntary services.
It remains unclear how far the donation would go toward covering the salaries of the more than 1.3 million troops who make up the active-duty military. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Trump administration’s 2025 budget requests about $600 billion in total military compensation. A $130 million donation would equal about $100 a service member.
StevoRsays
The latest If You’re Listening ep which I reckon is always a pretty worthwhile show here – Sizing up the Gaza rebuild – 21 mins long.
StevoRsays
A new front has opened in the battle over space shuttle Discovery, and the fight has made its way to the Justice Department.
The two Texas Senators trying to mandate the relocation of Discovery from the Smithsonian Institution’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia to Texas, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and joined by Texas Representative Randy Weber, are urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the Smithsonian for violations of the Anti Lobbying Act.
…(Snip)..
In a letter to Congress earlier this month, the Smithsonian said both it and NASA have determined that Discovery’s relocation would require partial disassembly of the vehicle and that the minimum cost to do so could range from $120 million to $150 million — far higher than the $85 million allocated (but not yet appropriated) in the OBBA. That estimate also doesn’t include the cost of constructing a new facility in Houston to serve as the space shuttle’s new home.
Published in Nature Energy, the study tackles a critical question: if market forces have already driven many coal plants to close, why are so many still running? Despite years of decline, roughly 105 gigawatts of coal capacity—representing 114 plants—are still slated to operate through 2035, even though a complete phaseout by that date is widely considered essential for meeting U.S. net-zero emissions goals.
“Coal is complex—there’s no single right way to deal with it,” said Sidney Gathrid ’22, the study’s lead author. “Our goal was to build tools that reflect that complexity, so different actors can take on different facets of the problem. There’s no one straightforward path, and we wanted to do research that represented that reality.”
Working with Grace C. Wu, an assistant professor in the Environmental Studies Program and senior author on the paper, Gathrid and his team show that reaching those goals will require policymakers to move beyond age-based or one-size-fits-all approaches—and instead focus on the specific contexts that accelerate the retirement of certain coal plants.
Former US Vice-President Kamala Harris has told the BBC she may run again for the White House.
In her first UK interview, Harris said she would “possibly” be president one day and was confident there will be a woman in the White House in future.
Making her strongest suggestion to date that she will make another presidential bid in 2028 after losing to Donald Trump last year, Harris dismissed polls that put her as an outsider to become the Democrats’ pick for the next election.
Speaking to Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Harris also turned her fire on her former rival, branding Trump a “tyrant”, and said warnings she made about him on the campaign trail had been proved right.
“People familiar with pardon discussions told NBC News that top White House officials became concerned about attempts from outsiders to profit from the clemency process.”
As soon as Donald Trump took office for his second term, he began using his clemency power at a steady clip. It started with the pardons of the roughly 1,500 criminal defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and continued each month, with more pardons or commutations.
At the end of May, he had issued 73 clemency actions, not including all the Jan. 6 defendants. Trump once called the power to pardon “a beautiful thing.” […]
But after May, the pardons stopped.
Four people familiar with discussions around pardons told NBC News that top White House officials became concerned about attempts from outsiders to profit from the clemency process, and two of those people said the White House paused on Trump issuing pardons in order to get more control over matters. These people, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to speak candidly. Another factor has been the president’s crowded agenda, which included foreign and domestic priorities, one of those people said.
Two senior White House officials said chief of staff Susie Wiles, who has played a central role in reviewing pardons, became more outspoken after reports emerged that lobbyists and consultants were advertising themselves as offering access to Trump’s pardon authority for steep prices.
[…] While it’s legal to engage lobbyists on these issues, Wiles didn’t like the look. […]
Urgency grew after Bloomberg reported in August that two intermediaries seeking to cash in on a burgeoning pardon economy were floating a plan to Roger Ver, a man known as Bitcoin Jesus for his early crypto evangelism, to secure a presidential pardon for him in exchange for $30 million. […]
The report set off alarms inside the White House […] Last week, Ver reached a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve the federal tax charges brought against him. He has not yet been granted a pardon.
In late May, NBC News also reported that some lobbyists had received proposals as high as $5 million to press cases before the president. More recently, an associate of former Sen. Bob Menendez, who is accused of bribing the senator with gold bars, paid $1 million to a Washington lobbyist with ties to Trump to help secure clemency, three sources told NBC New York. Lobbying disclosure filings described the payment as for “executive relief.”
Last week, Trump commuted the seven-year prison sentence of former New York Rep. George Santos, with the timing of the move surprising even some close allies. Trump granted another pardon this week, for Changpeng Zhao, the founder and former CEO of crypto currency exchange Binance, who had previously pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering. Binance has ties to World Liberty Financial, which has administered many of the Trump family’s crypto projects.
[…] The Zhao pardon came after Trump met with Wiles and White House Counsel David Warrington on Monday again to review a new slate of candidates. The senior White House official said more people are poised for relief once the president has an opportunity to sign them.
Others seeking relief from the president [I snipped details]
Trump’s pardons have faced plenty of criticism, including, at times, from his own allies. […]
Presidents largely have unchecked pardon power, […] But Trump has issued far more pardons at a consistent pace, with many going to allies or well-connected individuals.
After Trump pardoned a Virginia sheriff convicted of bribery, who was a supporter of the president, Trump’s pardon attorney, Ed Martin, posted on X: “No MAGA left behind.”
[…] Trump’s clemency decisions have included well-known figures and political allies — such as former reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, as well as former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was once a contestant on Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” TV show — and people whose cases revisit questions about political persecution and fairness — including a group of anti-abortion protesters and Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden who spoke out against the former president’s son. […]
Leavitt said that “the Trump White House takes this process and responsibility extremely seriously.” “Each clemency request is intensely vetted and reviewed, and President Trump ultimately makes every clemency decision,” she added. [bullshit for the most part] […]
Since when was the Trump administration concerned about earning a profit? Maybe they just don’t want “outsiders” to profit?
“East Wing To Be Turned Into Golf Court Filler. Oh, The Indignity.”
Boy, Donald Trump sure loves burying things on golf courses, doesn’t he? His first wife. The East Wing of the White House. Wait, what?
Yes, if you were wondering what happened to all that rubble left lying around the White House this week after Trump and his merry band of ghouls gleefully took a wrecking ball to the historic East Wing, we now have an answer. On Friday much of the ruins was loaded onto trucks and taken to the East Potomac Golf Links, a municipal course located on an island in the Potomac River not far from the White House.
[…] The wreckage will be used to build mounds and other terrain changes on the course, just as Ivana is now a hazard on the first hole at Bedminster.
Oh, and there’s this from The New Republic:
Trump has reportedly been considering rebranding the golf course as the “Washington National Golf Course,” with a new logo eerily similar to that of his own courses.
Of course he is. You didn’t think the President of the United States had more important duties than redoing a city golf course, did you? How does he find the time between tantrums?
Frankly, we’re shocked Trump is not naming the course after himself. Or naming half the buildings in Washington after himself, at this point. […] But there is still plenty of time for horrors as yet undreamed.
Inside Edition, of all places, slapped together a piece that actually asked a couple of questions we were wondering about. This included asking an environmental scientist some serious questions, such as Is it dangerous to inhale dust clouds rising from wrecked buildings […]
Bottom line, the scientist said, is that yes, it’s dangerous. You have no idea what’s in those clouds: toxic metals, particulates […]
So not only might the demolition crews have breathed in all that crap, but so might White House staff, reporters, visiting dignitaries, […] tourists standing near the fence and watching the building come down, and the golfers at East Potomac Golf Links, who were just trying to get in a round to kick off their weekend a little early and are returning home with doctored scorecards and lungfuls of lead. [video]
Waaaaay off the top of our heads here, we are going to guess that the White House didn’t do an asbestos assessment before they tore down the building that was built back in the 1940s when asbestos was practically considered an essential vitamin and nutrient. Good luck, all living things in the vicinity.
So what treasures will Trump decide to bury on a golf course next? […] The Epstein files? The remaining shards of America’s dignity? […]
“At least three people have already been killed in Haiti as a result of devastating flooding.”
Tropical Storm Melissa is expected to intensify into a hurricane in the Caribbean on Saturday, bringing with it catastrophic flash flooding and potential landslides.
The slow-moving storm is already responsible for the deaths of at least three people in Haiti. Meteorologists warn the storm could become a Category 4 hurricane, bringing major rainfall and destructive winds to the island of Jamaica.
[…] the National Hurricane Center said the slow-moving storm is crawling west-northwest at 1 mph. At the time of the update, the storm was about 155 miles southeast of Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, and 235 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.
The NHC warned of “life-threatening and catastrophic flash flooding and landslides” through the weekend in Jamaica and southern Hispaniola, the island that comprises Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The Haitian Civil Protection Agency said that two people died Thursday in a landslide in Fontamara, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. Earlier, the agency said a man in his 70s was killed by a falling tree in the southern coastal town of Marigot, while five people were injured in the Artibonite region.
Already, dozens of water supply systems are offline in the Dominican Republic, affecting more than 500,000 customers, with downed trees and traffic lights causing disruption.
[…] At least 15 million people from Texas to Mississippi currently face Flood Alerts into Sunday afternoon. Rainfall totals through Sunday are expected to range from 2-4″ inches with localized higher amounts possible.
“When they are not fighting, they write poetry, letters home or words of praise to their supreme commander,” said one of the directors at Moscow’s Museum of Victory.
Since the Kremlin launched its war in Ukraine just over three and a half years ago, Russian soldiers have been canonized on TV screens and billboards across Moscow.
But this week, as Muscovites shrugged off President Donald Trump’s new sanctions while already grappling with mounting economic concerns, there was also space carved out for a burgeoning ally in the state-run Museum of Victory.
The Kremlin long worked to keep secret the role North Korea’s forces played in the war on Ukraine. Now, it’s celebrating it in a public relations U-turn, which saw the museum open a new exhibition earlier this month celebrating the alliance that helped to push back the biggest foreign incursion into Russian territory since World War II, when Ukrainian forces smashed across the border in August of last year.
Ukraine and South Korea estimate Pyongyang has ultimately deployed more than 10,000 troops to the war in return for economic and military technology assistance.
Their sacrifice is celebrated with mannequins wearing North Korean uniforms and drawings by soldiers on the battlefields of Russia’s Kursk region, alongside bloodstained personal diaries and letters from troops. […]
Another bloodstained letter from a soldier to his family urges his parents not to worry about him. “I received the order from the supreme commander and am now bravely fighting far from home. We are all ready to give our lives in bloody battles,” they wrote. [North Korean soldiers already thoroughly brainwashed.] […]
A short film about “international solidarity” between the two countries “against Western imperialism” ran on a loop, as hundreds of schoolchildren and members of the public made their way past. [propaganda]
In promotional material, the museum says it runs “patriotic programs and quests” for school groups, and its “Children’s Center” is described as “a unified space for civic-patriotic education of students in educational institutions.” On Wednesday some of them chanted slogans as they took part in a patriotic training exercise. [brainwashing children]
[…] South Korea’s intelligence agency estimated last month that about 2,000 North Korean soldiers had been killed in the war, which entered its fourth year in February. […]
The Trump administration won’t tap emergency funds to pay for federal food benefits, imperiling benefits starting Nov. 1 for nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO.
USDA said in the memo that it won’t tap a contingency fund or other nutrition programs to cover the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is set to run out of federal funds at the end of the month.
The contingency fund for SNAP currently holds roughly $5 billion, which would not cover the full $9 billion the administration would need to fund November benefits. Even if the administration did partially tap those funds, it would take weeks to dole out the money on a pro rata basis — meaning most low-income Americans would miss their November food benefits anyway.
In order to make the deadline, the Trump administration would have needed to start preparing for partial payments weeks ago, which it has not done. […]
Lockhart starred in the iconic TV shows “Lassie” and “Lost in Space,” and won what is now a Tony Award for her performance in “For Love or Money.”
[…] In “Lassie,” Lockhart played Ruth Martin, and in “Lost in Space” she played Maureen Robinson. She also played Dr. Janet Craig in “Petticoat Junction.”
Lockhart was long a proponent of the space agency NASA and its mission, and she appeared with pioneering moon-walking astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin when NASA Television won a primetime Emmy Award in 2009.
The ceremony marked the 40th anniversary of the historic live-TV broadcast from the surface of the moon, which captivated the world on July 20, 1969.
“Mommy always considered acting as her craft, her vocation, but her true passions were journalism, politics, science and NASA,” daughter June Elizabeth said in Saturday’s statement.
“She cherished playing her role in ‘Lost in Space’ and she was delighted to know that she inspired many future astronauts, as they would remind her on visits to NASA,” Elizabeth said. “That meant even more to her than the hundreds of television and movies roles she played.”
Lockhart was born in New York City on June 25, 1925 […]
Heating U.S. homes with electricity is expected to be more costly this winter, especially when compared with natural gas or heating oil, federal officials estimate.
In projections published this month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said the average U.S. consumer who relies on electricity to heat their residence will see expenditures rise 4 percent to $1,133 from November through March 2026. During that period, the price of electricity per kilowatt hour is expected to be 5 percent higher overall, the EIA said.
The cost of electricity varies geographically. People in the Northeast will pay an additional 24 cents or more per kilowatt hour — the highest rates in the country — and fork over a total of $1,519 this winter. By comparison, people in the South will pay between 14.68 cents and 15.54 cents per kilowatt hour, for a total of $1,031 over the same period, according to EIA estimates.
About 42 percent of U.S. households reported using electricity to heat their living space, the EIA said, citing U.S. Census information. […]
In a career spanning 40 years, I have never encountered this type of rhetoric. The Right never used to talk like this. So who on our side has legitimized this type of vile degradation? It’s a question worth thinking about
It’s funny because D’Souza is saying this while supporting Trump. So an amazing degree of oblivious or doublethink going on.
birgerjohanssonsays
A very important historical lesson.
Resistance Dispatch | “When the Federalists Tried to Destroy American Dissent…And Lost”
When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stormed through Santa Ana, California, in June, panicked calls flooded into the city’s emergency response system.
Recordings of those calls, obtained by ProPublica, captured some of the terror residents felt as they watched masked men ambush people and force them into unmarked cars. In some cases, the men wore plain clothes and refused to identify themselves. There was no way to confirm whether they were immigration agents or imposters. In six of the calls to Santa Ana police, residents described what they were seeing as kidnappings.
“He’s bleeding,” one caller said about a person he saw yanked from a car wash lot and beaten. “They dumped him into a white van. It doesn’t say ICE.” [I snipped other examples.]
[…] filing complaints with the Department of Homeland Security was likely to go nowhere because the office that once handled them had been dismantled. There was little chance of holding individual agents accountable for alleged abuses because, among other hurdles, there was no way to reliably learn their identities.
[…] There are virtually no limits on what federal agents can do to achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportations. Santa Ana has proven to be a template for much larger raids and even more violent arrests in Chicago and elsewhere. […]
[…] ICE, in their view, has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force. […] Trump’s DHS appointees swiftly dismantled civil rights guardrails, encouraged agents to wear masks, threatened groups and state governments that stood in their way, and then made so many arrests that the influx overwhelmed lawyers trying to defend immigrants taken out of state or out of the country.
[…] “Accosting people outside of their immigration court hearings where they’re showing up and trying to do the right thing and then hauling them off to an immigration jail in the middle of the country where they can’t access loved ones or speak to counsel. Bands of masked men apprehending people in broad daylight in the streets and hauling them off. Disappearing people to a third country, to a prison where there’s a documented record of serious torture and human rights abuse.”
The former official paused. “We’re at an inflection point in history right now and it’s frightening.”
[…] The identities of DHS officers, their salaries and their operations have long been withheld for security reasons and generally exempted from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. However, there were offices within DHS created to hold agents and their supervisors accountable for their actions on the job. The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, created by Congress and led largely by lawyers, investigated allegations of rape and unlawful searches from both the public and within DHS ranks, for instance. Egregious conduct was referred to the Justice Department.
[…] CRCL provided an accounting of allegations and a measure of transparency for Congress and the public.
The office processed thousands of complaints — 3,000 in fiscal year 2023 alone — ranging from allegations of lack of access to medical treatment to reports of sexual assault at detention centers. Former staffers said around 600 complaints were open when work was suspended.
The administration has gutted most of the office. What’s left of it was led, at least for a while, by a 29-year-old White House appointee who helped craft Project 2025 […]
Meanwhile, ICE is enjoying a windfall in resources. On top of its annual operating budget of $10 billion a year, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill included an added $7.5 billion a year for the next four years for recruiting and retention alone. As part of its hiring blitz, the agency has dropped age, training and education standards and has offered recruits signing bonuses as high as $50,000. [!]
[…] [I snipped the administration’s denials, as proffered by Tricia McLaughlin, the DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, and other administration officials.]
Trump also eliminated the department’s Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman, which was charged with flagging inhumane conditions at ICE detention facilities where many of the apprehended immigrants are held. The office was resurrected after a lawsuit and court order, though it’s sparsely staffed.
The hobbling of the office comes as the White House embarks on an aggressive expansion of detention sites with an eye toward repurposing old jails or building new ones with names that telegraph harsh conditions: “[…]
[…] Frantz and other scholars who study anti-democratic political systems in other countries said there are numerous examples in which ICE’s activities appear cut from an authoritarian playbook. Among them was the detention of Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was apprehended after co-writing an op-ed for the campus paper that criticized the school’s response to the war in Gaza. ICE held her incommunicado for 24 hours and then shuffled her through three states before jailing her in Louisiana. [video]
“The thing that got me into the topic of ‘maybe ICE is a secret police force’?” said Lee Morgenbesser, an Australian political science professor who studies authoritarianism. “It was that daylight snatching of the Tufts student.”
[…] The fallout is being felt in places like Hays County, Texas, not far from Austin, where ICE apprehended 47 people, including nine children, during a birthday celebration in the early morning of April 1.
The agency’s only disclosure about the raid in Dripping Springs describes the operation as part of a yearlong investigation targeting “members and associates believed to be part of the Venezuelan transnational gang, Tren de Aragua.”
Six months later, the county’s top elected official told ProPublica the federal government has ignored his attempts to get answers.
“We’re not told why they took them, and we’re not told where they took them,” said County Judge Ruben Becerra, a Democrat. “By definition, that’s a kidnapping.”
In the raid, a Texas trooper secured a search warrant that allowed law enforcement officers to breach the home, an Airbnb rental on a vast stretch of land in the Hill Country. Becerra told ProPublica he believes the suspicion of drugs at the party was a pretense to pull people out of the house so ICE officers who lacked a warrant could take them into custody. […]
The Trump administration has yet to produce evidence supporting claims of gang involvement, said Karen Muñoz, a civil rights attorney helping families track down their relatives who were jailed or deported. While some court documents are sealed, nothing in the public record verifies the gang affiliation DHS cited as the cause for the birthday party raid.
[…] With so few institutional checks on ICE’s powers, citizens are increasingly relying on themselves. On at least one occasion in nearby Downey, a citizen’s intervention had some effect.
On June 12, Melyssa Rivas had just started her workday when a colleague burst into her office with urgent news: “ICE is here.”
The commotion was around the corner in Rivas’ hometown, a Los Angeles suburb locals call “Mexican Beverly Hills” for its stately houses and affluent Hispanic families. […] She and her co-worker rushed toward the sound of screaming at a nearby intersection. Rivas hit “record” on her phone as a semicircle of trucks and vans came into view. She filmed at least half a dozen masked men in camouflage vests encircling a Hispanic man on his knees.
Her unease deepened as she registered details that “didn’t seem right,” Rivas recalled in an interview. She said the parked vans had out-of-state plates or no tags. The armed men wore only generic “police” patches, and most were in street clothes. No visible insignia identified them as state or federal — or even legal authorities at all.
[…] Video footage shows Rivas and others berating the officers for complicity in what they called a “kidnapping.” Local news channels later reported that the vehicles had chased the man after a raid at a nearby car wash. [video]
“I know half of you guys know this is fucked up,” Rivas was recorded telling the officers.
Moments later, the scene took a turn. As suddenly as they’d arrived, the officers returned to their vehicles and left, with no apology and no explanation to the distraught man they left on the sidewalk.
Through a mask, one of them said, “Have a good day.”
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Negotiators have reached a framework of a trade deal to avert additional 100 percent tariffs that President Donald Trump had threatened to impose on imports from China, setting the stage for the U.S. president’s highly anticipated meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in interviews Sunday that constructive meetings with his Chinese counterparts led to the deal, with the delegation from Beijing agreeing to defer restrictions on rare earth minerals that were poised to harm the U.S. economy. The announcement marked a significant de-escalation of a whiplashing trade war between the world’s two largest economies, which heated up when Trump threatened to ratchet up tariffs earlier this month in response to China’s restrictions on the minerals, which are essential components in most electronics.
[…] Bessent suggested in an interview with ABC News that China would defer the restrictions for about a year, although Chinese readouts included no details about a deferral of rare-earth restrictions. He also said the countries had made progress on a deal to bring relief to U.S. farmers who have struggled under China’s boycott of U.S.-grown soybeans.
[…] Additionally, Bessent said, the countries have reached a “final deal” on TikTok, which Trump had promised to restructure to avert a ban of the popular social media app in the United States. Congress enacted the ban, and President Joe Biden signed it, to address national security concerns related to the app’s Chinese parent company ByteDance. Trump last month signed a deal that would spin off the app to a group of mostly American investors, including some of his top political allies.
The countries will also work together to address the fentanyl epidemic, which Trump has called an emergency and used as a pretense to implement tariffs against China. […]
Greer told “Fox News Sunday” that the U.S. and Chinese delegations had “constructive” conversations in Kuala Lumpur. But he said only the leaders can determine when they have a final deal.
“It is really going to depend on Trump and President Xi Jinping,” he said.
“Israeli forces carried out a ‘targeted strike’ on an individual in central Gaza on Saturday, Israel’s military said, the latest incident since the ceasefire came into effect.”
A number of countries have offered to take part in the international stabilization force expected to operate in Gaza, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said, even as key details, including its mandate, were still being negotiated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israel would determine “which forces are unacceptable to us.”
“This is, of course, acceptable to the United States as well, as its most senior representatives have expressed in recent days,” Netanyahu told a session of his Cabinet. [Sounds like Netanyahu is exaggerating the level of agreement. Leaving Netanyahu to decide what is “acceptable” will not turn out well.]
[…] “I think they’d want to know what’s the mandate, what’s the mission, what are the rules of engagement, what is this force supposed to do,” Rubio told reporters. “All of that’s being worked on.”
Rubio added that the force would have to be an “international mission” that could work as part of an agreement through the United Nations.
[…] Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Qatar and Azerbaijan were among the countries that had “raised their hand” to contribute, two senior U.S. advisers said last week.
[…] A U.S.-backed ceasefire remains in force in Gaza, but each side has accused the other of violations. As part of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas returned all living Israeli hostages, but the remains of 13 are still in the enclave. The group has warned it will take time to locate and recover the remains.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump said that Hamas must return the remaining bodies of deceased hostages, or “the other Countries involved in this GREAT PEACE will take action.”
“When I said, ‘Both sides would be treated fairly,’ that only applies if they comply with their obligations. Let’s see what they do over the next 48 hours,” he wrote.
“There is nowhere that will escape the wrath of this storm,” said Evan Thompson of Jamaica’s Meteorological Service.
Related video at the link.
Jamaican officials issued dire warnings Saturday as Hurricane Melissa barrels toward the island, poised to become the strongest storm ever recorded there.
Melissa reached Category 4 status Sunday morning, with maximum sustained winds near 140 mph, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory, warning of “life threatening and catastrophic flash flooding and landslides” in portions of Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic this week.
[…] On Saturday night, the country’s National Emergency Operations Centre was activated to prepare for impact, the Jamaican government said. Parish emergency operations centers, regional shelters and Jamaica’s Emergency Response Team are all operational, it said.
[…] At Category 4 strength, Melissa would be the strongest recorded storm to ever pass over Jamaica, according to Evan Thompson, the principal director of Jamaica’s Meteorological Service.
“There is nowhere that will escape the wrath of this storm,” he said.
Jamaica’s Meteorological Service warned in a statement Saturday that in the next few days, “Catastrophic flash floods and landslides are likely.”
Hurricane conditions Sunday and Monday are likely to include dangerous waves and a life-threatening storm surge of 7 to 11 feet along the country’s southern coast, it said.
[…] The storm will bring “20 to 30 inches of rain,” National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Jamie Rhome said at a Saturday-morning briefing. He called Melissa a “very concerning situation.” […]
“The technology is now popping up onscreen in everything from “The Morning Show” to “St. Denis Medical”—but nothing on air this year could compete with reality,” by Inkoo Kang
Excerpt from a longer article in The New Yorker.
…] Unexpectedly, the 2025 series that channels contemporary A.I. anxieties most effectively is a sci-fi drama set in the twenty-second century, in a universe where artificially intelligent flunkeys have already become obsolete. The “Alien” film franchise has long been noted for its populist, cyberpunk-esque perspective; in the original movie, the primary characters are interstellar merchant mariners deemed expendable by their employer. The new FX prequel series “Alien: Earth” renders the evils of corporate exploitation yet more explicit: its chief antagonist, a haughty man-child who calls himself Boy Kavalier (Samuel Blenkin), is a trillionaire with no compunctions about deceiving the vulnerable or endangering the planet to advance his own agenda.
The world of “Alien: Earth” has no practical government; after the collapse of democracy, five megacorporations took over.
Technological marvels do little to ameliorate the hardscrabble existence of most workers; sixty-five-year labor contracts are the norm. Extraterrestrials aside, the show’s portrayal of internecine battles between callous, self-involved plutocrats at the expense of pretty much everyone else doesn’t feel too far removed from our own situation.
In May, the C.E.O. of a prominent real-life A.I. firm predicted the elimination of half of all entry-level white-collar jobs by 2030—even as talent wars within the field enabled top researchers to command nine-figure pay packages. The contrast has prompted doomer jokes about an impending “permanent underclass.”
Meanwhile, various large language models have absorbed vast swaths of data, sometimes through illegal means, and A.I.-generated images and videos have ushered in a terrifying new era in which people have less control than ever over their likenesses and those of their loved ones.
This month, the release of the text-to-video app Sora 2 forced the daughters of Robin Williams and Martin Luther King, Jr., to plead with the public to stop sending them deepfakes of their fathers.
The way A.I. is rupturing relationships, institutions, and truth itself has given our current moment the air of science fiction: every day brings new reports of chatbots becoming objects of romantic obsession, pushing users toward psychotic breaks, or encouraging teen-agers to kill themselves.
As commentators on both sides of the A.I. divide frequently note, either as a promise or a threat, this is the worst the technology will ever be. Hollywood will have to confront—and compete with—that reality if it’s to help make sense of what’s to come.
Excerpt from a longer article published by The New Yorker, and written by Adam Gopnik.
[…] The East Wing has never been a place of grandeur. The structure as we knew it was built in the anxious years of the Second World War. It was Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to regularize a jumble of service spaces and, not incidentally, to carve out a secure refuge beneath them. But it quickly became a center of quiet power. Eleanor Roosevelt hosted women journalists there. Two decades later, Jacqueline Kennedy presided over a different kind of transformation from the same offices, founding the White House Historical Association. The wing’s very plainness came to symbolize the functional modesty of democratic government: a space for staff, not spectacle; for the sustaining rituals of civic life, not the exhibition of personal glory.
All of that is now gone. The act of destruction is precisely the point: a kind of performance piece meant to display Trump’s arbitrary power over the Presidency, including its physical seat. He asks permission of no one, destroys what he wants, when he wants. As many have noted, one of Trump’s earliest public acts, having promised the Metropolitan Museum of Art the beautiful limestone reliefs from the façade of the old Bonwit Teller building, was to jackhammer them to dust in a fit of impatience.
Trump apologists say that earlier Presidents altered the White House, too. Didn’t Jimmy Carter install solar panels? Didn’t George H. W. Bush build a horseshoe pit? Didn’t Barack Obama put in a basketball court? What’s the fuss? And, anyway, who but élitists would object to a big ballroom that looks like the banquet hall of a third-rate casino? Who decides what’s decorous and what’s vulgar? Even the White House Historical Association, with a caution that has become typical of this dark time, confines itself to stating that it has been allowed to make a digital record of what’s being destroyed—as though that were a defense, rather than an epitaph.
This, of course, is the standard line of Trump apologetics: some obvious outrage is identified, and defenders immediately scour history for an earlier, vaguely similar act by a President who actually respected the Constitution. It’s a form of mismatched matching. If Trump blows up boats with unknown men aboard—well, didn’t Obama use drones against alleged terrorists? (Yes, but within a process designed, however imperfectly, to preserve a chain of command and a vestige of due process.) If Trump posts a video featuring himself as the combat pilot he never was, dropping excrement on peaceful protesters—well, didn’t Lyndon Johnson swear at his aides from his seat on the john? What’s the fuss? The jabs and insults of earlier Presidents, though, however rough, stayed within the bounds of democratic discourse, the basic rule being that the other side also gets to make its case. Even Richard Nixon sought out student protesters one early morning—at the Lincoln Memorial—and tried to understand what drove them.
So it was with the White House. Earlier alterations were made incrementally, and only after much deliberation. When Harry Truman added a not very grand balcony to the Executive Residence, the move was controversial, but the construction was overseen by a bipartisan commission. By contrast, the new project—bankrolled by Big Tech firms and crypto moguls—is one of excess and self-advertisement. The difference between the Truman balcony and the Trump ballroom is all the difference in the world. It is a difference of process and procedure—two words so essential to the rule of law and equality, yet doomed always to seem feeble beside the orgiastic showcase of power.
[…] Simple proportions and human-scale spaces don’t just suggest the spirit of a democratic nation. They are that spirit in three dimensions, with doors and windows. Reverence for the past, and reluctance to destroy until the risks of destruction are fully known, is not timidity but wisdom, in architecture as in life. To conserve, after all, is the essence of conservatism.
The shock that images of the destruction provoke—the grief so many have felt—is not an overreaction to the loss of a beloved building. It is a recognition of something deeper: the central values of democracy being demolished before our eyes. Now we do not only sense it. We see it.
Nonprofits working to combat domestic violence and sexual assault have notched a string of legal wins as they push back against efforts by the Trump administration to put restrictions on work that goes against the administration’s views.
A series of lawsuits has, at least temporarily, blocked the administration from enforcing restrictions on millions of dollars of funding for upcoming grants and forced it to return grants it took away from some nonprofits working with LGBTQ+ victims. [good news]
[…]The funding, advocates say, is essential to providing life-saving services to vulnerable victims, who are more likely to be women.
Through agency rules, the administration is actively trying to restrict the use of federal grants to fund what it calls “illegal” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility activities and “gender ideology extremism.” It is also trying to restrict federal grants from organizations that in any way express support for abortion and that serve immigrants without permanent legal status in the country.
[…] Trump, who has been found liable for sexual assault, last month downplayed the seriousness of domestic violence crimes in a speech. “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say this was a crime,” Trump said.
In June, 17 state-level coalitions that support victims of domestic and sexual violence, represented by Democracy Forward and the National Women’s Law Center, sued the administration over such restrictions on Violence Against Women Act grants awarded by the Justice Department. The following month, in a separate lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward, many of the same state coalitions sued over similar rules attached to grants from the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
In early August, Judge William Smith of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island issued a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from enforcing the new restrictions on Justice Department grants as the case progresses. […]
A similar preliminary injunction came down in mid-October in the HHS and HUD case, blocking the rollout of restrictions on those agencies’ grants as the case continues. […]
Litigation in both cases will likely stretch into 2026.
[…] “This injunction provides immediate relief to survivors, and it allows us and our programs to continue our life-saving work without the threat of restrictive, harmful policies that would have undermined our ability to support those who need it most,” Mike Waterloo of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence said of the August ruling.
“This is not a permanent solution, and we still have work to do.”
[…] One of the Trump administration’s first targets was funding that supported groups working with LGBTQ+ people. Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ+ civil rights advocacy group, helmed an early lawsuit on behalf of nine nonprofits that receive federal funding, several working in the intimate partner violence field.
The organizations argue that the Trump administration’s executive orders, including the order calling for the end of federal funding for activities that promote “gender ideology extremism,” amount to “an existential threat to transgender people.” Forcing the organizations to comply violates the groups’ free speech, due process and equal protection rights, they say.
In June, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction in the case that favored the nonprofits […] The judge’s ruling reinstated canceled grants and voided instructions hindering new applications and instructions for funding […]
The administration appealed the decision to the U.S Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in August. The case continues to move through the courts.
[…] A coalition of Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit in early October challenging a new rule from the Justice Department that could restrict the use of federal grants to pay for legal services for immigrant victims of domestic and sexual violence.
The upcoming rule says states and the local nonprofits they fund are barred from providing some legal services to survivors who don’t have legal status to be in the country. The lawsuit argues that the Violence Against Women Act — which authorized a part of the funding in question — includes a broad list of allowable legal services that include divorce, parental rights, child support, employment-related lawsuits, housing, civil rights and more.
The Justice Department’s new rule does allow states to pay for restraining and custody orders, legal action dealing with human trafficking and legal services to obtain U and T visas, as required by other laws.
The states argue that it’s unclear how exactly they and the organizations that use the funding will be able to comply with the order: Which immigrants are restricted? What legal services are not allowed?
They also argue that the order would force them to violate the law, including the Violence Against Women Act, which says that services for victims are “not dependent on the victim’s immigration status.” [!]
“With this cruel attempt to dictate which survivors deserve access to legal supports, DOJ is endangering families, silencing survivors, and threatening public safety. I will not stand idly by while the federal government unjustly attacks people seeking protection from violence,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose office is taking the lead on the lawsuit. […]
“We are asking the court to block this illegal rule before it takes effect, immeasurably harming survivors.”
The administration notified states of the new rule in August. It is expected to take effect in November.
I’m happy that the efforts to dox people critical of Charlie Kirk have stalled. But yeah, the administration is still a big part of right wing cancel culture.
He’s such garbage. I know there’s so much to oppose but I hope the Reagan speech on tariffs being bad is kept out there and I hope the accuracy of the ad is defended in the face of Trump’s lies about it.
“If the extra subsidies that help Americans pay for Obamacare insurance plans expire at the end of the year as expected, the most intense reverberations will be felt in South Florida, the country’s top market for the coverage.”
After Rome burned, Nero built his ostentatious ‘Golden House’. The moment he was gone, it was torn down. Later emperors built a bath on its ruins. I will not suggest what to build on the footprint of Trump’s Golden House, but I definitely would like to see it brought down.
JMsays
@57 birgerjohansson: The ballroom should go or be cut down but it’s priority will depend on what Trump actually builds. No formal plan has been put forth and the proposal pictures don’t entirely make sense. There are going to be a lot of high priorities for the next president and the ballroom probably won’t be high on the list.
It might not make the top ten list of things to do in the White House. First priority is pinning down the location of presidential records and secret files, searching Maralago again if need be. Then do the same thing for presidential property, no big case was ever made of it but things gifted to the presidents went missing when Trump left last time. Then go over security protocols to see what holes Trump carved. Somebody is going to have to go over the White House and remove the stupid gold bits he has pasted around. If nothing else it’s too likely some bit is bugged someplace. As a quick bit reorganize presidential portraits, Trump has moved them around to hide Biden and Obama.
Trump has been talking about a new monument that would amount to an Arc de Trump. If Trump does actually build something that just amounts to a monument to himself then it has to go as soon as he is gone. Tear it down and then spend a year or two getting proposals for a new monument to America.
A legal group founded by White House aide Stephen Miller sued Chief Justice John Roberts in a brazen but unlikely attempt to seize control of the federal court system.
In the lawsuit filed last week, America First Legal (AFL) argued that the Judicial Conference of the U.S. and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts — two key judicial branch bodies that frame policy and handle the basic functions of the federal courts — are executive branch agencies.
“Such agencies must be overseen by the President, not the courts,” the group, represented by attorney Will Scolinos, claimed, adding that the lawsuit “preserves the separation of powers but also keeps the courts out of politics.”
The Judicial Conference is a policymaking body for the lower federal courts established by Congress to promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. The Administrative office handles the nuts and bolts of the federal judiciary, like budgets and organizing court data.
Absurd case but a straightforward attempt to seize power. The functions of the Judicial Conference do contain some functions that could be considered executive but the independence of the Judicial Branch requires that they be separate. The case seems legally invalid along with being logically absurd but I have not heard any legal experts discuss it yet.
I doubt it’s being raised because they expect to win, it’s a political propaganda bit. The case spends a lot of time talking about Congress meddling with the courts but of course none with how the administration has meddled with the courts or how putting essential parts of the court under Trump administration control would enable more meddling.
A Russian ballistic missile destroyed a 29,000 m² warehouse of “Optima-Pharm” in Kyiv, one of Ukraine’s largest pharmaceutical distributors. Damage is estimated at over $100 million.
Russian soldiers say that the army isn’t issuing them with fuel for combat operations. They are trying to buy it with their own money but are struggling to obtain it in Donetsk because only coupons are now being accepted as payment, due to the ongoing fuel shortages
2/ In a series of short videos filmed at an RTK gas station in Donetsk city, a man records a gas station attendant refusing his request to buy 120 litre of gasoline, despite his pleas of military necessity and people outside selling gasoline illicitly for cash […]
More details, as well as video and photos at the link.
This the massive pro-Hungary / pro-democracy rally called ‘National march’ on the day of the October 23, 1956 Revolution, in Budapest, Hungary. Thousands of people filled the streets to honour their heroes and reject authoritarianism, fascism, and Putin’s puppet Viktor Orbán.
9mm AP Ammo (Czech and Swedish) vs Level IIIA Armor — The Results Are Shocking!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vjhn9Mp11ck
For a real “bulletproof” vest that is leightweight enough to carry around, you may need carbon nanotube fiber. With trauma plates made of Unobtanium.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Democrats Could DOMINATE Midterms with New Virginia Map”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=eIygxFdOnQE
Trump and Abbot simply assumed the Dems would sit on their hands as usual. Surprise! Acts have consequences.
Dust from California’s drying Salton Sea doesn’t just smell bad […] breathing the dust can quickly re-shape the microscopic world inside the lungs.
Genetic or bacterial diseases have previously been shown to have an effect on lung microbes. However, this discovery marks the first time scientists have observed such changes from environmental exposure rather than a disease. […] “Even Salton Sea dust filtered to remove live bacteria or fungi is altering what microbes survive in the lungs,” […] “We think microbial products like [a molecular residue on their outer membranes] are part of what’s causing the inflammation […] It’s like breathing in a chemical fingerprint of dead bacteria.”
Some dust samples were especially potent. In one case, up to 60% of lung immune cells contained markers of neutrophil activation, showing aggressive inflammation. In mice breathing filtered air, levels of neutrophils were only 10 to 15%. […] “We’ve seen these kinds of microbial shifts in people with cystic fibrosis or infections,”
[…]
As the Salton Sea lakebed continues to dry, more of its toxic sediment becomes airborne. The research group is examining whether similar microbial shifts occur in local children. […] The research also raises broader questions. If dust can alter lung microbes, what about smoke, exhaust, or vaping aerosols? The researchers plan to test […] The next step is to determine whether protective species are being lost, and how long any noticeable changes to the microbiome persist.
Silentbobsays
@ 68 birgerjohansson
I like the call-out to Victoria. Some nice deep continuity there. Victoria was a 2nd doctor companion, literally from Victorian (19th century) England. She was forgettable apart from being in one of the most poignant scenes in early Dr Who.
birgerjohanssonsays
The party of the incumbent Trump ally has won Argentina’s midterm elections.
birgerjohanssonsays
Is Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales the last decent tech baron? | Jimmy Wales
“Canada SHOCKED as Sweden’s Gripen OUTPERFORMS the F-35!”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=o_UZltGcqyQ
If you read Stderr you will be familiar with the problems of F-35. So me reposting this link is not a parochial sales pitch for Gripen. Pentagon simply messed up again (I am old enough to recall when F-111 was supposed to replace B-52).
birgerjohanssonsays
“Night-flying insects over UK in decline, weather radar study reveals”
Where is the commentariat? I am getting worried about your health.
quotetheunquotesays
@ birgierjohansson @82.
Yeah, that’s a good one, I just happened to watch that yesterday. i always knew good ol’ CK was a complete scumbag, but didn’t really have a full appreciation of just how ignorant he was. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.
With time running out before the government shutdown began nearly four weeks ago, Donald Trump half-heartedly hosted a meeting in the Oval Office with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders from the House and Senate. To the surprise of no one, the discussion proved pointless, and the shutdown soon followed.
But during that ill-fated conversation, something weird happened: Participants noticed that red hats suddenly appeared on the president’s desk. The text on the hats read “Trump 2028.”
In the immediate aftermath, the president started publishing assorted images to his social media platform in apparent celebration of the hats and their message. In one especially jarring instance, Trump posted an AI-generated video of himself tossing a “Trump 2028” cap onto the head of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
[…] A month later, he’s leaning into the idea anew. Reuters reported:
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday ruled out running for vice president in the 2028 election but declined to definitively say he would not seek a third term, keeping alive speculation about how he might seek to extend his time in office.
Trump called the idea of running for vice president “too cute,” adding that voters “wouldn’t like that,” but he was far less definitive about the broader issue. [Video]
After claiming he hasn’t “thought about” the 2028 race, Trump said he has “the best poll numbers” he’s ever had, concluding, “I would love to do it.”
His claim about not having thought about the issue was obviously silly — the hats were a dead giveaway — and the idea that his public standing is at an all-time high is demonstrably absurd.
But when Trump said he’d “love” to run again, that was believable.
In March, the president told NBC News that he was “not joking” about pursuing a possible third term. Two months later, he addressed U.S. troops stationed at the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, and declared, “As you know, we won three elections, OK? And some people want us to do a fourth. I don’t know, I’ll have to think about that.” [sheesh]
[…] What Trump keeps referring to is plainly not legal. The 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”
[…] his allies continue to suggest that there’s some hidden wiggle room in that phrasing, but legal scholars know better.
[…] I won’t pretend to know where this is headed or the degree to which the president is prepared to defy the Constitution, but Scott Cummings, a professor of legal ethics at the UCLA School of Law, made a comment on “The Rachel Maddow Show” in March that stood out for me.
Commenting on autocracies around the world that have consolidated power, Cummings noted that in none of these countries “do leaders do all the things that Trump is doing, take aim at all of these independent institutions, and then just walk away.” Rather, the professor added, authoritarians take these steps because they intend “to stay in power permanently.”
Election Day 2025 is just a week away, and plenty of voters, pundits, partisans and other observers are eagerly anticipating the results. But as it turns out, there’s another group of people who will be monitoring the process in an entirely different way. The Associated Press reported:
The Department of Justice is preparing to send federal election observers to California and New Jersey next month, targeting two Democratic states holding off-year elections following requests from state Republican parties. The DOJ announced Friday that it is planning to monitor polling sites in Passaic County, New Jersey, and five counties in southern and central California: Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside and Fresno.
[…]
– At the White House’s behest, Republicans in some states are engaging in brazen gerrymandering, using mid-decade redistricting to win congressional races before they happen.
– The Justice Department is fighting to acquire voter registration lists and election data in several states for reasons that still haven’t been explained.
– The Republican administration has chosen election deniers to serve in key federal election roles, leading The New York Times to note that conspiracy theorists “who worked to destabilize and discredit election results after 2020” will now have “the power to potentially interfere with future contests.”
– Trump is lobbying for the total elimination of early voting.
– He’s also lobbying for the total elimination of mail-in balloting.
– He’s also lobbying for the imposition of new and unnecessary voter ID laws that would further suppress the vote.
[…] we’re talking about what appears to be a multifaceted campaign against elections, launched by a president whose contempt for the democratic process is unsubtle.
With a year remaining before the 2026 midterm elections, there is every reason to believe this offensive will only get worse in the coming months.
I struggled to find a unifying theme for the latest parade of depredations from late last week through the weekend. But when a Gilded Age name like Mellon is dominating the news, it’s hard to resist framing the current moment as runaway billionaire-ism.
A billionaire president freed from the restraints of the law by a Supreme Court stacked by billionaires and, in the case of at least two justices, personally rewarded by a billionaire benefactor. Billionaire tech executives circling the federal government like vultures for the opportunity to further expand and consolidate their considerable power.
The U.S. military now has its own billionaire benefactor stepping up with a line-crossing contribution to pay the troops that signals the military itself is a billionaire’s plaything.
Perhaps it is why the demolition of the the White House East Wing resonates beyond politics. It is being replaced by a stylized Gilded Age ballroom paid for by private interests where a royal court of billionaires and wannabes can gather and engage in the kind of transactional governance that is all Trump knows. Everything and everyone has a price.
The Corruption: Mellon Edition
The entire U.S. military is at risk of becoming a private military contractor after President Trump happily and extralegally accepted a $130 million donation from billionaire Timothy Mellon — yes, those Mellons — to partially pay troops during the government shutdown.
Vainglory
President Trump is likely to name the ballroom he’s constructing on the site of the demolished East Wing of the White House after himself, ABC News reported, citing, among other things, a list of those donors it was provided by the White House that referred to it as “the President Donald J. Trump Ballroom.” Trump later called this detail “fake news.”
Quote of the Day
“I’m the speaker and the president.”–President Trump, reportedly chortling privately about his domination of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and the GOP conference
The Trump administration on Friday notified the judge in one of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s civil cases that it is now planning to deport him to Liberia before the end of the month. He has no ties to Liberia, and the government continues to refuse to remove him to Costa Rica, which he and his lawyers have said he would not fight. The judge in the case summoned the lawyers for a virtual conference this afternoon.
The timing of the proposed removal would presumably moot the criminal case against Abrego Garcia and avoid the government having to defend his vindictive prosecution claim, where he has subpoenaed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to testify.
After a weekend filled with incoherent rants, President Donald Trump declared on Monday that he is smart and does not have dementia.
“They have [Texas Rep.] Jasmine Crockett, a low-IQ person. They have—AOC’s [New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] low IQ. Give her an IQ test. Have her pass the exams that I decided to take when I was at Walter Reed,” Trump said on Air Force One, likely referring to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a simple test to determine whether someone is cognitively impaired.
“Those are very hard—they’re really aptitude tests, I guess, in a certain way. But they’re cognitive tests. Let AOC go against Trump. Let Jasmine go against Trump,” he continued. “The first couple of questions are easy—a tiger, an elephant, a giraffe, you know. When you get up to about five or six, and then when you get up to 10 and 20 and 25, they couldn’t come close to answering any of those questions.” [Video]
The comments are especially ludicrous following Trump’s especially unhinged weekend.
On Saturday, he announced a new 10% tariff on Canadian imports because the government of Ontario aired an anti-tariff ad during the first World Series game. That ad accurately quoted former President Ronald Reagan’s general stance against the kind of idiotic economy-harming tariffs that Trump has been chaotically imposing since he retook office in January.
“Ronald Reagan LOVED Tariffs for purposes of National Security and the Economy, but Canada said he didn’t!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday, misconstruing Reagan’s feelings on trade. “Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD. Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Besides being largely false, Trump admits in his post that he is levying a new tariff because he’s mad about an ad—and it could hurt his case before the Supreme Court. He’s asking the Trump-bootlicking justices to allow him to impose tariffs based on national emergencies. And it’s hard to see how a president being mad about a TV commercial amounts to a national emergency.
That wasn’t the only insane thing Trump posted to social media over the weekend.
Earlier on Saturday, Trump also claimed that former FBI Director Christopher Wray, “Deranged” former special counsel Jack Smith, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and other “crooked lowlifes from the failed Biden Administration … cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election.”
“These Radical Left Lunatics should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Of course, no one from the Biden administration could have rigged the 2020 election because they were not in their roles during the election. Neither was Jack Smith, (who was appointed special counsel after Trump lost) in order to investigate Trump’s traitorous efforts to remain in power despite his clear defeat. On top of that, Wray was appointed to lead the FBI by Trump in his first term.
On Monday […] when a reporter asked if he was ruling out running for an unconstitutional third term, he added, “Am I not ruling it out? I mean you’ll have to tell me.”
Given Trump’s demonstrated incoherence, it’s worth taking a longer look at the Montreal Cognitive Assessment that Trump took and claimed on Monday is “very hard.”
On one question, the test asks patients to draw a picture of a clock that depicts a certain time—something that is often taught in first grade. (I should know—my 6-year-old daughter is learning this now.)
It also asks patients to name that day’s date, identify images of animals, recall a short list of words the test proctor had previously recited, and say as many words as the patient can that begin with a certain letter.
Again, Trump considers this test to be “very hard.” [Probably a true thing Trump said. It is very hard for him.]
But please, everyone, pat him on the back for knowing his animals, numbers, letters, and the date. What a big, smart boy!
[…] As if President Donald Trump’s abusive secret police weren’t enough, the administration is now tapping the Navy to help build tent prisons for immigrant detainees.
This is being described as the Department of Homeland Security “funneling $10 billion through the Navy,” which is apparently how we do government spending now—just moving money around wherever it can most efficiently be used to attack immigrants. […]
As soon as next month, the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security will be using the Naval Supply Systems Command to contract with private companies to build and maintain more immigrant detention centers.
Did I mention these are just going to be tents? Or, as CNN euphemistically put it, “soft-sided facilities.”
One source told CNN that the plan is for each facility to hold up to 10,000 people, likely in Louisiana, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Utah, and Kansas. In addition to using local jails, ICE currently has funding for roughly 41,000 beds, but “border czar” and bribe enthusiast Tom Homan wants that doubled.
[…] ICE has $45 billion in new federal money for immigrant prisons that it’s dying to spend. [!]
Theoretically, using the Navy—which already has relationships with eligible federal contractors—will speed up the process and result in facilities that are less slapdash. But there’s no reason to believe that the Trump administration is actually interested in making these facilities safe for immigrants.
[…] having the Navy step in makes a lot of sense. Tap into that sweet federal money, get it over to some defense contractors, and make it clear that the government’s one job is to build cages for immigrants.
Funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will expire at the end of the month, impacting as many as 42 million people—16 million of them children.
And if you’re thinking that this is just an unfortunate, unfixable product of the government shutdown, think again.
The Department of Agriculture has about $5 billion in contingency funds it could use, even during the shutdown. It would cover about two-thirds of the whole month of benefits. But, according to the administration, those funds are only for emergencies “like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, that can come on quickly and without notice.”
Starvation is apparently not an emergency.
So the administration won’t spend those contingency funds, nor will it reimburse states if they pick up the slack.
Unsurprisingly, the administration is saying this is the fault of Democrats, who have “voted 12 times to not fund the food stamp program.” Of course, Democrats have done no such thing. They’ve voted 12 times against the GOP’s refusal even to discuss things like the expiration of expanded health care subsidies. But according to the USDA, “the well has run dry.”
Yeah, about that.
The requirement that these contingency funds be used to keep SNAP aid flowing isn’t something that the Democrats invented out of whole cloth. The USDA’s own shutdown plan said, “Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown.”
Of course, rather than fulfill, or even acknowledge, this obligation, the administration instead just deleted the USDA report from its website. That’s one way to deal with it.
It isn’t just that the administration could fund SNAP but doesn’t want to. The administration is required to fund SNAP but doesn’t want to.
Pretending that Democrats are the ones blocking access to SNAP funds is made even more absurd by the fact that the One Big Beautiful Bill, which congressional Republicans passed earlier this year, cut SNAP funding by $187 billion over the next 10 years. […] There’s only one party eager to starve people, and it isn’t the Democrats.
Some conservatives don’t care if people could soon go hungry. Take Mike Davis, former chief counsel to Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley.
We should only help people who can’t help themselves.
It’s outrageous 40MM people get food stamps.
Get off your fat, ghetto asses.
Get a job.
Stop reproducing.
Change your shitty culture.
Stop giving food stamps to immigrants.
We don’t want you here, if you won’t work.
Shhh, nobody tell him that no matter how you slice and dice the government’s own data, white people are the largest racial demographic of SNAP recipients. Definitely don’t tell him that the majority of SNAP recipients who can work do work.
Withholding SNAP funds is nothing but abject cruelty toward some of the most vulnerable people in America. Meanwhile, when it comes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement goons or the military, the cash flows freely. The administration is making its priorities crystal clear.
Trump will NOT have a third term.
.
Psychologist Dr. John Gartner recently went through the list of Trump’s biggest “gaffes” of the last few months and explained how each one can be linked to dementia.
The Trump administration on Friday notified the judge in one of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s civil cases that it is now planning to deport him to Liberia before the end of the month.
IIRC one of the running gags in Garfield the Cat (the comic strip and the TV cartoon series, both of which I’ve seen some of) was that Garfield tried to get rid of the annoying kitten side character Nermal by repeatedly sending her in a mail package to Abu Dhabi (a stand-in for random, remote foreign location), while she kept coming back. The KAG saga now looks similar, but even more comical, because the Trump administration is apparently systematically trying to deport him to any and each country that hasn’t (yet) been specifically ruled by a court to be out of bounds.
“Monster hurricane to hit Jamaica: ‘We’re witnessing satellite history’”
“Hurricane Melissa is forecast to bring up to 40 inches of rain, 9 to 13 feet of storm surge and destructive winds when it makes landfall in Jamaica late Monday into Tuesday.”
Hurricane Melissa continued strengthening Sunday night into Monday, reaching Category 5 intensity as it approaches Jamaica, where it is set to deliver a devastating blow when it makes landfall late Monday into early Tuesday.
As of Monday morning, the storm had sustained winds of 160 mph and was about 100 miles south of Jamaica’s main island, crawling west at 3 mph. It will make landfall probably as the country’s strongest storm on record — surpassing Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. And it may not be done strengthening yet.
“Do not venture out of your safe shelter,” the National Hurricane Center wrote early Monday. “Catastrophic and life-threatening flash flooding and numerous landslides are likely today through Tuesday. Destructive winds, especially in the mountains, will begin by this evening, leading to extensive infrastructural damage, long-lasting power and communication outages, and isolated communities.”
On Sunday night, satellite intensity estimates for Melissa jumped off the charts, provisionally reaching never-before-observed wind speeds of 190 mph in the Atlantic basin. Hurricane hunter observations were lower than those estimates, but their mission didn’t coincide with the satellite-estimated peak.
“We’re witnessing satellite history in the Atlantic tonight,” meteorologist Michael Lowry wrote.
Melissa also became the third hurricane of the Atlantic season to reach Category 5 strength, the second-most of any season on record.
After moving west on Sunday, the storm will turn north on Monday, feeling the steering effects of a trough of low-pressure over the southern United States. Later this week, the storm will also have an indirect impact on the United States, its moisture expected to fuel a separate serious storm that could dump heavy rain from the Mid-Atlantic to New England. [map]
[…] Rain is forecast to fall in torrents, totaling up to 40 inches in the mountains, which will result in catastrophic flash flooding and landslides. Storm surge of up to 9 to 13 feet as well as very large waves are expected to inundate areas near the south coast where the storm makes landfall — with the highest risk in parishes such as Westmoreland, Saint Elizabeth, Manchester and Clarendon. Once the storm moves to the north side of the island and winds change, surge risks will shift into St. James and Trelawny. […]
“After conceding that he recently had an MRI, the president did not disclose any details, despite his frequent boasts about transparency.”
Donald Trump began the week with a press gaggle aboard Air Force One, where the president reflected on some of the exams he took at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, including “cognitive tests” that he said congresswomen of color would struggle with because they’re “low IQ” people. [social media post and video]
As odd and offensive as the rhetoric obviously was, it was made worse by Trump’s long struggle to understand the purpose of these exams. We’re talking about tests that are used to identify evidence of dementia, mental deterioration and neurodegenerative diseases. Those who take them may be asked, for example, to draw a clock or describe the similarities between oranges and bananas.
Trump has somehow convinced himself, however, that they’re akin to Mensa exams and that the results are proof of his genius. (His “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.” boast remains the stuff of legend.)
As part of the same Q&A, another follow-up question stood out: “The readout from Walter Reed mentioned ‘advanced medical imaging,’” a reporter noted. “Did you get an MRI?”
The New York Times highlighted his response:
President Trump said that he underwent magnetic resonance imaging earlier this month, telling reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday that the results had been ‘perfect’ but declining to say why his doctors had ordered the scan.
The issue has been lingering a bit in the background in recent weeks, following Trump’s Oct. 10 visit to Walter Reed for his second physical of the year. Soon after, an official White House summary released to news organizations noted that he underwent “advanced imaging” as part of that visit.
Last week, a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about the MRI. The president’s chief spokesperson said MRIs are routine during medical exams (that doesn’t appear to be altogether true), though Leavitt conceded that she didn’t know why this specific test was ordered.
This week, Trump advanced the story by acknowledging the MRI but hedging on any details, despite his frequent boasts about transparency.
Trump specifically told reporters they could “ask the doctors” about the MRI, adding, “I think they gave you a very conclusive — nobody has ever given you reports like I gave you.”
But that wasn’t quite right, either. For one thing, the recent White House readout didn’t explain the reason for the MRI. For another, that Trump has somehow created a new standard for excellence when it comes to presidential medical transparency is plainly contradicted by his record.
Without more information, it’s difficult to speculate about what (if anything) this story will amount to, though we probably haven’t heard the last of this line of questions. […]
birgerjohanssonsays
Today was Louis Jr’s First Kayak Adventure!!! 🛶😸😍
The original Louis passed away this summer. Here is Louis Jr !
(It is wossname the cat breed that grows huge)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=waH8P74NIE8
[…] Daddy Dearest and his loyal Cabinet members just handed Donald Trump Jr. a massive deal at the Pentagon.
Unusual Machines, a Florida-based drone company in which Trump Jr. has invested $4 million, secured a contract with the Defense Department.
According to CEO Allan Evans, the purchase—for an undisclosed amount—was their largest buyout to date.
Despite Trump Jr.’s investment and role on Unusual Machines’ advisory board, Evans told the Financial Times that he “did not advise or do anything else on this deal.”
And a spokesperson for Trump Jr. also denounced any connection.
“Don has never communicated with anyone in the administration on behalf of Unusual Machines or about the contract in question,” they told the Financial Times. “His advisory role with them has nothing to do with interfacing with the government.”
But the sale did come at an opportune time, given that President Donald Trump signed an executive order in June to boost the drone industry.
Still, Trump Jr.’s drone profits are just a drop in the bucket at this point. From inheriting his father’s real-estate portfolio to managing his trust, Trump Jr. and the rest of the president’s children are set.
Though inheritance doesn’t seem to be quite enough for all of the Trump family.
Recently, Eric Trump has been using his platform to hawk his book making claims about the “radical” left’s alleged coordinated attack against his family. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s been using Charlie Kirk’s assassination to push book sales.
The family has also made quite a killing from crypto, all with the help of insider knowledge on Trump’s plans for deregulation.
And Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has also made his own share of deals through his business relationship with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who provided Kushner’s firm $2 billion from a sovereign wealth fund.
Even Trump’s grandchildren are getting involved in the grift. Kai Trump, who is the daughter of Trump Jr., recently launched her own clothing line and YouTube channel—with her grandfather front and center as she racks in money.
It seems like Trump’s family is right on track to make their riches before the first year of his second term is even over.
On Monday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz unveiled his plan to provide $4 million in emergency funding to support food shelves, calling out […] Trump and the GOP for the crisis created by their ongoing government shutdown.
“This is not a both-sidesism. This is owned by the Republicans. It is owned by their ability to want to have anything their way. They’ve got a president that is pulling money back that was appropriated by the legislature,” he said. [True] [video]
[…] Walz continued. “The people are going to be lined up out here to get food, and we’re talking about a damn ballroom. Don’t lose the plot. […].”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a hundred-millionaire, wants America’s farmers to know he’s just like them and they are all in this together.
American soybean farmers have had a rough go of it lately, with China boycotting the purchase of U.S. soybeans. Never fear, though. Bessent knows exactly what you’re going through.
“In case you don’t know it, I’m actually a soybean farmer, so I have felt this pain too,” Bessent shared on ABC News on Sunday. [video]
This is nonsense on so many levels.
First, Forbes estimates Bessent’s net worth to be about $600 million, so he probably is feeling no pain. In contrast, those who run small farms often have to work side gigs to make ends meet, and over three-quarters of total farm household income is from off-farm jobs. After accounting for all the costs that go into farming, small family farms make about $44,000 per year on average.
Next, Bessent doesn’t farm a thing. Instead, he owns substantial farmland in North Dakota, which he rents out. The land is worth up to $25 million, and the rental income pulls in between $100,000 and $1 million per year for him.
In other words, he’s a landlord.
You are probably wondering how Bessent was allowed to keep his farm after starting work in the Trump administration, and you’re not alone. Bessent has been allowed to keep some of his private holdings, including that farmland. Bessent was supposed to divest of certain holdings within 90 days of being confirmed, […] Bessent has avoided it, promising now that he will comply by Dec. 15.
Well, except for the things Bessent has unilaterally decided he will not divest from. That includes a private equity fund and his investments in a drug development company and a flavored water company. […] the government ethics office just did him a solid and said those magically do not pose any conflicts of interest.
Bessent hasn’t sold his farmland, either. In theory, he is required to sell that by Dec. 15, but before he does that—if he does it at all—he’s going to do a wee bit of Trump-style grifting. See, as the treasury secretary, he is negotiating a soybean deal with China, which stands to enrich Bessent, the faux-farmer. Neat.
[…] Bessent’s attempt to show he is in touch with the needs of the common man, the workaday farmer struggling to make ends meet, is ridiculous. The only part of farming he engages in is counting his delicious passive income while other people do the work.
President Donald Trump’s favorability has fallen among Hispanic adults since the beginning of the year, a new AP-NORC poll shows, a potential warning sign from a key constituency that helped secure his victory in the 2024 election. The October survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 25% of Hispanic adults have a ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ favorable view of Trump, down from 44% in an AP-NORC poll conducted just before the Republican took office for the second time.
The Editorial Board of the New York Times:
The Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration has become a campaign of discrimination against Latinos. Federal agents are rounding up people with brown skin, catching both U.S. citizens and legal immigrants in their dragnet. Some Latinos are now afraid to speak Spanish or listen to Spanish music in public. Some are missing Mass and staying home on Sundays, or asking friends to pick up their children from school. American citizens are living in fear of a government that is sworn to protect their liberties and keep them safe.
“Restrictions imposed by Washington will force the company to end its exports to European countries.”
One of Russia’s largest industrial empires will quit its international operations after being targeted by hard-hitting U.S. sanctions, as […] Trump steps up efforts to force the Kremlin to end its war in Ukraine.
In a statement on Monday evening, Moscow-headquartered energy giant Lukoil confirmed it had begun looking for buyers for its foreign ventures.
The decision, it said, had been taken “owing to introduction of restrictive measures against the Company and its subsidiaries by some states,” forcing it to announce “its intention to sell its international assets.”
A former Lukoil executive, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the move could see the company’s revenues and profits plummet by “about 30 percent,” as it is forced it to sell three refineries and around half of its roughly 5,000 petrol stations worldwide.
[…] “Given [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent at the time. “We encourage our allies to join us and adhere to these sanctions.”
The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control has imposed a deadline of Nov. 21 for the company to wind down its businesses abroad or face hefty penalties. Lukoil said in its statement Monday it would comply with the demands and request an extension if needed to facilitate the sale.
Those restrictions mean the companies affected will have to sell off their European operations and stop pumping supplies of oil to their remaining buyers on the continent […]
Rosneft and Lukoil account for around two-thirds of the 4.4 million barrels of crude Russia exports each day.
While the measures have been broadly welcomed by European leaders, a handful of nations including Hungary are seeking exemptions or additional time to implement the sanctions.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has sought to deepen his country’s reliance on Russian energy exports, will visit the U.S. next week to try to secure special treatment to continue paying Moscow for oil.
The White House ballroom being built by Emperor of the Heavens Donald Trump remains a monstrosity, a shanda, a monument to one man’s greed and corruption that will stain the most famous symbol of American government long after the rapidly decompensating man who okayed it has been covered by a flag and rolled out of the Oval Office feet first. […]
How badly determined are some of America’s most visible mainstream media organizations to cradle […] the Trump administration? Well, the Post wants everyone to know that Democrats are secretly in favor of a new ballroom that will somehow be twice the size of the rest of the White House. Which Democrats? Dunno, we suppose we have to guess:
Privately, many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses acknowledge the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating. It is absurd that tents need to be erected on the South Lawn for state dinners.
Whether the White House needs a larger event space is completely irrelevant to whether Trump can just willy-nilly knock over the East Wing and replace it with a gilded ballroom that Peter the Great would have thought was a bit much. And it is certainly irrelevant as to whether he can do this with absolutely zero buy-in or input from Congress or the public. […] Republicans (and Cabinet members) praising Trump as some sort of genius master builder who gets shit done do not count as buy-in. […]
The Post also dings progressive urbanism for being too slow and too obsessed with process and environmentalism. […]
Father Douthat, meanwhile, was also concerned with having enough space to feed foreign leaders shrimp cocktails (he also mentioned the horror of the tents) and progressives’ penchant for caution when making irreversible changes to urban landscapes. But still, while those two items might be important in what passes for Douthat’s mind, he mostly seems to think that the big problem is that progressives have bad aesthetic taste:
But there is another issue besides bureaucratic sclerosis that makes it hard for left-leaning jurisdictions to overcome opposition to new building: namely, the widely shared awareness that when development happens under progressives auspices, it is often soul-crushingly unattractive. [LOL, irony-meter-breaking statement.]
This is one hell of a statement to make when the other option is Donald Trump, whose taste is essentially “What if Siegfried and Roy weren’t so dang understated?” For Christ’s sake, most recently Trump has been redecorating the Oval Office with golden baubles that appear to come direct from Home Depot.
As an example of Democrats’ apparently offensive taste, Douthat cites the Obama presidential library. That building is a towering monolith that will loom over Chicago’s South Side when it is finally done. But of course presidential libraries are built with private funds on private land. Obama can make his into a Six Flags park if he wants to, and the people of Chicago are welcome to fight him on it. This has zero bearing on what Trump is doing to the White House. Last we checked, the South Side of Chicago was not the seat of American government.
[…] And while the nation’s illustrious print journalism organs are busy running cover for President Bulldozer, one of our major news networks is, as noted by The Fucking News, also falling in line:
[Editor-in-chief Mark] Thompson told the CNN Thursday morning editorial meeting last week to lighten up on the flattening down of the historic American landmark. CNN denies it […] Thompson told his team that CNN’s viewer(s) weren’t all that interested.
Thompson said this after he had a meeting with someone at the White House. He’s reportedly hoping that CNN can have better relations with the Trump administration, and what better way to achieve that goal than to ignore Trump’s destruction of national landmarks?
Contrast all this sucking up with The New Yorker, where Adam Gopnik points out that the small size of the White House is precisely the fucking point:
The same restrained values of democracy have always marked the White House—a stately house, but not an imperial one. It is “the people’s house,” but it has also, historically, been a family house, with family quarters and a family scale. It’s a little place, by the standards of monarchy, and blessedly so: fitting for a democracy in which even the biggest boss is there for a brief time, and at the people’s pleasure.
“Restrained values of democracy” is a nice phrase. America should try that sometime.
Nigel Farage has always been a master of political innuendo. As a schoolboy in South London in the early 1980s, when neofascists and racists rioted across Britain, Mr. Farage’s favorite prank was to scrawl “NF” on the classroom chalkboards. The joke was that these were his initials and those of the National Front, the leading neofascist group at the time. The splendor of Mr. Farage’s school, Dulwich College, added to the transgression. Designed by the son of the architect that built the Palace of Westminster, the school — all haughty buildings and pristine grounds — surely seemed a world away from far-right thuggery. Yet Mr. Farage has always been curious about the potential for combustion, comic and otherwise, when those two worlds collide.
Today, the far right is once again on the march in Britain and Mr. Farage’s initials are once again all over the place. Now his playground is Westminster itself, where he finally won a seat last year. Since then, Mr. Farage has led his insurgent party, Reform U.K., to the top of opinion polls and become an inescapable influence. His face is everywhere: newspaper front pages, television bulletins and social media feeds. The ruling Labour Party, buttressed by an enormous parliamentary majority and yet anxious about its fragile popularity, cannot stop talking about him. Its leaders repeatedly explain why Mr. Farage should not be taken seriously — a fixation suggesting exactly the opposite. More and more, Mr. Farage is treated as leader of the opposition and even as prime minister in waiting.
Mr. Farage’s success is both a symptom and a cause of the newly febrile mood in Britain. The turmoil of the past decade, with its succession of six prime ministers, had already stripped the country of its reputation for stable and competent government. Lately, things have felt wilder and more menacing. Last summer, anti-immigration riots broke out across the country, recalling the heyday of the National Front, and there have since been recurrent demonstrations outside hotels where people seeking asylum are housed. In September, over 100,000 far-right protesters gathered in London for “a free speech festival” organized by Tommy Robinson, a far-right extremist who has served multiple prison sentences. [Photo]
[…] Ever since the 2008 financial crisis upended Britain’s economy, a rotating cast of political leaders has pledged to raise wages and reduce immigration. And yet wages have remained static and immigration has continued to rise. The 2016 referendum to leave the European Union — in which Mr. Farage played a starring role — galvanized nationalists and then, when it failed to deliver its promise of a patriotic wonderland, stoked their frustrations. […]
Mr. Farage leads this angry mob, mostly by way of insinuation. He channels its apocalyptic undercurrents while maintaining a careful distance. He doesn’t attend protests or affiliate publicly with any of their organizers. He is quick to condemn acts of violence. But he does not hide his sympathy for the extreme anti-migrant sentiment that underwrites them. He has voiced concerns about “a growing Muslim vote in Britain” and “the safety of women and children.” And he repeatedly warns that, if he isn’t listened to, more violence is bound to come. “Remember, I am the moderate, reasonable, democratic, experienced, grown-up face of the fight back,” he said in July. “If I lose, just you wait.”
Mr. Farage’s growing appeal is about more than anger. Like his friend President Trump, whom he draws on for inspiration, Mr. Farage entertains his supporters. Through the pomp and ceremony of his rallies, the half-serious transgressions of his comic routines and a creative embrace of social media, […] with a conniving grin, and usually a pint of lager in his hand, Mr. Farage issues an invitation. Yes, the political establishment is rotten and the country is going to the dogs. But pull up a chair — and let’s plot some mischief. […]
On X and TikTok, where he has 2.2 million and 1.3 million followers each, Mr. Farage cultivates a closer relationship with his supporters, sharing quick-fire responses to news events and occasionally embracing the more feral aspects of social media.
[…] Reform has also discussed restricting access to abortion, which is barely a political issue in Britain, and positioned itself as the party of cryptocurrency deregulation, with Mr. Farage announcing his intentions to make London a “crypto powerhouse.” He even promotes a meme coin that carries his name.
[…] Mr. Farage’s economic proposals receive scant attention amid his repeated prophecies of civil war. While reassuring his friends in finance that even bigger bonuses are to come, he foments a dangerous sense of persecution among his base of supporters.
[…] Mr. Farage’s concerns are hard to take seriously when he finds so many ways to profit from them. Besides leading his insurgent party, he boasts an impressive array of side hustles. He is a news anchor for GB News […] that has accelerated the Americanization of British conservatism. He is the face of Direct Bullion, a precious metal dealer, which he suggests investing in because “if you get a big capital gain, you don’t have to pay any tax on it.” He will say almost anything on Cameo, the short-video app, for $95. And he also has a line of spirits, Farage Gin, although it seems that this venture is winding down after little consumer interest.
[…] By razing Britain to its bare foundations — dynamiting its main parties, its ties to Europe, its public infrastructure, its financial regulations — Mr. Farage may hope to have the last laugh. […] maybe destruction is the point. Because for all his apocalyptic warnings, Mr. Farage has never looked happier.
Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight into Saturday killed at least four people and wounded 16 others, local officials said. In the capital, Kyiv, two people were killed and nine were wounded in a ballistic missile attack in the early hours of Saturday, Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said.
A U.S. warship docked in Trinidad and Tobago’s capital Sunday as the Trump administration boosts military pressure on neighboring Venezuela and its President Nicolás Maduro.
The party of Argentina’s budget-slashing president, Javier Milei, won a resounding victory in legislative elections on Sunday, a crucial test for his administration that President Trump had said would decide whether the United States extended a financial lifeline to the country.
President Trump on Friday reversed environmental regulations governing copper smelters, giving them a two-year exemption from having to comply with stricter emissions standards imposed by the Biden administration.
[…] A team of defense industry start-ups envisions a new fleet of miniaturized, unmanned aircraft carriers stuffed with autonomous killer drones, antiaircraft missiles and torpedoes that will take on just about any enemy at sea. And this group pitching the Pentagon comes with an unusual sweetener: close financial ties to President Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who is positioned to profit considerably if this ambitious but unproven venture succeeds.
For some inscrutable reason, the Trump Justice Department appealed only one of two temporary restraining orders blocking it from sending National Guard troops into Oregon.
The first temporary restraining order (TRO), handed down by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, blocked the Oregon Guard from deploying. The second, which she was forced to issue to stop the administration from circumventing her first order by sending the California Guard to Portland, blocked all Guards from any state and D.C.
The Trump administration only appealed the first order, which a Trumpy 9th Circuit panel agreeably paused last week. The DOJ then directed Immergut to dissolve her second TRO, claiming that since it was premised on the same reasoning as the first, the two are linked. They instructed her to do so immediately, at least as far as it was still preventing the Oregon Guard from deploying. She did not obey. [Good news.]
At a Friday hearing on the matter, Immergut grilled the administration on a new issue that colors the debate: Oregon and Portland had submitted a letter to the 9th Circuit, showing that the administration had lied about the number of Federal Protection Service officers who were redeployed to Portland due to increasing unrest at anti-ICE protests.
Immergut asked the DOJ’s Jacob Moshe Roth if it wasn’t “premature” for her to dissolve her second TRO while the appellate panel is still deciding whether the factual error justifies reversing its order. She added that the numerical discrepancy was a “material difference” in what the administration had initially presented to the court.
She also mused over the difference in the number of Guards the administration wanted to call up from Oregon and then from the other states, saying that the facts of the second TRO were “different” and “arguably part of a different analysis.”
In short: The Trump administration has seen its appellate court victory delayed for days, hamstrung in its effort to flood Portland with armed troops, all due to its own baffling legal blunder. And Immergut — who has become a punching bag from an administration livid that its own appointee won’t dutifully perform her role of judicial stooge — refuses to clean up the DOJ’s mistake for it.
[…] House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) met with Illinois Democrats on Monday to discuss the possibility of approving a redistricting proposal as a way to offset Trump’s power grab in red states across the country.
Jeffries reportedly met with the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus to discuss approving a new map, according to Punchbowl News. As it stands now, Illinois has 17 House seats, 14 of which are Democrat, and three are held by Republicans. A revised map would likely flip one Republican seat in an effort to counter Trump’s nationwide gerrymandering battle as he pressures red states with Republican-controlled state legislatures to help him hold onto power in Congress.
Although these plans are still up in the air, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has publicly said that redistricting — to blunt the impact of redrawn maps in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina — is a possibility. “None of us want to do it. None of us want to go through a redistricting process. But if we’re forced to, it’s something we’ll consider doing,” Pritzker told NPR.
Democratic counter efforts are currently underway in California, where there is a redistricting proposal on the ballot. And in Virginia, Democrats are considering approving a revised congressional map, which could flip three Republican seats.
[…] On Sunday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former reality-TV star, revived an anti-immigrant attack he made against California in August, threatening to pull millions of federal funding if the state didn’t stop allegedly issuing commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens.
“I’m about to pull $160 million from California,” Duffy said on Fox News, adding, “And as we pull more money, we also have the option of pulling California’s ability to issue commercial driver’s licenses.”
He also called the fact that undocumented immigrants can obtain driver’s licenses in some states “unbelievable.”
Immigrants in the truck-driving industry have found themselves in the middle of a political war zone after Harjinder Singh, an Indian-born man living in California, allegedly made an illegal U-turn in August, leading to the death of three individuals. According to the Trump administration, Singh was in the country without documentation.
Conservatives like Duffy have clung to Singh’s legal status, making the generalization that if one undocumented immigrant made an error, all immigrants in the industry were an issue. [Accurate description.]
Duffy’s attack on California was seemingly revived last week when a different allegedly undocumented man, Jashanpreet Singh, crashed his semi-truck while allegedly under the influence, killing three people. The man has pleaded not guilty.
[…] The Department of Homeland Security claimed last week on X that California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s policies are “100% to blame” for the accidents.
However, Newsom’s press office clapped back, writing on X that it was the Trump administration that renewed the driver’s work permit.
“CA-licensed CDL holders are involved in fatal crashes at a rate FAR BELOW the national average,” Newsom’s office added. “They may want to look into Texas, which has a 50% HIGHER rate than California.” [True!]
The Trump administration’s rhetoric has encouraged harassment toward immigrant drivers who, like everyone else, just want to do their jobs.
As the administration claims to care about safety on America’s roads, it also halted a study looking into the rape and sexual assault of female truck drivers.
Then again, Duffy directing his focus to attacking immigrants while others suffer is a common theme.
[…] After all, air traffic controllers are continuing to work without pay—and calling in sick—as we barrel toward the one-month mark of the government shutdown.
As these federal workers struggle to put food on the table, it’s clear the Trump administration won’t be helping: It would rather people starve.
KGsays
Nigel Farage has always been a master of political innuendo. As a schoolboy in South London in the early 1980s, when neofascists and racists rioted across Britain, Mr. Farage’s favorite prank was to scrawl “NF” on the classroom chalkboards. The joke was that these were his initials and those of the National Front, the leading neofascist group at the time. – NYT quoted by Lynna, OM@118
The “tag” of the National Front was indeed the initials N and F, but they were fused so that the right vertical stroke of the N was also the vertical stroke of the F – I well remember seeing it scrawled on walls, lamp-posts, etc. I wonder how Farage scrawled his “NF”.
lumipunasays
Re: Lynna at 113:
In a statement on Monday evening, Moscow-headquartered energy giant Lukoil confirmed it had begun looking for buyers for its foreign ventures.
The decision, it said, had been taken “owing to introduction of restrictive measures against the Company and its subsidiaries by some states,” forcing it to announce “its intention to sell its international assets.”
A former Lukoil executive, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the move could see the company’s revenues and profits plummet by “about 30 percent,” as it is forced it to sell three refineries and around half of its roughly 5,000 petrol stations worldwide.
Incidentally, Lukoil owns a daughter company named Teboil that operates (almost entirely) in Finland, franchising a substantial portion of Finland’s gas stations. It has been in the local news a lot since the latest sanctions against Lukoil were announced.
The company originated from two Finnish oil companies that ended up in USSR state ownership after WWII, one by a private sale and the other by treaty confiscation due to its German owners. Much later, these ended up being fused under Lukoil’s ownership.
Since 2022, many Finnish customers have boycotted Teboil, while others (esp. commercial drivers) remained loyal customers due to the slightly lower gas prices. This was justified on the basis that any cash flow from Teboil to the parent company was supposedly blocked by existing sanctions – though some have expressed doubts on that. The petroleum products themselves come from the same sources as those sold by competitors, and all the operations in Finland are run by Finns.
Now, there’s a lot of confusion on what will happen, whether and how soon Teboil gas stations will have to close (due to their petroleum suppliers being banned from doing business with them), whether their customers (particularly Finnish transport companies) could be subject to sanctions and whether some rural areas will now have severely reduced access to gas stations. It’s still not clear whether Teboil is among the assets Lukoil intends to sell.
During an appearance on MSNBC Monday, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California did not mince words when asked about President Donald Trump’s pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.
“This is blatant corruption. You don’t need to know a lot about cryptocurrency to understand what went on here,” he said. “You’ve got a foreign billionaire, who was basically engaged in money laundering, having money go to Hamas, having money go to Iran, having money go to child abusers. He was convicted. He served four years in prison. And then he petitions for a pardon from Donald Trump—after basically funneling money to terrorists.” [Video]
Khanna then reminded viewers that Zhao’s clemency request came as Trump’s World Liberty Financial was striking billion-dollar deals with the convicted crypto criminal’s company.
“It is so illegal, it is right in our faces, and we should ban any elected official from having cryptocurrency and accepting foreign money, which the Trump administration—the Trump family—has done from UAE [United Arab Emirates] and from this foreign billionaire,” he said.
lumipuna @130, thanks a lot for that additional perspective on Lukoil and the daughter company Teboil. That was all new information to me. It sounds like the recently-imposed sanctions on Lukoil are going to create chaos in the market for and distribution of petrol in Finland.
All around one star with a catalogue “name” – TOI-2267 :
Using NASA’s planet-hunting spacecraft TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), astronomers have discovered three Earth-size worlds orbiting around twin stars.
It has previously been theorized that binary systems are hostile to the formation of complex planetary arrangements, meaning this discovery could change how we think about planet formation and the stability of worlds after formation. What makes the planets of TOI-2267 even more exciting is they also break some previously held exoplanet records.
The actress Prunella Scales has died at 93. She played Sibyl, the wife of John Cleese’s character in Fawlty Towers. She was married to Timothy West – another well-known actor – who died last year.
JMsays
Professor Gerdes Explains: Russian Commanders Order FPV Strikes on Their Own
This is daily coverage of events in Ukraine and globally relating to the war. The important bit is at 8:30, the Russians have started using their own drones to strike Russian soldiers trying to surrender. He also covers a report that Russian soldiers have been ordered to shoot other soldiers that try to surrender.
The Russians have for some time had special units stationed behind the front specifically to capture or kill any Russian soldiers trying to flee. That is a WWII tactic for the Russians to keep front line soldiers on the front. This is taking it to the next level. It also indicates an army with major issues. If the risk of surrender or desertion is so high they are willing to use their own drones to kill their own soldiers their commanders are losing control of the situation.
birgerjohanssonsays
Ah, yes. “Blocking detachments”, one of Stalin’s ideas.
Trump bulldozes top donor’s family legacy in vulgar White House demolition
Video is 4:47 minutes
Trump’s predictable bad faith on election security gives his opponents an advantage
Video is 7:41 minutes
‘We need to watch out’: Maddow sounds alarm on ICE surveillance as Trump wields new weapon
Video is 5:17 minutes
Rachel Maddow: Why protesting against authoritarians matters
Video is 5:42 minutes
JMsays
Business Basics: Russia’s Mortgage Crisis is Worse than the Military Collapse: Kremlin Bankrupt, Homeless Everywhere
The title is a bit click bait but it is a real huge issue in Russia. The government stopped mortgage subsidies on new loans last year because they couldn’t afford it any more, resulting in a collapse of housing sales. Mortgage rates paid by buyers went from 6-8% to 20-30%. It has not caused as much of a drop in construction as you would expect. The government is still backing the construction companies as part of their program to keep the economy going and the government has told them to keep building.
How long this can keep going is unclear, the construction industry is showing cracks but as long as the government keeps shoveling money they will keep building. It’s the sort of economic bubble where everything will look functional until something breaks and then the entire thing will come down like a house of cards.
As a side effect of sanctions the market for wealthy housing right around Moscow is still reasonably strong. The rich have few other options and are putting their money in land and housing.
“There are now three Christian ministers who’ve been hit with pepper shots while peacefully protesting against the White House’s deportation agenda.
Clashes between the faith community and Donald Trump’s team have been quite common this year, but the broader tensions can still get worse. Religion News Service reported on a pastor who was struck in the head with a pepper round fired by a U.S. immigration agent as faith leaders protested the Republican administration’s deportation efforts. From the article:
The pastor, the Rev. Jorge Bautista, was one of dozens of demonstrators who had gathered before sunrise Thursday (Oct. 23) at the entrance of the narrow bridge to Coast Guard Island, a military base near Oakland, where more than 100 U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents were supposed to arrive and stage that day. Organized by the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, the demonstrators crowded the intersection, peacefully blocking entry to the base, while singing anthems like ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’ in English and Spanish.
The report added that Bautista was “struck in the face with a pepper round” fired by a federal agent.
A related report in the San Francisco Chronicle added that the impact of the shot “caked his [the minister’s] face and clothing in orange powder.” Asked about his condition in the aftermath of the incident, Bautista told the newspaper: “I’m in a lot of pain.”
These circumstances might sound familiar, because Bautista is not alone. As we recently discussed, the Rev. David Black, wearing a clerical collar, stood in front of an ICE facility in the Chicago area and invited armed agents to repent. He, too, was soon after hit with a pepper shot fired by a federal agent.
The Religion News Service also reported that the Rev. Hannah Kardon, a United Methodist pastor who leads United Church of Rogers Park in Chicago, also has protested at the local ICE facility, and she too said she has been shot multiple times with pepper bullets, “including while she was praying with her eyes closed and hands lifted, wearing a clerical collar.”
Sarah Posner, a journalist with extensive experience covering the religious right movement, noted soon after: “Try to imagine if federal agents under a Democratic administration had fired pepper balls at conservative clergy protesting […]
With these developments in mind, a reporter recently asked House Speaker Mike Johnson during a Capitol Hill news conference: “We’ve seen images out of Chicago of federal agents shooting faith leaders with pepper balls and arresting journalists. Where’s the limit for you on what’s acceptable conduct by federal law enforcement?”
The Louisiana Republican replied, “I’ve not seen them cross the line yet.” […]
As for the executive branch, it was just six months ago when Attorney General Pam Bondi convened a meeting of a task force that was created to eradicate what the White House described as “anti-Christian bias” within the government. The hyperpartisan Republican lawyer began the meeting by attacking Joe Biden, who Bondi said had “abused and targeted Christians.”
The rhetoric was absurd at the time. Six months later, as Christian leaders are actually abused by Trump administration officials, it’s worse.
[…] The United States was three weeks into a government shutdown; the president was ordering legally dubious military strikes against civilians in international waters; Trump and his White House team were dealing with multiple court fights; and Trump was preparing for a major overseas trip to Asia.
But on Wednesday night, none of these important issues was foremost on the president’s mind. Rather, he published this message to his social media platform, alerting the public to an entirely different priority:
Ask former President Barack Hussein Obama whether or not he really believes that in 2020 Joe Biden got 15 Million more Votes than he did in 2012 (65.9 vs. 81 Million). Additionally, ask him why it is that Joe Biden ‘beat’ Obama in every single Swing State with the Black Vote in 2020, even though Black Voters hate him, but in no other State? THE 2020 ELECTION WAS AN ILLEGAL SCAM/HOAX THAT THE PEOPLE OF OUR GREAT COUNTRY WILL NEVER FORGET!
Yes, despite a full plate and overlapping challenges, the incumbent president was focused on the details surrounding his election defeat from five years earlier.
While this is ridiculous, it isn’t out of character. In fact, even after Trump left for Asia, he continued to publish additional items about his discredited 2020 conspiracy theories. When addressing U.S. troops stationed in Japan, Trump once again pushed the election nonsense known as Trump’s “big lie.”
If we were to stop here, it would be a legitimate story about an incumbent president’s unhealthy obsession and desperate desire to prioritize an imaginary grievance over his weighty responsibilities. But complicating matters further is the unfortunate fact that the broader story isn’t just about misguided rhetoric:
– Trump added a “Stop the Steal” lawyer named Kurt Olsen to his administration and tasked him with launching an investigation into his 2020 defeat.
– The president hired another “Stop the Steal” lawyer named Ed Martin and rewarded him with a leadership position in the Justice Department.
– Trump has hired election deniers to help oversee federal elections.
– According to claims the president made last week, both the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are currently investigating the results of the 2020 election.
About a year ago, with time running out in the 2024 presidential election and early voting underway across much of the country, then-Sen. JD Vance refused to answer questions about who was the rightful winner of the 2020 race. The Ohio Republican complained at the time that political journalists were “obsessed” with the election from four years earlier.
A year later, someone is “obsessed” with the 2020 race, but it’s not political journalists.
“The Oversight Committee chair spent the last Congress trying and failing to uncover a Biden scandal. This year, Comer is still trying — and still failing.”
Last summer, […] a prominent right-wing activist named Laura Loomer targeted a key GOP leader in a memorable way. “James Comer needs to be replaced as the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee,” Loomer argued via social media. “He has failed at all of his ‘investigations’ that have gone nowhere.”
[…] The Kentucky congressman spent two years launching all kinds of partisan probes, nearly all of which related to Joe Biden, and in each instance, he excited his party’s base with assurances about the possible results of his efforts. Comer, however, ultimately produced nothing. […]
his failure to uncover damaging information was not due to incompetence but because he was searching for scandals that didn’t exist. Even if Loomer had gotten her way and Comer had been replaced, it wouldn’t have changed the fundamental problem: There was no evidence that would bring down the Democratic president. The party was chasing a mirage.
This problem wasn’t limited to 2023 and 2024. On the contrary, the Oversight Committee chair is still chasing his white whale, still raising expectations and still generating duds. Politico reported:
The House GOP’s much ballyhooed investigation into former President Joe Biden’s alleged cognitive decline has largely ended with a thud. In a new report released Tuesday morning, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s Republican majority claims to have found evidence that senior Biden White House aides ‘exercised the authority of the former president’ and concealed signs of Biden’s mental deterioration. In fact, the probe concluded with the need for answers to more questions than any appearance of a smoking gun.
Comer and his GOP-led panel released a 100-page staff report with an overwrought title, “The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House.” An accompanying press release was filled with provocative claims about “cover-ups” and declarations that make the investigation sound like a success. [Propaganda title]
[…] But after months of scrutiny, the chairman delivered questions, not answers.
As the Oversight Committee concluded its probe, it sent a letter Tuesday to Attorney General Pam Bondi, asking the Justice Department to investigate Biden’s executive actions. It was, for all intents and purposes, a passing of the baton, suggesting the investigation will continue even as the GOP’s Captain Ahab is forced to confront an ocean entirely devoid of whales.
Most of Donald Trump’s speeches are similar: The president tends to air grievances, peddle self-indulgent lies, share assorted conspiracy theories, condemn his perceived political foes and present himself as a conquering hero who has single-handedly created an American utopia (all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding).
In many instances, however, the audiences matter as much as the remarks. When Trump meanders his way through partisan red meat when speaking at a political rally, it’s tiresome but predictable. When he delivers the same message to active-duty military personnel, it’s a qualitatively different kind of story.
In June, for example, Trump spoke at Fort Bragg and treated U.S. troops like they were just another MAGA audience, even goading troops to boo Joe Biden, the free press and American elected officials whom the president doesn’t like. (A report in The Bulwark described the display as “grotesque.”) Three months later, he did it again, summoning the nation’s generals and admirals to listen to him ramble about tariffs, the Nobel Peace Prize, his hatred for Democrats, his contempt for independent news organizations and his belief that his 2020 election defeat was “rigged.”
A week after that, speaking at an event honoring the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary, Trump appeared determined to turn military personnel against the parts of the country he doesn’t like. “We have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our shoulder called the Democrats,” he said.
Speaking to U.S. soldiers aboard the USS George Washington in Yokosuka, Japan, the Republican did it once again. The New York Times noted, “Trump has been doing this more often at home lately, but it is still striking to see him basically holding what looks and sounds very much like one of his signature political rallies in front of members of the United States military.” [True. And … that’s a LOT of grotesque partisan speeches to military audiences.]
A Politico report fleshed this out in more detail:
In the early hours of this morning, Trump gave another highly partisan speech to the U.S. military, hailing his own political achievements and repeatedly condemning his Democratic opponents and critics in the media. … [W]hat’s most striking is Trump’s willingness to use the troops as a foil for his highly partisan rhetoric. He repeatedly condemned his predecessor Joe Biden, told his audience the 2020 election had been rigged and savaged Democratic governors who resist military incursions into their cities. … Trump also called out the ‘fake news media,’ encouraging the troops to deride the gathered journalists. [!]
The Politico report noted that the Republican’s brazen efforts are “making some members of the military — privately — very nervous indeed.”
[…] While I understand the underlying point about conditions that are becoming more routine, this cannot become our “new normal.” An apolitical military is a foundational, bedrock principle of the United States. […]
The results are untenable. The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols recently highlighted what he described as an ongoing “civil-military crisis,” arguing, “Trump and his valet at the Defense Department, Secretary of Physical Training Pete Hegseth, are now making a dedicated run at turning the men and women of the armed forces into Trump’s personal and partisan army.” [True, and a “yikes” moment in history.]
In Japan, the president offered fresh evidence to bolster that point.
PS if you go back just one generation, tip off everybody about Epstein and his orange friend.
Warn them about Dubya, bin Laden and Putin.
And tell them Musk’s SpaceX will fail. Sometimes, a lie is justified.
Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, a former DOJ official under Bush II, anticipates that President Trump will issue mass preemptive pardons toward the end of his term, especially if a Democrat were to succeed him:
[O]ne can be absolutely certain that Trump will issue preemptive pardons at or near the end of his second term, probably on an enormous scale—especially since … he will anticipate that a Democratic administration may have little reason to respect Trump OLC opinions in deciding whether to prosecute Trump officials. Pardons blunt this possibility. I expect Trump to issue hundreds and possibly thousands of preemptive pardons to everyone in his administration who may conceivably be subject to future investigation or prosecution, especially if a Democrat wins the presidential election in November 2028.
Same link as in comment 151. That link leads to a collection of news reports.
“Mass job cuts on the horizon as Trump’s economy backslides”
On Tuesday, Amazon announced it is cutting 14,000 corporate jobs […]
The massive 14,000 culling is just the opening salvo in job cuts at the online retail giant, with Reuters reporting that the company could cut as many as 30,000 corporate jobs by the end of the year.
[…] Layoffs.fyi—which tracks publicly announced layoffs at tech companies—has counted 128,732 layoffs at 218 different tech companies in 2025.
[…] electric car maker Rivian and Facebook parent company Meta are each cutting 600 jobs, Charter communication is slashing 1,200 roles, and Paramount is eliminating 1,000 employees.
Amazon, for its part, blamed the layoffs on artificial intelligence […]
However, it’s worth noting that Amazon is owned by Jeff Bezos, who has cozied up to President Donald Trump and done his best not to anger the retributive leader.
Given that Amazon is in the retail business—which is majorly impacted by Trump’s tariffs […] tariffs cannot be ruled out as responsible for at least some of the cuts.
Ultimately, the large number of layoffs this week is yet another troubling sign for the economy, which is facing dual crises of high inflation and a weakening labor market […]
Even before these mass layoffs were announced, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly jobs reports showed that job growth has been virtually stagnant since April, when Trump first announced his tariffs.
Indeed, the economy actually lost jobs in June—the first time that had happened since the COVID-19 crisis began in 2020.
Because the government is currently shut down, BLS is not releasing its monthly jobs reports. And that is probably welcome news for Trump at the moment, as the report could show yet another month of job losses. […]
The Trump administration is staging a major shake-up at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with plans to reassign senior leaders in agency offices across the country amid frustrations over current arrest and deportation levels, two sources familiar with the changes told CBS News on Monday.
One U.S. official, who requested anonymity to talk about internal matters, said as many as roughly a dozen local ICE leaders could be reassigned, with some expected to be replaced by current or former officials at Customs and Border Protection, its sister Department of Homeland Security agency. Some of those ICE officials have already been informed of their reassignments, the official added.
Exactly who is being moved isn’t clear yet but the overall pattern is clear. Border Protection leaders are being brought in to get more arrests and more aggressive action. Border Protection are the agents actually guarding the border against people physically trying to cross and of all the groups dealing with illegal aliens they get the biggest guns and have the most leeway in their action.
In light of what ICE has been doing the idea that they need to be more aggressive is stupidity that is likely get people shot, both illegal aliens and American citizens.
A statue of the Confederate general Albert Pike that was pulled down and set ablaze in Washington, D.C. in June 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement has been renovated and reinstalled in Judiciary Square. The reinstallation on Saturday was a follow-through of an earlier National Park Service announcement that the federal government intended to restore the statue, which it says had been damaged in “riots.”
The monument to Pike was first erected in 1901, but has long been a contentious issue within the nation’s capital.
The Pike statue is the only monument within Washington, D.C. to honor a Confederate general – but it does not mention his military history. Pike, who was a Freemason and was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson, has also been identified by historians as possibly having been involved with the development of the Ku Klux Klan in the period after the Civil War.
[…] Members of the D.C. Council, the district’s legislature, have been calling for the statue’s removal since 1992.
In an unsigned statement sent to NPR on Monday, the National Park Service wrote: “The National Park Service announced on Aug. 4, 2025 that it will restore and reinstall the bronze statue of Albert Pike, which was damaged and vandalized during the Black Lives Matter riots in June 2020. The restoration aligns with federal responsibilities under historic-preservation law and recent executive orders to beautify the nation’s capital and restore pre-existing statues.”
In a statement released Monday, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) objected to the statue’s reinstallation, calling it “an affront to the mostly Black and Brown residents of the District of Columbia and offensive to members of the military who serve honorably.”
“Pike himself served dishonorably. He took up arms against the United States, misappropriated funds, and was ultimately captured and imprisoned by his own troops,” Norton continued. “He resigned in disgrace after committing a war crime and dishonoring even his own Confederate military service. Confederate statues should be placed in museums as historical artifacts, not remain in parks or other locations that imply honor. Pike represents the worst of the Confederacy and has no claim to be memorialized in the Nation’s capital.” In August, Norton introduced a bill to remove the Pike statue permanently.
The U.S. president’s family raked in more than $800 million from sales of crypto assets in the first half of 2025 alone, a Reuters examination found, on top of potentially billions more in unrealized “on paper” gains. Much of that cash has come from foreign sources as Donald Trump’s sons have touted their business on an international investor roadshow.
Eric Trump was in Dubai on family business. Meeting with a Chinese businessman and his associates on the sidelines of a cryptocurrency conference in May this year, the son of U.S. President Donald J. Trump ran through his usual talking points about the inefficiency of traditional banks and his own famous father’s run-ins with financiers.
Then came the pitch. Buy at least $20 million of “governance tokens” in the Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Financial, and become part of a venture that Eric Trump predicted would soon embody the future of finance in America, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
To some in that small gathering, the technology Eric Trump’s team described for World Liberty seemed “rudimentary,” the person said. At the time, World Liberty was a fledgling business. It hadn’t yet created the cryptocurrency-based finance platform it promised after its September 2024 launch. It still hasn’t. [!]
Even so, the pitch apparently worked. On June 26, an obscure entity called Aqua1 Foundation, which said it was based in the United Arab Emirates, announced it was buying $100 million of cryptocurrency tokens from World Liberty. It was the single largest known purchase of the so-called WLFI tokens at the time.
The Chinese businessman who met with Eric Trump in Dubai was Guren “Bobby” Zhou, who has executive roles in multiple businesses and who is under investigation in Britain for money laundering, according to that nation’s National Crime Agency and a document filed in an immigration case at London’s Royal Courts of Justice.
[…] The Dubai meeting, reported here for the first time, was just one stop on a globetrotting investment roadshow the two elder sons of President Trump – Eric and Donald Trump Jr. – embarked on around the time of their father’s election to a second term. In Europe, the Middle East and Asia, they have been promoting World Liberty and other ventures that funnel investors’ cash to Trump family businesses, known collectively as the Trump Organization.
The Trump brothers’ efforts have been a whopping success. In the first half of this year, the Trump Organization’s income soared 17-fold to $864 million from $51 million a year earlier, according to Reuters calculations based on the president’s official disclosures, property records, financial records released in court cases, crypto trade information and other sources. Of the first-half total, $802 million – more than 90% – came from Trump crypto ventures, including sales of World Liberty tokens.
That $864 million payday represents actual income – cash flowing, free and clear, into Trump family coffers. Reuters’ calculations were reviewed by half a dozen crypto and real estate experts and a certified accountant who has studied the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s approach to crypto.
The Trumps’ first-half crypto income dwarfed what the family earned from its traditional businesses – $33 million from the president’s golf clubs and resorts and $23 million for licensing his name to overseas real estate developers, according to the Reuters estimates. More than half the Trumps’ income – $463 million – came from sales of World Liberty tokens alone, including up to $75 million from Aqua1’s token purchase. On its website, World Liberty says a Trump Organization entity receives 75% of the revenue from the token sales through its association with World Liberty. […]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to carry out “forceful” strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, threatening the already-fragile ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. […]
Hamas has argued that it will be difficult to recover the remains of the hostages in light of the leveling of Gaza during the two-year conflict. Israel has accused the Palestinian militant group of delaying the return of the remains on purpose.
[…] “Well, if it [the ceasefire] doesn’t hold, that would be Hamas,” Trump told reporters on Saturday aboard Air Force One. “Hamas will be not hard to take care of very quickly. I hope it holds for Hamas too because they gave us their word on something, so I think it’s going to hold and if it doesn’t then they’ll have a very big problem.”
Hours later that day, the president urged Hamas to start returning the bodies of the deceased hostages, warning that “other Countries” could get involved.
“Some of the bodies are hard to reach, but others they can return now and, for some reason, they are not. Perhaps it has to do with their disarming, but when I said, ‘Both sides would be treated fairly, that only applies if they comply with their obligations. Let’s see what they do over the next 48 hours. I am watching this very closely,” Trump wrote in a Saturday post on Truth Social.
“U.S. military strikes four alleged drug boats in eastern Pacific, killing 14”
“The latest operation in the eastern Pacific brings the total to nearly 60 killed in more than a dozen strikes since early September.”
The U.S. military struck four vessels suspected of carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific, officials said Tuesday, a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign […]
Hegseth posted an announcement with video of three strikes showing the vessels exploding or bursting into flames. In one of the strikes, two boats were pulled alongside each other and seemingly stationary when they were hit.
Mexican officials said in social media posts Tuesday afternoon that the Mexican navy was conducting a search-and-rescue operation 400 miles southwest of the resort city of Acapulco using both a patrol vessel and a maritime patrol aircraft. The operation was undertaken after a request from the U.S. Coast Guard, Mexican officials said, linking it to a survivor of one of the vessels hit by the U.S. military. […]
The Trump administration has not made public any evidence verifying its claims that the targets of the attacks were confirmed drug smugglers or that the boats involved were in fact carrying illicit drugs. The precise locations of the recent boat strikes are also unclear.
“With benefits expected to run out Saturday because of the government shutdown, Democratic leaders of 25 states allege that the USDA is required to keep providing funds.”
Democratic leaders from 25 states are suing the Agriculture Department over the looming suspension of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps. Benefits are expected to run dry across the country this weekend because of the ongoing government shutdown.
The lawsuit, set to be filed Tuesday in Massachusetts district court, argues that the USDA is legally required to continue providing SNAP benefits during the shutdown as long as it has funding. It calls on the court to compel the USDA to use contingency funds appropriated by Congress to keep the program running.
Up to 42 million people rely on SNAP food assistance, and recipients would ordinarily see their EBT cards get reloaded on Nov. 1. But the USDA website states that the agency will not allocate more funding while the shutdown persists — an unprecedented situation that could cause widespread hunger across the country.
If SNAP benefits are suspended, it would be the first time in the program’s 60-year history that the federal government stopped issuing them during a shutdown.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the attorneys general of 22 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the governors of Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. […]
I snipped propaganda from Republicans that shows they are using taxpayer funds to blame Democrats. That propaganda effort includes statements on official federal websites.
“AI chipmaker Nvidia and tech giant Microsoft hit $4 trillion in July.”
Apple on Tuesday became only the third company to break through the $4 trillion market value milestone.
Apple shares rose fractionally in early trading, just enough to briefly push the company’s value above the historic level.
Nvidia and Microsoft crossed the $4 trillion threshold in July. Nvidia’s market valuation has grown even more since then, hitting $4.71 trillion.
Microsoft’s value rose above $4 trillion again Tuesday, on separate news that the Windows software maker’s stake in a reorganized OpenAI would be worth $135 billion.
Apple has lagged several of its Big Tech peers this year, with fears that its artificial intelligence efforts are coming up short. Apple has gained just 7.3% in 2025, well behind Nvidia’s 45%, Alphabet’s 42% and Meta Platforms’ 30%. For the year, the broad-based S&P 500 has risen 17%.
But Apple’s fortunes have changed in recent months.
In early September, a federal judge ruled that Google did not have to divest its Chrome browser business, which benefitted Apple. As part of the ruling, the judge said Google could continue to pay to have its search engine preloaded on devices, such as iPhones. Alphabet currently pays Apple billions of dollars a year to do so.
In mid-September, the company released its newest iPhones. The extra-slim iPhone Air, which briefly faced a delay before customers in China could purchase it, eventually was released and sold out in minutes in the country.
[…] To add to the company’s good luck, over the course of President Donald Trump’s trade war, most Apple products have been exempt from tariffs. Apple CEO Tim Cook has paid Trump multiple visits in the Oval Office and attended a state dinner that King Charles III hosted in the U.K. in Trump’s honor last month. On Tuesday, Cook appeared again with Trump in Japan.
[…] Over the last month, Apple has overtaken other major tech companies with a more than 5% gain, well ahead of Amazon’s 3% and close to Nvidia’s 7%. Over the last month, Meta’s shares have returned only 1.5%.
Apple reports earnings on Thursday. Wall Street analysts expect that the company has even more room to run. As of Tuesday, the Wall Street consensus is for the tech giant to report more than $100 billion in quarterly revenue.
The EU is ratcheting up pressure on governments reluctant to agree on funding for war-ravaged Ukraine — telling them if they don’t force Russia to foot the bill, they’ll have to do it themselves.
The European Commission is acutely aware that its plan B — joint EU borrowing known as eurobonds — is even more unpalatable for funding a €140 billion reparations loan for Kyiv than its idea of using frozen Russian state assets, which hit a roadblock last week. Governments historically hostile to big spending, especially Germany and the Netherlands, nicknamed the “frugals,” loathe the prospect of piling greater debt onto taxpayers. Spendthrift nations, France and Italy in particular, are too indebted to take on more.
But that’s the point. European officials are betting that Belgium, which houses nearly all the assets and has expressed concerns about the legitimacy of seizing them, along with other countries that have raised objections more quietly, will be won over to the plan by the prospect of the joint borrowing alternative, which they’ve long considered toxic. […]
Now the EU is in a race against time on two fronts. First, Ukraine is set to run out of money by the end of March. [!] And second, decision-making of any kind could soon become far tougher as Hungary looks to join forces with Czechia and Slovakia to form a Ukraine-skeptic alliance. There’s a sense that it’s now or never.
That means Commission officials are engaged in a delicate balancing act to get the assets plan across the line, three EU diplomats said.
[…] Many European nations have long opposed the idea of eurobonds, believing they shouldn’t be on the hook for indebted governments they perceive as unable to keep their finances in order.
[…] There is a third option on the table: The EU could embark on a €25 billion treasure hunt for Russian assets in other countries across the bloc.
This, though, is likely to take more time than Ukraine has so it could look as if Europe is taking its foot off the gas.
“Support for Ukraine and pressure on Russia, that is ultimately what could bring Putin to the table and that’s why it’s so important that the European countries step up,” Swedish Europe Minister Jessica Rosencrantz told reporters after Thursday’s summit.
[…] Belgium fears Moscow could send in an army of lawyers to get its money back, especially considering the country signed a bilateral investment treaty with Russia in 1989.
The officials and diplomats interviewed for this article remain confident of an agreement.
“I really expect that at the next European Council [scheduled for Dec. 18] there will be finally progress,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys told POLITICO.
The vast majority of the assets are under the guardianship of a financial depository called Euroclear in Belgium, leaving the country with considerable financial and legal risk.
“Budapest wants to boost its political alliances in Brussels, Viktor Orbán’s political director says.”
Hungary is looking to join forces with Czechia and Slovakia to form a Ukraine-skeptic alliance in the EU, a top political adviser to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told POLITICO.
Orbán is hoping to team up with Andrej Babiš, whose right-wing populist party won Czechia’s recent parliamentary election, as well as Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, to align positions ahead of meetings of EU leaders, including holding pre-summit huddles, the aide said.
While a firm political alliance remains some way off, the formation could significantly impede the EU’s efforts to support Ukraine financially and militarily. […]
Actually looks like five. According to ‘rank insignia‘ a Chief Patrol Agent such as Bovino gets two stars on his collar. There is no five star rank—Mike Banks, Chief of the Border Patrol, wears four stars.
Oh! So just because I enjoy collecting vintage Hugo Boss uniforms, that makes me a nazi!?
Rocking the Himmler haircut!!!
“I want the kind of generals that Hitler had.” —Trump
I suppose his elbow has risen a little higher than his neck.
U.S. military officials involved with President Donald Trump’s expanding operations in Latin America have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, three U.S. officials say, a development that raises new questions about a military buildup that Venezuela fears may lead to an invasion.
The step is highly unusual, given that U.S. military officials are already required to shield national security secrets from public view, and comes as lawmakers in Congress say they are being kept in the dark about key aspects of the mission.
There are really 2 reasons for NDAs. The first to keep secrets you have to share, everything that might be covered by that is already covered by military security. The second is to use as a threat when there is a situation that might lead a person to make something public. There are lots of reasons the Trump administration might want to lean on military officers to keep secret things that are not national security but highly embarrassing to the administration or reveal non-military crimes.
“The president’s latest claim is that he’ll have secured $21 trillion in foreign investments by the end of the year. […] that total is bonkers.”
As part of Donald Trump’s spectacularly inappropriate speech to U.S. troops stationed in Japan, the president included one of favorite talking points, though he added a new detail that made it worse. [video]
Referring to his alleged successes in securing foreign investments in the United States, the Republican boasted, “We did more than $17 trillion in eight months, and I think by the time we finish up our first year, we’re gonna be over $20 or $21 trillion.” Toward the end of the remarks, he added, “I told you, $17 trillion, but it’s gonna be $20, $21 trillion. And that’s numbers that have never been heard of before.”
[…] These are investment totals that no one’s ever heard before. That said, they’re also figures with no basis in reality.
It’s been almost comical lately to watch the moving target. Trump started by claiming the total was $17 trillion. It was soon after revised to “very close to $18 trillion.”
That was two weeks ago. In the days that followed, the new total was “$18 trillion,” followed by “over $18 trillion.” The figure then climbed to “$19 trillion.”
Early last week, Trump said the total “could be $20 trillion” by the end of the year, which the president described as “unbelievable.” (In a literal sense, I agree.)
Two days later, he said it would be “$20 trillion,” then “over $20 trillion,” leading up to his new total of “$21 trillion.” [Could be a good reason for that MRI, see comment 107.]
I half-expect the Republican to start exaggerating by making up new words. (“Thanks to my awesomeness, we’ve secured eleventeen gajillion dollars in foreign investments…”)
[…] the president’s figures are bonkers.
CNN recently reported, “Trump’s own White House website values the ‘major investment announcements’ this term at ‘$8.8 trillion,’ around half the ‘$17 trillion’ and ‘$18 trillion’ numbers Trump used out loud this week. And an item-by-item CNN review of the top 10 items on the White House’s list shows that even the ‘$8.8 trillion’ number is itself a big exaggeration.” [True. They started with an exaggeration and then went up from there.]
A New York Times fact-check report added that the number used by the White House “includes broad pledges and previously announced projects. And more than half of that amount comes from informal pledges from foreign countries to invest in the United States that experts warn may be unrealistic.”
In other words, those expecting Trump to double the size of the U.S. economy through foreign investments, based on the president’s outlandish boasts, are setting themselves up for disappointment. [Understatement that is amusing.]
When Donald Trump returned to the White House, Avelo Airlines, a small commercial airline that mostly serves smaller airports across the U.S., stuck up its hand and announced that it would be contracting with the new administration to fly deportation flights.
Now, it’s one thing to see your government doing that — flying people off with no legal process to huge torture prisons in the middle of El Salvador — but it’s another thing to be offered the opportunity yourself to purchase a commercial flight on the very same plane that was just used to take people in chains and shackles without any due process at all.
Avelo Airlines’ decision to fly deportation flights for Trump while also offering commercial flights to Americans was always going to be a difficult mix, and people protested against the airline at a large number of airports where Avelo has tried to stay in business.
This summer, on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” we reported on Avelo’s decision to pull out of several airports in California, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.
We also had the attorney general of Connecticut, William Tong, on the show. After his state gave Avelo all sorts of financial incentives to operate out of Connecticut airports, Tong wrote to the airline asking if it could confirm that it would not fly nonviolent non-criminals in shackles. He asked whether the company would fly a deportation flight in violation of a court order, since the Trump administration has apparently ordered some of the flights to stay in the air even when a judge has ordered them not to.
Avelo wouldn’t answer the attorney general’s questions, so the state cut off some of the subsidies the company was getting from Connecticut taxpayers. But the state’s residents kept picketing at the airports where Avelo was operating, and last week the airline announced that it would pull out of the airport in Hartford, Conn., too.
The Connecticut Airport Authority put out a statement saying it’s the company’s actions that are to blame, citing “Avelo’s own decision to run deportation flights for the US government and the backlash it has generated in the region.”
The backlash to Avelo hasn’t only taken the form of protests and pickets: Tens of thousands of Americans have signed pledges to never fly the airline as long as it’s flying deportation flights for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In Annapolis, Md., 13,000 petitions were delivered to the state government, specifically to Gov. Wes Moore, calling on the Democrat to cancel the state’s contract with Avelo and ban the airline from using Baltimore Washington International Airport as long as the company is also functioning as “ICE Air.”
This is why protesting against authoritarianism is so important. One, because it keeps you sane. Two, because when it comes to rights, it’s either use ’em or lose ’em. Any authoritarian worth his weird hairdo would love to extinguish your right to protest, free speech and free assembly. But it is harder to take those rights away when people regularly exercise them.
Strategically, protesting is also important action against authoritarianism because even though authoritarian leaders like to present themselves as strongmen who have all the power and can do anything they want, they actually — alone — do not have that much power at all.
It’s not within Trump’s power to remove a late-night comedian from the air for criticizing him; he needs the company that employs that comedian and the other companies involved in that business to act for him. When he pressures them, the companies will likely act for him, unless they’re also pressured by the people not to do that.
For his chaotic deportation spree, Trump tried at first to do it all with military planes. Then he moved on to contractors like Avelo, who were excited to make money from ICE and deportations. It’s their right to compete for those contracts, but then if they want to just spray some Febreze, unhook the shackles and try to sell the American flying public on also buying seats on those same planes for a vacation flight to Cancun, the people of this country are going to have something to say about that, too — which Avelo is now learning.
For every Avelo Airlines, for every Paul Weiss law firm, and any other law firm doing corrupt deals with Trump, for every corporation, like MSNBC’s current parent company, Comcast, that wants to pay for Trump to take a wrecking ball to the White House, they should know that there’s a cost in terms of their reputation with the American people when they do things against this country’s values, against the public interest, all because they want to please Trump, or buy him off, or profit from the authoritarian overthrow of our democracy.
Protesting may or may not move Trump, but it does constrain his power and help move the public-facing, consumer-facing entities that he’s enlisting for help.
“God Help Us All, The Pet Anti-Vaxxers Have Arrived”
Just when you thought it simply wasn’t possible for things to get any more stupid than they already are, the New York Times publishes a profile on veterinarians who have to deal with pet vaccine truthers.
Via The New York Times:
In the four years since she opened her own veterinary practice, Dr. Kelly McGuire has seen her fair share of heartbreaking cases.
There was the dog whose kidneys shut down after it contracted leptospirosis, a bacterial disease often carried by rodents. Several of her canine patients had come down with such severe cases of parvovirus that they died after “sloughing their guts to the point of dehydration and malnutrition,” said Dr. McGuire, who owns Wildflower Veterinary Hospital in Brighton, Colo. And, after she was unable to rule out rabies, she had been forced to euthanize a 20-week-old puppy that was having seizures.
The deaths were wrenching, especially because they were preventable: Those pets would likely have survived had they received all their recommended vaccines.
[Anti-vaxxers are increasing the suffering of pets like dogs and cats!]
[…] A Boston University study conducted in 2023 found that “nearly 40 percent of respondents believed that canine vaccines are unsafe, more than 20 percent believed these vaccines are ineffective, and 30 percent considered them to be medically unnecessary.” And, yes, “37 percent of dog owners also believed that canine vaccination could cause their dogs to develop autism.”
Or, as some call it, in all seriousness … pawtism.
Now, sure, scientists and biologists have never encountered autism in any non-human species, but that doesn’t mean that weirdos on Xitter are not out here claiming that their dogs have autism that is being cured by “Fenben.” (Fenbendazole is the new Ivermectin, and the only other medication these people trust — they also use the deworming medication for themselves, to “cure cancer,” even though it has not been approved for use in humans.) [social media post]
That particular tweet was a response to a truly, truly batshit rant from one Jessica Rojas (not New York state Rep. Jessica González-Rojas, who’s a Democrat and cool as hell), who has over 200,000 followers on Xitter and describes herself as “American WOMAN, Mother and critical thinker. conspiracy realist. Libertarian – less Government, more freedom.” Back in July, Rojas, who does not appear to also be a veterinarian, shared a list of reasons not to vaccinate one’s pet, claiming that the only reason animals get diseases like parvo or distemper or kennel cough or leptospirosis is because they got it from the vaccine. [Bonkers disinformation!] She also claimed that all of these can actually be cured just fine with nosodes — homeopathic preparations made from diseased human or animal tissue diluted 12 bajillion times in water. (In homeopathy, the more you dilute something, the more potent it is, which is why it does not work and is stupid.)
There were some other pretty great responses as well. Let’s explore!
I like this person who thinks there hasn’t been a case of dog rabies since 2004. [social media post]
There has actually been somewhat of a surge in rabies outbreaks in recent years, partly due to environmental fuckery and the destruction of habitats, but also a little due to all those people refusing to get their pets vaccinated. There have also been six rabies deaths in humans since September 2024. [!] [social media posts]
What will definitely not surprise you is that the purveyors of this nonsense include both Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense and our old pal Naomi Wolf. [social media posts]
Though I’m not sure anything will ever top this one. [social media post]
I’m going to also have to point out that there are more than a few people in these comments talking about how they also refuse to spay and neuter their pets.
[…] This is not just dangerous for the pets, but for human beings as well. Do you know what happens when dogs don’t get their rabies vaccines? CUJO HAPPENS. [Image]
We should not have to worry about a whole ass Cujo situation just because Kathy thinks there’s no such thing as a contagious virus. [Author suggests] laws requiring that animals receive their vaccinations before being adopted.
Because the pets did nothing to deserve this shit. […] [video]
[…] ExxonMobil is suing the state of California in federal court, claiming that complying with two climate laws the state passed in 2023 would violate the corporation’s free speech rights. […]
Exxon’s complaint says that California’s laws are trying to force it to “serve as a mouthpiece for ideas with which it disagrees,” which would supposedly violate the First Amendment’s protections against “compelled speech.” As you may recall, the US Supreme Court decided in 2018 that California couldn’t make “crisis pregnancy centers” inform people that they can get an abortion, because that would violate anti-abortion groups’ rights. Exxon is clearly hoping to try something similar with this case, claiming that the California statutes “compel ExxonMobil to trumpet California’s preferred message even though ExxonMobil believes the speech is misleading and misguided,” and that’s the same thing as trying to make an antiabortion group inform women that they can get legally get an abortion in California.
The lawsuit doesn’t go quite so far as saying that complying with any regulations that require corporate citizens to disclose information violates protections against compelled speech, but it sure seems close to that. Rather, ExxonMobil is claiming that the standard California requires for disclosure — which happens to be a worldwide measure used for reporting in line with the Paris Climate Agreement — promotes the view that big corporations are primarily responsible for climate change, “for the avowed purpose of spurring public opprobrium and policy responses.” After all, some of the legislators who wrote the bills said they would force big polluting companies to take responsibility for their emissions, and just look at how political that was.
Exxon says that it has for years disclosed its greenhouse gas emissions using a 1974 reporting standard created by the oil and gas industry. But the two mean and politically biased California laws, known together as the “California Climate Accountability Package,” require that large companies doing business in California report their greenhouse emissions using a different methodology called the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Protocol. California didn’t just make up the standard out of thin, carbon-saturated air, either. It was established in 1990 and has become a global standard for reporting emissions. (Fun fact: The protocol was developed by The World Resources Institute, a DC research group, and by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, a business coalition that even includes oil companies like Chevron and Shell, not that Exxon mentions that in the lawsuit.)
Under that protocol, companies must report not only their own “Scope 1” emissions — in this case, the emissions Exxon directly causes through drilling, shipping, and refining fossil fuels — but also the “Scope 3” emissions that result from others actually using the products a company produces and sells. That would include all the gasoline and diesel fuels that go into American cars, trucks, boats, and generators, so you can see why Exxon and other oil companies would prefer to pretend the only emissions it’s responsible for are those it creates directly as it produces oil and oil accessories.
Once the stuff is refined, it’s miraculously no longer Exxon’s responsibility if someone buys it and burns it, causing global warming. It’s not Exxon’s fault, it’s you filthy polluting car and truck operators! […]
(Were you wondering what Scope 2 emissions were? They’re emissions that result from second parties a company uses in doing business, like those produced in generating electricity Exxon uses. Exxon doesn’t gripe about those in the lawsuit.)
Exxon claims that the methodology used to calculate emissions is flawed, and that reporting emissions using the protocol misrepresents its role in contributing to climate change. It also objects to the other law in the package, which requires companies to estimate their climate-related financial risks, because that would force the company to speculate “about unknowable future developments” when really, the future is completely impossible to anticipate, isn’t it?
On top of all that, the lawsuit claims that California should be prohibited from demanding data on the company’s worldwide emissions, because it’s none of California’s business:
While California might believe that making Exxon Mobil report historical emissions for an oil refinery acquired in Canada or speculative business risks for a Kazakhstan pipeline is the best way to spur climate solutions, Exxon Mobil disagrees.
Requiring Exxon to report that would actually force the company to take part in “a policy of stigmatization” by forcing the poor corporate giant to accept California’s characterization of greenhouse emissions as bad […]
California argues that Exxon is simply trying to evade responsibility by clothing the lawsuit in a First Amendment claim. State Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a filing in a related case filed by the US Chamber of Commerce that if anything, the laws promote First Amendment goals by giving investors the information they need to make fully informed choices. […] Deputy AG Caitlan McLoon, who couldn’t have had an easy time in junior high school, pointed out that “Plaintiffs have yet to explain how the laws compel even a single company to state a political or ideological opinion.”
So far, Exxon hasn’t claimed that having to report its emissions violates its deeply held religious beliefs or its Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination, but if the free speech claim doesn’t hold water with the Supremes when this case gets there, we’ll see what else the oil company lawyers come up with.
I’ve read more smut at work than you can possibly imagine, all of it while working at OpenAI.
Back in the spring of 2021, I led our product safety team and discovered a crisis related to erotic content. One prominent customer was a text-based adventure role-playing game that used our A.I. to draft interactive stories based on players’ choices. These stories became a hotbed of sexual fantasies, including encounters involving children and violent abductions — often initiated by the user, but sometimes steered by the A.I. itself. One analysis found that over 30 percent of players’ conversations were “explicitly lewd.”
After months of grappling with where to draw the line on user freedom, we ultimately prohibited our models from being used for erotic purposes. It’s not that erotica is bad per se, but that there were clear warning signs of users’ intense emotional attachment to A.I. chatbots. Especially for users who seemed to be struggling with mental health problems, volatile sexual interactions seemed risky. Nobody wanted to be the morality police, but we lacked ways to measure and manage erotic usage carefully. We decided A.I.-powered erotica would have to wait.
OpenAI now says the wait is over, despite the “serious mental health issues” plaguing users of its ChatGPT product in recent months. On Oct. 14, its chief executive, Sam Altman, announced that the company had been able to “mitigate” these issues thanks to new tools, enabling it to lift restrictions on content like erotica for verified adults. As commentators pointed out, Mr. Altman offered little evidence that the mental health risks are gone or soon will be.
I have major questions — informed by my four years at OpenAI and my independent research since leaving the company last year — about whether these mental health issues are actually fixed. If the company really has strong reason to believe it’s ready to bring back erotica on its platforms, it should show its work. A.I. is increasingly becoming a dominant part of our lives, and so are the technology’s risks that threaten users’ lives. People deserve more than just a company’s word that it has addressed safety issues. In other words: Prove it.
OpenAI […] has a history of paying too little attention to established risks. This spring, the company released — and after backlash, withdrew — an egregiously “sycophantic” version of ChatGPT that would reinforce users’ extreme delusions, like being targeted by the F.B.I. OpenAI later admitted to having no sycophancy tests as part of the process for deploying new models, even though those risks have been well known in A.I. circles since at least 2023. [!] These tests can be run for less than $10 of computing power.
[…] said it replaced the model with a “more balanced” and less sycophantic version. ChatGPT nonetheless continued guiding users down mental health spirals. […]
The reliability of OpenAI’s safety claims is increasingly a matter of life and death. One family is suing OpenAI over the suicide of their teenage son, who had told ChatGPT he wanted to leave a noose visible “so someone finds it and tries to stop me.” ChatGPT urged him to not leave the noose out. In another ChatGPT-linked death, a 35-year-old man decided he couldn’t go on without his “beloved,” a ChatGPT persona he said OpenAI had “murdered.” Psychiatrists I’ve interviewed warn about ChatGPT reinforcing users’ delusions and worsening their mental health.
And the risks extend beyond just OpenAI’s actions. I remember feeling sick last year as I read about a 14-year-old user of Character.ai who took his own life after suggesting he and the chatbot could “die together and be free together.”
For OpenAI to build trust, it should commit to a consistent schedule of publicly reporting its metrics for tracking mental health issues (perhaps quarterly). Other tech companies, like YouTube, publish similar transparency reports, as do Meta and Reddit. While not panaceas, these reports push companies to actively study these issues, to respond to them and invite the public to review their solutions. […]
OpenAI took a great first step on Monday by publishing the prevalence of mental health issues like suicidal planning and psychosis on its platform, but did so without comparison to rates from the past few months. […]
Voluntary accountability measures are a good start, but some risks may require laws with teeth. The A.I. industry is no stranger to corner-cutting under competitive pressure: Elon Musk’s xAI was several months late to adopt and publish its A.I. risk management framework. Google DeepMind and OpenAI both seem to have broken commitments related to publishing safety-testing results before a major product introduction. Anthropic softened safety commitments just before its deadline, apparently so that they could be easier to achieve.
[…] this past January, when a Chinese start-up, DeepSeek, made headlines for its splashy A.I. model, Mr. Altman wrote that it was “legit invigorating to have a new competitor” and that OpenAI would “pull up some releases.”
[…] Already we see evidence of models recognizing they are being tested and concealing worrisome capabilities. […] To control highly capable A.I. systems of the future, companies may need to slow down long enough for the world to invent new safety methods […]
If OpenAI and its competitors are to be trusted with building the seismic technologies for which they aim, they must demonstrate they are trustworthy in managing risks today.
Steven Adler is the author of the newsletter Clear-Eyed AI and a fellow of the Roots of Progress Institute. He worked at OpenAI from December 2020 to November 2024.
“Neither country has been able to stop continuous spread of the highly contagious virus within the past year.”
Canada is on track to lose its measles elimination status as an outbreak that began a year ago continues to spread.
The United States could follow in the coming months.
The Canadian outbreak began in October 2024 in New Brunswick, a province on the country’s eastern seaboard. As of Tuesday, more than 5,000 cases had been reported. Two babies have died.
Canada eliminated measles in 1998. The U.S. followed two years later, in 2000.
There are multiple criteria for losing an official measles elimination status, including the declines in vaccination rates observed in both countries.
But the most significant factor is having ongoing measles transmission for a full year.
“To really say that a country has lost the status, it takes 12 months of continuous transmission with the same genotype and the same strain of the virus,” said Daniel Salas, an immunization expert with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
Canada hit that mark this week.
PAHO, which is part of the World Health Organization, is the group charged with determining whether a country in North, South or Central America has eliminated measles. It is set to convene next week in Mexico City to analyze measles data through the end of October.
If a country loses its measles elimination status, “a corrective action plan will be requested to guide efforts to regain elimination,” according to a PAHO spokesman.
[…] In the U.S., at least 1,618 measles cases have been logged so far this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak that threatens the U.S. elimination status began in West Texas in late January. More than 800 people in Texas and New Mexico have been infected, and the outbreak has spread to other states. Three people died, including two young girls.
It will take time to analyze whether ongoing spread in Arizona, Utah and South Carolina is linked to the West Texas outbreak.
The elimination of measles in the U.S. and Canada “was a huge achievement,” Salas said. “When we say that we sustain the elimination as a region, we are also acknowledging each country for their efforts.”
The possibility of elimination status in Canada is “a wake-up call that we need to do better in vaccinating our general public so we don’t have outbreaks like this,” Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Toronto, said in an interview this week with CTV Television Network in Toronto.
The measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is extraordinarily effective, according to the CDC. Two doses, usually given around ages 1 and 5, are 97% effective at preventing infection.
I just noticed today. Marco Rubio is the secretary of state, he is also the acting directory of USAID, the acting Archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration and the interim National Security Advisor.
Acting director of USAID ok. It’s an important job but the political director normally doesn’t have a huge amount to do. Of course Trump is gutting the agency so there is even less. Archivist is a little heard of job but very important because they are responsible for keeping all the records and making sure everything legally required to be recorded is recorded and kept. Given how evasive the Trump administration has been I’m sure Rubio is more concerned with making sure the right records get lost. And having one person as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor is loading too much on one person. Both of those are jobs with a pile of reports to review every day and lots of things to keep track of if you are doing the job right.
Militant Agnosticsays
Quoted by Lynna @171
Already we see evidence of models recognizing they are being tested and concealing worrisome capabilities.
Just like the way Volkswagen programmed their diesel cars to recognize when they were being emissions tested so they could run leaner than they would in normal operation in order to pass the test. Same Capitalist bullshit, different application.
@175 Militant Agnostic: Not exactly the same, Volkswagen knew what it was doing. This is emergent properties of the LLMs, things they are not intentionally programmed to do but learn from their training data and experience.
If the LLM learns that method of cheating X helps it win games then X is helping it reach one of it’s goals. If it’s then told not to do X because it’s discovered during testing then there is a chance the LLM will try to hide the next cheating method it discovers from testing. The LLM has no sense of morality or ethics, it is just programmed to reach it’s goals.
Militant Agnosticsays
JM @177
The LLM has no sense of morality or ethics, it is just programmed to reach it’s goals.
Just like a corporation. The difference is the management of the corporation may have started out having morality and ethics, the Psychopathy is a convenient emergent property of the goal of maximizing quarterly profits. The difference is the LLM never had any brakes, in a corporation the brakes faded very quickly.
‘Gut-punch’: Obama photographer reacts to Trump White House demo
Video is 8:14 minutes
‘They’re spending more than I’d tax them’: Mamdani slams mega-donors funding Cuomo
Video is 10:02 minuts
StevoRsays
Seen tonight on fb on the Carl Saganm Visions page & reckon thsi is pretty much spot on :
Consider, for a moment, the world as it appears from orbit—a blue marble swaddled in a paper-thin atmosphere, teeming with life yet balanced on a knife’s edge. This is our shared inheritance, the only home our species has ever known. But gaze closer, and the fractures reveal themselves: forests shrinking like retreating tides, skies thickened with the exhaust of progress, oceans choking on our indifference. We are a civilization at odds with itself, wielding technologies we scarcely understand, governed by tribal instincts etched into our DNA by millennia of scarcity. Carl Sagan once warned that “we’ve arranged a society based on science and technology in which nobody understands anything about science and technology”—and here we are, piloting a starship with a manual written in hieroglyphs.
Yet, we are actively making the manual more illegible. In an age that demands cosmic perspective, we find a disturbing regression: parents and authority figures doctoring their children with a dangerous prescription of BS—be it willful ignorance, partisan dogma, or anti-intellectual superstition. They inoculate young, malleable minds against the very tools needed for survival: critical thinking, empirical evidence, and humble curiosity. This is not love; it is a form of intellectual child abuse, a theft of potential. It is the act of handing a child a beautifully detailed map of the world and then insisting they only look at the doodles in the margin, blind to the precipices ahead.
The crises we face—climate unraveling, energy hunger, the crush of population—are not separate ailments, but symptoms of a deeper malady: a failure to see ourselves as cosmic citizens. For all our brilliance, we remain trapped in ancient patterns. We bicker over borders drawn on maps while ignoring the borderless laws of physics that bind us. This tribalism is now engineered from the cradle. A child taught to distrust science, to view consensus as conspiracy, and to see the “other” as inherently threatening is being programmed for a world that no longer exists—if it ever did. They are being armed with a spear for a drone war, utterly unprepared for the complexities of the 21st century.
This indoctrination is a profound betrayal of the future. We chase growth like gods chasing nectar, oblivious that infinite expansion cannot exist on a finite world. Yet Sagan’s wisdom echoes: “Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” Life’s history is a graveyard of species who could not adapt, and we are not exempt. Our saving grace—our slim hope of becoming the exception—lies not in better engines or smarter algorithms, but in rewiring our minds. And that rewiring is sabotaged when we fill developing brains with the cognitive equivalent of malware, rendering them incapable of running the necessary software for adaptation.
This is why true education is the fulcrum. Not the rote memorization of facts, nor the parroting of parental prejudices, but the nurturing of cosmic perspective—the visceral understanding that every breath we take is a gift from ancient algae, every meal a collaboration with sunlight and soil, every child a vessel carrying 4 billion years of evolutionary trial and error. To replace this majestic, evidence-based story with small, fear-based narratives is to cripple a child’s spirit. Imagine a world where children learn, from their first steps, that they are stardust made conscious, that Earth is a life raft in a void, that empathy is not just kindness but survival logic. “The universe is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be,” Carl wrote. To internalize this is to see that harming others—human or animal, forest or river—is an act of self-sabotage. A species that grasps its unity with the cosmos does not poison its own bloodstream, nor does it poison the minds of its young with comforting falsehoods.
Technology alone will not save us. The same tools that connect billions can spread lies like plagues; the same engines that light cities can darken skies. Sagan’s “prescription for disaster” looms not because we lack innovation, but because we lack wisdom. And wisdom is the first casualty in a home where questioning is discouraged and dogma is enforced. Christa McAuliffe, the teacher lost aboard Challenger, embodied the true creed: “I touch the future; I teach.” Her words hold the antidote. Educators are the gardeners of tomorrow, planting seeds of curiosity and reverence. They fight a daily battle against the weeds of misinformation sown at home. A child who knows their atoms were forged in dying stars will fight for clean air. A teenager who grasps entropy knows waste is sacrilege. A society that sees Earth as a pale blue dot, not a trophy to be conquered or a platform for ideological battles, will find the will to change.
And what of the silence in the cosmos? The Great Filter may not be an external force, but an internal one. It may be the tragic, self-imposed failure of a species that achieved the miracle of consciousness only to use it to meticulously teach its offspring how to be ignorant. Civilizations may rise, only to crumble under the weight of their own tribalisms—worshipping greed, hoarding resources, and, most damningly, mistaking dominance for destiny. The universe does not care if we survive. But we should care. To honor the ancestors who clawed through ice ages and plagues, to gift our descendants a world where they too can marvel at Saturn’s rings or a humpback’s song—this is our covenant. It is a covenant broken every time a parent chooses the easy lie over the difficult truth.
The hour is late, but not too late. We stand at a threshold: one path leads to the graveyard of the cosmic ordinary, paved with good intentions and bad ideas passed down like heirlooms. The other leads to a future where we become stewards of life’s fragile flame, a future built by minds taught to see, to question, and to know. Let us choose to be the exception. Let us teach until our last breath that survival is not guaranteed—it is earned, day by day, lesson by lesson, in the unwavering light of the stars.<//Blockquote>
StevoR @183
This excerpt is particularly apt now: “[…] we should care. To honor the ancestors who clawed through ice ages and plagues, to gift our descendants a world where they too can marvel at Saturn’s rings or a humpback’s song—this is our covenant. It is a covenant broken every time a parent chooses the easy lie over the difficult truth.”
I would edit that last sentence to read: “It is a covenant broken every time the Trump administration chooses the easy lie over the difficult truth.”
Correction to comment 185: I didn’t mean to imply that Carl Sagan should have focused his rhetoric on political organizations. His original words are powerful. No need for editing by me, or any other peanut gallery doofus. I just wanted to emphasize the universality of what Sagan said about the choosing the easy lie over the difficult truth.
“As far as the president is concerned, his legislative agenda, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists. It’s worth appreciating why.”
For generations, presidents have turned to Capitol Hill to press members of Congress to pass their legislative agendas. The reasoning is obvious: In our Madisonian system, there’s a separation of powers. The White House can’t pass its own laws, so administrations have worked diligently to advance their priorities in the House and Senate. It’s American Politics 101.
Or at least it was. In 2025, Donald Trump has effectively given up on such that process […] [social media post, with video]
Delivering remarks in Japan, the incumbent president reflected on the GOP domestic policy megabill he signed into law in July. “It really covers everything, the Great Big Beautiful Bill,” Trump said, apparently forgetting the name he insisted on (it was the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” not the “Great Big Beautiful Bill”).
“We got everything done,” he added, “I said, ‘Put it all into one bill and if we get it done, we’re done for four years.’ We don’t need anything more from Congress.”
The president has emphasized this point quite a bit lately. Earlier this month at a White House event with a college baseball team, Trump again said, in reference to his party’s megabill, “We took care of everything. … We didn’t know where we’d stand in a year or two years from now, so we put every single thing that we wanted in that bill for four years. So we don’t need any more votes.”
A month earlier at a press event in England alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the Republican boasted that the GOP megabill is “so big that we really don’t have to pass too much anymore.” He added, “We can just do this for four years — implement.”
In other words, as far as Trump is concerned, his legislative agenda, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists. […]
Part of this reflects Trump’s ongoing indifference toward governing and policymaking, but it also reflects something equally nefarious: Part of the reason the president is indifferent toward Congress is that he’s already seized many of the responsibilities that are supposed to rest with lawmakers, including the power of the purse.
Trump’s impression of Congress as an irrelevant institution is an extension of his authoritarian worldview: He’s already acquiring power as GOP leaders on the Hill render themselves irrelevant, voluntarily ceding ground to the executive.
It’s emblematic of a governing crisis that’s likely to get worse before it gets better.
“Biden preemptively protected a variety of people on Trump’s enemies list with pardons. Republicans want to strip them of those protections.”
As Republicans renew their offensive against Joe Biden, it’s not unreasonable to wonder about the underlying point of their partisan crusade. The former Democratic president won’t seek elected office again; he can’t be impeached; and even if GOP officials were eventually to concoct something damaging, he can’t be criminally charged. So why bother investing so much time, energy and resources into smearing him? What does the Republican Party hope to gain?
The answer is increasingly obvious. [social media post, with video]
During a recent appearance on Fox Business, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer claimed there’s “no evidence” that Biden was “involved” in signing pardons, leading the Kentucky Republican to conclude that the Justice Department can declare all of the former president’s pardons “null and void.”
To the extent that reality has any bearing on the debate, Comer’s claims are absurd. The idea that Biden was so cognitively impaired that he was unaware of his own presidential pardons is belied by the Democrat’s own assessments and defenses of his work.
But that hasn’t stopped many of the GOP’s leading voices from obsessing over this specific goal. The day before Comer’s on-air comments, House Speaker Mike Johnson not only said that every Biden pardon should be “voided,” he added that he considers the former president’s pardons to be “invalid on their face.”
Around the same time, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the Justice Department had already begun a review of Biden’s pardons.
This comes on the heels of Donald Trump claiming that Biden’s pardons were “illegal” […]
Around the same time, Vice President JD Vance also publicly questioned whether the pardons are “actually legitimate.”
What’s more, in June, the Justice Department’s Ed Martin, the Trump-appointed pardon attorney, declared that he’s also investigating Biden’s clemency actions.
The motivation, in other words, isn’t exactly hard to piece together: Biden preemptively protected a variety of people on Trump’s enemies list with pardons. Republicans want to strip them of those protections so that they can be targeted by the White House and the Justice Department.
[…] empowering Trump while endangering his political foes.
“The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee has uncovered proof of what we’ve known for three years: The Jan. 6 committee cooperated with Jack Smith.”
The Republican campaign against former special counsel Jack Smith is ongoing, and as the week got underway, the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee unveiled information it characterized as “breaking news” (complete with a red siren for emphasis). [social media post]
The “new” documents were written correspondence, sent in early December 2022 by the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee’s leaders to the special counsel’s office at the Justice Department.
The letters “prove” that Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson and then-Republican Rep. Liz Cheney were cooperating with Smith, providing the prosecutor with “transcripts, documents, and text messages.”
Too often in contemporary politics, Republicans seem to operate on the assumption that the public has a very short memory, which leads them to pretend that old and dull information is new and scandalous. This is another such an instance.
The House Judiciary Committee’s GOP members didn’t need to prove the bipartisan leaders cooperated with the special counsel’s investigation because we already knew this.
[…] The MaddowBlog post’s headline, published nearly three years ago, read, “Jan. 6 committee begins cooperating with DOJ’s special counsel.” I quoted a PunchBowl news report at the time that said:
Starting last week, the select committee began sending Smith’s team documents and transcripts. Much of the production from the Jan. 6 committee is in relation to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and John Eastman, the Trump lawyer at the center of the ‘fake elector’ scheme. The select committee has also sent the Justice Department all of Meadows’ text messages and related evidence. In addition, the House panel shared transcripts of interviews with several witnesses related to the ‘fake elector’ scheme and the efforts by Trump and his allies to pressure states to overturn their election results, specifically in Georgia.
This wasn’t considered the least bit controversial. Congressional and federal investigators were examining many of the same questions, interviewing similar witnesses and reviewing related evidence. As the bipartisan committee wrapped up its work in late 2022, it stood to reason that prosecutors would want to examine the panel’s findings, just as it stood to reason that the committee would be willing to share its work-product with the Justice Department.
This was hardly “breaking news” three years ago. To characterize it as “breaking news” now is kind of silly, even by Republican standards.
Nevertheless, after a conservative media outlet highlighted the House Judiciary Committee’s latest claims, Donald Trump interrupted his trip to Asia to declare by way of his social media platform, “Deranged Jack Smith is a criminal!!!”
To date, the former special counsel’s critics have not presented a shred of evidence that points to Smith having done anything wrong. Lest we forget, the incumbent president is himself a convicted felon.
In May, as the details of his party’s domestic policy megabill took shape, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri wrote a memorable op-ed for The New York Times to offer some advice to his fellow GOP policymakers. “We must ignore calls to cut Medicaid,” the senator wrote, adding that “slashing health insurance for the working poor” would be “both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”
For many on the left, Hawley’s message was both a pleasant surprise and an encouraging signal about his apparent beliefs. Indeed, the vote on the right-wing legislation was likely to be close, and if the Missouri Republican was sincere in his concerns about Medicaid cuts, the bill’s many opponents thought there was still a chance the package could be improved or derailed.
The optimism, however, was short-lived: Just seven weeks after his Times op-ed was published, Hawley voted for the bill that included hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid cuts.
This week, [Hawley] wrote another op-ed for the same newspaper, and once again, the Republican positioned himself as a proponent of a progressive priority: Hawley expressed concern about a looming deadline that will mark the end of federal food assistance for roughly 42 million Americans. From his opinion piece:
Congress must not let that happen. America is a great and wealthy nation, and our most important wealth is our generosity of spirit. We help those in need. We provide for the widow and the orphan. Love of neighbor is part of who we are. The Scripture’s injunction to ‘remember the poor’ is a principle Americans have lived by. It’s time Congress does the same.
He went on to write, “Millions of Americans rely on food assistance just to get by. The program often known as food stamps — officially it’s now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — is a lifeline that permits the needy to purchase basic food items at the grocery store. Last year, SNAP enrollees hit about 42 million. That’s over 12 percent of the American population. … Nobody in America, this richest of nations, should go to bed hungry, and certainly no child.”
It’s easy to imagine a great many Democrats reading this and endorsing the sentiment. There are, however, a couple of problems that Hawley overlooked.
For starters, as I noted above, he voted for his party’s domestic policy megabill, which included — you guessed it — dramatic cuts to federal food assistance.
For another, there are highly relevant details about the ongoing dispute. Punchbowl News reported:
Democrats claim that the responsibility for the SNAP crisis is squarely on the Trump administration, arguing that the Agriculture Department should draw on a roughly $5 billion contingency fund to pay benefits for a few weeks. The Trump administration doesn’t believe it can use that funding to keep benefits available in November for more than 40 million Americans who use the program.
Democrats claim this because it’s true.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, told reporters, “This is a hoax being perpetrated by this administration for political reasons to point a finger at Democrats. … They have $5 [billion] to $6 billion in a contingency fund which says it’s exactly for these kinds of purposes.”
With this in mind, Democratic governors and attorneys general from 25 states filed suit this week to stop the White House from ending SNAP benefits on Nov. 1, calling the looming food aid cutoff “contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”
Hawley, as best as I can tell, has yet to publicly endorse the Democratic litigation.
A federal judge in California granted a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from laying off thousands of federal workers during the government shutdown. The judge, Susan Illston, extended the temporary halt she ordered earlier this month and promised a written order shortly.
In what is now the third such ruling, a federal judge disqualified Bill Essayli as acting U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, ruling that his appointment was a Trump administration workaround that violated federal law.
Essayli has been ineligible for the post since the end of July, concluded U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright of Hawaii […]
The decision follows similar rulings against Alina Habba in New Jersey and Sigal Chattah in Nevada that have thwarted a Trump White House effort to install loyalists and avoid or at least delay the toils of Senate confirmation.
The latest ruling has major implications for the corrupt political prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, who are both challenging on similar grounds the appointment of Lindsey Halligan as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
But there are a couple of twists to the judge’s ruling against Essayli, whose appointment was challenged by three different criminal defendants and consolidated into one case:
– While Essayli may not perform the functions of U.S. attorney, he remains the first assistant U.S. attorney and “may perform the functions and duties of that office.”
– The judge did not dismiss the indictments of the defendants because “they were lawfully signed by other attorneys for the government and there has been no showing of due process violations or other irregularities in Defendants’ prosecutions resulting from Essayli’s unlawful service as Acting United States Attorney.”
The fact that no other attorney signed the Comey and James indictments other than Halligan looms large. […]
Earlier yesterday, before the Essayli decision became public, the outside judge hearing the Comey and James challenges to Halligan gave the Trump DOJ a Monday deadline to provide to him for his sole review “all documents relating to the indictment signer’s participation in the grand jury proceedings, along with complete grand jury transcripts” because he “finds it necessary to determine the extent of the indictment signer’s involvement in the grand jury proceedings.”
The judge has set a joint oral argument on Halligan’s appointment for Nov. 13. Stay tuned …
The Trump White House sacked all six Biden-appointed members of the Commission of Fine Arts in preparation for stacking the independent agency with loyalists. The commission was expected to review plans for Trump’s new White House ballroom and a triumphal arch in D.C.
Same link as in comment 193.
lumipunasays
Re: Lynna at 167 (On Trump making up big foreign investment figures):
Toward the end of the remarks, he added, “I told you, $17 trillion, but it’s gonna be $20, $21 trillion. And that’s numbers that have never been heard of before.”
I laughed out loud, in part because of Trump using one of his most iconic worn-out stock phrases. The bit also reminded me of how any mention of trillions would be actually almost unheard of in Finnish news reporting. This is mainly because the national economy of Finland, like most countries, does not reach into trillions of dollars (or euros, practically the same).
At one point during his first term, Trump made up the claim that climate change mitigation would cost “trillions of dollars” (unlike suffering the effects of climate change, apparently). Like many of his brain farts, this bit was widely translated and quoted in news all over the world. An editor at the Finnish public broadcaster had to include a note assuring the readers that he really did say trillions, it’s not a mistranslation for billions. As you may know, Finnish and probably many other languages exclusively use the number convention where “milliard” stands for billion, “billion” stands for trillion and “trillion” stands for million times trillion.
So in Finnish discourse the word “biljoona” stands out from both “miljoona” and “miljardi”. It sounds like something that belongs in astronomy, not economy. Notwithstanding this cultural safeguard, I’m reminded of the often-repeated wisdom that people in general tend to have great difficulty in mentally handling and properly appreciating the difference in scale between millions, billions and trillions. People also tend to not have enough trivia knowledge to easily conduct a “smell test” to see whether some figure like $17 trillion of foreign investment makes sense. These factors undoubtedly make it easy for someone like Trump to get away with whatever figures he can make up, the more fantastical sounding the better.
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @187:
“We got everything done,” [The Orange Turd] added, “I said, ‘Put it all into one bill and if we get it done, we’re done for four years.’ We don’t need anything more from Congress.”
As always, he never really wanted the job, just the ability to abuse the power of the office. He thinks (I use the term very loosely) that he can just play golf for four years while he orders people around to do his dirty work.
lumipuna @195, thanks for that analysis, and for the new information.
I also laughed out loud when I read Trump’s statement. He thinks he is respected, but a lot of people are laughing at him.
I agree that “people in general tend to have great difficulty in mentally handling and properly appreciating the difference in scale between millions, billions and trillions,” which is, unfortunately, true.
Still, I think it becomes more obvious over time that Trump is almost always telling lies. His phrases like, “And that’s numbers that have never been heard of before,” are tells. You can tell he is telling a lie even if you have trouble discerning differences in scale when large numbers are involved.
Trump is an embarrassment. I do wonder though if his goal of creating doubt and confusion has already been achieved.
johnson catman @196, I agree with you. Trump remains as clueless as ever. He is also allergic to actually doing the work required of president.
In other news:
Responding to reports of falsehoods in his newly launched Grokipedia project, billionaire Elon Musk concocted a nonsensical conspiracy theory to deflect attention from his latest failure.
On Monday, Musk launched Grokipedia, an encyclopedia-style website written by artificial intelligence. And mere hours later, Wired’s review of the site’s content found multiple entries rife with falsehoods and disinformation.
For instance, the entry on slavery in the U.S. outlines “ideological justifications” for the practice and denies that slavery played a key economic role in the development of the nation. In reality, free labor from enslaved people built the economic power of the United States.
The site also furthers several right-wing views.
The site pushes the lie that the spread of pornography in the 1980s worsened the HIV/AIDS crisis, according to Wired. And the entry on “transgender” also echoes Musk’s bigotry against transgender people, referring to transgender women as “biological males.
The Guardian’s review of Grokipedia noted the site’s entries “appear to hew closely to conservative talking points,” noting the entry on the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol falsely cites “widespread claims of voting irregularities.”
In response to the articles, Musk didn’t appear to correct his site’s misinformation but instead invented a conspiracy.
“Wired, The Atlantic, Guardian and many other propaganda legacy publications would die immediately if they had to support themselves. Donations from far left organizations disguised as charities are what keep them alive,” he wrote. “They serve simply as a means of influencing Wikipedia, Google, etc as fake ‘authoritative’ sources.”
This lie aligns with conspiracies that Musk has repeatedly spread to deflect from his failings. It is the same technique Musk used years ago when he called a man who criticized his plans for a rescue vehicle a “pedo guy” with no evidence for such an incendiary claim.
Similar to Grokipedia, Musk’s other tech ventures often do not work or produce embarrassing failures. For instance, in July, the AI chatbot he deployed on X suddenly began calling itself “MechaHitler” and spouted antisemitic conspiracy theories. And last year, Musk hosted a chat with Trump on X, and when the site continually crashed, he blamed hackers.
Despite all Musk’s failures and history of pushing bigoted rhetoric and conspiracies—or because of them—President Donald Trump picked Musk to lead the DOGE project at the start of his new presidency. The result? Billions of tax dollars wasted and investors souring on Musk’s car company Tesla as the public turned against him.
The richest man in the world loves a good conspiracy, certainly more than admitting he made a mistake.
Musk is ill-informed and/or stupid, plus bigoted … and rich. What a terrible combination.
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
lumipuna @195:
Finnish and probably many other languages exclusively use the number convention where “milliard” stands for billion, “billion” stands for trillion and “trillion” stands for million times trillion.
Previously in British English (but not in American English), the word “billion” referred exclusively to a million millions (1,000,000,000,000). However, this is not common anymore, and the word has been used to mean one thousand million (1,000,000,000) for several decades.
In British English, a trillion used to mean a million million million (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000,000,000). Nowadays, it’s generally held to be equivalent to a million million (1,000,000,000,000), as it is in American English. […] The same evolution can be seen with quadrillion and quintillion
JMsays
Legal AF: Trump Gets DEVASTATING NEWS from 29 JUDGES as Trial STARTS
9th court says it’s going to review en banc. It’s a complex situation but the critical bit today is that the national guard will be staying in their barracks. The judge made one ruling, the appeals court reversed it and then the 9th circuit court reversed the initial 9th circuit appeal court ruling and said they will do an en banc review.
3 significant things seem to have lead to the en banc review. First, some of the evidence about how many federal agents had to be sent to Portland for protection was wrong. Second, the federal agents are causing most of the issues that Trump claims he needs the national guard to stop. Third, regular criminal activity doesn’t justify sending in the national guard.
The whole thing may end up pointless if the Supreme Court rules on a related case today but who knows.
[…] “How long is the U.S. media going to pretend that there is really a ceasefire in place?” Tommy Vietor, who was a spokesman for former President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, wrote in a post on X. “Clearly [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s plan is to bomb Gaza whenever he wants in perpetuity. Hamas has not been disarmed. Trump took a huge victory lap but none of the big problems are solved.”
“Not gonna stop asking questions about his dementia anytime soon.”
We think it’s becoming clear, especially with events of late, that all of Donald Trump’s blather about Joe Biden’s autopen is, as usual, projection. (Related: James “Pigfuck McGee” Comer at the House Oversight Committee is now asking the Department of Justice to investigate every single action Joe Biden ever took with the autopen, as if all presidents don’t use those all day every day.)
This week has been full of tells, for instance Grandpa Sundown on Air Force One bragging about the results of his dementia test, the one where he (allegedly) picked out which one was “giraffe” on the first try, and then tagged AOC and Jasmine Crockett and dared them to take the “Are You Smarter Than Somebody With Late Stage Alzheimer’s?” challenge.
He just casually mentioned there, too, that he had an MRI, which he (allegedly) also got a perfect score on, the highest score in the history of MRIs, nobody has ever seen anything like it.
One of the most glaring moments on Trump’s Asia trip was when he was talking to a group of captive troops and his brain got lost babbling about magnets: [video]
“You know, the new thing is magnets. So instead of using hydraulic that can be hit by lightning and it’s fine. You take a little glass of water, you drop it on magnets, I don’t know what’s going to happen. So, you know, the elevators come up in the new carriers — I think I’m going to change it, by the way — they have magnets. Every tractor has hydraulic, every excavator, every excavating machine of any kind has hydraulic. But somebody decided to use magnets. I’m going to sign an executive order. When we build aircraft carriers, it’s steam for the catapults and it’s hydraulic for the elevators. We’ll never have a problem. Everybody agrees. But, ahh, these people in Washington.”
He was trying to talk about the systems on aircraft carriers for launching aircraft. Like most subjects, it’s pretty clear Trump has no idea what he’s talking about.
There were probably guys at that naval base, in that audience, who know all about aircraft carriers and launching aircraft. That’s gotta be weird for them, listening to shit like this.
You take a little glass of water, you drop it on magnets, I don’t know what’s going to happen.
Fucking magnets, how do they work? (Well, not like that.)
“The dangerous combination that made Melissa a monster hurricane”
“Hurricane Melissa’s power was undeniable, intensifying faster than most storms on record.”
Images at the link.
The storm blew through the Caribbean island’s southwestern coast, fueled by what experts said were prime conditions to create a monster tempest […]
Melissa’s power was undeniable as it brought torrential rain and deafening squalls to Jamaicans who were urged by their government to seek shelter. It intensified faster than most storms on record. [Graph at the link]
The storm’s landfall wind speed of 185 mph ties the record for strongest winds at landfall in the Atlantic Ocean with the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 and Hurricane Dorian of 2019. But storm intensities are subject to review by the National Hurricane Center and could change. Meteorologist Andy Hazelton reviewed data that suggested Melissa might have been even stronger, besting Hurricane Allen’s record-high 190-mph winds in 1980.
[…] Melissa also had a central pressure of 892 millibars at landfall, tied with the Labor Day Hurricane. Air pressure measures how much the atmosphere weighs above a given point. In hurricanes, lower pressure means the air is rushing inward and upward with more force, driving stronger winds — like air being drawn rapidly up a chimney as the fire below intensifies.
The metric can be a better predictor of damage than maximum wind speed, said Jeff Masters, a meteorologist who writes on climate change and weather for Yale Climate Connections and, for years, served with NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters. Small storms can produce huge wind gusts — but a storm with low pressure means it is big and intense.
Part of the reason Melissa grew into such a mammoth storm had to do with the calm that preceded it. Until this one, the Caribbean had seen no major systems throughout this hurricane season.
And that meant sea surface temperatures in the top 10 percent of historical values along Melissa’s path served as latent fuels.
“All the hot water had been untapped all year,” said Phil Klotzbach a senior research scientist for the Department of Atmospheric Science in the Walter Scott Jr. College of Engineering at Colorado State University. “And, certainly, Melissa tapped a lot.” [Sea surface temperature map]
As the storm traveled over the warm Caribbean Sea, it moved at 2 or 3 mph and sometimes stalled — to slower than a walking pace. This typically would make it weaker, said Masters, as the winds blew the ocean surface away, allowing cooler waters from down deep to come up.
But in Melissa’s case, that didn’t work.
On the track the storm traversed, sea surface temperatures ranged from 86.5 to 87.7 degrees Fahrenheit — 1.9 to 2.8 degrees above average — well above the 80-degree temperatures needed to sustain tropical storms and hurricanes. But even more strikingly, the water hundreds of feet below the ocean surface was also near-record or record warm, meaning that the violent storm churned up warm waters from below […]
The storm strengthened; its winds intensified.
“Hurricanes are heat engines that extract heat energy from the ocean and convert it to the kinetic energy of their winds,” Masters said. The warm waters in the Caribbean this late in the year were “made up to 700 times more likely because of human-caused climate change,” according to Climate Central. [!!]
Masters warned that meant storms like this would happen more frequently.
“We’re going to be seeing a lot more Melissas in the future and we’re definitely not ready for it,” he said.
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point for the second time this year, a move that could bring financial relief to consumers and businesses — but also carries risk as inflation ticks up.
In its statement accompanying the rate-cut announcement, the central bank said that although economic activity has been expanding, jobs growth had slowed while inflation had increased.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell cautioned in a press conference following the announcement that the government shutdown, which started Oct. 1, would weigh on economic activity as it drags on, although he said those effects would likely reverse once it ends. […]
The central bank’s action is designed to reduce the cost of borrowing throughout the economy. A lower rate tends to have immediate effects on auto loans and credit cards. Mortgage rates are not directly tied to the Fed’s benchmark rate, but they can move in parallel.
[…] Several major companies have announced thousands of job cuts this year while many government workers remain furloughed due to the shutdown. Price growth in September ticked up to its highest point since January, according to federal data.
Despite all of that uncertainty, stock markets have rocketed to record highs, fueled in large part by an artificial intelligence investment boom. Chipmaker Nvidia on Wednesday became the first company to be valued at $5 trillion on the stock market.
What happens next in the economy is anyone’s guess. The Fed’s next rate decision is scheduled for Dec. 10. Powell said Wednesday that there were “strongly differing views” about what the Fed should do at its next meeting. While investors have forecast another quarter-point cut, Powell said that a further reduction in its benchmark rate at the December meeting “is not a forgone conclusion.”
“Far from it,” Powell said. “Policy is not on a preset course.”
Typically, in times of a labor market slowdown the Fed lowers rates to spur economic activity. During times of rising inflation, the Fed often hikes rates to put a lid on rising prices.
With data simultaneously showing a weakening employment picture and a stubborn price growth, the Fed faces a dilemma.
[…] Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the annual inflation rate for consumer prices had climbed from 2.9% to 3% in September — well above the Fed’s 2% target. The Fed’s view of the economy remains impaired by a lack of other data, which is paused due to the government shutdown. One of those measures, the personal consumption expenditures index (PCE), is the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge. The August PCE report, published prior to the shutdown, also showed a reading north of the 2% goal.
Many economists attribute a significant portion of ongoing price pressures to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
[…] Meanwhile, jobs data suggests the U.S. is experiencing one of the weakest labor markets of the 21st century. The unemployment rate, at 4.3% as of August, is relatively low on a historical basis. But it is taking those without jobs an average of nearly six months to land a new position, as hiring rates have collapsed to levels last seen in the years following the 2008 global financial crisis. The government shutdown, now on the verge of its fourth week, has complicated matters by preventing the Bureau of Labor Statistics from releasing more current economic data.
[…] Estimates of gross domestic product, the standard measure of economic growth, have soared to nearly 4%. Major stock market indexes, meanwhile, continue to set new records — also largely as a result of AI investments, fueling concerns about a bubble. The mere expectation that the Fed will further lower interest rates has also historically led to support for stock prices. Stocks declined Wednesday afternoon after Powell cast doubt on a potential rate cut in December.
[…] Other analysts believe that the tension between elevated inflation and weakening labor data is easing — though for reasons that do not bode well for the broader economy. In a note published Monday, Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro research group, said that as jobs growth continues to falter, price pressures will, too, as households grow more cautious about spending.
“Labor market slack continues to build and there is reason to expect inflation to cool as a result,” Dutta wrote.
The banks of the Seine were still cloaked in early morning darkness when a security guard at the Paris Holocaust Museum, seated just a stone’s throw from the Notre Dame Cathedral, noticed a suspicious scene.
Two men in dark clothes were spraying red paint across the Wall of the Righteous — a stone monument inscribed with the names of those who saved Jews in France during World War II.
As the guard gave chase, a third man emerged from the shadows of a nearby building to film the night’s work: 35 red-painted handprints, splashed across the 25-meter wall.
The attack, which took place in May of last year, was not an isolated act of hate. Police quickly identified and arrested three Bulgarian suspects whose trial begins in Paris on Wednesday — a case that investigators and intelligence officials say offers a rare window into Russia’s escalating campaign to destabilize France through covert influence and psychological operations.
The vandalism of the Holocaust memorial was one of several symbolic assaults to shake the country over the past two years — featuring pig heads dropped at mosques, Stars of David sprayed on buildings, coffins left next to the Eiffel Tower— each seemingly designed to inflame tensions between France’s Jewish and Muslim communities or to erode French support for Ukraine ahead of a pivotal 2027 presidential election.
They point to how France has become a hot spot in Russia’s hybrid war against Europe, as Moscow seeks to undermine one of Kyiv’s most powerful backers by aggravating its political and social tensions. […]
“This reflects a geopolitical reality: Russia considers France to be a serious adversary, it’s the only nuclear power in the EU, and the president of the Republic is quite vocal on support for Ukraine, considering scenarios such as the deployment of French soldiers to Odesa,” said Kevin Limonier, a professor and deputy director at the GEODE geopolitical research center in Paris, where his team has mapped out Russia’s hybrid war operations in Europe.
[…]
French authorities have accused four men of orchestrating the defacement of the Holocaust memorial. […] The operation could “correspond to an attempt to destabilize France orchestrated by the Russian intelligence services,” according to an assessment by the domestic intelligence agency DGSI cited in a note from the prosecutor’s office. […]
[…] Angelov’s Facebook feed, identified by POLITICO, includes selfies from around Europe, from Greek beaches to the Swiss Alps. Pictures of him show large tattoos covering his chest, upper arms and legs, featuring neo-Nazi symbols including the numbers 14 and 88 and a black Totenkopf, the emblem of a prominent SS division. […]
The red handprints painted on the memorial are a symbol used by some pro-Palestinian activists to denounce the war in Gaza. But they are also seen by Jewish groups and scholars as a reference to the killing of two Israeli soldiers during the second Intifada in the 2000s, and a call for antisemitic violence.
[…] The Intifada reference felt old and out of touch, the museum employee said. The attacks also felt similar to a 2023 incident in which Stars of David were tagged across the French capital in an operation French prosecutors described as possible foreign interference.
[…] news stories about the red handprints were amplified by “thousands of fake accounts on Twitter” linked to the Russian Recent Reliable News/Doppelgänger network […]
Najat Benali, rector of the Javel mosque in southeastern Paris, was woken by a call from worshippers attending the early morning prayer. They had been shocked to find a pig head drenched in blood at the mosque’s entrance.
[…] Prosecutors quickly traced the act to a group of Serbian nationals after a Normandy pig farmer flagged a suspicious bulk purchase.
France’s deep social, economic, cultural, religious and political divisions offer fertile ground for the Kremlin’s interference […] France is unused to being the subject of Russian propaganda. Even though it’s a NATO member, the country historically saw itself as an independent ally of the U.S. and before the invasion of Ukraine kept open channels with the Kremlin.
[…] Large segments of the French political spectrum are also historically friendly to Russia. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, long accused of cozying up to Vladimir Putin, has sought to distance herself from the Russian president since he launched Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. […]
One major flashpoint is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. France is home to the EU’s largest Muslim and Jewish populations — roughly 5 million and 450,000 people, respectively. […]
On the day the pig heads were dropped, local leaders denounced a rise in violence against Muslims.
“These clearly coordinated acts mark a new and sad step up in the rise of anti-Muslim hatred, and aim to divide our national community,” Chems-eddine Hafiz, rector of Paris Great Mosque, said in a statement.
[…] Several experts said they expect Russia to ramp up operations ahead of the 2027 French election, when Le Pen’s National Rally — a party far less sympathetic to Ukraine’s plight than Macron — may have its best shot yet at taking the presidency.
[…] In May the government announced a new policy regarding Russian cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, promising to call out foreign governments in an effort to raise awareness. […]Last year, lawmakers toughened penalties for violence “committed at the behest of a foreign power.”
French authorities are reaching out to countries such as Estonia, Poland, Finland and Sweden to better understand the Russian psyche, several French officials told POLITICO. […] fostering media literacy and raising awareness of the threat of disinformation […]
The new approach may already be starting to bear fruit. The French public is becoming more savvy at spotting foreign interference […]
the University of Cologne conducted one of the most comprehensive studies on dopamine and decision-making in humans so far […] When making decisions, people often prefer smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed ones, a tendency known as temporal discounting. Strong discounting is linked to more impulsive choices and is common when the brain’s dopamine system is altered, such as in substance use disorders and behavioral addictions. While it is well known that dopamine influences decision-making, previous studies have produced inconsistent effects […] small sample sizes
[…]
In a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled within-subject study, 76 healthy male and female participants received either a placebo or L-DOPA, and choose between smaller immediate and larger delayed rewards. […] Participants showed the well-known “magnitude effect”, such that larger rewards lost their value less over time than smaller ones. L-DOPA made participants slightly more willing to wait for rewards overall, but it did not credibly change the magnitude effect. Also, it did not credibly influence how quickly participants gathered information, how cautiously they made decisions, or how long they took to respond. This suggests that dopamine’s effect on waiting for rewards may not stem from changes in basic decision processes, but rather from how future rewards are valued over time.
The scientists also analyzed measures that have long been assumed to reflect baseline dopamine levels, like working memory capacity, spontaneous eye-blink rate, and impulsivity, that would be expected to influence how individuals respond to L-DOPA. These measures have been linked to dopamine activity in different brain circuits, including prefrontal areas involved in cognitive control and subcortical regions that support reward processing. However, the team found no such interaction, suggesting that these measures may not be reliable direct indicators of baseline dopamine.
researchers […] analyzed 39 E. coli strains from a UK dairy farm that were resistant to a group of widely used human critical antibiotics called cephalosporins. […] the bacteria were almost identical, suggesting a single strain had spread across the farm. Researchers also found that the resistance gene wasn’t fixed in place—it could jump from the bacterial chromosome onto separate small circular double-stranded DNA molecules called plasmids, which can move between bacteria.
[…]
Estimates suggest that 70% of all antibiotics worldwide are used in farm animals, not people. Antibiotics can be given to animals as growth promoters or to prevent infections rather than to treat sick animals. While these practices are banned in the UK, and UK farming has significantly reduced antibiotic usage in the past decade, this is not the case in other parts of the world.
birgerjohanssonsays
Hossenfelder alert
‘Mysterious “Dark Star” Possibly Made of Dark Matter Spotted in Webb Telescope Data’
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba this morning as an ‘extremely dangerous’ Category 3 hurricane, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. At least 36 deaths are being attributed to the storm across Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, according to officials.
Israeli strikes killed at least 100 people across Gaza overnight, local health officials said, in what appeared to be the deadliest day since Israel and Hamas agreed on a cease-fire three weeks ago. The strikes began late Tuesday after Israel’s government accused Hamas of violating the truce by failing to return the bodies of dead captives and by attacking Israeli forces in Rafah, southern Gaza. The Israeli military said one of its soldiers had been killed in the Rafah attack.
Steven J. Hatfill, a biosecurity expert whose views helped form the basis for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel funding for mRNA vaccine research, was fired over the weekend from his job as a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, he and a senior department official said.
[…] Dr. Hatfill said he was pushed out by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s chief of staff, who fired him when he refused to resign.
The official said Dr. Hatfill was let go because he had misrepresented himself as the “chief medical officer” for the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, and was “not coordinating policy-making with leadership.”
In a brief telephone interview on Tuesday, Dr. Hatfill said that was not true. He said he was ousted as part of “a coup to overthrow Mr. Kennedy” that he claimed was being organized by Matt Buckham, Mr. Kennedy’s chief of staff. But he did not explain why his ouster was evidence of the effort. Dr. Hatfill said that Mr. Buckham had told him that the secretary wanted “to go in a different direction” and had asked him to resign.
Dr. Hatfill said that he had refused, and had told Mr. Buckham that the department would have to fire him instead.
The health department, he added, had printed business cards for him that identified him as a senior adviser and chief medical officer. His spokesman texted a reporter an image of the business card that showed the title.
The move was reported earlier by Bloomberg.
Dr. Hatfill, a onetime Army biodefense researcher, gained national attention more than two decades ago when he was wrongly accused of being involved in the 2001 anthrax attacks. He was brought into the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year to serve the assistant secretary responsible for preventing and responding to biological threats, including pandemics and bioterror attacks.
Dr. Hatfill has long complained that the Covid-19 vaccines, some of which relied on mRNA technology, were rushed into production. He served as a medical and scientific adviser to the White House during the first Trump administration.
During that time, he promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, as a treatment for Covid, despite warnings from the Food and Drug Administration against it. [Disinformation.] He said in an interview at the time that he had taken the drug while in Africa.
In the interview on Tuesday, he said the “protest” against Mr. Kennedy among some of the secretary’s own advisers had been “breeding for some time.” He did not elaborate.
Dr. Hatfill has long been a contentious figure. In a recent appearance on Stephen K. Bannon’s podcast, he asserted without evidence that “it was more dangerous to take a vaccine than it was to contract Covid-19 and be hospitalized with it.” He also said the “accumulated data” justified Mr. Kennedy’s decision to cancel $500 million in contracts for mRNA vaccine research and development. [So, a truly awful spreader of dangerous misinformation then. What a doofus.]
CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captainsays
@birgerjohansson #209:
adding rapamycin
{Trivia}: I recently learned, that despite the latin root, *-mycin meds are neither produced by a fungus, nor necessarily targeted at fungal infections. They come from bacteria in the genus Streptomyces, whose name happens to mean ‘twisted fungus’: because those bacteria grow mycelium filaments, make spores, and live in soil & decaying vegetation (the phylum was once thought to be fungus).
“Streptomycetes produce over two-thirds of the clinically useful antibiotics of natural origin.” Also antivirals, antifungals, antiparasitics, anticancers, herbicides, and immunosuppressants.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is ready to temporarily halt fighting in parts of eastern Ukraine to allow journalists to visit areas where Ukrainian forces are reportedly surrounded.
Not clear exactly what is going on. It’s possible that this is bait to give Russia time to advance during the ceasefire. It’s possible that Putin thinks the city is surrounded. From what I have seen some Russians have made it into Pokrovsk but the city isn’t surrounded. I suspect it may be Putin trying to stage a publicity event because the Russians are offering to escort journalists around. In any case it is unlikely this ceasefire will be accepted because Putin is only offering a few hours.
Two federal judges in New Jersey and Mississippi admitted this month that their offices used artificial intelligence to draft factually inaccurate court documents that included fake quotes and fictional litigants — drawing a rebuke from the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
[…] The committee announced Thursday that the judges, Henry T. Wingate of the Southern District of Mississippi and Julien Xavier Neals of the District of New Jersey, admitted that their offices used AI in preparing the mistake-laden filings in the summer. They attributed the mistakes to a law clerk and a law school intern, respectively, according to letters the judges sent in response to a Senate inquiry. [That is not a good excuse]
[…] Both faulty court documents were docketed and had to be hastily retracted after defendants alerted the judges to the errors. Neither judge explained the cause of the errors until the committee contacted them.
The use of generative artificial intelligence has become more common in the U.S. judicial system. Wingate and Neals join scores of lawyers and litigants who have been rebuked for using AI to produce legal filings strewn with errors.
Legal groups are still catching up. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, which supports the federal court system, issued interim guidance in July that suggests users “consider whether the use of AI should be disclosed” in judicial functions. It has also established a task force to issue additional guidance on AI use in federal courts.
[…] Wingate and Neals said in their letters that they took corrective measures after being alerted to the mistakes and will implement additional reviews of court filings before they are submitted. Neals said he established a written policy in his chambers prohibiting the use of generative AI in legal research or drafting court filings. […]
Kamala Harris was interviewed on last night’s 7.30 Report here :
It’s almost a year since Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the US presidential election. Kamala Harris has emerged with a memoir of the 2024 campaign, called 107 Days – a behind-the-scenes account of the truncated race she ran against Donald Trump.
Kamala Harris granted one interview to Australia, and she speaks with 7.30’s Sarah Ferguson.
About Colbert’s Obama joke: If you kill men that you can easily capture – especially if they are unarmed – instead of bringing them to justice (which is what happened to nazis that had murdered more than 12 million victims) it is a lynching.
.
What Trump is doing at sea are lynching by missiles. What Obama did with bin Laden (and later with a young American citizen not suspected of being a terrorist) was a lynching. Just a reminder of the American exceptionalism mindset.
birgerjohanssonsays
Trump Blindsided by New Lawsuit as Prosecutor DESTROYS EVIDENCE?!?”
The company is named Gunvor, an international oil trader registered in Cyprus (a popular holiday/business colony for Russian oligarchs) and headquartered in Switzerland. Former major owners include the infamous oligarch Gennadi Timochenko. Sounds about as shady as I expected. If US officials accept this sale as not too shady, Teboil can continue operating in Finland … for now.
StevoRsays
A poll from the journal Nature found that 75% of researchers in the U.S. are considering leaving the country. That includes a man who’s been dubbed the “Mozart of Math.” Stephanie Sy examines what’s behind a potential scientific brain drain.
What the..?! Greenpeace had to pay? There ain’t no justice here. Grrrr..
A North Dakota judge has ordered Greenpeace to pay damages of $345 million, reducing an earlier jury award after it found the environmental group and related entities liable for defamation and other claims in connection with protests of an oil pipeline nearly a decade ago.
The new amount is roughly half the $667 million that a jury had awarded to the pipeline company that brought the claims, Dallas-based Energy Transfer and subsidiary Dakota Access.
The case stems from protests in 2016 and 2017 against the Dakota Access oil pipeline and its crossing of the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation.
Astronomers have produced the first-ever three-dimensional map of a planet outside our solar system — WASP-18b — marking a major leap forward in exoplanet research.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers applied a new technique called 3D eclipse mapping, or spectroscopic eclipse mapping, to track subtle changes in various light wavelengths as WASP-18b moved behind its star. These variations allowed scientists to reconstruct temperature across latitudes, longitudes and altitudes, revealing distinct temperature zones throughout the planet’s atmosphere.
Every year, the Taurid meteor shower lights up the night sky from late October through early November. Sometimes called the “Halloween fireballs,” they are named for the constellation Taurus—the bull—from which the meteors appear to radiate. The shower is best viewed from dark-sky locations.
.. (snip) …
..The findings suggest that if a Taurid swarm does exist it will pass close to Earth in 2032 and 2036. During this time, Earth could experience higher impact risk.
“Our findings are that we have the technology to test the Taurid resonant swarm by using existing telescopes for targeted sky surveys in 2032 and 2036 when the hypothetical swarm will make very close approaches,” said Boslough.
In 2032 and 2036, objects in a hypothetical Taurid swarm could be observable, according to the researchers, and the risk from airburst-sized NEOs might be larger than currently estimated. A concentration of larger (Chelyabinsk or Tunguska-sized) objects in a swarm would be observable by telescopes, if they exist, but only after they miss Earth and recede into the night-time sky.
China said Thursday it’s on track to land astronauts on the moon by 2030 as it introduced the next crew of astronauts who will head to its space station as part of the country’s ambitious plans to be a leader in space exploration.
“Currently, each program of the research and development work of putting a person on the moon is progressing smoothly,” said Zhang Jingbo, spokesman for the China Manned Space Program, citing the Long March 10 rocket, moon landing suits and exploration vehicle, as fruitful efforts of that work. “Our fixed goal of China landing a person on the moon by 2030 is firm.”
“Carl Gustaf 4-Ammo Live-Fire – High-Explosive to 7.62mm Sub-Cal Practice”
I include this because it is a common weapon in Ukraine. I am not a weapon enthusiast, but it is cool Swedish stuff is used to stop Putin. This is our revenge for the battle of Poltava (present-day Ukraine) 310 years ago.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=bx8V1OO7ccQ
“Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana wants a debate about bringing back a failed pre-ACA health care idea. He should be careful what he wishes for.”
After trying and failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, most congressional Republicans grudgingly agreed a few years ago to simply move on to other issues. GOP officials didn’t have a plan of their own to replace Obamacare, public support for the ACA had turned repeal efforts into a political loser, and the calculus for Republicans became simple.
In 2025, however, the health care debate has regressed to familiar ground. GOP officials haven’t just started condemning the Affordable Care Act in ways that echo the rhetoric from 2010, they also have brought back their “repeal and replace” posturing while offering vague assurances about a Republican alternative to the existing health care system.
To be sure, Republicans do not have a health care plan. They have spent 16 years trying to come up with one, and at this point, it’s a safe bet that no such plan will ever exist.
Occasionally, however, GOP officials claim that they have some ideas about health care policy that they want to be taken seriously. Take Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, for example. [video]
“I think a lot of people, I’ve certainly been thinking about what we could do to try to fix the Affordable Care Act,” the senator told CNN. “There are a number of ideas being batted around association health plans.” Kennedy specifically endorsed “bringing back high-risk pools, which have been outlawed under the Affordable Care Act.”
For those who might benefit from a refresher, the idea behind high-risk pools might sound appealing at first glance. Kennedy was describing an insurance model in which older consumers and those with preexisting conditions, and younger consumers who are healthy, are kept in separate risk pools. As a result, the latter group can spend far less on coverage, since insurers expect they’ll need less (and less expensive) care.
The GOP senator made this point explicitly during his on-air appearance, saying this approach would be appealing to “a lot of young people.”
Perhaps. But what Kennedy either didn’t know or didn’t say was that this model allows insurers to charge the young and healthy far less, while charging those who are neither young nor healthy vastly more.
Americans have some experience with this model: It’s the one that existed before the Affordable Care Act became law.
States created high-risk pools to cover people with expensive health care needs — those with preexisting conditions, for example — keeping them out of the patient pools with younger and healthier people. The high-risk pools, however, created dramatic problems for those who needed the most help: Americans with preexisting conditions were stuck with plans they couldn’t afford and benefits that didn’t meet their needs.
Kennedy complained to CNN that the ACA scrapped these high-risk pools. That’s true. But it’s also true that this is a feature, not a bug, of the Affordable Care Act: Obamacare fixed this problem to the benefit of millions, with shared risk and guaranteed protections for those with preexisting conditions.
[…] Kennedy might not like where the discussion ends up.
It’s hardly a secret that opposition to illegal immigration is one of the defining issues of the contemporary Republican Party. GOP leaders have spent years insisting that the nation’s survival is dependent in large part on strengthening border security and targeting undocumented immigrants in the United States.
What’s too often left out of the public conversation, however, is the number of [Republican] party leaders who speak with equal vigor against legal immigration.
In May, for example, JD Vance sat down with The New York Times’ Ross Douthat and fleshed out his perspective about the degree to which immigrants — not just undocumented immigrants, but anyone coming to American soil from somewhere else — adversely affect “social solidarity.” The vice president added that his principal concern was with “social cohesion” that new arrivals somehow undermine by being different in ways he didn’t identify.
Six months later, the Ohio Republican fielded questions from University of Mississippi students at an event organized by Turning Point USA, an organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk, where he took additional steps down the same path. The Associated Press reported:
Vice President JD Vance advocated a slowdown in legal immigration Wednesday, saying, ‘We have to get the overall numbers way, way down.’ … Vance said the optimal number of legal immigrants to admit is ‘far less than what we’ve been accepting,’ but he did not offer a firm number when pressed by a woman who questioned his stance.
He went on to complain that the U.S. hasn’t fully built “a sense of common identity” in response to recent arrivals, and as such, “you’ve got to be careful about any additional immigration, in my view.”
The public remarks coincided with the release of New York Post columnist Miranda Devine’s podcast interview with Vance, which included a quote from the vice president about his rejection of the melting pot model of the American story.
“It is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers,’” he said. “And the fact that we had an immigration system that actually promoted that division is a real, real disgrace.” [Sheesh. Vance is such a blatant bigot.]
Kevin Kruse, a historian at Princeton University, noted soon after via Bluesky, “This is exactly the same argument — and, in parts, even the same language — that segregationists advanced to argue that white people had a ‘right’ not to live next to people who were different from them.”
It’s not uncommon to hear political observers make the case that Republicans are against illegal border crossings and those who overstay visas, but they’re not against a process in which immigrants play by the rules and enter the U.S. legally. The next time you hear this claim, keep Vance’s anti-immigrant rhetoric in mind. [Good advice.]
“It’s not at all healthy that a president falsely accusing people and institutions of ‘treason’ has become the background noise of our civic lives.”
Donald Trump’s Asia trip has featured plenty of pomp and the kind of spectacle that this president seems to crave, but evidence of meaningful policy advances for the United States has been in short supply. […] concluded with a lengthy meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, which Trump described as a “12” on a scale of 1 to 10.
But after the interaction, it was Beijing that beamed. A New York Times analysis explained, “When Xi Jinping walked out of his meeting with President Trump on Thursday, he projected the confidence of a powerful leader who could make Washington blink. The outcome of the talks suggested that he succeeded.” The report added that it was Xi who “won key concessions from Washington.”
Longtime journalist John Harwood summarized, “Xi wiped the floor with Trump.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer offered a related assessment: Trump’s trip, the New York Democrat said on the Senate floor, “has been a total dud.”
Evidently, the comment did not go unnoticed on Air Force One. Trump wrote on his social media platform:
Worked really hard, 24/7, took in Trillions of Dollars, and Chuck Schumer said trip was ‘a total dud,’ even though he knows it was a spectacular success. Words like that are almost treasonous!!!
While there’s plenty of room for analyses about the merits (or lack thereof) of Trump’s Asia trip, let’s not brush too quickly past his suggestion that he sees criticism as “almost treasonous.”
It’s a word he uses with unnerving frequency. It was just three months ago when Trump, at an Oval Office event, pointed to a bizarre conspiracy theory and claimed that Barack Obama was “guilty” of a scheme that Trump characterized as “treason.”
[Trump has] previously accused House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and former FBI Director James Comey of treason. He has also eyed treason investigations into Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California, along with The New York Times, Google and federal law enforcement officials.
At one point, after one of his first-term State of the Union addresses, Trump even suggested that congressional Democrats might have committed “treason” because they failed to applaud to his satisfaction.
In 2023, he declared his belief that members of the bipartisan Jan. 6 committee “should be tried for Fraud and Treason.” A year later, Trump amplified a social media message that accused former House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney of being “guilty” of “treason.”
[…] It’s not at all healthy when an authoritarian president falsely — and casually — accuses various people and institutions of treason, effectively making this the background noise of our civic lives. And yet, here we are.
“As Americans confront vastly more expensive health-care coverage, the Republican answer to the problem is to downplay the problem’s importance.”
Health-care coverage is a big and important issue to me … and to all of my friends and family.
[…] the problem is here. Many Americans are now confronting the severity of increased costs, with millions of families facing payments that will double or even triple in 2026.
The conditions have left GOP officials with limited options about how best to respond to the problem. Much of the party has effectively settled on the position of “this doesn’t really matter.” The Hill reported:
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz downplayed on Wednesday the likely substantial increase in the amount Americans will pay for health insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) federal marketplace.
At an event ostensibly about prescription drug costs, a reporter asked, “Unless those tax credits are extended, the subsidies, the average plan will increase for Americans by somewhere around 115%. Do you believe that Congress should extend those subsidies so that most Americans do not receive significant increases in their premiums?”
Oz responded that KFF had retracted that assessment (that does not appear to be the case), before adding that “the truth” is that the average American who gets coverage through the Affordable Care Act will only have to pay $13 more next year. He added that increased costs are “not the big issue.” [JFC! Oz is clueless!]
Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing that Oz’s claims weren’t true: It’s not clear where his claim about $13 in additional costs comes from, but the actual increases are on track to be vastly worse.
Complicating matters, however, is the frequency with which other Republicans are also responding to the conditions with shrugged shoulders. House Speaker Mike Johnson, for example, last week derided the “so-called forthcoming health-care crisis.”
The same day, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told CNBC viewers, “I don’t think this is going to be any kind of gut-wrenching problem if these enhanced subsidies just go away.”
A few days later, Republican Rep. Mark Alford of Missouri acknowledged that many U.S. consumers will have “a hard time” dealing with the increased coverage costs, but he wanted his party to stay the course anyway.
The Republican answer to this problem is to downplay the importance of the problem. That seems politically untenable, but for now, GOP officials don’t appear to have an alternative.
New York Times:
The Trump administration has released a preview of the available plans sold through Obamacare marketplaces in 30 states, giving Americans who buy their own health insurance a first look at just how much prices would go up.
Insurers have increased rates significantly for next year — an average of about 30 percent for a typical plan in the 30 states where the federal government manages markets, and an average of 17 percent in states that run their own markets, according to a new analysis from KFF, the health research group.
But the biggest impact for nearly all Americans covered by Obamacare plans will occur with the expiration of generous subsidies at the end of the year unless Congress extends them. […]
Since Congress first passed the extra subsidies in 2021, enrollment in the markets has doubled. Growth has been especially robust in the South, with sign-ups more than tripling in the Republican-controlled states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and West Virginia.
[…] Sue Monahan, a former university administrator in Oregon who is now retired, is one of the many Americans who face a steep increase if the enhanced subsidies expire. Ms. Monahan, 61, paid $439 a month for her coverage in 2025 after receiving a federal tax credit that covers roughly half of the premiums for her plan. When she went to shop for next year’s plan, she learned that the monthly cost would jump to $1,059 for the same plan with an annual deductible of $7,100.
[…] Insurance executives told people they should sign up, although many people wait until the last minute to enroll. If people’s choice of plan changes because Congress extends the subsidies, they can still pick a different plan during the open enrollment period, which currently extends to mid-December for a plan that starts in January 2026. […]
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to significantly increase its commitment to creating an American police state and has ordered the Pentagon to prepare over 23,500 National Guard troops for deployment to American cities.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the Department of Defense has designated a “quick reaction force” within the National Guard, which was originally announced in August, to be trained and ready to quell purported instances of civil unrest by Jan. 1, 2026.
Those National Guard members are being taken away from the troops usually used to respond to major disasters like severe weather or terrorist attacks. Included in that group, according to new documents, would be 200 personnel pulled from troops under the Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear Assistance Support Element.
There is also an existing but similar group, the National Guard Reaction Force, which should be fully operational by April 1, 2026.
Republicans have falsely described peaceful protests against ICE abuses and Trump’s dictatorial actions as anti-American and aligned with terrorist groups.
The Trump administration has admitted that it intends to use the federal Insurrection Act as a cover for these types of operations. The act allows the president to use federal military forces for domestic law enforcement without congressional approval […]
Courts have repeatedly said that Trump is overstepping his constitutional authority by sending troops to cities. A few weeks ago, Trump said he has considered using the act as a “way to get around” courts ruling against him.
Trump has repeatedly asserted that he has the absolute unchallenged right to these deployments. He recently told reporters that by invoking the act he would be “allowed to do whatever I want.”
[…] Trump has justified his actions with lies about crime increasing, even as crime has gone down, and based much of his decision making on misleading footage aired on Fox News, which he watches obsessively.[…]
[…] According to 404 Media, ICE is using a facial recognition app to identify people, including citizens. Videos show ICE agents stopping random kids on bikes and people in cars and, if they don’t have or refuse to provide identification, they point their cellphones at them to scan their faces.
The outlet wasn’t able to confirm which app ICE is using, but in the past they’ve used Mobile Fortify, which contains 200 million images as well as data from the State Department, Customs and Border Patrol, the FBI, and state records. A scan of someone’s face returns detailed information, including name, date of birth, nationality, and immigration status.
This sounds a lot like ICE now has the power to stop anyone they want for no particular reason and demand they submit to biometric screening to prove they’re a citizen. And if they aren’t, they’re presumably arrested.
You’ll note in this grand plan that there’s nothing about the probable cause ICE has to stop people with this high-tech version of “papers, please.” Indeed, it looks a lot like ICE simply profiles people and then subjects them to a search. Because that’s exactly what scanning your face after detaining you is: a search.
[…] this is undoubtedly going to get worse as the Trump administration leverages its cozy relationships with big tech companies helmed by morally deficient billionaires.
ICE has partnered with Peter Thiel’s Palantir—to the tune of $30 million of your tax dollars— which is building “ImmigrationOS,” a cutesy little name for another tool of the surveillance state.
[…] The government also just gave a different facial recognition company, Clearview, a cool $10 million for access to its giant database to identify people who assault immigration agents. Given how much the Department of Homeland Security lies about these so-called assaults, this looks much more like it will be a tool for identifying, targeting, and arresting protesters.
[…] Thanks again to the complete moral collapse of big tech billionaires, any attempts to report the location of ICE agents or even to simply host videos of ICE’s past misdeeds have been obligingly deleted from app stores.
And don’t sleep on how handy it is for ICE to get unfettered access to government databases. One of the big projects of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency was to break down the firewalls between government databases so the administration could better target and torment immigrants. DHS demanded that the Internal Revenue Service provide data for 7.3 million taxpayers in violation of privacy laws. And when the acting general counsel refused to do this, the administration shoved him out.
The government is pouring so much money into surveilling immigrants, but it’s really doing double duty. Trump is in the process of creating an ever-watchful government that has no guardrails. […]
If you thought the psychotic moron in the White House couldn’t get more dangerous, take a look at the insane Truth Social post President Donald Trump fired off Wednesday night in which he said the United States will begin nuclear weapons tests for the first time in over 30 years.
Trump wrote:
The United States has more Nuclear Weapons than any other country. This was accomplished, including a complete update and renovation of existing weapons, during my First Term in office. Because of the tremendous destructive power, I HATED to do it, but had no choice! Russia is second, and China is a distant third, but will be even within 5 years. Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
There is so much wrong with this post.
Tom Nichols, a nuclear weapons expert and former professor at the U.S. Naval War College, broke it down in a piece in The Atlantic:
Almost none of [Trump’s post] is right. Russia has the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear bombs, largely because the Russians are still holding on to a lot of smaller tactical weapons designed for use on a battlefield. Trump is correct that China is much further back; the People’s Republic probably has something like 600 warheads, meaning that it would have to produce almost 1,000 bombs a year to reach parity with the U.S. or Russia by the end of the decade. (Possible? Maybe, but Beijing has only added about 100 warheads in the past two years.) Also, the United States did not create some shiny new arsenal during Trump’s first term. It is true that America is about to spend a gigantic amount of money—roughly $1 trillion—to modernize its strategic nuclear arsenal, but that plan has been in the works since the Obama administration.
What’s more, Russia and China are not conducting nuclear testing, which was the apparent impetus for Trump to say the U.S. will conduct its first nuclear explosive tests since 1992. The only country that has recently conducted confirmed nuclear tests is North Korea, whose lunatic leader Trump has a bizarre love affair with.
But getting those facts wrong is the least of our worries here.
The fact that Trump says the U.S. will soon start nuclear tests would essentially give permission to Russia and China to do the same, setting off a dangerous race to the bottom. Neither nation has conducted a confirmed nuclear weapons test since the 1990s. [!]
[…] “[R]esuming nuclear testing is a terrible idea, not only because it would undermine America’s long-standing commitment to restraining a global arms race, but because detonating warheads to see if they actually work hasn’t been necessary in a very long time,” Nichols wrote. “Nuclear tests don’t make much sense for U.S. national security, but they’re a great way to raise international tensions.” [!]
To sum it all up, Trump doesn’t understand nuclear proliferation but says he will soon spend billions doing unnecessary nuclear tests that will serve to make the world only less safe.
Turns out, Trump wasn’t satisfied with wrecking the economy, turning the United States into a police state, and sliding us into banana-republic territory by transforming the Department of Justice into his personal vengeance force.
The Supreme Court’s order, issued for the full court, did not rule on the Justice Department’s October 17 requests for an “immediate” administrative stay or for a stay pending appeal of U.S. District Judge April Perry’s temporary restraining orderblocking deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois.
Instead, the court called for additional briefing about the meaning of two words — “regular forces” — in the law Trump is relying upon to federalize and deploy the National Guard. […]
Although it is not a ruling, it is, by implication, a pretty clear statement that there is not a majority of the court ready and willing to side with Trump on this issue at this time. [Possibly good news.]
First, the court has not granted DOJ the “immediate” administrative stay of the TRO that it sought. Although the court has not, technically, denied the request, it’s not going to happen. Further, it took more than a week since the matter was fully briefedon October 21 to get Wednesday’s order — seeking more briefing. And, when the court did so, it set a relatively relaxed timeline, ordering supplemental briefing by November 10, with time for replies by November 17.
This means, absent some unexpected order or development, Perry’s TRO — which DOJ agreed will remain in place absent higher court order until final judgment in the case — will remain in effect through at least November 17.
Abené Clayton of The Guardian says that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved of an extension which will keep National Guard troops in Washington D.C. until at least February.
This extension comes just a month after Washington DC officials sued the Trump administration over the deployments, which Brian Schwalb, the District of Columbia attorney general, described as “involuntary military occupation” and an illegal use of the military for domestic law enforcement. […]
Such an extension of the national guard’s presence is the latest chapter in Donald Trump’s use of national law enforcement […]
“Now patients will have to drive an hour and a half to give birth.”
[…] Iowa, Nebraska, and other rural states are on the verge of an economic crisis, caused in part by the fact that Trump made it so they can’t sell soybeans to China anymore (while bailing out Argentina so that their farmers can).
Louisiana had a major whooping cough outbreak that killed two infants and their health department — run by a state surgeon general who loves Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and thought COVID vaccines were “dangerous” — just didn’t bother to tell anyone about it for months while simultaneously ending the “promotion” of vaccines like the one for whooping cough.
Things have been so bad that even Arizona, North Carolina, Kansas, and Kentucky have joined blue states in their lawsuit against the Trump administration for refusing to release the SNAP contingency funds.
And, of course, there are the hospital closures.
This week, St. Mary’s Sacred Heart Hospital in Lavonia, Georgia — in Franklin County, 86 percent of which voted for Trump — announced the closure of its labor and delivery unit, meaning that patients living in the area are now going to be forced to drive or be driven up to an hour and a half away if they’d like to give birth in a hospital. This will be the 26th labor and delivery unit closure in the United States this year.
In a statement to CBS Atlanta, the hospital stated that, while they had been plagued with issues from the start, the congressional cuts to Medicaid were the final straw.
“This decision follows an extensive 18-month discernment process that included intensive efforts to recruit additional physicians, create new partnerships, and pursue incremental funding sources. Changing demographics in our region, physician recruitment challenges, increasing outmigration for labor and delivery services, and recent Congressional cuts to Medicaid solidified this decision.”
The fact is, hospitals in rural areas rely heavily on programs like Medicaid and Medicare to stay open, because they simply don’t have as many patients as hospitals in major population centers.
This is yet another way that capitalism simply does not make any sense for health care. […]
We have an ob-gyn shortage in this country. Hell, we have a physician shortage in this country. We have a situation where over 40 percent of US counties are in areas where people have to drive an hour or more to get to a trauma center. [!] Eighty percent of counties are some kind of health care desert or another. One in three Americans lives in these counties.
[…] we could properly fund and staff hospitals, emergency centers, and labor and delivery units wherever they are needed. In hospitals, this is called “triage.” You take care of the most dire situations first — instead of, say, building a gilded ballroom for yourself.
In addition to the Medicaid cuts, the hospital also says it has had trouble recruiting physicians and other staff to work at the hospital over the last year. Gee, why might that be? Maybe it’s because people don’t want to up and move to work in a rural hospital in danger of closing […] Maybe it’s because they don’t want to be in a situation where they have to choose between following the law in Georgia, with regards to their abortion ban, and saving a patient’s life.
There have been several deeply frightening incidents in Georgia hospitals in the years since Roe was overturned. I don’t know about you, but if I spent years and tens of thousands of dollars to become an ob-gyn, I don’t know that I would put myself in the position of being the person who has to let a miscarrying woman die of sepsis rather than treat her properly. That’s kind of a lot to ask of people.
“Trump moves to block public servants from loan forgiveness based on ideology”
“Those who work with undocumented immigrants, provide gender transition care for minors or publicly protest could be blocked from student loan forgiveness under a new rule.”
Employees of nonprofit organizations that work with undocumented immigrants, provide gender transition care for minors or engage in public protests would have a hard time getting their federal student loans forgiven under regulations advanced Thursday by the Education Department.
The 185-page rule revises eligibility requirements for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which cancels the education debt of government and nonprofit employees after 10 years of service and 120 monthly loan payments. It will allow the education secretary to disqualify employers — not individuals — who engage in activities the department deems to have a “substantial illegal purpose” on or after July 1 — when the rule takes effect.
Nonprofit employees are for now eligible for student loan forgiveness if they focus on areas that serve the public good, such as education, public health or public interest law. If the rule survives expected legal challenges, it could upend a popular federal program that has provided debt relief to more than 1 million student loan borrowers across more than 20 sectors of the economy.
Any payments a borrower makes on student loans after that person’s employer is kicked out of the program will not count toward forgiveness. Employers would have the right to appeal if they are removed from the program. While the change does not disqualify student loan payments that a borrower has already made, it could derail borrowers who are close to reaching the loan forgiveness threshold if the administration says their employer violates the new rule.
The changes deliver on the executive order President Donald Trump signed in March to exclude organizations that he said support “illegal immigration, child trafficking, pervasive damage to public property and disruption of the public order.” The order focused on nonprofits that help transgender children, engage in public protests that include blocking highways or support groups that are designated as foreign terrorist organizations, such as Hamas.
“The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was meant to support Americans who dedicate their careers to public service — not to subsidize organizations that violate the law, whether by harboring illegal immigrants or performing prohibited medical procedures that attempt to transition children away from their biological sex,” Kent said in a statement Thursday.
[…] “This rule follows the Trump Administration’s disturbing pattern of making repayment less affordable and taking money out of the pockets of hardworking families, all while attempting to police political speech,” Scott [Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (Virginia), the top Democrat on the House Education Committee] said.
[…] In a joint statement, Democracy Forward and Protect Borrowers, left-leaning nonprofit groups, called the rule “a craven attempt to usurp the legislature’s authority in an unconstitutional power grab aimed at punishing people with political views different than the administration’s. In our democracy, the president does not have the authority to overrule Congress.”
[…] “The open-ended nature of PSLF has forced taxpayers — many of whom never went to college, to foot the bill for employees at radical organizations that violate state and federal laws,” House Education Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Michigan) said in a statement. “Aiding illegal immigration, supporting terrorism, or promoting child abuse through gender transitions is not ‘public service.’”
The FBI says a proposal by House lawmakers to strip the bureau of its authority over counterintelligence efforts and hand it over to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would create confusion and undermine national security.
In a sharply worded letter to Congress, the FBI expressed its “strong objection” to the proposal, exposing a power struggle between Gabbard and the FBI’s director, Kash Patel, and other intelligence agencies.
“The FBI has consistently articulated its strong objection to the proposal, and believes it would cause serious and long-lasting damage to the US national security,” the unclassified letter said. “Furthermore, the FBI is aware of many other objections submitted by other members of the IC,” it stated, referring to the intelligence community.
The FBI argued that it has decades of experience in countering foreign espionage in the United States with a national network of 53 field offices, and that the proposal would create unnecessary bureaucracy and shift authority to officials without relevant expertise. […]
The clash over the FBI’s leading role in counterintelligence marks the latest case of tensions between Gabbard and her counterparts in government, with the intelligence chief seeking a larger profile for her office.
Gabbard has engaged in turf battles with the CIA, blindsiding the spy agency by revoking security clearances for current and former national security employees without consulting with CIA officials, NBC News has reported. […]
[…] The U.S. government defines counterintelligence as protecting against leaks from American spy agencies, hunting down foreign spies and countering economic espionage.
[…] An intelligence community official said that “healthy debate between agencies helps us to best protect national security and best carry out the president’s agenda” and that “Congress is rightfully evaluating reforms to the poorly coordinated, undefined, and often disjointed counterintelligence enterprise.” […]
Four Republican senators voted with Democrats on Thursday to approve a bipartisan resolution to repeal President Trump’s global tariffs, including steeper rates on long-time allies such as the European Union, Japan and South Korea.
[…] The same proposal failed in the Senate in late April on a 50-49 vote after Vice President Vance cast the tiebreaking vote to defeat it.
Critically, McConnell and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), who voted Thursday for the resolution, missed the vote in the spring.
The one-page Senate joint resolution simply declares that the national emergency declaration that Trump invoked on April 2, which the president dubbed “Liberation Day,” to authorize sweeping reciprocal tariffs on countries cross the globe would be “terminated” on the date of its enactment.
Passage of the measure is a symbolic victory for critics of Trump’s trade policies, but it will have little practical effect as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is unlikely to bring it up for a vote in the House and Trump is certain to veto anything that curtails his power.
Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the lead Democratic sponsor of the resolution, said Trump’s tariffs have increased costs for ordinary Americans.
[…] McConnell in a statement released earlier this week warned that “tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive.”
“The economic harms of trade warns are not the exception to history, but the rule. And no cross-eyed reading of Reagan will reveal otherwise,” he added, referring to Trump’s pique over a television ad funded by the Canadian state of Ontario that used the words of President Reagan to criticize the president’s tariff policies, and ad that Trump claimed mischaracterized Reagan’s words.
The Senate voted earlier this week to terminate Trump’s steep tariffs on Canada and Brazil.
Neither of those bills, however, are expected to get a vote in the House. […]
With ObamaCare insurance options opening up for enrollment Saturday, […] Americans could see their monthly premiums increase should tax credits expire at the end of the year.
Americans 60 years and older with an income of $65,000 will pay $920 more a month in 2026 […] That means monthly premiums will be $1,380 should the tax credits expire. If extended, monthly premiums in 2026 will be $460.
[…] How much Americans will pay varies based on the counties they live in, their age and how much they receive as their income.
[…]Some West Virginia residents will have to spend $1,544 more per month if the tax credits expire, compared with the $460 paid with the tax credits in effect, according to KFF’s online calculator.
Lower earners would lose their free insurance. Americans who make less than $27,000 would pay $66 a month should subsidies expire.
People earning $35,000 will see a $132 increase compared to the $86 they would spend should subsidies be extended into 2026.
[…] “I would strongly say if there’s going to be a big policy conversation about marketplace affordability, it’s too late to do that for 2026 coverage, and it should be done for 2027 coverage,” Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California, previously told The Hill.
The longer it takes for lawmakers to make changes to the ACA tax credits, “the more burdensome it will be to marketplaces and consumers, and the more messy it will be,” she said. […]
@250. Lynna, OM : Reminds me of Carl Sagan”s words :
The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.
(A summary version; not verbatim.)
&
.
Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches. The other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who’s ahead, who’s stronger. Well that’s the kind of situation we are actually in. The amount of weapons that are available to the United States and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what’s needed to dissuade the other, that if it weren’t so tragic, it would be laughable. What is necessary is to reduce the matches and to clean up the gasoline.
— Carl Sagan
From Sagan’s analogy about the nuclear arms race and the need for disarmament, during a panel discussion in ABC News Viewpoint following the TV movie The Day After (20 Nov 1983) .
In other news, here is a storm update from NBC News:
The monster storm had winds of up to 185 mph and killed at least nine people in Jamaica and 27 more across the Caribbean this week. The storm was making its way to Bermuda on Thursday afternoon, where conditions will ‘rapidly deteriorate,’ according to the NHC’s 2 p.m. update.
In the middle of a high-stakes diplomatic tour of Asia, President Trump threatened on social media to resume nuclear testing for the first time in more than 30 years. He made the threat just minutes before he was scheduled to meet President Xi Jinping of China, who is overseeing one of the fastest buildups of a nuclear arsenal on earth.
NBC News:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the Pentagon carried out another ‘lethal kinetic strike’ at President Donald Trump’s direction on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean that killed four men. … It’s the 14th known time the Trump administration has launched a military strike against alleged drug-carrying boats in recent months.
Wall Street Journal:
The Pentagon has ordered the National Guard to create ‘quick reaction’ forces in every state and territory by January that are trained and equipped to respond to riots and civil unrest within the U.S., according to internal Defense Department memos.
[…] there is one very special group that Trump does want to come to the United States, and that’s white people. Well, a very specific group of white people: white South African Afrikaners.
This isn’t subtle or just some sort of inference. It’s in the Federal Register that the administration announced it would cap refugee admissions at 7,500.
“The admissions numbers shall primarily be allocated among Afrikaners from South Africa,” it explicitly states.
You know who doesn’t qualify? People of color from South Africa. Got it. And white people who are not descendants of the Dutch colonizers who brutally repressed the Black majority and implemented decades of apartheid don’t count either.
Trump has latched onto the entirely fake idea that there is a “white genocide” in South Africa. This racist lie has been pushed—surprise, surprise—by rich, white South Africans like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.
In reality, white farmers are not under siege. Indeed, of the 27,000 murders per year in the country, white people make up 1% of that. White people make up 7% of the population but own half of the country’s farmland.
Nonetheless, Trump cornered South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during an Oval Office visit, waving around a sheaf of papers he said were about violent attacks against white Afrikaner farmers.
“I don’t know, all of these are articles over the last few days, death of people, death, death, death, horrible death,” he said.
Honestly, this is just embarrassing. Trump is a doddering racist who was lucky enough to seize the levers of power, but all he knows how to do is hate.
Trump’s cap of 7,500 refugee admissions is the lowest since the program started. In contrast, former President Joe Biden set the goal at 125,000 for fiscal year 2024. That’s still too low, of course, but not criminally low—or transparently racist—like Trump’s number here. And, of course, under Biden, refugees came from everywhere—Africa, East Asia, Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, and South Asia. […]
Trump originally thought that 30,000 victims of the imaginary white genocide would race to our shores, but he’s got one big problem: Most Afrikaners don’t want to come here. Their dream is to build whites-only enclaves in South Africa.
So they basically want apartheid back in their own country rather than having to relocate to the United States. […]
Dropping the cap down to 7,500 helps obscure the fact that Afrikaners are not racing to the United States. […]
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem rejected a request from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to pause immigration raids on Halloween so children can trick-or-treat in peace, dismissing concerns over the psychological and physical trauma children are being subjected to.
Pritzker sent a letter to Noem Wednesday asking for the so-called “Operation Midway Blitz” operation in his state to be paused.
“No child should be forced to inhale tear gas or other chemical agents while trick-or-treating in their own neighborhood,” Pritzker wrote in the letter.
That was a reference to an incident that occurred Saturday in a residential neighborhood in Northwest Chicago. Illinois state Sen. Graciela Guzman said that, after she responded to reports of a citizen being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the area, agents used tear gas against her and her team during a Halloween event.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin admitted that “crowd control measures” were deployed during the confrontation.
When asked about Pritzker’s letter during a news conference on Thursday, Noem flatly denied the request.
“We’re absolutely not willing to pause any work that we’re doing to keep communities safe. The fact that Governor Pritzker is asking for that is shameful and I think unfortunate that he doesn’t recognize how important the work is that we do to ensure that we’re bringing criminals to justice,” she said. [video]
ICE and Border Patrol agents have participated in the sustained abuse and denigration of immigrants and their communities—including U.S. citizens and even military veterans. Noem and her agency have frequently offered up lies about the criminal threat that immigrants pose.
As Trump’s handpicked anti-immigrant enforcer, Noem has been the front person for an abusive regime, and her latest comments prove that even children’s holiday events aren’t safe in Trump’s America.
“With Republicans in control of federal power, why does the president expect the Democratic minority to “do something” about health care costs?”
Related video at the link.
Against a backdrop of a monthlong government shutdown, millions of American consumers are poised to choose their health care coverage for the next year as the open enrollment period gets underway. For millions of families, however, this is an occasion more for dread than excitement, due to dramatically higher prices.
On Thursday night, Donald Trump published an item to his social media platform that suggested he is aware of the problem but that failed to present much of a solution. The missive read in its entirety:
As I have said for years, OBAMACARE IS A DISASTER! Rates are going through the roof for really bad healthcare!!! Do something Democrats!!!
He managed to say quite a bit in three sentences, so let’s unpack this.
First, Trump claimed that the Affordable Care Act is a “disaster.” That’s plainly false: The ACA hasn’t just worked effectively for years, it also reached new levels of popularity with the American public over the summer. (Support for the reform law reached 66% in June, making it more than 20 points more popular than the president who hates it, and raising the question of whether the president is just jealous.)
Second, Trump said coverage costs are “going through the roof for really bad healthcare.” The first part of this is true — consumers are facing sticker shock, though leading Republican officials have spent recent weeks suggesting this isn’t a big deal — but the idea that the care itself is “really bad” is baseless. People raise concerns all the time about costs and access, but there’s no evidence to suggest Americans are dissatisfied with the services provided by medical professionals themselves.
At the heart of the matter, however, was the president’s closing appeal: “Do something Democrats!!!”
Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House, most of the nation’s gubernatorial offices, most of the nation’s state legislative chambers and the U.S. Supreme Court — but the president want Democrats, who have minimal power and even less influence in the nation’s capital, to fix the health care problem that Trump and his GOP allies have helped create.
As bizarre as the president’s appeal was, he’s in luck. Democratic leaders are, in fact, prepared to “do something” about the issue. Indeed, as the government shutdown drags on, mainly because of the rising health care costs that too many Republicans are inclined to ignore, Democrats continue to show up for work on Capitol Hill, pleading with GOP officials to negotiate a bipartisan solution.
So it’s now up to Trump and his party to “do something.”
As the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign has intensified, one of the many questions surrounding the aggressive agenda is just how many U.S. citizens have been caught up in it.
According to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the answer is zero. The Chicago-Sun Times reported:
Despite evidence to the contrary, Noem … said, ‘There’s no American citizens that have been arrested or detained. We focus on those that are here illegally. And anything that you would hear or report that would be different than that is simply not true.’
After making the comments, the South Dakota Republican promptly ended the event, allowing for no follow-up questions. [video]
Taken at face value, Noem’s comments might’ve appeared encouraging to those who don’t know better. If it were true that federal agents have targeted immigrants without detaining a single American citizen, that would be a welcome surprise.
Unfortunately for the Cabinet secretary, there’s ample evidence to suggest she was lying.
The New York Times recently reported, for example, that “many” U.S. citizens have been taken into custody. “While many of those detained have immediately declared their U.S. citizenship to officers, they have routinely been ignored,” the newspaper said. The Times added, “In some cases they have been handcuffed, kept in holding cells and immigration facilities overnight, and in at least two cases held without access to a lawyer or even a phone call.”
But how many is “many”? ProPublica tried to document the scope of the problem:
Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents. They’ve had their necks kneeled on. They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear. At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them. One of those women had already had the door of her home blown off while Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watched. About two dozen Americans have said they were held for more than a day without being able to phone lawyers or loved ones.
According to the ProPublica tally published two weeks ago (which has not been independently verified by MSNBC), more than 170 American citizens had been held against their will because federal agents, acting at Donald Trump’s behest, suspected them of being undocumented immigrants.
“Among the citizens detained are nearly 20 children, including two with cancer,” the report added, while acknowledging that this tally “is almost certainly incomplete.”
A week later, The Washington Post’s George Will, a longtime conservative, devoted a column to George Retes, a U.S. citizen and disabled combat veteran who was abused by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and detained for three days without access to an attorney.
And yet, there was Noem, speaking at a public event, assuring Americans that “no” U.S. citizens have been “arrested or detained” by federal immigration agents […]
The Trump administration doesn’t have a reputation for honesty, but some lies are so brazen that they’d be seen as career-ending controversies under normal political circumstances.
During the sentencing of a pardoned Jan. 6 defendant in an unrelated case, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols of D.C. praised the two prosecutors who were suspended by the Justice Department this week after they referred to those who attacked the Capitol as a “mob of rioters.”
“In my view, both Mr. Valdivia and Mr. White did a truly excellent job in this case,” said Nichols, a Trump appointee, while the two suspended prosecutors watched the proceedings from the audience.
After suspending the two prosecutors, the Justice Department submitted a new sentencing memo in the case that edited out the “mob of rioters” section. Online access to the original sentencing memo was apparently blocked by the court clerk, Politico reported. Nichols said he hadn’t ordered the original sealed memo and that the Justice Department would have to justify deep-sixing it in a motion for his consideration.
– Trump administration officials have let it be known that they have “identified” military targets within Venezuela for potential air strikes, framing it misleadingly around combating drug trafficking rather than regime change.
– The Trump administration froze out Senate Democrats by briefing only Republican senators on a secret target list and purported legal rationale for its military strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
– In a separate bipartisan briefing on the House side, Pentagon officials told members that they do not know precisely whom they have killed in the military strikes that have left at least 57 people dead, according to Democratic lawmakers in attendance.
The United Nations human rights chief on Friday condemned the Trump administration’s military strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, calling for an investigation. […]
“EXCLUSIVE: As U.S. ramps up the pressure, Venezuela pleads with Moscow for help”
“Documents show Maduro drafted letter asking Russia for missiles, radars and upgraded aircraft as U.S. forces amass in the Caribbean.”
In a letter meant for the eyes of Russia’s leader, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro made multiple requests this month. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was targeting ships off the South American coast and rattling sabers in Washington. Venezuela needed President Vladimir Putin’s help.
The asks included overhauls of defensive radars, military aircraft repairs and potentially missiles, according to internal U.S. government documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The Venezuelan government, according to the documents, is also reaching out to China and Iran, soliciting military assistance and equipment to strengthen the country’s defenses. Maduro composed a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping seeking “expanded military cooperation” between their two countries to counter “the escalation between the U.S. and Venezuela.”
In the letter, Maduro asked the Chinese government to expedite Chinese companies’ production of radar detection systems, presumably so Venezuela could enhance its capabilities.
The documents say Transport Minister Ramón Celestino Velásquez also recently coordinated a shipment of military equipment and drones from Iran while planning a visit to that country. He told an Iranian official that Venezuela was in need of “passive detection equipment,” “GPS scramblers” and “almost certainly drones with 1,000 km [600 mile] range,” the documents state.
It’s unclear from the documents how China and Iran responded.
But Russia remains the primary lifeline for Maduro. On Sunday, an Ilyushin Il-76 — one of the Russian aircraft sanctioned in 2023 by the United States for participating in the arms trade and transporting mercenaries — arrived in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, after a circuitous route over Africa to avoid Western airspace, according to Flightradar24. The Kremlin declined to comment on the letter.
Just a day earlier, Moscow ratified a new strategic treaty with Caracas.
The machinations shows how much Moscow stands to lose should the embattled Venezuelan leader fall. High-profile projects between the two countries continue to roll out, including a Kalashnikov munitions factory that opened in July in the Venezuelan state of Aragua, about 20 years after it was pledged. Moscow also has exploration rights for potentially billions of dollars in untapped natural gas and oil reserves.
[…] Mired in a war in Ukraine, and eyeing closer cooperation with other Latin American partners, Moscow has gradually curtailed its interest in Venezuela in recent years with little sign of a surge in support because of the current crisis.
“The fact that we’ve moved over 10 percent of our naval assets to the Caribbean is already a win, in some regards, for Putin,” said James Story, a former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela and founding partner of Global Frontier Advisors, a geopolitical consultancy. “Our renewed interest in all things Western Hemisphere divides our attention on Ukraine. And that’s a good thing for Putin.” [Accurate]
The political and economic ties between Russia and Venezuela date to Hugo Chavez, […] following his rise to power in 1999. The relationship flourished during the 2000s, 2010s and early 2020s. Today, it spans the vital petrochemicals sector, weapons purchases, shared propaganda operations and opaque cryptocurrency deals, according to analysts.
[…] The Trump administration has not presented proof that the ships were involved in drug trafficking, and Maduro has denied they were.
The USS Gerald Ford, the Navy’s heaviest and most modern aircraft carrier, has been dispatched to the region.
The official messaging from Moscow on Trump’s actions against Venezuela, however, has been relatively restrained. In early October, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “expressed serious concern over the increasing escalation of Washington’s activities in the Caribbean Sea” in a call with his Venezuelan counterpart.
On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow “respects Venezuela’s sovereignty” and believes the issue should be resolved in accordance with “international law” — a common talking point the Kremlin often employs to sidestep sensitive geopolitical questions.
[…] Defense analysts say Moscow has shifted some of its key Latin American listening posts from Venezuela to Nicaragua, where the pro-Russian authoritarian President Daniel Ortega has solidified his grip on power.
[…] The Venezuelan president, however, is in the midst of shoring up his defenses and needs Moscow.
In mid-October, Velásquez, the transportation minister, traveled to Moscow for a meeting with his Russian counterpart, according to Russia’s Transport Ministry. According to documents obtained by The Post, he was also meant to deliver the letter from Maduro to Putin.
[…] Chávez also bought Russian helicopters and stocked Russians missiles, he said. But many of them are old and represent no real threat against the U.S. military.
“Chávez bought, or Russia sold Venezuela, pure junk,” he [former Venezuelan military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity] said.
Maduro this month, however, claimed Venezuela had deployed 5,000 Russian-made Igla-S portable surface-to-air missiles nationwide.
[…] Russia is still a major player in Venezuelan oil, a thick sludgy crude product requiring substantial processing. The Russians provide essential inputs for processing that crude as well as supplies of gasoline to keep the industry running.
[…] Russian state companies have direct investments in three Venezuelan joint ventures that produce 107,000 barrels of crude a per day, or about 11 percent of Venezuela’s total current production and generate approximately $67 million a month, said Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American Energy Program at Rice University.
Russia also owns lucrative exploration and export rights to Venezuela’s Patao and Mejillones offshore gas fields. Its rights to proven but untapped reserves of Venezuelan crude are additionally worth as much as $5 billion, Monaldi said. […]
“EXCLUSIVE: Kennedy Center ticket sales have plummeted since Trump takeover”
“Nearly nine months into the president’s oversight, sales for orchestra, theater and dance performances are the worst they’ve been since the pandemic, according to a Washington Post analysis.” [Photo showing empty seats.]
After […] Trump took over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in February, he and the executive he put in charge repeatedly accused the institution’s former leadership of not doing the very thing they are responsible for: selling tickets.
“We had spent way too much on programming that doesn’t bring in any revenue,” Richard Grenell, a Trump ally and former ambassador to Germany, told the Washington Reporter, a conservative media outlet, in late March. According to Grenell, the center hadn’t been making money. It was too woke and niche. The new team was, in Trump’s words, going to make it “hot” again. [FFS]
[…] Tens of thousands of seats have been left empty.
Since early September, 43 percent of tickets remained unsold for the typical production. That means that, at most, 57 percent of tickets were sold for the typical production — and some tickets may have been “comps,” which are given away, often to staff members or the press. That compares with 93 percent sold or comped in fall 2024 and 80 percent in fall 2023.
The Post collected and analyzed ticket sales data from Sept. 3 to Oct. 19, which reveals an across-the-board drop-off in the center’s major theaters: the Opera House, the Concert Hall and the Eisenhower Theater. The performances include National Symphony Orchestra programs, touring Broadway musicals and dance performances.
[…] Overall, the center could have sold tickets to roughly 143,000 seats during this time period. Of those, more than 50,000 have remained vacant.
Unfilled seats are now a regular feature of Washington’s national center for the performing arts. [Image]
[…] “Given the unprecedented takeover of a nonpartisan arts institution combined with the inexperience and rhetoric of the new management, I expected a decline in sales; however, it is truly shocking to see that these actions have been worse for business at the Kennedy Center than the aftermath of a global pandemic,” a former staff member said via messaging app, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of professional blowback. “These numbers are likely more dire than they appear, as they don’t account for canceled productions or shows moved into smaller theaters due to weak ticket sales.”
[…] “I’ve heard from ticket buyers who say they’re choosing not to attend because of what the Kennedy Center now represents. The brand itself has become polarizing, which is unprecedented in my experience.”
[…] There has been an influx of Christian programming, but many of these events have been free to the public.
Numerous programming executives have resigned or been dismissed, part of a broader trend of layoffs at the center.
[…] Some adjustments are evident. The center moved “Parade” — a Tony-winning musical that ran from Aug. 19 to Sept. 7 — from the 2,364-seat Opera House, where it was originally slated to run, to the 1,161-seat Eisenhower Theater. In the last few days of its run, 43 percent of seats were available. [Image] […]
The Senate rebuked President Donald Trump’s trade policy for the third time in as many days, voting 51-47 on Thursday to eliminate the national emergency underpinning Trump’s global tariffs announced in April. The resolution followed two others earlier this week — to eliminate duties on goods from Canada and Brazil, respectively — that passed with bipartisan support, indicating discomfort among lawmakers with the president’s aggressive use of tariffs to reshape U.S. trade relationships.
Commentary:
[…] The practical value of this week’s votes in the Senate is limited. The Republican-led House will almost certainly ignore the resolutions, and in the unlikely event that the lower chamber were to pass them, the measures would face inevitable presidential vetoes.
But given how low contemporary standards have fallen, the actions in the Senate this week represent a modest breakthrough anyway. This is the first instance in Trump’s second term that bipartisan majorities in the Senate rebuked a key piece of the administration’s agenda three times.
Will this have lasting real-world consequences? No. Is it a step in the right direction? Yes.
@281 Lynna, OM: Russia is in no situation to substantially help Venezuela. Russia can’t provide enough air defense for it’s own army or cover it’s capital. They might give/sell Venezuela some symbolic or useless gear but the only useful stuff they can give right now is information on how to build stuff. The same goes for Iran, they might like to help but other then some information on how to build drones they don’t have the capacity.
China could help but probably won’t. China is more likely to make the point that they are staying out of the US’s back yard and the US should stay out of China’s.
“The failure to adopt a new federal data collection standard ahead of the 2030 Census risks significantly further diminishing the political and economic power of non-white voters, experts tell TPM.”
[…] Statistical Policy Directive 15, or SPD 15, the Office of Management and Budget’s new survey question for race and ethnicity were announced by President Joe Biden’s executive branch, in March 2024, and were designed to more accurately capture respondents’ racial and ethnic identities. Since the Census Bureau adapts the OMB’s standards for race and ethnicity data, the updated language would have been integrated into the 2030 Census, allowing for a more accurate count of the United States’ diversifying population.
But conservative activists swiftly targeted SPD 15, and the Trump administration has slow-rolled the initiative. The failure to adopt SPD 15 ahead of the 2030 Census — potentially coupled with a high-stakes Supreme Court case that threatens to dilute the power of minority voters and a Trump-led redistricting frenzy that may create a slew of new Republican districts across the U.S. — risks significantly further diminishing the political and economic power of non-white voters, experts tell TPM.
[…] “It is not a coincidence that this delay is happening at a time when Republicans across the country are working overtime to pass gerrymanders that silence millions of voters, particularly voters of color.”
[…] Trump’s second administration has been decidedly hostile toward such measures of diversity. It has removed demographic information like race and gender from official statistics. It has wiped race and ethnicity data from a public database showing the demographics of federal employees. And it has called on the federal government and government contractors to ignore information on racial equity in hiring, revoking equity-focused executive orders dating back decades.
SPD 15 appears to be another target. Under the directive, federal departments and agencies were initially supposed to have their action plans for policy’s implementation done by last month; they will now have until March 2026, according to the OMB website. All federal race and ethnicity data collections were initially supposed to be “consistent with the updated standards” by March 2029, but that deadline has been pushed to September 2029, well after the 2030 Census process is set to begin.
[…] Inaccurate Race and Ethnicity Date Could Have a Big Impact on Political Representation
The delayed implementation of SPD 15 also coincides with the GOP’s latest efforts to engage in hyper-partisan gerrymandering. […]
At Trump’s direction, state legislatures are aggressively pursuing new Republican-friendly political maps in red states ahead of the 2026 midterms. At the same time, the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which has historically prevented the dilution of the collective electoral power of racial minorities. […]
Because of the role race plays in redistricting considerations, delaying the implementation of best-practice race and ethnicity data collection will muddy the information available about majority-minority areas […]
“Census data, which includes SPD 15, is a huge determinant in how voting districts are drawn and, beyond just how the districts are drawn, that census data is critical in determining how federal funds are distributed,” said Gaby Goldstein, founder of State Futures, a policy organization focused on state government. […]
A Conservative Assault on the Census
The campaign for updates to federal race and ethnicity survey standards initially began under President Barack Obama’s administration in 2016, but stalled in 2017 after Trump in his first administration delayed consideration of the changes indefinitely. The updates were renewed under Biden, prompted in part by the 2020 Census results, which saw members of many communities start writing in their ethnicities: Cambodian, Laotian, Haitian, Armenian, […]
The new rule combines race and ethnicity survey questions into one prompt, and encourages respondents to select every option they use to self-identify, writing in additional ethnicity categories if necessary. For example, a Hispanic American could self-identify as Dominican, Guatemalan, or Spanish. It also adds a Middle Eastern or North African racial category.
[…] “The goal of SPD 15 is to change the course of history, where communities have been invisible, for political representation and in terms of resource allocation.”
But Project 2025 […] directly targeted SPD 15 for “review.”
[…] The Trump team appears to be taking this advice to heart at the same time it is seeking to diminish minority communities’ political and economic power in other ways.
Typically, redistricting is done every 10 years based on the results of the decennial census. But this administration is pushing states to engage in unprecedented mid-cycle redistricting now, while also delaying the implementation of SPD 15. That, in turn, could impact the 2030 census results […]
“Fair political representation, access to government services, and effective enforcement of civil rights laws,” said Rohani [Sara Rohani, assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund], who participated in a case challenging Louisiana’s congressional map for anti-Black racial bias, “all depend on this accurate census count.”
JM @284, I agree. China, Iran and Russia are all (for various reasons) unlikely to offer significant help to Venezuela at this time. The Trump administration probably factored that in when they escalated attacks against Venezuela. Still, it is a dangerous game when Trump is counting on other countries to stay out of the fray.
We also see realignment against the USA happening all over the place, and that includes recent statements from United Nations leaders: “Unacceptable”: UN human rights chief condemns Trump admin’s boat strikes.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins sees the Republican-created crisis over federal food assistance, which will run out of funds on Saturday, as an opportunity to weaken the program at a deeper level.
“The problem is you have an extremely corrupt program,” Rollins said of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which more than 40 million people rely on to feed themselves and their families. “But up until this administration, and with President [Donald] Trump’s direct focus on this and making sure every taxpayer dollar is spent appropriately, we’ve never really had the opportunity to dig in. So we’re going to be talking a lot more about SNAP reform.” [video]
She added that the goal of this so-called reform would be “to take that program back to its original intent of helping those who are truly needy in our communities, but not to have a massive welfare benefit where so many people are taking advantage of it.”
Posted by readers of the article:
Perhaps we should be examining why so many people in this country who are working full-time cannot afford to put food on the table or a roof over their heads. Maybe this isn’t about fraud and deadbeats but about an economic system that only caters to the wealthy elite and lets everyone else scramble for the scraps.
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Such bullshit; do they ask to see if the billionaires and the corporations are truly in need before giving away free money and subsidies?
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It’s amazing how every single thing they don’t like, especially helping out those in need, is waste and fraud. These are spineless, thoughtless assholes bent on destroying everything else for the top .5%.
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This will parallel what they plan to do to downsize the bigger “entitlements” programs in terms of who qualifies as beneficiaries.
“Judge orders Trump administration to release billions in SNAP contingency funds”
“Officials must act ‘as soon as possible’ to avoid prolonged interruption, a federal judge in Rhode Island said.”
A federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday ordered the Trump administration to release billions of dollars in backup funds for the nation’s largest anti-hunger program, after administration officials said the government shutdown meant it couldn’t tap contingency funds for aid that 42 million Americans rely on each month to put food on the table.
In an oral ruling, Judge Jack McConnell said the Agriculture Department must distribute the contingency funds “timely, or as soon as possible, for the November 1 payments to be made.”
[…] Trump administration officials have said that, because of the government shutdown, USDA can’t use a $5.5 billion contingency fund to help with food assistance despite long-standing precedent, including from President Donald Trump’s first term.
[…] In a separate case in Massachusetts, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled Friday that the administration’s refusal to release the contingency funds is likely unlawful.
Talwani, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, told USDA that the agency appeared to be interpreting the law incorrectly.
Talwani did not grant the order that a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general and governors were looking for — which would have forced the administration to release contingency funds Saturday — she did order USDA to decide by Monday whether it will authorize that release.
In her ruling, Talwani wrote that the Democratic state attorneys general “are likely to succeed” on their claim that the USDA’s suspension of SNAP benefits is unlawful.
[…] some interruption is certain because the contractors who process loading benefits onto debit cards hadn’t been able to begin as usually scheduled before the start of the month.
The $5.5 billion in contingency funds is not enough to pay for a full month of benefits. The program costs the federal government about $9 billion monthly. Because SNAP benefits are not released all at once to recipients, though, many states would be able to make partial November payments using the money, giving Americans some respite as the shutdown continues. […]
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a desperate attempt to appease furious red-state farmers, on Thursday Donald J. Trump ordered ICE agents to pick crops left unharvested by deported immigrants.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” complained an exhausted ICE officer, struggling to breathe through his mask as he picked tomatoes. “I should be kicking some minority’s ass at Home Depot.”
According to sources, tensions have reached a boiling point at the White House amid reports that disgruntled ICE agents were fleeing U.S. farms and seeking sanctuary in Mexico.
In a sharp Oval Office exchange, Trump reportedly turned on JD Vance and barked, “Get out there and pick some fucking lettuce, loser.”
“Who has the U.S. killed in recent boat strikes? It’s a problem that we don’t know. It’s an even bigger problem that the administration doesn’t know, either.”
According to the Trump administration’s latest tally, the president has ordered 14 deadly military strikes targeting civilian boats in international waters over the last couple of months. If the administration’s statistics are accurate, at least 61 people have been killed in these operations.
Who are these people? It’s a problem that the public doesn’t know. It’s a bigger problem that apparently the Defense Department doesn’t know, either. The New York Times reported on the latest briefing members of Congress received on the boat strikes:
Representative Sara Jacobs, Democrat of California, said the Pentagon officials conceded that the administration did not know the identities of all of the individuals who were killed in the strikes. ‘They said that they do not need to positively identify individuals on the vessel to do the strikes,’ she said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News this week that he’s seen “exquisite intelligence” about the military operations. It’s not exquisite enough, however, to include the names of the civilians the U.S. has killed through legally dubious missile strikes.
The Times’ report […] added, “Ms. Jacobs said Pentagon officials said they needed to prove only that the targeted people were connected to designated terrorist organizations, even if the connection is ‘as much as three hops away from a known member’ of a designated terrorist organization.”
So if you have a connection to someone who has a connection to someone whom the Trump administration considers to be part of a terrorist organization, then you should steer clear of boats and international waters for a while to avoid getting killed.
Meanwhile, a growing number of congressional Democrats have spent the week ringing alarms about the fact that the administration has failed to share any legal arguments to justify the missions or intelligence related to the operations. As NBC News reported, lawmakers from both parties criticized the administration after Democrats were not invited to a briefing on Wednesday.
A day later, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters that the partisan briefing was a “new low” for the administration and “corrosive to our democracy.”
One might imagine that if the president’s policy were legal and had merit, there wouldn’t be any need for secrecy.
Evidence of atrocities emerging from the city of El Fasher stoked fears that the Sudanese region of Darfur is plunging, once again, into a cycle of genocidal violence.
With dozens of bodies scattered around him, against a backdrop of burning vehicles, a sole survivor begged for his life.
A Sudanese paramilitary commander known as Abu Lulu leaned over the man, listening to his desperate pleas. But he had little time for them.
Standing up, Abu Lulu ignored the man’s imprecations, casually shot him dead, and kept walking.
The execution, depicted in a video circulating online and verified by The New York Times, was one of numerous scenes of violence to emerge from the besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher since it was captured by paramilitaries last weekend.
Videos and witness accounts show trenches filled with bodies, and fighters with the paramilitary force — the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F. — hunting down civilians as they flee.
The images of these and other atrocities have set off global outrage and stoked fears that the region of Darfur is plunging, once again, into a cycle of genocidal violence of the kind that made the Sudanese region a focus of global politics two decades ago.
At the United Nations and in Western capitals, officials issued statements on Thursday condemning the R.S.F., which has been battling Sudan’s military since the country plunged into a ruinous civil war over two years ago, and recently declared its own parallel government.
Some called for punitive measures against its main foreign backer, the United Arab Emirates.
In Washington, congressional leaders renewed calls for a pause on arms sales to the Emirates until it stops arming the paramilitary. In London, the government faced questions about reports that British-made military equipment was being used by the R.S.F.
At an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Tom Fletcher, the top U.N. humanitarian official, criticized member states for letting the crisis reach this point.
“I have found the limits of my ability and the U.N.’s authority,” he said, calling on member states to “stop arming” the R.S.F.’s campaign, without naming the country responsible, widely assumed to be the Emirates. (The Emirates has denied backing either side in the conflict.) […]
Continued staffing shortages in air traffic control facilities around the country were again causing delays at airports on Friday as the government shutdown neared the one-month mark.
Colorado’s attorney general sued President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday for moving U.S. Space Command’s headquarters to Alabama, calling the decision unconstitutional retaliation for the Democratic state’s vote-by-mail practices.
President Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to claim some credit for the Nobel Prize in physics for work done decades before he even became president. The president shared a quote on Truth Social that he said was from Energy Secretary Chris Wright ― a former fracking exec ― saying the award this year given for work in quantum physics is, by extension, an award for Trump.
[…] “Quantum computing, along with AI and Fusion, are the three signature Trump science efforts,” the quote attributed to Wright read. “Trump 47 racks up his first Nobel Prize!!”
This year’s prize went to John Clarke (UC Berkeley), Michel H. Devoret (Yale and UC Santa Barbara), and John M. Martinis (UC Santa Barbara and Qolab), for “the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit,” according to a news release from the Nobel Foundation.
The trio won for a breakthrough they achieved when they worked together at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1984 and 1985, long before even Trump’s first presidency, which began in 2017.
That same lab recently laid off 15-20% of its research staff due to cuts Trump made to federal funding for research, according to The Daily Californian.
Trump has made no secret of his desire to win a Nobel, although the one he fixates on most is the Nobel Peace Prize. He has complained for years about not getting one, insisting he should have “four or five” of them, and seems especially sour that President Barack Obama has one.
His critics mocked him for shifting attention to a prize they say he’s even less qualified for: [social media posts] […]
Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan is not having a good time.
Sure, indicting people because President Donald Trump said so was probably a bit of a rush, but now she’s stuck with two high-profile cases where the only help she has is prosecutors borrowed from other districts, since no one in her office would agree to handle these travesties.
While Halligan is running these cases on a shoestring, former FBI Director James Comey is […] filing motion after motion to get rid of both Halligan and the indictment she secured against him.
He’s assembled a giant team of high-powered, experienced attorneys, and they are absolutely burying Halligan in a flurry of motions […] Comey’s case and Halligan’s prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James are on the rocket docket, so Halligan has to simultaneously prepare for two big trials scheduled just a few weeks apart in January.
Comey had already filed two earlier motions to dismiss, one based on Halligan being illegally appointed and one alleging vindictive and selective prosecution. This week, he added three more.
First, he filed a motion to force the government to disclose the grand jury proceedings. Normally, grand juries are entitled to a “presumption of regularity,” meaning the actions of the grand jury are presumed to be reasonable. But if a defendant can point to significant irregularities, they can get access to the grand jury materials.
Here, Comey points to two significant irregularities. First, it appears there may have been a tainted witness—an FBI agent who may have had access to privileged material between Comey and his attorneys, which would be covered by the attorney-client privilege. If the agent provided the grand jury with attorney-client information in an effort to buttress the indictment against Comey, that’s a big problem.
Additionally, Comey alleges that Halligan kept the grand jury well into the evening instead of sending them home after they refused to indict Comey on three counts. She then presented the two-count indictment and kept the jury until nearly 7 PM. Comey wants access to those proceedings to see if Halligan basically told the jury they couldn’t leave until they indicted him.
That might sound fanciful and ridiculous in a normal case with a normal prosecutor—a long-shot complaint. But this is no normal case, and Halligan is no normal prosecutor, so it’s not hard to imagine her thinking it’s totally appropriate to hammer a grand jury until she got what she wanted.
He’s also filed a motion for a bill of particulars. A defendant is supposed to know the basis for the charges against them so they can prepare for trial. But the indictment Halligan presented has literally no information about the factual basis for charging Comey. So, Comey is asking for all of it […]
If that wasn’t enough, Comey also filed a motion to dismiss the indictment “based on fundamental ambiguity and literal truth.” That’s a mouthful, but what it’s about is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s mangled, multi-part questions to Comey, creating confusion as to what, exactly, he was asking Comey about. The “literal truth” part is precisely what it sounds like—that Comey says he was literally truthful when responding to Cruz. Of course, if Comey was truthful, the whole indictment falls apart.
Meanwhile, in the Letitia James case …
Halligan charged James with fraud over lying to her bank to get a better mortgage on a second home, but then renting it out in violation of the “Second Home Rider” contract. But there is language in her contract that says she can use the home “including short-term rentals.” In fact, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say that a second home rider means the property “may be rented out on a short-term basis.”
James’ grand-niece lives in the home and testified to a different grand jury convened by Halligan that she had lived there for many years without paying rent. But then Halligan didn’t put the grand-niece before the grand jury that ultimately indicted James. That looks a lot like Halligan withheld material—that could have shown James’s innocence—from the grand jury that ultimately indicted James. [!]
Halligan is overmatched and, honestly, seems to think her job ended after she secured indictments. Even though she’s gotten Justice Department attorneys from other jurisdictions to help out, that assistance can’t remedy the deficiencies in her indictments. [True]
[…] Of course, if either of these indictments gets dismissed, Halligan might be purged by the same people who installed her in the job.
Perhaps she’ll go back to her previous job in the administration, where she got to singlehandedly remove any material from the Smithsonian museums that made white people sad, like exhibits about slavery.
She’s not qualified for that either, of course. But it’s got to be easier than her current thankless gig.
Lawyers for former FBI Director James Comey want to review a transcript and audio recording of grand jury proceedings in his criminal case, citing what they say were “irregularities” in the process that should result in the dismissal of an indictment pushed by President Donald Trump.
This is a new set of issues beyond the already raised vindictive prosecution and illegal appointment issues. Comey’s legal team wants to go over everything from the grand jury in detail because there are already too parts that look off. This is a sort of weak matter in that they are not pointing to any specific mistake, only the number of questionable bits. It’s hard to question a grand jury result because it’s taken that if the person is innocent then they can prove it in court and if there is some technical filing error the prosecutors could simply file before a new grand jury. However there are so many issues that Comey may get the court to go along. This really matters in this case because if the original charges are thrown the statue of limitations is past, the government can’t bring a new case.
In separate filings Thursday, Comey’s legal team also requested specific details about the conduct at the center of the criminal case, saying the terse indictment is not even clear as to what Comey is alleged to have done wrong. They also asserted that the answers he gave to “fundamentally ambiguous questions” at the Senate hearing at which he is alleged to have lied were “literally true” and that, therefore, the case must be dismissed.
This is the first time Comey’s lawyers have brought it up in court. The charges against Comey don’t spell out what he said that was a lie well enough. If it’s the statement it appears to be then Comey gave an unfriendly but literally true answer so there is no case.
The Government has been shut down for a month. The closure has furloughed thousands of government workers. Many others, deemed critical, are mandated to work without a paycheck. All but essential functions are on ice. Yet the worst is still to come.
Starting on Saturday, Nov 1, barring judicial intervention [judicial intervention is still in progress, see comment 288], recipients in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will see their food support evaporate. And enrollees in the ACA (Obamacare) will see their health insurance premiums skyrocket.
(Update: A US Court has ordered the continuation of SNAP benefits to be paid out of contingency funds. Will the administration appeal? That could be politically disastrous. However, the Trump folks have a track record of pursuing policies the majority of Americans don’t support.)
A flint-hearted Party.
Decent human beings contemplating their fellow citizens going hungry or forgoing health care because of its newly unaffordable cost, feel empathy. […] In their imagination [Republicans see] people receiving SNAP as subhuman, drug addicts, wastrels, politically suspect, and illegal aliens. [True of a lot of Republicans, if not all of them. See comments below from Republicans.]
Lindy Li is a paid-up member of that tribe. On Friday, during an appearance on Newsmax, the Republican strategist compared the 16 million children poised to lose food assistance on Saturday to “socialist beasts.” In full, she said:
“President Trump isn’t starving kids – he’s starving socialist beasts. He’s starving the handouts for millions of illegal aliens; why are we putting them first when we have so many Americans suffering on the streets? Why are we prioritizing illegals? That is a question that Democrats need to answer.”
She offers no support for her widely discredited contentions. And simple math shows her to be a liar. There is no evidence that a significant amount of SNAP goes to those not entitled to it. But let’s, for argument’s sake, say that every undocumented alien has wangled SNAP money. There are 42 million SNAP recipients — and an estimated 14 million undocumented aliens. If they were all receiving SNAP, they would represent 35% of recipients. Meaning in the fantastical and absurd, worst-case scenario, 65% of SNAP recipients are ‘legitimate.’ Many of them children.
In reality, the vast majority of SNAP benefits go to people the law intended to receive them. ‘Illegal aliens’ are not living high off the hog on government handouts.
Li did concede that some Americans receive SNAP. But she does not hold them in high regard. Instead, she says they should “start making better choices” so that they don’t “have to rely on the government.” Does that include the 36% of SNAP recipients under 18, or the 40% with an income? [Good questions.]
Li was not alone in her brutal characterization of SNAP recipients. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) says that if people who bought food with SNAP benefits didn’t eat the food, they would still have food. […] To twist the knife, he opines that this poor decision-making is due to drug addiction. He tweeted:
“There are 22 million American households receiving SNAP benefits for groceries, at $4200 per year on average. Try to get your head wrapped around how many pantries you can stock with $4200 dollars [sic] in properly shopped groceries.
Any American who has been receiving $4200 dollars [sic – again] per year of free groceries and does NOT have at least 1 month of groceries stocked should never again receive SNAP, because wow, stop smoking crack.” [social media post]
Piling on, NewsMax anchor Rob Schmitt claimed Friday that SNAP recipients have exploded the program because they didn’t use the benefits to procure much-needed food, but to get beautified. In his words:
This is a program that has exploded over the last 20 years, and we are just dumping 100 billion a year into a program that we all know is being so woefully corrupted and exploited. People are selling their benefits. People are using them to get their nails done, to get their weaves and their hair. I mean, this is a this is a really ugly program.
This attempt to short-circuit debate […] is not new. Nor is the coded vocabulary of racism. (Women of any race can get a weave, but weaves are particularly associated with Black women.) A half-century ago, a previous Republican Presidential wannabe warned of welfare cheats.
A history of abasing people
In 1976, Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of Republican cruelty, warned taxpayers they were funding Cadillac-driving welfare queens. Campaigning in Asheville, NC, he told his audience about a “Welfare Queen”, who staggered belief with the extent of her criminal avarice. He enumerated:
She has 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards, and is collecting veterans’ benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she’s collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income alone is over $150,000. [JFC, that sounds just like Trump.]
He never said her name, nor mentioned her race. He didn’t have to. The Linda Taylor story was well known at the time. She was a prolific criminal and notorious. However, Reagan knew his audience would take the real story of an actual criminal and use it as a brush to tar all benefit recipients as grifters and con artists. [True]
Fifty years later, little has changed.
Afterword
The total net worth of the Forbes list of America’s 400 richest is $6.2 trillion (up $1.2T in the last year alone). Half of that wealth would fund SNAP for 31 years. And it would still leave each of the 400 with an average worth of $7.75 billion. […]
As hundreds of thousands of Oregonians face food uncertainty with the SNAP benefits cut for at least the month of November, a Portland coffee shop is helping people out by providing food to people in need.
In just about 48 hours, Heretic Coffee has raised over $72,000. Owner Josh White said the donations aren’t just coming in from Oregon either.
“Almost every single person who has come in has ordered coffee and then donated money for someone else’s food. This morning, the very first person who came in bought 10 snap breakfasts,” White said. [Good news.]
The cause has reached people from Ireland and Australia to South Africa.
The deal was supposed to start Saturday, but White says an 11-year-old came in asking for it earlier on Tuesday, after his family ran out of benefits.
If you want to take advantage of the food, all you have to do is ask for the “SNAP Breakfast,” which includes a burrito and a coffee of your choice. […]
Out of the approximately 757,000 Oregonians who receive SNAP benefits, 54% are in families with children, 37% are in families with members who are older adults or are disabled, and more than 41% percent are in working families.
Some people added negative comments to this article, but the response has mainly been positive.
Examples of negative comments:
Cute gimmick. It’s not going to gain them customers because Democrats only pretend to care about the poor when others are subsidizing them.
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I know at least 10 of my neighbors who are all capable of working, but they’re on welfare and SNAP. Now they will have decisions to make. Get a job, or become criminals.
“This week’s massacres in Sudan followed an 18-month siege.”
Spare a moment for the Sudanese people, whose suffering doesn’t get nearly enough attention.
El Fashir in western Darfur was home to more than a million people before the siege began 18 months ago. By the time the Arab rebels seized control this week from African tribesmen fighting alongside the Sudanese military, only about 250,000 starving civilians remained. After they subsisted on weeds and animal feed for a year-and-a-half, thousands of emaciated survivors were massacred. One of the worst atrocities occurred at a hospital, where more than 460 patients and staff were murdered.
Fighters with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) posted videos of themselves gleefully executing civilians as they pleaded for their lives. One militia general boasted that he might have killed 2,000 people. Satellite images reveal clusters of bodies piled atop bloodstains so large they can be seen from space.
Eyewitnesses who fled describe gunmen going house to house, shooting people, including women and children, in their homes. [Embedded links to disturbing images are available at the main link. I recommend avoiding the images. The descriptions in text are more than enough.]
The moral weight of this humanitarian tragedy is heavy. Americans should also take note because Sudan’s strategic location on the Red Sea affects energy flows and international trade. In the past, the country also has been a haven for terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, and a transit point for massive flows of illicit arms and gold.
This civil war, which flared up again in 2023, is a proxy war. The RSF’s main backer and weapons supplier is the United Arab Emirates. The Sudanese military, which has received weapons from Turkey and Iran, has also carpet-bombed neighborhoods and allowed ethnic militias to kill innocents.
The Trump administration brought representatives from the RSF and Sudanese military to Washington last Thursday and Friday to push for a three-month ceasefire. But State Department officials said no deal could be reached because both sides think they can still prevail. Nevertheless, Washington can do more to apply pressure via the UAE and Turkey.
The RSF commander known as Hemedti — Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo — has been treated like a head-of-state in some African capitals but sanctioned by the United States. He acknowledged “abuses” by his forces and promised to hold any soldier “who committed a crime” accountable. The RSF later announced the arrest of some of its fighters, including the general who boasted of killing 2,000 people.
Don’t expect real accountability. Hemedti’s Arab militia has been responsible for abuses going back two decades. His paramilitary group was previously styled as the “janjaweed,” which terrorized Darfur in the early 2000s.
The slaughter at El Fashir has triggered righteous outrage, though not as much public notice as it deserves. Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led a group of six senators Thursday in calling on the administration to consider designating the RSF as a foreign terrorist organization. That would be a good start.
The report above is authored by The Washington Post’s editorial board.
“Preparing the lone available site for testing would require hundreds of millions of dollars and at least two years, nuclear experts said.”
Trump said this week that he wants the Defense Department to begin testing nuclear weapons “immediately,” but experts say that’s wishful thinking.
The U.S. has only one location where such testing could take place, an underground facility at the former Nevada Nuclear Test Site near Las Vegas. Preparing the site for testing would require hundreds of millions of dollars and at least two years, nuclear experts said.
“There is no immediacy when it comes to testing,” Gregory Jaczko, former chair of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said on “Meet the Press” Thursday.
Trump announced his desire to conduct nuclear tests in a Truth Social post shortly before his meeting this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.
“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump wrote Wednesday. “That process will begin immediately.”
Some nuclear weapons experts argue that the U.S. has no technical need to restart nuclear testing and that it could actually wind up benefitting countries like China, because it would in effect give them license to resume testing to advance their less-developed nuclear programs.
The U.S. has conducted 1,054 nuclear weapons tests overall, but none since 1992. China, by comparison, has conducted 47 nuclear tests. If the U.S. were to resume nuclear weapons testing, and China used that as an opening for doing the same, it could help Beijing with weapon design and allow them to expand their own arsenal, experts say.
[…] the sudden directive could be an attempt to pressure Russia into a new nonproliferation agreement.
[…] Trump noted in the Wednesday Truth Social post that Russia and China are gaining on the U.S. in the number of nuclear weapons in their arsenal. [The number of nuclear weapons is already outlandishly large. See comment 265. Trump should not be focusing on numbers.]
After his meeting with Xi, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that his order “had to do with others,” adding that “they seem to all be nuclear testing.” [Not true. Russia tested vehicle systems used to deliver weapons. Russia did not explode a nuclear weapon.]
Nuclear explosive testing in the U.S. would be carried out by the Department of Energy. The Defense Department would handle the testing of vehicle systems – the weapons used to deliver nuclear weapons, similar to what Russia has carried out recently.
[…] “We’re moving out quickly,” Hegseth [Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth] added, “and America will ensure that we have the strongest, most capable nuclear arsenal so that we maintain peace through strength.” [Hegseth is such a doofus. He tends to simplify every issue so much that it comes down to testosterone.]
Resuming testing would violate the terms of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, signed by the U.S. and 186 other countries. [!]
It bans all nuclear explosions, whether for military or peaceful purposes, with the goal of curbing all nuclear arms proliferation. According to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, the treaty also “prevents the serious health and environmental impacts of nuclear tests.” [!]
Trump appeared to be drawing a page from Project 2025, a blueprint for his administration’s agenda that was crafted by the conservative Heritage Foundation. It recommends rejecting the ratification of the 1996 treaty and pushing for conducting nuclear tests “in response to adversary nuclear developments if necessary.” [!]
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., said there is no public evidence yet of any other country conducting such tests, and the only country known to do so is North Korea. It carried out a test in 2017.
Kimball pointed out that Brandon Williams, the Trump-appointed head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, stated during testimony in April that there was no reason to resume testing. [!]
“The United States continues to observe its 1992 nuclear test moratorium; and, since 1992, has assessed that the deployed nuclear stockpile remains safe, secure and effective without nuclear explosive testing,” Williams testified.
“U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the proof-of-citizenship directive is a violation of the separation of powers.”
Trump’s request to add a documentary proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form cannot be enforced, a federal judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., sided with Democratic and civil rights groups that sued the Trump administration over his executive order to overhaul U.S. elections.
She ruled that the proof-of-citizenship directive is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers […]
“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion.
She further emphasized that on matters related to setting qualifications for voting and regulating federal election procedures “the Constitution assigns no direct role to the President in either domain.”
[…] The ruling grants the plaintiffs a partial summary judgment that prohibits the proof-of-citizenship requirement from going into effect. It says the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which has been considering adding the requirement to the federal voter form, is permanently barred from taking action to do so.
In a statement, Sophia Lin Lakin of the ACLU, one of the plaintiffs in the case, called the ruling “a clear victory for our democracy. President Trump’s attempt to impose a documentary proof of citizenship requirement on the federal voter registration form is an unconstitutional power grab.” […]
More details:
While a top priority for Republicans, attempts to implement documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting have been fraught. The U.S. House passed a citizenship mandate last spring that has stalled in the Senate, and several attempts to pass similar legislation in the states have proved equally difficult.
Such requirements have created problems and confusion for voters when they have taken effect at the state level. It presents particular hurdles for married women who have changed their name, since they might need to show birth certificates and marriage certificates as well as state IDs. Those complications arose earlier this year when a proof-of-citizenship requirement took effect for the first time during local elections in New Hampshire.
In Kansas, a proof-of-citizenship requirement that was in effect for three years created chaos before it was overturned in federal court. Some 30,000 otherwise eligible people were prevented from registering to vote.
Voting by noncitizens also has been shown to be rare.
The lawsuit brought by the DNC and various civil rights groups will continue to play out to allow the judge to consider other challenges to Trump’s order. That includes a requirement that all mailed ballots be received, rather than just postmarked, by Election Day.
Other lawsuits against Trump’s election executive order are ongoing.
In early April, 19 Democratic state attorneys general asked a separate federal court to reject Trump’s executive order. Washington and Oregon, where virtually all voting is done with mailed ballots, followed with their own lawsuit against the order.
Not surprising but disgusting breaking news from Aussie politics. The Nationals – or Nats are the ‘N’ (Nasty) in the Lying Nasty Party or LNP; our dregs of the leftovers of the sad excuse for the opposition or alternative to the govt here. The Nats are meant to be for the rural community where they have their supposed voter base but are actually basically a tool of the big mining companies and rich and partners to the Libs (Liberals – very much misnamed and in the Aussie not USA sense of word) – the Lying party in the Coalition who are also nasty too just as Nats are also liars.. This has been a contentious -somehow (cough, Fossil Fool lobby, cough) issue for some time now when it conmes to Aussie Climate Action :.
The Nationals have removed support for net zero from their federal platform amid mounting expectations their federal MPs are poised to do the same.
A meeting of the party’s Federal Council in Canberra on Saturday cemented the change, which was widely regarded as a formality, given that every state branch of the party had already passed similar motions.
… (snip)..
The motion called on the parliamentary party to “abandon” support for achieving net zero emissions but retains support for “emissions reductions”, which it says should be balanced with “growing and protecting key industries such as the mining, agriculture and manufacturing sectors”.
It calls for a “balanced energy mix, including coal, gas and renewable energy sources” and an end to the federal moratorium on nuclear energy.
More bad news – Aussie ABC on why Mamani won’t be able to arrest Netanyahu even if he is the Mayor of NYC :
“There’s a criminal and a civil reason for that. The civil reason is a US federal law called the American Service Members Protection Act.”
The law essentially restricts US officials from cooperating with the ICC.
“So, it would be a violation of a federal law for Mamdani to use the NYPD in an official capacity to arrest Netanyahu. Period. Full stop,” Professor Newton said.
The criminal reason is linked to US President Donald Trump’s executive order signed earlier this year to sanction some ICC prosecutors and judges involved in Mr Netanyahu’s case.
Professor Newton said if Mr Mamdani ordered police to arrest Mr Netanyahu, it would likely be perceived by the US government as a contravention of the executive order.
“That would be a very simple statutory question,” Professor Newton said.
“If a US mayor arrested an Israeli official pursuant to a request from ICC, would it be deemed as assisting those individuals the US has sanctioned? It’s pretty easy to connect those dots.”
Both Professor Newton and Professor Whiting also pointed out Mr Netanyahu would enjoy diplomatic immunity in the United States as the head of state of a foreign nation.
So basically Trump and the USoA’s refusal to accept and work with the ICC plus diplomatic immunity.
Most other nations aren’t in this miserable boat and many including Oz might be able to arrest him tho’.. Wuish it wuld happen tho’doubt it will.
StevoRsays
Comet ATL:AS /31 is surprising us by being brighter faster than expected :
The interstellar invader Comet 3I/ATLAS is continuing to surprise scientists, this time by brightening at an unexpectedly rapid pace as it made its closest approach to the sun. Experts studying the object don’t yet know why that happened.
..(Snip)…
..The rapid brightening of 3I/ATLAS was observed by STEREO-A and STEREO-B, the twin spacecraft that make up Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), by the sun observing Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the weather satellite GOES-19. The space-based observations were necessary because ground-based instruments won’t be able to observe the interstellar comet again until it passes out from the other side of the sun into its “postperihelion” phase, escaping the glare of starlight in mid- to late-November 2025.
The team proposes a few different mechanisms that could account for the unexpectedly rapid brightening of this comet from beyond the solar system. It could be the result of the speed at which 3I/ATLAS is approaching the sun; alternatively, it could tell scientists something about the comet itself. That is exciting because if the internal composition of 3I/ATLAS is different from that of the nuclei of Oort cloud comets, it could mean that the planetary system from which it originates also has a different chemical makeup.
YT short WARNING : (esp for John Morales) but still good info on The Return of Nanotyrannus seemingly answering for good the questionof whther this is a real species or not.
In biomineralisation, inorganic substances and minerals, such as gold, accumulate and solidify inside plant tissues as part of the plant’s defense mechanisms. However, the biomineralisation process remains poorly understood—it does not always occur, and when it does, it may be sporadic and localised.
[…]
“Our recent study provides preliminary evidence of how gold moves into plant shoots and how gold nanoparticles can form inside needles […] In the soil, gold is present in a soluble, liquid form. Carried by water, the gold moves into spruce needles. The tree’s microbes can then precipitate this soluble gold back into solid, nanosized particles.” This gold dust, however, cannot be seen with the naked eye, and the nanoparticles […] are far too small to be collected for commercial use.
[…]
[Researchers] collected 138 needle samples from 23 spruce trees on a satellite mineral deposit of the Kittilä gold mine in Finland. In four trees, gold nanoparticles were found inside the needles, surrounded by bacterial biofilms. [“]screening for such bacteria in plant leaves may facilitate gold exploration[“]
Another ongoing study is looking at similar processes in aquatic mosses, which might help remove minerals from water that’s been contaminated by mining.
lumipunasays
Re: Lynna at 300 (On Trump’s demand to resume nuclear testing):
Based on a Finnish news story I saw, security experts in Europe are confused or uncertain on what he actually meant. Some strongly suspect he actually wanted to test nuclear weapon delivery systems, apparently provoked by some recent such tests conducted by Russia. (As has been noted, Russia or China haven’t tested actual nuclear warheads since ages.) Russia has also tested a nuclear-powered torpedo/sea drone.
I have to say, this theory makes an huge amount sense, except for the minor detail that Trump himself almost certainly missed the difference (as opposed to just being a sloppy communicator, as usual), and now perhaps expects to see a video of a nuclear bomb exploding somewhere.
lumipuna @309, I agree. What Trump said about nuclear testing was confusing. And it is highly likely that Trump himself is confused and has no real idea concerning what is actually going on when it comes to Russian testing of delivery systems.
In other news: Trump renovates bathrooms as his team ramps up the military machine
Video is 10:53 minutes. https://www.msnbc.com/all
Trump says he’ll fund SNAP if courts give more clarity
Video is 4:31 minutes. https://www.msnbc.com/all
The first video listed in comment 310 includes Chris Hayes discussing Trump’s attacks against Venezuela. Lot’s of big and new threats of military use, plus even more snippets of Trump walking back some of the threats he issued earlier. I don’t think Trump remembers what he said before.
Marco Rubio and Hegseth seem to be more involved than Trump.
Trump, in the meantime posted six times about redecorating the Lincoln bathroom in the White House with marble and gold. Trump posted 24 pictures of his bathroom renovation.
JD Vance has claimed that Christian settlers ended child sacrifice when they came to the “new world”, prompting fierce debate online.
Speaking during a Turning Point USA event on Wednesday (29 October), the vice president said: “When the settlers came to the new world they found very widespread child sacrifice”, later adding that ending the practice was “one of the great accomplishments of Christian civilization”.
JD Vance was speaking at a Turning Point USA even where he played at debating students like Charlie Kirk used to. I will give him some respect for fielding random questions from students for several hours, that part isn’t easy. He botched a couple of answers though. The one making the news is his comment that he hopes his wife converts to Christianity. I think the above bit is more offensive because it builds on the common Christian lie of claiming their opponents sacrificed children.
On Friday evening, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sent out a memo announcing a new restriction on press access in the West Wing. According to the memo, members of the White House press corps will now be restricted from accessing the area known as “upper press” without an appointment.
The move comes amid extensive changes to the Washington press corps under President Trump. At the White House, the Trump administration has taken the unprecedented steps of choosing partisan, right-wing organizations to fill seats in the briefing room for daily press conferences and to join the pool reporters who accompany the president to events. Those tasks had long been the domain of the White House Correspondents Association. Some of the reporters who are not part of the hand-picked, partisan element have been subject to insults from top White House staffers.
The changes echo others at the Pentagon, where recent restrictions on the press have been even more dramatic. Reporters there were asked to sign a pledge vowing not to gather information that has not been authorized for release. That move led several news organizations — including prominent conservative news outlets — to vacate the facility. They were summarily replaced by a slew of hand-selected media figures that include conspiracy theorists and extremists.
One White House correspondent who spoke to TPM on Friday said the new restrictions in upper press were a sign of worse things to come in the West Wing.
“They already kicked all the legitimate news organizations out of the Pentagon. Now they want to do the same thing [at the White House],” said the correspondent, who requested anonymity to offer a candid assessment.
Traditionally, White House press pass holders have been able to have relatively free access to several areas of the complex, including the press workspaces adjoining the briefing room, the briefing room itself, and the North Lawn, where TV networks film standups and reporters often question officials as they enter the building. Along with these areas, reporters with hard passes can enter an area behind the briefing room podium known as “lower press” as well as “upper press,” which is located one floor above. While lower press contains the offices of relatively junior press aides, upper press includes the offices of the press secretary and communications director. Reporters stake out upper press when they are seeking to speak to these more senior aides.
Accessing upper press requires going by a Secret Service checkpoint where your hard pass must be displayed. […]
The memo from Cheung and Leavitt attributed the new restrictions to “recent structural changes to the National Security Council.”
“The White House is now responsible for directing all communications, including on all national security matters,” the memo said. “In this capacity, members of the White House Communications Staff are routinely engaging with sensitive material.”
The memo said the new limits would “ensure adherence to best practices pertaining to access to sensitive material.” It also noted reporters will “continue to freely engage with White House Press Aides in the Lower Press Area outside of the Briefing Room.”
Cheung did not respond […] He also did not address questions about the pattern of insults, indignities, and increased partisanship in the White House press shop.
In a win for the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to reshape Congress by forcing red states to engage in mid-decade gerrymandering, the Ohio Redistricting Commission approved a new congressional map on Friday.
The map was approved in a 7-0 vote by both Democrats and Republicans on the commission. Earlier this week Democrats were pressured to accept a bipartisan agreement on a map that favors Republicans to prevent Republicans from passing an even more gerrymandered map.
Both the commission and the state’s General Assembly have a Republican majority. If the commission had been unable to approve a new map in advance of the 2026 elections, the Republican-led General Assembly would have the authority to do so, likely resulting in a map that hurts Dems more than the bipartisan version.
As it stands now, Ohio has 15 congressional seats, 10 of which are Republican and five of which are Democrat. The new map will flip two districts currently held by Democrats, for Republicans.
So far, North Carolina, Missouri, and Texas have all approved new gerrymandered maps, quickly caving to pressure from the Trump White House to redraw maps to ensure Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections.
“Trump Throws Literal, Actual ‘Great Gatsby’ Halloween Party As Food Aid Runs Out For Families Nationwide”
In the photo of Trump’s remodeled bathroom off the Lincoln Bedroom, the bathroom looks like a slip-and-fall hazard to me. And, of course, there is a gaudy chandelier.
The article also includes a photo of Trump’s Great Gatsby/Roaring 20s-themed party at Mar-a-Lago.
A line from The Great Gatsby:
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
[…] Another program that will be forced to shutter in states across the country is Head Start, which provides free learning programs, health screenings and meals to young children from low-income families. Over 130 Head Start programs that serve almost 59,000 children around the nation did not receive their federal funding on Saturday and will close their doors if they cannot find alternative funding for the duration of the shutdown.
[…] Senate Democratic leaders say that they won’t vote alongside GOP lawmakers to reopen the government without some kind of deal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, which expire at the end of the year.
On Saturday, open enrollment for health insurance plans under the ACA — which cover more than 24 million Americans — began, revealing to customers how much their premiums could spike next year without an extension of the subsidies.
[…] Those price hikes, combined with the expiration of enhanced subsidies, could lead to premiums jumping by 114% on average for Americans using the ACA and could lead to millions of people going uninsured over the next eight years.
Americans traveling by air this weekend could experience delays in transit due to staffing shortages at airports after air traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration workers received their first zero-dollar paycheck earlier this week. […]
If congressional lawmakers don’t find a way to reopen the government by Wednesday — the 36th day of the government’s closure — the ongoing shutdown will set a record for being the longest government shutdown in history. It would surpass the shutdown that began on Dec. 22, 2018, during Trump’s first term, and lasted 35 days.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are still on an extended paid vacation as they have not returned to Washington D.C. to work. The government shutdown does not prevent representatives from working. Republicans just chose not to work.
“Years after the reign of Warren Jeffs, the Short Creek community on the Utah-Arizona border is focused on rebuilding. Missed vaccines were low on the list of priorities, until now.”
HILDALE, Utah — Few people talk about vaccinations here. Not to outsiders, anyway.
By and large, the people who live in Hildale, as well as in neighboring Colorado City, just across the state border in Arizona, are fiercely private. High walls surround many of the homes to avoid the prying eyes of strangers.
Measles got in anyway.
As of Friday, 161 cases had been confirmed in Utah and Arizona, the bulk concentrated right along the border in the twin towns collectively known as Short Creek. Eleven people — eight in Utah and three in Arizona — were hospitalized.
It’s now become the site of the second largest measles outbreak in the U.S. this year, behind the outbreak that extended from West Texas into New Mexico, which sickened at least 862 people and killed three. Two were young girls.
Vaccination rates have fallen precipitously in both outbreak areas in recent years and, from the outside, the two have similarities. Both outbreaks took hold in communities that are deeply skeptical of government intervention and mainstream medicine. And both outbreaks largely impacted people with strong ties to religious sects: Mennonites in West Texas and (mostly former) members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) in Short Creek.
But the Short Creek community is also grappling with its recent past — one of polygamy, child removal and a cultlike leader now imprisoned for the sexual assault of minors.
[…] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints outlawed polygamy more than 100 years ago. Some members, however, continued to believe that multiple wives benefited men in the afterlife and broke away, becoming the FLDS. One of the places where members settled was Short Creek.
[…] The practice prompted two federal government raids in Short Creek — one in 1953 and another in 2008. Both times, government officials forcibly took children away from their families temporarily in an attempt to determine whether kids were being abused or neglected.
Children were returned, but the trauma endured. “That made a lot of us FLDS kids very scared of police officers,” said Gloria Steed, who was 14 years old during the 2008 raid. “Afterward, we were extremely hesitant about being told what to do.”
[…] Still, there was never a specific religious mandate against the shots, Jessop said. She was vaccinated as a child. (No major religions expressly oppose vaccinations.)
Things changed, Jessop and other former FLDS members said, in 2002. That’s the year Warren Jeffs, the now-incarcerated cultlike leader, became their prophet. An FLDS prophet is considered to be the direct voice of God. He often has dozens of wives.
Briell Decker, Jeffs’ 65th wife, said he spread lies about immunizations.
He “said that vaccines are bad and have stuff in them that makes it so you can’t have children,” Decker, who has since left the FLDS lifestyle, said. The ability to procreate and have lots and lots of babies is critical to keep the community going, Decker and other former members said.
Jeffs exerted more control over the Short Creek community than previous prophets, ex-FLDS members said. He took ownership of their land and homes, they said, even reassigning wives and children to different husbands and fathers, breaking apart families and stripping them of the ability to contact one another.
[…] Jeffs restricted access to the town’s medical clinics for people he deemed unworthy before shutting the health care system down altogether.
Jeffs was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List before he was arrested in 2006. He is serving life in prison for sexual assault of minors within the FLDS community.
[…] now that measles is spreading through the Short Creek community, folks appear to be embracing vaccines. Jessop, the Hildale mayor, said there’s been a “sharp rise” in vaccinations since the outbreak began.
David Heaton, a spokesperson for the Southwest Utah Public Health Department, said the area saw a 14% increase in vaccinations during July through September of this year, compared to the same time period in 2024.
“Beijing agreed this week to suspend its latest round of rare earth export restrictions for one year, a delay that applies to the EU as well as the U.S.”
China confirmed that its suspension of export controls on rare earths will extend to the EU, the bloc’s trade chief Maroš Šefčovič said early Saturday.
Beijing agreed this week to delay its latest round of rare earth export restrictions for one year, following a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday. This prompted the EU to swiftly seek assurances that the suspension would also cover the bloc.
“China confirmed that the suspension of the October export controls applies to the EU,” Šefčovič wrote on X Saturday morning. “Both sides reaffirmed commitment to continue engagement on improving the implementation of export control policies,” he added.
China has tightened its grip on critical minerals, expanding export controls on rare earths and other materials vital to the clean-tech and defense industries. The EU, which relies on China for almost 99 percent of its rare earth supply, has been scrambling to reduce its dependency.
[…] Šefčovič also said that he envisioned a “common purchase of critical raw materials” by the EU. “We can do the bidding on behalf of the biggest trading bloc in the world, which is the European Union, and to get the critical raw materials for a better price,” the EU trade chief said.
Beijing’s export controls have rattled markets and snarled supply chains, with European companies facing long delays and sharp price increases due to shortages of raw materials. The European Commission hustled to secure its own supplies of rare earth magnets and to launch a plan to diversify Europe’s supply chain by the end of the year.
“The EU welcomed China’s 12-month suspension of the relevant export controls published on 9 October 2025,” European Commission spokesperson Olof Gill said in a statement. “This is an appropriate and responsible step in the context of ensuring stable global trade flows in a critically important area.” […]
“New PM will help lead the country’s push to become an EU member.”
Alexandru Munteanu was sworn in as Moldova’s prime minister on Saturday during a ceremony attended by President Maia Sandu and the speaker of parliament, Igor Grosu.
Munteanu, a 61-year-old economist who has worked at the World Bank and Moldova’s National Bank, is taking political office for the first time to help lead his country’s push for EU membership.
Moldova’s parliament appointed Munteanu as prime minister on Friday, after September’s elections gave Sandu’s ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) a decisive victory over its pro-Russian rivals. [Good news!]
“We have a unique opportunity to become the government that will bring Moldova into the European Union,” Munteanu said on Friday before the vote of confidence. The newly elected prime minister won the backing of 55 of the 101 MPs.
[…] The election was marred by what officials described as an “unprecedented” Russian hybrid interference campaign aimed at undermining Moldova’s pro-European drive through disinformation, vote-buying, and attempts to incite unrest, according to national security officials. […]
New York Times: “Daylight saving time ends tomorrow.”
[…] Evening car accidents increase, circadian rhythms reset, the moon’s out before dinner. That space in between is strange and destabilizing until we get used to it.
[…] The stillness of the colder, darker months — that license to hunker — is a time to slow down and observe. What windows of luck and chance and coincidence emerge when we’re a little quieter, a little more observant? I’ll be observing the sun setting an hour earlier tomorrow […]
Wikipedia:
Daylight saving time, also referred to as daylight savings time, daylight time, or summer time, is the practice of advancing clocks to make better use of the longer daylight available during summer so that darkness falls at a later clock time. […]
Information from other sources, including The Hill:
Daylight Savings Time (DST) will not be permanent in 2025, and the U.S. will continue to “fall back” to standard time on November 2, 2025. Although a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act was passed by the Senate in 2022 to make DST permanent, it did not clear the House of Representatives and has stalled again in Congress in 2025 […]
The time change will still happen: On Sunday, November 2, 2025, at 2 a.m., clocks will “fall back” one hour.
Yes, you get an extra hour of sleep in November because clocks “fall back” for the end of Daylight Saving Time (DST). In 2025, this happens on Sunday, November 2nd, when clocks move back from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. local time.
The original and “real” reason for daylight saving time was to save energy during World War I by shifting an hour of daylight to the evening, which conserved fuel for things like lighting and power. The concept, proposed earlier by Benjamin Franklin, was officially enacted in the U.S. in 1918 and later reinstituted to help with wartime efforts during WWII.
[…] Trump has finally appealed his New York state conviction in his hush-money case, where he was found guilty on 34 felony counts.
It’s a 111-page screed no one needs to read, really. By now, we all know Trump’s argument, always and forever, is that the Supreme Court’s immunity decision is a magic shield that applies to everything. Yes, this guilty verdict in the New York state case came before Chief Justice John Roberts gave Trump the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card, and yes, it’s hard to see how that immunity would cover Trump’s hush-money deal, which happened before he was president […]
Trump has got to be furious that these convictions still exist after he was able to get everything else wiped out. The problem for Trump is that this is in a New York state court, so he’s got no way to make his big Supreme Court friends take care of it or have his pet Department of Justice appointees make it disappear. Instead, he’ll just have his lawyers scream at the New York appeals court about how he’s untouchable and see what happens. […]
Is it good when so many people think you should be out of a job?
A bipartisan group of former federal judges and U.S. attorneys filed a joint amicus brief in support of former FBI Director James Comey’s motions to dismiss his criminal case.
According to the filing, the installation of Trump’s new favorite U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, was not to do justice but to “pursue retribution against President Trump’s perceived political opponents.”
The filing also addressed that whole not-legally-appointed thing that Halligan is also facing, saying that Trump’s temporary-appointment shenanigans with Halligan “ensure[ed] that the Senate did not have the opportunity to scrutinize his selection.”
In case you’re wondering if these folks pulled any punches: “If this Court allows the indictment against Mr. Comey to proceed, it will ratify the President’s decision to breach the barricades created by the structure of the Constitution itself, in order to amass excessive and inappropriate power. This indictment is an embodiment of the creeping ‘accumulation of all powers’ which leads to tyranny.“ […]
Illegal firings for everyone!
By now, Solicitor General John Sauer must have a macro on his computer so that he can quickly whip up requests that the Supreme Court sweep away any lower-court decisions that make Trump sad.
In Trump’s 31st emergency application since January [!], he wants the court to let him fire Shira Perlmutter, the head of the copyright office, whom he briefly removed before a lower court reinstated her. But why should he listen to them when he has the conservative justices on speed dial?
Surely, it’s a coincidence he tried to fire her after her office issued a report that said AI companies hoovering up copyright data might not always be legal. [!]
Sauer’s argument to the Supreme Court, such as it is, boils down to this: You already let Trump illegally fire a bunch of other people, so you have to let him fire Perlmutter too. […]
DOJ deeply regrets the error. No, really. Stop laughing!
In the litigation over whether Trump can deploy troops to Portland, Oregon, the administration got lucky at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals when a three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that if Trump thinks a city is on fire, it’s on fire, facts be damned.
However, the administration just had to correct a rather large-ish error.
The 9th Circuit’s ruling rested heavily on a declaration from Robert Cantu of the Federal Protective Service, which provides security for federal buildings like immigration detention centers.
Cantu told the lower court, “To date, 115 FPS officers have had to deploy to Portland to maintain a 24/7 operational tempo.” Those 115 FPS officers represented nearly a quarter of the FPS, so surely you can see how dire things are in Portland?
The two Trump appointees on the panel ate this up, mentioning it multiple times in their ruling staying the lower court’s order blocking Trump from deploying troops.
One problem: It appears to have been a lie. Oregon filed a letter saying the administration had provided discovery—after the appellate court’s favorable decision—showing there were never more than 31 FPS personnel in Portland at a given time.
In response, the administration couldn’t help but inflate the numbers in a different way, saying that 86 individuals were deployed in total, 65 of whom were personnel providing building protection, and gosh, some must have been double-counted.
This is still wildly disingenuous [!]. The administration’s original contention was not that 115 total FPS personnel had been sent to Portland over time, but that FPS was forced to surge 115 personnel all at once due to the extreme danger posed by people wearing frog costumes. [!]
[…] The administration is working hard to spin these numbers, but all they really managed to do is get the 9th Circuit to agree to reconsider the case en banc. Now they get to try to convince 11 appellate judges to buy this ever-shifting math.
Florida’s New College bends the knee before it’s even asked
Remember the higher-education compact that the Trump administration graciously offered to nine universities, many of which it had previously targeted with sham investigations and the arbitrary withholding of federal grants?
Under the compact, schools could get more federal money if they just took the wee-little step of letting the administration basically run their school. […]
Seven of those nine have rejected it, while Vanderbilt is mushy and the University of Texas at Austin remains interested in bootlicking.
But over in Florida, they are so hyped to do this that they didn’t even need to be invited. New College, once a top school in the state, has been brought low by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and creeps like far-right activist Christopher Rufo. Now that they run the place, the school’s ratings have tanked, and almost 40% of the faculty have left, but hey, at least they will soon have a statue of right-wing bigot Charlie Kirk.
On Monday, New College issued a press release explaining that it has done most of the things the compact requires without even being asked. The school eliminated diversity initiatives and shuttered departments that right-wingers don’t like. They did, however, keep one form of affirmative action: hiring conservatives for administrative roles they are in no way qualified to do.
Since they were willing to do all this trash for free, why not sign the compact and get paid? Congrats on another great achievement, New College.
Ukraine’s military intelligence has put the Ring oil pipeline in Moscow region out of service. On Oct 31 all three lines carrying gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel were struck and exploded. The 400 km pipeline supplied refineries in Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow
Russia struck Ukrainian nuclear power plant substations for the first time since December 2024 on 30 October, with damage indicating Russian energy experts including from Rosatom were involved in planning the attacks, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said.
Russian strikes on October 30 damaged substations vital to nuclear safety, causing South Ukraine and Khmelnitsky plants to lose one external power line each while Rivne plant reduced two reactor units, IAEA reported.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) ripped the Heritage Foundation on Friday, as conservatives clash over the organization’s continued embrace of Tucker Carlson in the wake of his friendly interview this week with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
“Last I checked, ‘conservatives should feel no obligation’ to carry water for antisemites and apologists for America-hating autocrats,” McConnell, the former Republican Senate majority leader, wrote in a post on X. “But maybe I just don’t know what time it is…”
There are some inside politics going on here, which is why the Heritage foundation felt like stepping in. Carlson had been opposed to Fuentes as an outright antisemitic fascist, which Fuentes is. However Carlson finally caved to Fuentes’s popularity and gave him a friendly interview. The Heritage foundation is trying to provide friendly cover for the action, pretending that the Republicans still object to Fuentes’s positions but oppose cancelling him so it’s fine they are providing publicity to an outright fascist. McConnell is not antisemitic enough to accept this.
🇨🇦🇺🇦 Canada has filed a lawsuit to seize a Russian Antonov An-124 cargo plane that has been parked at Toronto International Airport since February 2022.
Canada sent $10 million to help repair Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Canada is speeding $70 million payment to Energy Support Fund.
“Conservatives Shocked, Shocked To Find Nazis In This Establishment”
The modern Right in America has been playing footsie with Nazis for years. Decades, even. […Journalists and political scientists and historians and everyone else to the left of, say, Lindsay Graham has been screaming about it and documenting it for so long that we can’t remember a time when they weren’t. […]
So imagine our huge fucking surprise to see, just this week, certain conservatives realize that Holy shit, our movement is playing footsie with Nazis! […]
The inciting incident occurred on Monday, when Tucker Carlson hosted Nazi eunuch Nick Fuentes on his podcast. The two men proceeded to have a lovely chat about all sorts of topics, such as all the ways Fuentes’s feelings have been hurt by people thinking he’s antisemitic just because he’s engaged in a little Holocaust denial and said repeatedly that Jews control American media. In his mind, the conservatives accusing him of such calumnies are just being mean and unfair. […]
Tucker nodded along in sympathy and questioned Fuentes on some of his rhetoric. He also suggested Fuentes ignore some of the people accusing him of white supremacy. Hey, Tucker’s been accused of all that stuff too, and he just lets it roll off his back because people are afraid of the truth, or something.
Basically, the entire conversation comes off as Tucker counseling Fuentes on how to be more subtle with the white supremacy, so that your fellow travelers can pretend not to notice, branding you as a passionate conservative until you’re already ensconced in your cozy primetime slot on Fox News. Then you can let the old freak flag fly. […]
Quite a few people on the Right were mad that Tucker would give Fuentes such a huge platform to espouse his beliefs […] The conservative movement writ large has been working hard to keep Fuentes and his gazillion young groyper followers out, and here is Tucker throwing open the gate and welcoming the young Nazi with a firm handshake and some manly advice about living your truth.
Some of these same conservatives started loudly demanding that the Heritage Foundation […] denounce the interview and distance itself from Carlson, with whom it has a generally friendly relationship.
On Thursday, Heritage head fanatic Kevin Roberts posted a video in which he said that Heritage would do no such thing. Furthermore, the group would not be denouncing Fuentes, because it does not believe in “canceling” people for their views. Instead, Roberts said, Heritage has always invited “robust debate,” and is not going to stop now: [video]
“Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic.”
We’re sure Roberts will extend that same grace to Jews and Muslims who critique Israel. Especially college students: The Right is famous for cutting them some slack when they have protested Israel’s actions in Gaza the last couple of years.
“The venomous coalition attacking [Tucker] are sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail. Most importantly, the American people expect us to be focusing on our political adversaries on the Left, not attacking our friends on the Right.”
And there it is. The antisemitic camel hasn’t just gotten its nose into the tent, it has gotten in its whole hump. “Antisemitism,” the writer John Ganz wrote in response to Fuentes and Carlson, “is no longer treated as an obscenity, […] but as an opinion like any other, subject to polite disagreement.”
[…] watch conservative “thinkers” absolutely flip the fuck out, pronouncing themselves shocked, SHOCKED WE TELL YOU, to discover that the conservative movement for which they have humiliated themselves all their lives actually might hate them. [video]
[…] This is particularly funny coming from Bethany Mandel, who a few years ago wrote a piece for The Forward titled “We Need to Start Befriending Neo Nazis,” the thrust of which was exactly what it sounds like. [social media posts]
Man, Trump once hosted Fuentes for dinner at Mar-a-Lago, along with known antisemite Ye. […] His only concern is with people sucking up to him. If Fuentes tells Trump he’s the greatest president in history, Trump will let him say all the vile antisemitic shit he wants.
By the time Friday night rolled around, Roberts was posting nonapology apologies, and the staff of the Heritage Foundation was reportedly rebelling.
The American Right has never fully purged its antisemitic element. Why would they? It has always been a question of aesthetics anyway. Keeping us far away from the country clubs? Genteel antisemitism. Screaming at the top of their lungs on podcasts and at rallies about how the Jews are a “perfidious” people who should be banned from America? Gauche antisemitism. […]
the antisemitism coming from fascists has been marching steadily into the Republican mainstream for decades, as many people keep pointing out. […]
Maybe some of these jackasses will start re-examining where all their anti-George Soros tropes come from, though we doubt it.
the entanglement between hominids and lead stretches back nearly two million years […] By examining lead isotopes in fossilized teeth and testing the effects of lead on lab-grown brain organoids carrying archaic genes, the team has reconstructed a forgotten ecological drama: ancient hominids repeatedly exposed to toxic metals in their environments—and possibly evolving in response to them.
In a sense, this is a story about adaptation to poison. Fossil teeth from Australopithecus africanus, Paranthropus robustus, early Homo, Neanderthals, and Homo sapiens all bear the same microscopic “lead bands” […] These bands record episodic uptake of lead, sometimes from contaminated soil or volcanic ash, sometimes from groundwater running through metal-rich strata.
[…]
Each band captured a window of exposure that could last weeks or months, suggesting that hominid children were intermittently ingesting lead through water, food, or dust. The timing of these exposures often corresponded to seasonal stress periods […] The researchers propose that physiological stress may have mobilized lead stored in bone tissue, releasing it back into circulation. In this sense, lead exposure was not just environmental but also internal, reactivated within the body’s own reservoir of toxic memory. […] [Species] separated by hundreds of thousands of years and thousands of kilometers, carried the same signature.
a month-by-month look at rainfall during the last centuries of the Classic period. By studying a stalagmite from a cave in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula […] Like the concentric circles of a tree stump, stalagmites grow in layers […] While previous studies have used lake sediments and other speleothems to establish a link between drought and the Maya collapse, this new research offers a more granular perspective.
[…]
between 870 and 1100 C.E., the Yucatán experienced at least eight multiyear droughts, one of which stretched for an unprecedented 13 consecutive years. This was far more than a simple dry spell. Maize, the staple crop of the Maya, is particularly sensitive to changes in the rainy season. A short drought might cause supply issues, but the extreme droughts documented in this study could have dropped crop yields to a tenth of their normal levels.
[…]
While Uxmal appears to have been abandoned at the end of this period, another major city, Chichén Itzá, continued to prosper for a time. [“]Chichén Itzá had a wide range of trade networks and was highly centralized, which would have allowed for the accumulation or importation of resources in times of scarcity.” The resilience of some cities over others highlights the fact that climate was not the sole cause of the collapse. Rather, it was a critical factor that exacerbated existing social, political, and economic vulnerabilities. A society dependent on rain-fed agriculture simply could not sustain a large population through years of chronic drought.
However, some scholars argue […] the Maya were more resourceful and resilient than this. “There is a marked difference between the food plants available during moderate and extreme drought. While most annual species will not produce enough, a wide variety of nutritious perennial food plants would.”
[…]
Ultimately, the new research provides a powerful tool […] a detailed, chronological record of ancient rainfall
birgerjohanssonsays
South Park:
JD Vance, continues to plot with co-conspirator Peter Thiel, who is keeping a demonically possessed Eric Cartman on ice.
ASA’s flagship center for space science is under attack from within, and some of the biggest losses appear to be happening behind the curtain of the government shutdown.
Throughout the summer of 2025, Space.com interviewed nearly a dozen current and former NASA workers and reviewed several internal agency communications in an investigation into allegations of unlawful activity by NASA leadership — allegations supported in a recent report by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The conclusion: NASA has been prematurely and illegally implementing the President’s 2026 budget request before Congress finalizes funding. Space agency officials vehemently dispute this claim.
Plus :
It’s a perception shared by many Goddard employees. “Claire,” who asked that her real name remain anonymous for fear of retribution, is a climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) — a branch of the Maryland campus that, until earlier this year, occupied a building on the Columbia University campus in New York City. While her primary focus is on climate science, Claire’s official title is Research Physical Scientist. She referred to “climate” as the “c-word,” and a term she and her colleagues constantly felt the need to talk around, rather than say outright.
Also
“It does feel like there is an overlap between the political party in charge of your NASA center and how your NASA center is faring right now,” Claire said. “Goddard is a science-based center with a lot of engineers, and a lot of their missions are canceled out (in the President’s budget request). It’s taking a huge hit to the civil service workforce. It does feel like Goddard is now being singled out.”
In response to this article, NASA officials denied this claim, insisting the agency remains apolitical when considering things like resource allocations across different centers.
[…] our leaders are not coming to terms with the facts.
The numbers speak for themselves. In the fiscal year that just ended on Sept. 30 — the last date for which the federal government was funded — the deficit was largely unchanged from its fiscal 2024 level: $1.8 trillion. In other words, despite the Trump administration’s focus on cost cutting in the federal government and all the additional revenue coming from tariffs, the deficit is still as large as it was a year ago.
All told, federal spending from January 2025 to September 2025 is up about 2% from the same period in 2024. You might wonder how that is possible, given that the government (when it was funded) has operated under the same discretionary spending levels as last year, as well as high-profile Trump administration activities such as the Department of Government Efficiency effort, downsizing of the federal workforce, the abolition of the U.S. Agency for International Development and the forthcoming closure of the Department of Education. Two words: mandatory spending.
The largest mandatory spending programs are Social Security and Medicare. Others include things such as Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act subsidies, safety-net programs such as SNAP and Supplemental Security Income, and various other programs such as student loans and some veterans’ benefits. These programs don’t require regular review by Congress, and they grow automatically for a variety of reasons, such as higher enrollment or higher costs.
[…] Since January, the federal government has spent $5.2 trillion — about $100 billion more than it spent from January through September of 2024. Spending on Social Security — the largest federal program — grew by $96 billion; Medicare spending grew by $58 billion; and spending on other federal health programs, including Medicaid, grew by a combined $46 billion. Discretionary spending, which Congress decides on annually through the appropriations process, grew as well, largely due to increases in defense ($19 billion) and the discretionary portion of veterans’ benefits ($27 billion). And do not forget about interest on the national debt, which grew by $63 billion.
[…] To get borrowing under control, we’ll need to cut spending, increase revenue or some combination of the two (ideally along with economic growth). The reconciliation law put in place significant spending cuts, largely achieved through smart savings such as cracking down on abusive financing practices that states use to exploit Medicaid’s formula for matching funds. But those cuts were more than drowned out by massive tax cuts […] as well as increases in spending for defense and border security. That mismatch will increase interest costs as well. As a result, that law will cut total spending through 2034 only by about $400 billion — compared to $86 trillion in spending during the same period. […]
Americans should be concerned with the dismal state of our fiscal situation. It will take tough choices and trade-offs to slow the growth in spending or otherwise raise revenue to the point that our national borrowing is sustainable. Ideally, our leaders would do that before it is too late.
President Donald Trump on Saturday said he has instructed the Defense Department to “prepare for possible action” in Nigeria over the country’s alleged killing of Christians.
“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump wrote on social media.
Idle threat at this point but a weird one. It isn’t an issue that Trump cares about, so how did this idea get planted? Did somebody he talked too raise this issue? There are some evangelicals that he has talked too that could have raised it. Is it something he saw on Fox news?
I have seen some suggestions on social media as too why but they don’t make a lot of sense. At this point it’s better chalked up to a random grandpa moment then anything.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said late Saturday that U.S. forces struck an alleged drug vessel in the Caribbean and killed three after a string of similar strikes in the region in recent weeks.
“Today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out a lethal kinetic strike on another narco-trafficking vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO) in the Caribbean,” Hegseth said in a post on the social platform X.
[…] Since early September, the Trump administration has directed the Defense Department to carry out strikes against alleged drug smuggling, killing upwards of 64 people in international waters. There have also been strikes in the East Pacific.
Americans largely oppose these operations. On Thursday, Democratic and Republican lawmakers were given a classified briefing on the strikes. Many left the meeting both irritated and frustrated.
House Armed Services Committee Democrats said they weren’t satisfied by the briefing and that they were unsure on the operations’ legality as well as the administration’s “end game.”
“Our job is to oversee the use of lethal force by our military outside of the United States, and I’m walking away without an understanding of how and why they’re making an assessment that the use of lethal force is [appropriate] here.” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) told reporters in the wake of the briefing.[…]
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. – Lynna, OM quoting The Great Gatsby@315
Unfortunately, Trump has no intention of letting anyone clean up the mess he is making.
Suspicious drones spotted above Belgian military bases over the weekend are meant to spy on fighter jets and ammunition, Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said Sunday.
“They [the drones] come to spy, to see where the F-16s are, where the ammunition are, and other highly strategic information,” he told Belgian outlet RTBF.
Francken earlier Sunday announced that an investigation was launched after reports of unmanned aerial vehicles flying over the Kleine Brogel military base in northern Belgium.
The base is key to Belgium’s defense and includes an American presence. That’s where Belgium’s U.S.-made nuclear-capable F-16 fighter jets are currently stationed, and where F-35s will be located as well.
This weekend’s incident is one of many recently in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe. In the past weeks, Russian drones were intercepted and shot down over Poland. Another Russian drone was tracked over Romania and drones of unknown origin — but with high suspicion toward Russia — disrupted air traffic at airports in Denmark, Norway and Germany.
Francken stopped short of attributing the latest drone incursions in Belgium to Moscow, but he hinted there were few other obvious culprits. “The Russians are trying to do this in all European countries,” he told RTBF. “Is it the Russians now? I can’t say that, but the motives are clear and the ways of doing things like this are also very clear,” he said
.
“War is truly a drone war, and the Defense Department really needs to prepare for that,” Francken added.
The Belgian defense minister is expected to present next week a €50 million plan to deploy a national counter-drone system. Speaking on Radio 1, he previously said the package will fund detection systems, jammers and drone guns to protect key installations.
[…] legal immigrants typically face an in-depth vetting process that can start years before they set foot on U.S. soil.
[…] the federal government provides resources such as financial assistance, Medicaid, and SNAP, outreach that has typically garnered bipartisan support. Now the Trump administration has pulled back the country’s decades-long support for refugee communities.
The budget law, which funds several of the president’s priorities, including tax cuts to wealthy Americans and border security, revokes refugees’ access to Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for people with low incomes or disabilities, starting in October 2026.
[…] one of the first provisions to take effect under the law removes SNAP eligibility for most refugees, asylum seekers, trafficking and domestic violence victims, and other legal immigrants. About 90,000 people will lose SNAP in an average month as a result of the new restrictions narrowing which noncitizens can access the program, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“It doesn’t get much more basic than food,” said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization that supports U.S. refugees.
“Our government invited these people to rebuild their lives in this country with minimum support,” Soerens said. “Taking food away from them is wrong.”
Not Just a Handout
[…] Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for reduced levels of immigration to the U.S., said cuts to SNAP eligibility are reasonable because foreign-born people and their young children disproportionately use public benefits.
Still, Camarota said, the refugee population is different from other immigrant groups. “I don’t know that this would be the population I would start with,” Camarota said. “It’s a relatively small population of people that we generally accept have a lot of need.”
[…] In addition to the budget law’s SNAP changes, financial assistance given to people entering the U.S. by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a part of HHS, has been cut from one year to four months.
The HHS report also found that despite the initial costs of caring for refugees and asylees, this community contributed $123.8 billion more to federal, state, and local governments through taxes than they received in public benefits over the 15 years.
It’s in the country’s best interest to continue to support them, said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a nonprofit refugee resettlement agency.
“This is not what we should think about as a handout,” she said. “We know that when we support them initially, they go on to not just survive but thrive.” […]
“Saturday Night Live” was focused on the heated electoral contest in the true capital of the world: New York City.
This weekend’s “S.N.L.” broadcast, hosted by Miles Teller and featuring the musical guest Brandi Carlile, began with a satirical debate among the three major candidates for mayor, played by Teller and two former “S.N.L.” hosts.
Teller was cast as Andrew M. Cuomo, the former governor of New York and an independent candidate for mayor. In his opening remarks, Teller said, “I got us through Covid and then, yada yada yada, honk honk, squeeze squeeze [with illustrative hand gestures]. Anyway I’m back.” He added that as mayor he would bring a familiarity with New York: “I know this city like the back of a woman’s back,” Teller said. “Mamma mia!”
Ramy Youssef, the comedian and actor, played Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic front-runner. He said he was happy to be there and “ready to spend the next hour hearing my opponents pronounce my name in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine.”
[…] Gillis said he was the best candidate, offering apologies to “Mr. Cuomo and — I believe I’m saying this right — Zoltar Rob Zombie.”
Kenan Thompson, playing the moderator, Errol Louis, asked the candidates why they would want “the worst job in the world.”
Teller answered, “As soon as you are elected mayor, everyone in the city immediately hates you. And in that way, I am already one step ahead of the game.”
[…] before the candidates could answer a question about the biggest problem they would have to confront as mayor, they were interrupted by James Austin Johnson in his recurring role as President Trump, who entered triumphantly, declaring, “It’s me!”
After roasting the mayoral candidates and giving his own go-to bagel order (“Big Mac with a hole in the middle”), Johnson said that though he no longer lives in New York, “I’m always watching — lurking in the shadows, much like the late, great Phantom of the Opera.”
Then he concluded by donning a “Phantom” mask and singing a surprisingly tuneful version of “The Music of the Night.” [Videos available at the link. Video’s also available on YouTube ] […]
“Inside the Data Centers That Train A.I. and Drain the Electrical Grid”
“A data center, which can use as much electricity as Philadelphia, is the new American factory, creating the future and propping up the economy. How long can this last?” by Stephen Witt
Drive in almost any direction from almost any American city, and soon enough you’ll arrive at a data center—a giant white box rising from graded earth, flanked by generators and fenced like a prison yard. Data centers for artificial intelligence are the new American factory. Packed with computing equipment, they absorb information and emit A.I. Since the launch of ChatGPT, in 2022, they have begun to multiply at an astonishing rate. “I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time,” Sam Altman, the C.E.O. of OpenAI, recently said.
The leading independent operator of A.I. data centers in the United States is CoreWeave, which was founded eight years ago […] In 2017, traders at a middling New York hedge fund decided to begin mining cryptocurrency, which they used as the entry fee for their fantasy-football league. To mine the crypto, they bought a graphics-processing unit, a powerful microchip made by the company Nvidia. The G.P.U. was marketed to video gamers, but Nvidia offered software that turned it into a low-budget supercomputer. “It was so successful, from a return-of-capital perspective, that we started scaling it,” Brian Venturo, one of CoreWeave’s co-founders, told me. “If you make your money back in, like, five days, you want to do that a lot.”
Within a year, the traders had quit the hedge-fund business and bought several thousand G.P.U.s, which they ran from Venturo’s grandfather’s garage, in New Jersey. After the cryptocurrency market crashed in 2018, CoreWeave acquired more microchips from insolvent miners. Before long, the firm had built a platform that allowed outside customers to access the G.P.U.s. Then, in 2022, Venturo came upon Stable Diffusion, an image-generation A.I. He fed the A.I. descriptions of different scenes, and it returned accurate, beautiful illustrations. “This is going to enrapture the entire world,” Venturo remembers thinking.
Stable Diffusion had been trained on Nvidia equipment that was similar to CoreWeave’s. Venturo and his co-founders sensed the business opportunity of a lifetime. CoreWeave raised a hundred million dollars, and used almost all of it to buy Nvidia hardware. […] By the middle of 2022, CoreWeave was running a new kind of business, connecting A.I. developers with warehouses full of Nvidia equipment.
Modern data-center construction began in the nineties, with the arrival of the commercial internet. Data centers hosted websites, coördinated e-mail, processed payments, and streamed video and music. […] Even before the A.I. boom, data centers were profitable; in some years, Amazon’s web-services division earned more than the company’s retail operation, on a fraction of the sales.
But the arrival of Nvidia’s G.P.U.s and the onset of large-scale A.I. training transformed the data-center business. ChatGPT launched in November, 2022, and exploded in popularity.[…] Microsoft partnered with OpenAI to provide the data-center capacity that ChatGPT needed to function. When Microsoft couldn’t keep up with the demand, it turned to CoreWeave.
Working with Nvidia hardware has become a status symbol—a sign that one is serious about A.I. Talking with engineers about the equipment […]
Earlier this year, CoreWeave went public. Venturo and his co-founders are now billionaires. The company owns several hundred thousand G.P.U.s, and its platform trains models for Meta and other leading labs, in addition to OpenAI.
This summer, I visited a CoreWeave facility on the outskirts of Las Vegas. […]
I was joined by three CoreWeave engineers, geeks who had adapted to hyper-scale capitalism […] Sean Anderson, a seven-foot-tall former college-basketball center, wore a shirt that read “moar nodes.”
The nodes in question were shallow trays of computing equipment, each weighing around seventy pounds and holding four water-cooled G.P.U.s along with an array of additional gear. Eighteen of these trays are stacked, then connected with cables to a control unit, to form the Nvidia GB300 computing rack, which is a little taller than a refrigerator and costs a few million dollars. In a busy year, a typical rack will use more electricity than a hundred homes. Dozens of them stretched into the distance.
[…] The noise was unholy, as if I’d opened a broom closet and found an active jet engine inside. I watched the blinking lights and the spinning of the fans. “Tinnitus is an occupational hazard,” Conley shouted at me.
[…] I like to hire people that can endure a lot of pain,” Yundt later said. “Endurance athletes, that sort of thing.”
CoreWeave wouldn’t tell me which customer was using its technology that day, although Yundt suggested that the training run we were witnessing was a modest one. […]
CoreWeave’s hardware can train an A.I. from scratch to completion. Software developers, typically at a workstation in Silicon Valley, upload to the data center a file of numbers known as “weights” and a vast array of training data, which might be text or images or medical records or, really, anything at all. In their initial configuration, the weights are random, and the A.I. has no capabilities.
The A.I. is then exposed to a slice of the training data, and asked to offer a prediction about what should ensue—the next few letters in a sentence, say. An untrained A.I. will invariably get this prediction wrong, but at least it will learn what not to do. The weights must be modified to absorb this new piece of information. The math is unwieldy, and is especially dependent on an operation known as matrix multiplication.
[…] matrix multiplication, to which our civilization is now devoting so many of its marginal resources, has all the elegance of a man hammering a nail into a board. […] As the matrices increase in size, the arithmetic requires great computational power to solve. The latest large language models can involve about a trillion individual weights. A weeks-long hero run for such a model can use tens of thousands of G.P.U.s and require ten trillion trillion operations, which is more than the number of observable stars in the universe.
Data centers must coöperate with local electric utilities to manage these training runs. […]
All these microchips, all this electricity, all these fans, all this money, all these data, all these water-cooling pumps and cables—all of it is there to tune the weights, this little file of numbers, which is small enough to fit on an external hard drive. […] The money spent to develop it, and others like it, represents one of the largest deployments of capital in human history.
When the finished product is ready, clones of the weights are distributed to data centers around the country, where they can be accessed through the internet, a process known as “inference.” Users ask questions, prompting the A.I. to produce individual units of intelligence called “tokens.” A token might be a small square of pixels or a fragment of a word. To write a college term paper, an A.I. might produce about five thousand tokens, consuming enough electricity to run a microwave oven at full power for about three minutes. As A.I. fields increasingly complex requests—for video, for audio, for therapy—the need for computing power will increase many times over.
Multiply that by the more than eight hundred million people who use ChatGPT every week, and the data-center explosion makes sense. […]
Microsoft is one of the dominant operators of data centers, and this business has become the primary driver of growth for the American economy. Although the company still makes operating systems and office software, it is investors’ excitement about data centers that has propelled Microsoft to around a four-trillion-dollar valuation, making it the world’s second most valuable firm. Nvidia, which makes microchips that Microsoft uses, is No. 1. […]
after what felt like two hundred phone calls, I was invited to tour an enormous Microsoft data-center campus under construction. I agreed to take no photographs, to leave my phone outside, to limit what I described of the interior, and not to reveal where in the United States the facility was situated. In September, I took a long drive to the middle of nowhere. The data center was surrounded by farmland, and at least three other companies were building data centers in the area. The fields were crisscrossed by a tangle of wires from high-voltage electric towers […]
The exterior of the site did not display any Microsoft branding—or any signage at all. […] a row of numbered sheds. The sheds were white, narrow, tall, and several football fields in length […] Flanking each shed was a row of diesel generators and industrial air-conditioners.
At the time of my visit, there were five sheds, and the plan called for roughly ten. There were construction vehicles everywhere: cherry pickers, earthmovers, trucks carrying spools of cable. […]
Inside, I met with Judy Priest and Steve Solomon, both Microsoft executives; they have spent their professional lives managing warehouse-size computers. Priest, an electrical engineer, is a graduate of M.I.T. […] Solomon, a mechanical engineer, responded to my questions with long, technical monologues. Both seemed thrilled to participate in the new industrial revolution. […]
After donning a pair of steel-toed boots and watching a PowerPoint presentation, I passed through a security checkpoint and into the inner sanctum. The facility was quieter, tidier, and more spacious than the CoreWeave center. Hundreds of identical blinking banks of servers and computing equipment, attached to cooling stations and humming noisily, took up much of the floor. Zip-tied bundles ran along the ceiling: wires for electricity, cables for data, pipes for water and air. The cables connected to a larger bundle of cable, which linked with the other sheds, allowing all of them to act as a single, unified computer. Across all five sheds, the area dedicated to computing was the equivalent of twenty football fields.
Priest explained that an advanced training run could tie up the entire system for a month. […]
Leaving the data center, I found myself desperate for human contact. A half mile down the road, the top of a grain silo peeked out from behind a data-center construction site. I drove through a landscape of gray buildings, irrigation canals, power lines, and verdant fields before arriving at a dusty yard crowded with tractors and pickup trucks. There, I found a fourth-generation alfalfa farmer wearing bluejeans, a plaid shirt, and a baseball cap with a tanker truck embroidered on it.
The farmer gestured to the power lines cutting through his field, which the local utility had installed in the nineteen-forties. “We always considered those things a liability,” he said. “We thought they depressed the value of the land.” But now, he said, access to a power substation was worth a fortune—one of his neighbors claimed that he had sold a plot of farmland to a data-center developer for more than a million dollars an acre, more than the farm would return in a lifetime. Piece by piece, the farmer said, his family was doing the same.
[…] I asked the farmer if he had noticed any environmental effects from living next to the data centers. The impact on the water supply, he told me, was negligible. […] Power is a different story: the farmer said that the local utility was set to hike rates for the third time in three years, with the most recent proposed hike being in the double digits. The biggest loss was the nutrient-rich topsoil, which his family had maintained with careful crop rotations. “Microsoft brought in an excavator and ripped it all out in a day!” he said, as if speaking of a lost heirloom. “Six to ten feet of it, all gone.”
[…] Data centers are beginning to put intense pressure on America’s electrical grid. […] Data centers “are perhaps bigger, by an order of magnitude, than anything we’ve connected to the grid before […]
When a data center comes online, retail customers usually help to foot the electric bill: American utilities sought almost thirty billion dollars in retail rate increases in the first half of 2025. This spring, utilities requested almost double the rate hikes from the same period a year earlier. An analysis by Bloomberg estimated that, in areas near data centers, wholesale electricity costs have risen by more than two hundred per cent in the past five years. […]
Data centers must operate twenty-four hours a day to be economically viable. (The Microsoft facility I visited is permitted five minutes and fifteen seconds of unscheduled downtime per year.) Renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which depend on the weather, can currently meet only a fraction of this demand. Nuclear power won’t save us, either, at least not anytime soon; Hanson said that it would be years before any new large-scale nuclear reactors could be constructed in the U.S. With envy in his voice, he told me, “China is building twenty-six nuclear reactors.”
In the near term, new data centers will largely be powered by fossil fuels. […]
The Earth is now warming at an estimated three-tenths of a degree Celsius per decade—roughly ten times faster than at the end of an ice age. After the last ice age ended, the oceans rose four hundred feet. Adding plants like Homer City—and scores more worldwide—will speed this catastrophic timeline. The Trump Administration has responded by restricting the use of the phrase “climate change” in government communications.
Data centers also cause local pollution. Elon Musk’s xAI has built a natural-gas-powered data center in Memphis, near the Black neighborhood of Boxtown. The area, which already had the highest rate of emergency-room visits for asthma in Tennessee, saw levels of nitrogen dioxide, which exacerbates the condition, spike as much as nine per cent after the plant moved in. Wealthier areas have tried to block the construction of data centers. […]
Data-center construction is projected to represent two to three per cent of U.S. gross domestic product in the coming years. […]
The premise of continued data-center construction is that stuffing more Nvidia chips into the sheds will result in better A.I. So far, this has proved true: the latest generation of A.I. is the most capable ever produced. OpenAI’s GPT-5 can even build other, more primitive A.I.s. Still, it is not an immutable law that more chips equals more intelligence, and researchers are not entirely sure why this scaling effect even exists. “It’s an empirical question whether we will hit a brick wall,” the A.I. pioneer Demis Hassabis has said of scaling. “No one knows.”
It’s also possible that a technological innovation might render hyper-scaling obsolete. Earlier this year, when DeepSeek, a Chinese company, unveiled what seemed to be a more efficient training paradigm for A.I., Nvidia’s stock plummeted, wiping out almost six hundred billion dollars of value in a single day. (It has since recovered.)
[…] At a White House dinner in September, Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta would spend six hundred billion dollars on data centers and related infrastructure in the next few years. With his microphone still live, Zuckerberg leaned toward Trump. “Sorry, I wasn’t ready,” he whispered. “I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with.” […]
A.I., for all its wondrous capabilities, may disappoint investors. It may prove to be an unprofitable commodity: Claude, Grok, Gemini, and ChatGPT all have similar capabilities, and technological innovations are quickly copied by competitors. The tech giants do not in fact have unlimited funds: as companies like Microsoft and Meta pour money into the data-center race, their reserves of cash are shrinking. […]
Water, power, and land are scarce resources, but the most valuable commodity for a data center, as the name suggests, is data. Claude trained on LibGen, a voluminous corpus of pirated e-books that can be downloaded by torrent. In September, Anthropic, the developer of Claude, agreed to pay one and a half billion dollars to the copyright holders of these books, or about three thousand dollars per infringement—the largest class-action copyright-infringement settlement in history. […] Similar lawsuits against OpenAI and Nvidia are pending.
Microsoft does not know what its customers are uploading to its data centers—the data are proprietary. […] The modern approach to A.I. development has been to vacuum up any online data available—including audio, video, practically all published work in English, and more than three billion web pages—and let lawyers sort through the mess.
But there is now talk of a data shortage. There are thought to be about four hundred trillion words on the indexed internet, but, as the OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy has noted, much of that is “total garbage.” High-quality text is harder to find. If trends continue, researchers say, A.I. developers could exhaust the usable supply of human text between 2026 and 2032. Since A.I. chatbots are recycling existing work, they rely on cliché, and their phrasing grows stale quickly. It’s difficult to get fresh, high-quality writing out of them—I have tried.
[…] The next frontier is “world model” data, which will be used to train robots. Streams of video and spatial data will be fed into the data centers, which will be used to develop autonomous robots. […]
Robots are everywhere in China. I saw them stocking shelves and cleaning floors at a mall. When I ordered food to my hotel room, it was delivered by a two-foot-tall wheeled robot in the shape of a trash can […] I stood there for a time, holding the tray, wondering if I would ever talk to a human again. ♦
A state ballot measure could undermine and render the Citizens United decision toothless. And other states could join in the party.
Now here’s the good news.
The fight against Citizens United is also happening in the here and now. In one ruby red Republican dominated state, a movement has sprung up that challenges the entire idea that we need to wait for a unified Congress, ratification from states, or a progressive Supreme Court to transform our country’s campaign finance system.
This gets a bit nerdy, but the basic premise of the plan rests on the fact that corporations are creations of state laws, not federal laws. Corporations are created by filing a charter of incorporation in a particular state, which grants them certain powers in order to for them to carry out their business purposes. […]
Although state laws allowing the creation of of corporations date from the earliest days of the US, it wasn’t until after the Civil War and the shift away from the US being mostly an agrarian economy towards an industrial economy that spurred states into granting corporations powers, including eminent domain.
It has been said, loudly and often, that corporations are people. Of course, this is ridiculous on its face. The main difference is that people are born with all their rights and powers while corporations have only the rights and powers granted to them by the statutes of the various states in their statutes regulating the process of incorporation. Just as states can expand the rights and powers of the corporate person, they can also limit them.
In Montana, a bipartisan coalition of former lawmakers, academics, and strategists are now spearheading a ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to ban corporations from spending money on politics.
[…] since the earliest days of the United States, the Supreme Court has NEVER ruled against a state regulating corporate behavior in its process of creating corporations. […]
According to a brand new poll, 74% of Montanans would vote in favor of this proposed ballot measure to eliminate corporate spending in elections, and that support is bipartisan. 84% of Democrats, 69% of Republicans, and 64% of independents said they would support the measure.
As long as Montana doesn’t discriminate against corporations, i.e. favoring Montana State corporations over corporations incorporated in other states and doing business in the state, this initiative should survive challenges such as alleged violations of the Commerce Clause in the US Constitution.
Posted by readers of the article:
The proposal is not a law, but an amendment to the Montana Constitution. The SC can’t overturn (assuming it passes) it without infringing on states rights and under the US Constitution, corporations have no rights whatsoever, including the right to exist in the first place, because corporations do not appear in said Constitution.
The only reason corporations have the powers they do, are the state statutes that enable their existence
The power to create and regulate corporations arises from the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The Citizens United decision was based on states laws granting corporations civil rights, unlike flesh and blood people, who are born with rights, corporations are granted rights by law.
Laws are created to serve the public good, when a law is no longer serving the public good, they can be changed or repealed.
—————————–
Citizens United made it possible for corporations to own vast swaths of the government, and they will do everything they can to keep that power. Because of this, and because of their enormous wealth, they can force the courts (probably the corrupt Supreme Court) to do their bidding and rule the law unconstitutional. It may take Alito citing some obscure medieval law, but they will do it.
It’s a great idea. The trouble is that since Citizens United, the corporations have amassed way too much power.
—————————-
the premise that corporations should be allowed to spend freely because people should be able to put together an association to push their POV doesn’t stand up to even a modicum of scrutiny. Corporations are run by money, not people. If you have a corporation with a thousand employees, 999 of them may object to how its money is spent in politics but they can be overridden by one guy who owns the majority of shares.
Followup to comment 340: From Caroline Mimbs Nyce, Newsletter editor for The New Yorker
A single data center can use as much power as the city of Philadelphia. And they’re popping up everywhere. These sprawling buildings, filled with rows of computing equipment, are the factories of the A.I. economy; they power all those mundane chatbot searches, sucking up tons of energy in the process. As the OpenAI C.E.O. Sam Altman put it, “I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time.”
For our latest issue, the reporter Stephen Witt was invited (“after what felt like two hundred phone calls”) inside a Microsoft facility, still under construction. I caught up with Witt to discuss what he saw there—and what A.I.’s massive energy consumption means for our planet.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
What does a data center actually look like?
It’s a barn. It’s a giant shed full of microchips. From the outside, they keep them as anonymous and boring-looking as possible, and then the inside is just racks and racks of computing equipment stretching off into the distance.
Was it totally crazy to be in there?
It does not feel like a place a human being should be inside. In fact, they try to limit the amount that people go into them. They’re totally clean, contamination-proof, humidity- and temperature-controlled. It feels like going into a bank vault almost. You’re inside the computer’s brain.
Talk to me a little bit about how these data centers are being built.
It’s one of the largest movements of capital in human history. You really have to go back to electrification, or maybe the building of the railroads or the adoption of the automobile, to see a similar event in terms of money deployed.
Jensen Huang, the co-founder of Nvidia, has called the data center the A.I. factory: data goes in and intelligence comes out. All of this is being built to develop neural networks, these little files of numbers that have extraordinary capabilities. That’s what all that computing equipment is in the shed doing. It’s fine-tuning your neural network until it has superhuman capabilities. It’s an extremely resource-intensive process.
Essentially, A.I. is a brute-force problem, and I don’t think anybody anticipated how much of a heavy industrial process the development of it would be.
Are we going to completely destroy the planet with A.I.?
Yes.
Great.
So, we’re already on track to cook the planet. It’s a huge problem, even before any of this happened. Now, having said that, I think the data center build-out is totally irresponsible from a climate perspective. But I don’t know what the answer is, other than building tons and tons of carbon-free energy. You just have to make so many nuclear power plants. And we have to do it at a scale that gets the cost down.
Are we contributing to this every time we use ChatGPT?
If you’re just asking A.I. questions, don’t worry about it. You use just as much electricity watching TV or turning on the light. Not a problem.
If you’re building a lot of short-form, A.I.-generated video content, that is like running a microwave all day. If you’re in pro-research mode, and A.I. goes and thinks for an hour before it gives you an answer, you know it’s using a lot of juice. The A.I. companies will not tell us how much power these things use. We had to back into an answer through open-source academic work, and then take a guess. But our equivalent for a three-thousand-word term paper was about three minutes of using your microwave.
That’s a lot.
Is it? When you microwave food for three minutes, are you, like, “Oh geez, I’m destroying the planet”? It’s an equivalent concern.
Is using A.I. driving up utility costs?
Yes. The grid does not have the capacity to support this right now. And a massive build-out is going to take years.
Electricity costs are going up anyway, due to inflation—but they’re way outpacing inflation. This is putting tremendous strain on America’s electrical infrastructure, and you, the rate payer, are picking up part of that.
And this is already happening?
Oh, yeah, it’s well under way. You’re paying. The grid is just a giant pool of electricity. When you connect the data center to the grid, it’s like someone coming and sticking a fire hose into a well. This big snaking thing is dipped into the pool, and starts draining it from everyone else. It makes everyone’s costs go up.
We’re essentially paying for A.I. companies to train their models.
In a way, yeah.
What do you say to people who feel stressed out about all this?
I am also stressed about this. I mean, I go back and forth. The end goal here is that most of what humans do becomes obsolete.
Do you really think that?
Yeah, one hundred per cent. I think that in the future, all forms of labor will at least be conceptually done by a computer. With the combined push for robotics and hyper-intelligent computing systems, what’s left? I guess we should all go to clown school—study live theatre, or something.
Writing, maybe?
Writing, I don’t think so. No, I think the computer will catch up to us if it has not done so already.
You sound pretty confident about A.I. getting better and replacing us all.
That’s data-driven. The premise of all of this is that putting more Nvidia microchips in the barn will result in better A.I. Empirically, so far, that has been true. Now, as the A.I. pioneer Demis Hassabis has wondered, how long will this work? Will we hit a brick wall? No one knows. But right now, the evidence shows that this is working.
And the evidence shows, conclusively, that people love this. People are using A.I. all the time. Especially young people. It’s, like, their best friend. They call it “Chat.” Eight hundred million weekly average users—I think ChatGPT is maybe the most successful internet product in history. And that’s just Chat; there are dozens of other services that are also exploding in popularity. Whatever people say about their concerns or fears of A.I.—and I think those are real—people are using it all the time.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Sweden To Send Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Vehicles To Latvia”
(40 mm Bofors gun, aided by a modern radar)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4IIBIOOzPbI
There is a technology demonstrator too, I hope the good stuff will find its way to Ukraine.
researchers gave several leading AI agents a range of simulated freelance work and found that even the best could perform less than 3 percent of the work, earning $1,810 out of a possible $143,991.
[…]
The researchers generated a range of freelance tasks through verified Upwork workers. The tasks span a range of work including graphic design, video editing, game development, and administrative chores like scraping data. They combined a description of each job with a directory of files needed to perform the work and an example of a finished project produced by a human. […] they still struggle to use different tools and to perform complex tasks that involve numerous steps.
[…]
The idea that AI is already taking jobs is gaining momentum however. This week Amazon announced that it would cut 14,000 jobs […] If the Remote Labor Index is any indication, however, AI is unlikely to be stepping into any of these vacated roles.
Sky Captain @344, there’s so much hype around AI that I think people are struggling to realistically assess what AI agents can do, and what they can’t do. People like Elon Musk (and his DOGE lackeys), as well as Jeff Bezos are not helping. They are obscuring the truth.
“Republicans re-up trans attacks on Dems that worked for Trump in 2024”
“They hate your guts. They despise everything you stand for, and we’re running out of time to stop them,” a somber-looking Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears says in a recent campaign ad. “This election, don’t let radicals decide what kind of man gets to undress next to your daughter at school.” [JFC]
Earle-Sears, a Republican, poured millions of dollars into this ominous advertising blitz attacking her Democratic opponent for governor, Abigail Spanberger, as a radical on transgender issues. She blanketed the airwaves with warnings to Virginians that mimicked Donald Trump’s successful campaign against Kamala Harris last year (“Kamala is for they/them, Trump is for you”).
But as Tuesday’s election approaches, the line of attack does not appear to be working as well for Earle-Sears as it did for Trump, according to data, raising questions about how potent the issue will be in the future for a party facing voter anger over high prices. Spanberger is leading Earle-Sears in recent polls.
“They realize it’s hard to beat a moderate Democrat in Virginia in this environment so they have to convince voters that she’s a radical,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist, of the Earle-Sears campaign. “That’s hard to do with someone who is a fairly known commodity and is spending a ton of money on her own talking about her moderate record.”
Republicans and many Democrats see the treatment of transgender children as a politically powerful issue because polls consistently show most Americans do not believe transgender girls should be allowed to play in girls’ sports. In a Gallup poll from May, 69 percent of Americans said transgender people should be allowed to play only on sports teams that match their sex assigned at birth. Transgender attack ads also tell voters that Democrats are consumed with cultural issues instead of the economy. […]
“Israel said the bodies will be taken for forensic identification after being delivered from Gaza by the Red Cross on Sunday.”
Related video at the link.
Hamas returned the bodies of three hostages to Israel on Sunday, with the International Committee of the Red Cross once again serving as an intermediary, officials said.
Though their identities have not yet been confirmed, Hamas described them as three Israeli soldiers. The office of the Israeli prime minister confirmed bodies were returned and would be taken to the Ministry of Health’s National Center for Forensic Medicine for identification. […]
The Israel Defense Forces urged the public to “act with sensitivity and wait for the official identification.”
The transfer was facilitated by the Red Cross but its team was not involved in recovering the bodies, the humanitarian organization confirmed Sunday. […]
Last week, Hamas returned three bodies believed to be those of hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the bodies did not belong to any of the remaining captives.
The militant group has returned 17 deceased hostages since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10, but the bodies of 11 hostages are believed to still be in Gaza. Israeli officials have pushed Hamas on the speed of the releases, but the group has blamed widespread devastation and the Israeli military presence for complicating the process.
This is among one of the many tensions straining the fragile ceasefire brokered by the U.S. last month. Israel and Hamas have accused each other of breaking the negotiated deal, leading to a round of renewed Israeli strikes last week.
Dr. Khalil Al-Daqran, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, told NBC News that more than 104 people had been killed in the attacks, including more than 40 children and 20 women.
Israel’s military alleged that the strikes came after Hamas militants attacked its soldiers in Rafah, a southern area of Gaza currently under Israeli control. NBC News could not independently verify the claim. Hamas has denied any involvement in an attack on soldiers.
“Clearly that does damage,” EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra tells Bloomberg.
The U.S.’s likely absence from the upcoming COP30 is a “watershed moment,” according to EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra.
“We’re talking about the largest, the most dominant, most important geopolitical player from the whole world. It is the second-largest emitter,” Hoekstra told Bloomberg in an interview published Sunday.
“So if a player of that magnitude basically says, ‘Well, I’m going to leave and have it all sorted out by the rest of you,’ clearly that does damage,” he added, noting however that some U.S. mayors and governors remained committed to green policies.
The COP30 climate conference will start on Nov. 10 in the Amazon port city of Belém. The Trump administration said it will not send “high level representatives,” amid Washington’s larger push against climate policies.
U.S. President Donald Trump has already announced the U.S. would exit the Paris climate agreement for a second time. Last month, the American delegation to the United Nations International Maritime Organization negotiations in London also pressured countries to skip a vote on a proposed carbon emissions fee on global shipping.
Overall, about 100 countries have failed to submit stronger carbon goals ahead of the COP30, and the EU is lagging behind too. Last year, a U.N. report found that even if nations delivered on their plans for 2030, carbon pollution would fall less than 3 percent compared to 2019 levels. That would likely not be enough to avoid major climate tipping points. [!]
Hoekstra said in the interview that he hopes the COP30 will push governments to “get concrete” about adaptation to the new climate reality and make progress on carbon markets, among other initiatives. The climate commissioner also expressed concerns about China’s push to build coal plants.
“It would be very important for the world if they would actually refrain from that,” he said, adding that Beijing’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, known as nationally determined contribution (NDC), is too low.
“Most experts were hoping for an NDC north of 30 percent,” Hoekstra told Bloomberg. “And then an NDC that is in all likelihood below 10 percent? I mean, even with all the diplomatic language I would love to wrap around that, it’s hard to see how that is enough.”
Noem cited her own time behind the wheel of trucks while working on her family’s farm to highlight the dangers of people driving trucks illegally.
What she failed to mention was that she has a long rap sheet of speeding tickets [94 mph in a 75 zone, invalid plates, failure to stop at intersections] and bench warrants for her erratic driving […] when fines went unpaid [and she failed to appear in court].
johnson catmansays
re CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @350: Typical republican bullshit. Laws for thee but not for me. Or a blast from the past: IOKIYAR.
The ugly “sport” -really just a form of gambling – that is horse racing has been censoring the videos to remove the many times horses die and riders are injured as this notes :
,,,a muted groan echoes through the near-empty grandstand as the galloper stumbles.
A beat passes. The blue-blooded stallion rears, slows, then comes to a sweat-soaked stop.
It’s a moment that lives only in the memories of the select few permitted trackside that day.
That’s because the official race replay shows something else entirely.
Just before Anthony Van Dyck (horse’s name – ed) stumbles, the replay cuts to an isolated 12-second shot of eventual winner Twilight Payment, ears pinned back, surging for the post.
By the time the shot zooms back out for the final 200 metres, Anthony Van Dyck is gone.
In those 12 seconds, the English Derby winner broke down and fell back through the pack, out of frame.
His fetlock was fractured.Bowman dismounted and removed his saddle as the rest of the field galloped on.
Anthony Van Dyck was loaded into the horse ambulance and euthanased soon after.
What the industry wants you to remember is the isolated image of a free-wheeling equine athlete at full stride.
But this is what was erased.
(Article goes on to provide footage – WARING possiby upsetting, animal suffering images & many further examples.)
The ugly “sport” -really just a form of gambling – that is horse racing has been censoring the videos to remove the many times horses die and riders are injured as this notes :
,,,a muted groan echoes through the near-empty grandstand as the galloper stumbles.
A beat passes. The blue-blooded stallion rears, slows, then comes to a sweat-soaked stop.
It’s a moment that lives only in the memories of the select few permitted trackside that day.
That’s because the official race replay shows something else entirely.
Just before Anthony Van Dyck (horse’s name – ed) stumbles, the replay cuts to an isolated 12-second shot of eventual winner Twilight Payment, ears pinned back, surging for the post.
By the time the shot zooms back out for the final 200 metres, Anthony Van Dyck is gone.
In those 12 seconds, the English Derby winner broke down and fell back through the pack, out of frame.
His fetlock was fractured.Bowman dismounted and removed his saddle as the rest of the field galloped on.
Anthony Van Dyck was loaded into the horse ambulance and euthanased soon after.
What the industry wants you to remember is the isolated image of a free-wheeling equine athlete at full stride.
But this is what was erased.
(Article goes on to provide footage – WARING possiby upsetting, animal suffering images & many further examples.)
WARNING : Confronting scenes of animal death and suffering.
This – The dark side of Australia’s horse racing industry – 7.30 old but powerful program – watch this if you can bear it. I reckon they should play this on big screens all around the Melbourne Cup ground from start to finish on a repeating loop before anyone is allowed in – if anyone after seeing that still wants to go. (50 minutes long.)
StevoRsays
The annual Deathwatch Report from Coalition for the Protection of Racehorses (CPR) has been released, revealing the number of horses killed from racing in 2024/25 is higher than ever: 175 Thoroughbred racehorses lost their lives from racing in Australia. This is an increase of nearly 14 percent from last year’s death toll and the highest number of confirmed racehorse deaths across Australia that CPR has recorded to date.
During the 2024/25 racing year, more frequently than ever, deaths of racehorses caused by injuries sustained in racing could not be found via the publicly available Stewards Reports. Instead, CPR received tip offs from industry informants, media reports and followed up on injured horses to compile the data for this year’s annual Deathwatch Report.
“The fact that more racehorses than ever are being taken off the track to be killed so they don’t need to report the deaths in public Steward Reports is a major concern,” said CPR Campaign Director Elio Celotto.
“Firstly, because it tells us that far more horses are killed than CPR can possibly identify. Secondly, because it is deceiving to the Australian public who have a right to know how many horses are killed as a result of exploiting them for gambling and entertainment.”
“We cannot emphasise enough that the deaths and catastrophic injuries sustained by racehorses are not accidents.
The Military Show: Ukraine’s BRUTAL Push at Pokrovsk Makes Russia BLEED for Every Inch
Up to date review of the situation in Pokrovsk. There are Russian soldiers in the city, enough to be a threat but not enough to take the city. Enough that the Ukrainians don’t want to try and clear them out by force. Russia is trying to get more soldiers in but Ukraine is retaking the villages around Pokrovsk and cutting off the Russians.
The Ukrainians are picking off those Russians in Pokrovsk bit by bit whenever they make a mistake and expose themselves. This is balanced by Russia slipping in soldiers who making the trek on foot. They are being resupplied by drone drops, which isn’t enough to supply them well but it’s enough food, water and ammo that the soldiers can hold out in covered areas for a long time.
The Russians have an 8-1 manpower advantage in the region but lacking in everything but manpower. This has reduced their offense to sending in squads of soldiers on foot to infiltrate and taking land section by section at great cost.
“As the president eyes possible military intervention in eastern Africa, it’s worth appreciating just how long Trump’s international target list has become.”
Donald Trump has said very little about conditions in Nigeria in recent months, though that changed Friday afternoon. The president, pointing to attacks against the nation’s Christian population, announced via his social media platform that he was labeling the African country a “country of particular concern.”
He added that he wanted a couple of congressional Republicans to “immediately look into this matter” and report back to him. (Why Trump wouldn’t assign such a task to his own State Department or intelligence agencies is unclear.) [Not really unclear. Trump is ignorant.]
One day later, the American president went considerably further. NBC News reported:
President Donald Trump on Saturday said he has instructed the Defense Department to ‘prepare for possible action’ in Nigeria over the country’s alleged killing of Christians. ‘If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, “guns-a-blazing,” to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,’ Trump wrote on social media.”
The Republican added that a U.S. military offensive would be “fast, vicious, and sweet.” [Trump really enjoys violence when he instigates it.]
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth replied to Trump’s post with a “Yes sir.”
A day later, the president fielded a few questions from reporters aboard Air Force One and again raised the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Nigeria.
[…] it’s worth appreciating just how long Trump’s international target list has become:
Venezuela: Trump’s recent saber-rattling toward Venezuela has been quite aggressive, including a recent all-caps warning about the South American country paying an “incalculable” price. After the U.S. flew Air Force B-1 bombers near Venezuela two weeks ago, the president also deployed the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier group to Latin America. During his “60 Minutes” interview, Trump said he doesn’t expect a war with Venezuela, but he didn’t rule out the possibility of military strikes.
Colombia: Tensions between the U.S. and Colombia have risen in recent weeks, including an instance in which Trump accused Colombian President Gustavo Petro of being an “illegal drug leader.”
International waters: Late Saturday, Hegseth claimed that U.S. forces had carried out yet another a strike on a civilian boat in international waters, killing all three people on board. According to the administration’s tally, this was the 15th such military operation, which have collectively resulted in 64 deaths. (Trump’s Pentagon has admitted to lawmakers that it doesn’t know the identities of the people killed in the strikes.)
Afghanistan: Trump has spoken publicly in recent weeks about possibly returning U.S. troops to Afghanistan, apparently because the White House wants to reclaim control over Bagram Air Base.
Mexico: According to a new NBC News report, the Trump administration “has begun detailed planning for a new mission to send American troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels.” The report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC, added that the mission, if it happens, “would include ground operations inside Mexico.”
For context, Trump has also launched preemptive military strikes on targets in Iran, initiated a bombing campaign in Yemen and announced his desire to annex Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and the Gaza Strip all in the last year.
If you voted for Trump because you expected restraint on foreign policy and the use of military force abroad, I have some bad news.
When Donald Trump signed an executive order in March asserting radical powers over federal elections, it was widely assumed that the president’s power grab would spark lawsuits he was likely to lose. Those assumptions, unsurprisingly, were correct. The New York Times reported:
A federal judge in Washington permanently barred the Trump administration on Friday from requiring proof of citizenship on federal voter registration forms, a change dictated in an executive order President Trump signed in March. The ruling definitively halted the effort to compel the Elections Assistance Commission, an independent body, to adopt nationwide changes to voting procedures.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who was first appointed to the bench by Ronald Reagan, explained in her 81-page ruling that Trump was claiming a power to which he is not entitled.
“Congress has never assigned any responsibility for the content of the federal form to the president or to any other individual in the executive branch with the power to act unilaterally,” she wrote. “The power to alter the federal form is — and always has been — delegated solely to a bipartisan, independent commission.” [True]
The Times’ report noted that the opinion “traced American history back to the country’s founding, repeatedly noting that besides the small role of the Elections Assistance Commission, which was created by Congress in 2002 to assist with elections, the Elections Clause of the Constitution grants authority over elections to the states.”
Kollar-Kotelly added, “The Court pauses to note a conspicuous absence from the legal and historical context thus far provided. The states have initial authority to regulate elections. Congress has supervisory authority over those regulations. The President does not feature at all.”
[…] Last year, congressional Republicans tried to advance legislation called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (or SAVE Act), to require proof of citizenship to register to vote. The bill did not, however, pass the Senate or become law.
This year, Trump apparently decided that he could just create the policy anyway through presidential fiat. It was an approach rooted in a fundamentally ridiculous governing vision: When Congress fails to pass a bill, presidents can simply implement the policy anyway, without legislative authorization.
What’s more, Trump’s executive order on this didn’t stop with new requirements that would force Americans to prove their citizenship when registering to vote. It also imposed a variety of other election “reforms” — touching on everything from mail-in ballot deadlines to election equipment — that NBC News reported “could risk disenfranchising tens of millions of Americans.”
The president did all of this by exercising a legal authority he decided to bestow on himself. The judiciary has now reminded him, more than once, that this is not an option.
If recent history is any guide, the administration will appeal the ruling, and House Republicans will consider impeaching the judge in this case. Watch this space.
On the morning of Thursday, Oct. 23, Donald Trump signed one of the most scandalous pardons of his presidency, extending clemency to Changpeng Zhao, founder of the crypto exchange Binance, who helped finance the president’s stablecoin and put money in the Trump family’s pockets. Hours later, a reporter asked the Republican why he’d taken such a step.
He replied, “I don’t know.”
A week later, the president sat down with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell for a “60 Minutes” interview, and the correspondent offered Trump another opportunity to explain what appeared to be a brazenly corrupt pardon. After having had a week to think about it, he still didn’t have much of an answer. [social media post]
After O’Donnell reminded Trump that federal prosecutors had successfully prosecuted Zhao for having caused “significant harm to U.S. national security,” essentially by aiding terrorist groups and their financing, she asked the most basic of questions: “Why did you pardon him?”
The president replied, “OK, are you ready? I don’t know who he is.”
After Trump rambled for a while, the CBS News journalist reminded Trump that Zhao “pled guilty to anti-money-laundering laws,” two years before he helped facilitate a multibillion-dollar deal for Trump’s family business. “How do you address the appearance of pay-for-play?” she asked.
“Well, here’s the thing, I know nothing about it because I’m too busy,” the Republican replied, adding, “I know nothing about the guy.”
Broadly speaking, we’re left with a limited number of options when trying to come to terms with the president’s position. It’s possible, for example, that he was simply lying: Trump might very well know exactly who Zhao is, which would make sense, in part because of the billionaire’s role in generating wealth for the Trump family and in part because the president just signed a pardon for him 11 days ago. [!]
The other possibility is that Trump was telling the truth: Perhaps White House officials simply put a document in front of him and told him to sign it, and because he’s a disengaged, bystander president with a limited understanding of the events unfolding around him, he did what his aides recommended. [!]
[…] Complicating matters further, the White House and much of the Republican Party is heavily invested in the idea that Joe Biden was so impaired during his presidency that he signed pardons — or, more to the point, used an autopen to sign pardons — without knowing anything about the beneficiary of the clemency.
Indeed, during the same “60 Minutes” interview, Trump argued, “Biden didn’t have a clue. He illegally used, as you know, a machine, the autopen, in order to give pardons to people.”
The smear is ugly and baseless, but it’s also become a political dilemma of sorts for the president slandering his predecessor. On the one hand, Trump wants the public to believe Biden didn’t know who he was pardoning. On the other, Trump also wants the public to believe that he pardoned Zhao, despite having no idea who he is.
The Republican and his team have had plenty of time to work out a coherent set of talking points on this. That they’ve failed speaks volumes.
birgerjohanssonsays
The Guardian
‘I was a mess for hours afterwards’: readers on their scariest films of all time
[…] Trump may have claimed victory in his ongoing trade tantrum with China on Thursday, but look past the bravado and it’s clear that Chinese Premier Xi Jinping just played the president—again. Even worse, it looks like Trump just surrendered some of the United States’ most advanced technology to our largest adversary for a literal hill of beans.
Trump’s new Chinese trade deal would see the U.S. selling its most advanced Blackwell artificial intelligence chips to China in exchange for a Chinese commitment to resume the country’s purchases of American soybeans […] Cybersecurity experts and U.S. business leaders now warn that giving China easy access to AI technology will make it even harder for American companies to compete in global markets while making it easier for Chinese operatives to compromise national security.
[…] Trump’s short-sighted soybean deal is just the most visible part of a trade deal that appears to benefit China on nearly every front. As The New York Times notes, Xi’s scheme to block American access to Chinese rare earth metals worked perfectly, bringing U.S. negotiators to the table without China actually needing to offer anything new. Xi’s team effectively offered Trump the chance to return to a deal the two nations already had in place, while American negotiators offered up a host of new concessions that will allow Xi to expand China’s growing tech dominance. [!]
In addition to giving China access to the world’s most advanced AI chips, Trump also announced he would cut his more recent 20% tariff on Chinese goods by half, while also agreeing to remove export limits on key Chinese products. Those penalties were put in place earlier this year in an effort to stop the flow of fentanyl from Chinese ports, a fight Trump is now abandoning after only a few short months. It was a stinging defeat for a president who absolutely hates losing.
[…] Trump now seemed to acknowledge that it was China—not the United States—setting the terms of the negotiation. “I believe that they’re going to help us with the fentanyl situation,” Trump told reporters. “They’re going to be doing what they can do.”
Trump’s sudden backtracking on everything from technology security to drug trafficking stunned Jeremy Mark, a nonresident senior fellow at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council.
“However the White House chooses to portray the agreement in the coming weeks, there is no avoiding the fact that Beijing has tremendous advantages in the ongoing negotiations,” he wrote on Thursday.
So why did Trump fold so quickly on an issue as important to American national security as controlling the flow of highly advanced AI technology to foreign powers? One word: Nvidia.
America’s first $5 trillion company has been pressuring Trump for months to loosen trade controls around its extremely profitable high-end chips, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sees China as a massive opportunity to continue his company’s explosive growth. Nvidia’s sales in China recently fell to zero as a result of Trump’s ongoing trade spat, and Huang is desperate to get Nvidia back into the booming Chinese chip market. Pressuring the White House to cut a trade deal would be great for the tech giant.
Earlier this year, Huang announced that Nvidia was working directly with the White House on a new computer chip designed for sale in China. Now Nvidia is on the verge of getting even more than it asked for, including the opportunity to sell advanced technology to the Chinese military. It pays—trillions of dollars, it turns out—to have a friend in the Oval Office.
[…] In the end, Trump’s concessions to Xi were likely inevitable […] That shouldn’t be news to anyone who remembers the last time Trump’s incompetence handed China an easy victory back in September.
Then, Xi’s negotiators outflanked their American counterparts by buying Argentine soybeans in an effort to hurt American farmers and force Trump’s hand. Now, China happily bought American soybeans with a hefty side dish of trade concessions and top-shelf technology. Xi is busy turning American soy into a new technological revolution for Chinese businesses while Trump and his feckless negotiators still think they walked away as winners. […]
In his interview with “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday, […] Trump gloated over CBS’ decision to bribe him and praised the news division’s new right-wing leader—but the network did not air these comments during their telecast.
Trump was interviewed by CBS correspondent Norah O’Donnell, and he made an explicit reference to CBS parent Paramount’s decision to pay him off for a frivolous lawsuit right before his administration approved Paramount’s merger with Skydance. [video]
“Actually, ‘60 Minutes’ paid me a lot of money, and you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t want to embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not,” Trump said.
He was right. The comments about the payoff did not make the program’s televised edit, but CBS posted them online later, along with the rest of the interview. […] the payout to Trump was based on his complaint that edits to an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 amounted to election interference.
Legal experts say Trump’s suit was without merit, but CBS chose not to defend its own journalism, instead pursuing a cozier relationship with Trump amid its parent company’s major merger. Congressional Democrats recently launched an investigation into the matter, suggesting the payoff was “an offer of payment and benefits to a government official designed to achieve a specific outcome from the government—in other words, a bribe.”
In other comments that CBS also chose not to air, Trump praised the network’s newly appointed editor-in-chief Bari Weiss as “a great person.” Weiss is a conservative columnist who most recently led The Free Press, a right-leaning media outlet, and who has begun to shift CBS’ news operation further to the right.
Despite CBS’ refusal to air Trump’s damning commentary in the main “60 Minutes” broadcast, a segment of the interview that CBS did include nevertheless managed to raise new concerns about Trump’s presidency.
Asked about his pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, Trump said, “I don’t know who he is.” Asked about Zhao’s apparent role in boosting a crypto coin benefitting the Trump family, he responded, “I know nothing about it, because I’m too busy doing the other thing.” [video]
For years, Trump has argued that former President Joe Biden was unfit for office based on claims he was mentally unstable. And yet Trump has been accused of mental instability by several prominent political figures, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
By paying off Trump and then burying damning comments from him, CBS continues to demonstrate that it is a compromised media organization. The network continues to lurch to the right.
Trump has much of the mainstream media now in his corner, and he continues to assert his control and dominance of them in service of his agenda. CBS is just the most prominent part of a growing and disturbing trend.
Trump returned to 60 Minutes for his first interview since he sued CBS and reached a $16 million settlement. There was no difference, even without “editing” this time. The new CBS ownership including the News division has learned its lesson: just let the baby cry himself out. The full interview reveals nothing new with at least 55 lies and speech sound-bite repetitions and they didn’t even ask him about the demolition of the East Wing. TV journalism is less like stenography and more like copywriting for VHS sleeves. [social media posts]
Q: Americans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far?”
Trump: “No. I think they haven’t gone far enough” [video]
More detail:
NORAH O’DONNELL: Sure, but the political violence that, you know, we just outlined. The number of– of members of people in public that have been targeted–
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, that’s– that’s a different question. Yeah, I think–
NORAH O’DONNELL: –that have been targeted. And then I just read that there’s now a number of your cabinet secretaries and aides who are now living on military bases.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. Usually when people talk they’re not the problem. It’s the ones that don’t talk, in terms of that. But– yeah, I– I think it’s– it’s a lot of the rhetoric. Look, they call me a Nazi all the time. I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite. I’m somebody that’s saving our country.
But they call me Nazi. They have talking points, you know? They have just talking points. And the press is– is largely responsible for it. The fake news, what they’ve done– I think one of the greatest terms I’ve ever come up with is fake news.
What they’ve done to our country is very bad. They have to change around. Now, nobody believes the fake news. Nobody believes ’em. I mean, they’ve gone, you talk about popularity, you talk about approval, their approval numbers have gone f– from, like, in the 90s to in the teens now.
We need borders. We need fair votes. And you really need a fair press. If you– and you do, you have some great journalists and great reporters. But you have some terrible, terrible, dishonest journalists. And I see it all the time, because I’ll give ’em a story and they’ll have it.
Even my trip with China, it was so successful. But of all, the Wall Street Journal, they said, Trump Lowers Tariffs. That was the headline. Trump Lowers Tariffs. That wasn’t what happened. I lowered tariff– tariffs in order to get everything that anybody could possibly dream of.
The point wasn’t lowering tariffs. I put up a high number, I cut it, and I got everything. And yet the headline in the Wall Street Journal, beautiful picture of myself and President Xi, everything nice. But the headline was Trump Lowers Tariffs.
That wasn’t the story. The story was Trump got everything, got everything. Including world peace. We’re respected as a country. We’re not threatened right now. And we’re not gonna be threatened. As long as we have a strong, smart president, we’re never gonna be threatened by anybody.
OpenAI has struck a $38 billion agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to secure cloud computing power from the tech giant, the ChatGPT maker announced Monday.
The multi-year deal will give the AI firm access to “hundreds of thousands of state-of-the-art” Nvidia chips, as the company seeks vast computing power to continue developing its AI models.
“Scaling frontier AI requires massive, reliable compute,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement. “Our partnership with AWS strengthens the broad compute ecosystem that will power this next era and bring advanced AI to everyone.”
OpenAI is set to begin using AWS computing power immediately, with the Amazon cloud computing arm aiming to have all of the targeted capacity deployed before the end of 2026, it noted in a blog post. […]
The AWS deal is the latest in a series of agreements for OpenAI, which has also recently unveiled partnerships with companies like Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom.
The ChatGPT maker announced last month that it was partnering with Nvidia to deploy 10 gigawatts, or about 4 million to 5 million chips. Several weeks later, it signed a deal with AMD to obtain six gigawatts’ worth of the company’s AI chips.
This was followed by an agreement with Broadcom to deploy 10 gigawatts of custom AI accelerators for OpenAI. It has also reportedly signed a $300 billion deal with Oracle for 4.5 gigawatts of power. [!]
The company’s recent dealmaking spree has raised questions about its revenue stream as it seeks to make good on about $1 trillion in commitments, according to The Financial Times.
Amid a push for more resources, OpenAI completed a restructuring of the company last week, converting its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation and giving the non-profit a controlling stake.
It initially sought to remove the non-profit’s control over the for-profit but backed away after facing pushback.
Followup to comment 377, and several other comments up-thread that discuss Trump’s “60 Minutes” interview.
[…] The White House promoted the sit-down Monday morning, calling it a “powerful interview” that the president used to “showcase record stock market gains, global peace breakthroughs, and his unwavering commitment to law and order.”
“Highlighting these remarkable successes, President Trump made clear to Democrats: reopen the government and work with him to keep America on the path to even greater prosperity and security,” the White House said.
“Scott has made several significant donations to historically Black colleges and universities in recent weeks.”
Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has wired a multimillion-dollar gift to another historically black campus: Howard University.
The D.C. university said it received $80 million in unrestricted funds, giving officials wide latitude over how to spend the money.
Howard, chartered by an act of Congress, is among a handful of universities that receive an annual federal appropriation. But the roughly $55 million allotment, normally issued in October, is being held up because of the shutdown.
“Some 80 to 90 percent of the funds that come into the university have a federal source, whether you’re looking at Pell grants, the hospital — patients with Medicare and Medicaid,” Frederick said in an interview.
The university will launch a “temporary relief plan” to allow students with past-due balances to defer payments until the spring semester without incurring late fees or penalties — an effort to help students and families facing furloughs, layoffs and delays in federal funding, officials said.
At least three other HBCUs in the D.C. region have also announced gifts from Scott in recent weeks, including $63 million to Morgan State University, $50 million to Virginia State University and $38 million to the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore.
At Howard, most of Scott’s gift — $63 million — has been issued to the entire university of more than 13,000 students. The remaining $17 million is for Howard’s medical school, which Frederick said has received a record number of applications for enrollment — around 10,000 applicants for 125 seats.
Howard is one of four HBCUs that has a medical school.
Officials plan to expand its academic medical center, increasing the number of nursing, dental, medical and pharmacy students.
“Ms. Scott’s generosity will have a lasting impact on medical education, research and health equity,” Andrea A. Hayes Dixon, the dean and senior vice president of Howard’s medical school, said in a statement. […]
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @377: says The Orange Turd:
As long as we have a strong, smart president, we’re never gonna be threatened by anybody.
“Trump administration says it is paying out half of November’s SNAP benefits”
“The administration will release enough funds to pay for half of November’s SNAP benefits, following a court order to avoid food insecurity for nearly 42 million Americans.”
The Trump administration said Monday that it will release enough funds to pay for a half-month’s worth of food assistance benefits in November, days after two courts ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to release the money to avoid forcing nearly 42 million Americans into food insecurity.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — known as SNAP or food stamps — lost funding after the Trump administration said it would not tap into a $5.5 billion contingency fund to pay for the benefit. On Friday, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the administration to release backup funds moments after another federal judge in Massachusetts directed the government to decide by Monday whether it would use the contingency funds for food aid.
USDA said Monday that it will comply with the Rhode Island judge’s order. The department’s lawyers, in a Monday brief, wrote that the agency “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds today.”
[…] SNAP regularly costs the federal government about $9 billion a month. But the federal shutdown, which has lasted more than a month, has affected the program because Congress has not appropriated new funds for it.
The available money in the contingency funding will only be enough to pay for about half of November’s benefits.
In the Monday brief, Patrick Penn, the deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services at USDA, said that the Food and Nutrition Service, which administers SNAP, will spend about $450 million of the contingency funds paying for states to administer the program this month. Another $150 million will be used for food assistance programs in Puerto Rico and American Samoa, and the remaining $4.65 billion in the fund will be used to pay for SNAP benefits. That money, Penn said, will cover 50 percent of each eligible household’s current allotments.
“This means that no funds will remain for new SNAP applicants certified in November, disaster assistance, or as a cushion against the potential catastrophic consequences of shutting down SNAP entirely,” Penn wrote in the brief.
[…] USDA said it will generate a table required by states to calculate what benefits will be made available for each eligible household. States will be able to make the SNAP payments once the table is released to them, according to the brief.
In the brief, USDA said it would not tap a separate $23 billion fund for school lunch and child nutrition programs, known as Section 32 funding. Democrats in Congress and anti-hunger advocates have called for the Trump administration to tap those funds to fill in the SNAP shortfall and let lawmakers patch the hole in child nutrition funding later.
In the brief, USDA that that program was separate from SNAP in terms of legal authority, appropriations accounts and operations. […]
While Democratic leaders and anti-hunger groups celebrated the agency’s decision to release partial payments on Monday, many argued that the administration should still find ways to pay out full SNAP benefits.
In statements, Democratic Sens. Ben Ray Luján (New Mexico) and Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota) accused the Trump administration of continuing to withhold taxpayer dollars from “folks who need it most” while doing the “bare minimum” to get partial payments out. And Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) said that while states are now awaiting clarity on when the Trump administration will make the partial SNAP payments available, the White House “should not stop there.”
“President Trump should commit to fully funding SNAP benefits and make these full benefits available as soon as possible,” she said.
[…] In September, as the shutdown deadline approached, Trump’s Agriculture Department pointed to a roughly $5 billion contingency fund that could pay benefits to struggling families, at least for a while.
On Friday, the president not only tried to blame his political opponents for the shutdown (an assessment most Americans reject), he also told reporters, “When you’re talking about SNAP, if you look, it’s largely Democrats. They’re hurting their own people.”
That didn’t make any sense. As a New York Times fact-check report explained, there is no data on the political affiliations of SNAP beneficiaries, but just as important, a great many of those who receive federal food aid are in red states.
[…] For struggling families facing scary conditions, the good news is that there will apparently be some relief, though there may be some logistical challenges in reopening the spigot that was closed over the weekend.
The bad news is that the relief will be temporary and meager: SNAP benefits were already modest (roughly 1 in 8 people get an average of $187 a month per person in SNAP), and “partial” payments means additional hardships.
As a New York Times report noted, this means “many low-income families could once again be in dire straits in a matter of days or weeks.”
“Sorry, RFK Jr.! Study Shows COVID In Pregnancy Associated With Higher Rates Of Autism”
“What will the anti-vaxxers do?!?”
Earlier this year, despite the fact that there has not been a single shred of evidence anywhere showing that COVID vaccines are harmful to pregnant women or their children, and despite his confirmation hearing promises to not make it more difficult for anyone to get a vaccine, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the CDC would no longer recommend them to these populations.
“Bottom line,” he tweeted, “It’s common sense and it’s good science.” [Nope]
Except for how, as per every medical association on earth, it was neither of those things. [!!]
[…] [I snipped history lesson, including preface to this conclusion: “The uterus, it would later turn out, was nothing like that at all, and that, perhaps, the reason women were “hysterical” was because they were surrounded by idiots.”]
Now there is another discovery that may prove very awkward for Team Common Sense.
A study published last week in Obstetrics & Gynecology by a research group from Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital may very well break RFK Jr.’s brain, along with the brains of COVID “skeptics” and anti-vaxxers […] across the land. Why? Because it showed that there appears to be a strong association between COVID-19 infections in pregnant women and higher rates of autism and other neurodevelopmental issues.
It is literally the opposite of everything anti-vaxxers have ever believed.
The researchers found that, of 861 individuals who had COVID-19 infections while pregnant, 140 of their children — or 16.3 percent — were diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental issue by three years old. For comparison, only 1,680 of the 17,263 — or 9.7 percent — of children who were not exposed to a COVID-19 infection in the womb were diagnosed with one. This would mean that children exposed to COVID-19 infections in utero were nearly twice as likely to develop such an issue than those who were not. [!]
Thus, they determined that “[e]xposure to maternal severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in utero was associated with greater odds of a neurodevelopmental diagnosis by age 3 years; risk was highest among male offspring and after third-trimester infection.”
It was possible to do the study this way in the beginning of the pandemic, without being unethical, because the vast majority of those they studied had not yet even had the opportunity to get the vaccine. [True]
Does this mean that COVID-19 definitively “causes” autism? No, but there is certainly a far stronger association between the two than, for say, vaccines or Tylenol as a cause. Given that we know there are other serious dangers related to getting COVID while pregnant — pregnant people are far more likely to be hospitalized with an infection, more likely to get long COVID, more likely to have stillbirths, preterm births, blood clots, kidney damage, damage to the placenta and more — it sure seems like a far better idea for expectant mothers to get vaccinated than not. [!!]
The researchers explained that the reason they looked at this in the first place is that there has long been an association between similar infections during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric issues:
A substantial body of evidence links maternal infection during pregnancy to adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in offspring. Large national registry studies have reported increased risks of neuropsychiatric disease such as autism spectrum disorder, cognitive delay, schizophrenia, and mood disorders after in utero exposure to maternal infections. For example, a Swedish study of 2.3 million births found a 30% increase in risk for autism spectrum disorder among the offspring of women hospitalized with an infection during pregnancy, and a subsequent analysis of 1.8 million births identified a 79% increase in risk for autism spectrum disorder and a 24% increase in risk of major depression among offspring exposed to any maternal infection in pregnancy, whether hospitalized or not. Relevant to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which is only rarely vertically transmitted, adverse offspring neurodevelopmental effects from maternal viral infection can occur even without vertical transmission, as has been observed with influenza.
Weirdly, you don’t hear too much about this from the “vaccines cause autism!” crowd.
This study obviously poses quite a dilemma for RFK Jr and others who share his very stupid and poorly thought-out ideas. What happens when “good science” conflicts with their “common sense?” Which do they care about more? Preventing autism or just preventing people from getting vaccinated?
Of course, for it to pose any kind of dilemma, they’d have to actually know about and acknowledge the study, which I think we can safely assume they will not.
“EXCLUSIVE: Trump administration is planning new mission in Mexico against cartels, current and former U.S. officials say.”
“The new operation would include U.S. troops on the ground in Mexico striking drug labs and cartel leaders, according to current and former U.S. officials, though a deployment is not imminent.”
Related video at the link.
The Trump administration has begun detailed planning for a new mission to send American troops and intelligence officers into Mexico to target drug cartels, according to two U.S. officials and two former senior U.S. officials familiar with the effort.
The early stages of training for the potential mission, which would include ground operations inside Mexico, has already begun, the two current U.S. officials said. […] Discussions about the scope of the mission are ongoing, and a final decision has not been made, the two current U.S. officials said.
The U.S. troops, many of whom would be from Joint Special Operations Command, would operate under the authority of the U.S. intelligence community, known as Title 50 status, the two current officials said. They said officers from the CIA also would participate.
A U.S. mission using American forces to hit drug cartel targets inside Mexico would open a new front in President Donald Trump’s military campaign against drug cartels in the Western Hemisphere. So far, the administration has focused on Venezuela and conducting strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats.
The mission currently being planned for would be a break with past U.S. administrations, which have quietly deployed CIA, military and law enforcement teams to Mexico to support local police and army units fighting cartels but not to take direct action against them.
If the mission is given the final green light, the administration plans to maintain secrecy around it and not publicize actions associated with it […]
Under the new mission being planned, U.S. troops in Mexico would mainly use drone strikes to hit drug labs and cartel members and leaders, the two current U.S. officials and two former U.S. officials said. Some of the drones that special forces would use require operators to be on the ground to use them effectively and safely, the officials said. [“Safely”??]
In February, the State Department designated six Mexican drug cartels, as well as MS-13 and the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations, giving U.S. spy agencies and military units sweeping legal authorities to conduct espionage and covert operations targeting the criminal networks. Trump publicly acknowledged earlier this month that he authorized covert CIA action inside Venezuela and has said his administration could strike drug cartel targets on land there.
NBC News reported in April that the Trump administration was considering launching drone strikes on drug cartels in Mexico. […]
Unlike in Venezuela, the mission being planned for Mexico is not designed to undermine the country’s government, the two current and two former U.S. officials said.
After NBC’s story in April, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed it at a news conference. “We reject any form of intervention or interference. That’s been very clear, Mexico coordinates and collaborates, but does not subordinate itself,” she said, according to a translation provided by the Mexican Embassy to the U.S.
[…] Trump’s focus on Venezuela includes not only military strikes on alleged drug boats, but also a pressure campaign against the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro. The administration has accused Maduro of being a member of a drug cartel and is offering a $50 million reward for information that leads to his arrest.
In Mexico, Sheinbaum already has allowed the CIA to expand surveillance flights, which began during the Biden administration, NBC News has reported. Under her leadership, Mexico has deployed 10,000 troops to the U.S. border, increased fentanyl seizures and extradited 55 senior cartel figures to the U.S.
Trump’s public comments have suggested the Mexican government is unable to control the cartels.
“I have great respect for the president, a woman that I think is a tremendous woman,” Trump said last month. “She’s a very brave woman, but Mexico is run by the cartels.”
“Negotiators at shipping talks in London were told both they and their countries could be punished unless they voted with the U.S.”
European negotiators were personally targeted by their American counterparts during a brutal negotiation over green shipping rules, European Commission officials told POLITICO — a highly unusual gambit that left diplomats shaken after the meeting.
The threats were made last month, as the U.S. maneuvered to block a new effort to tax pollution at a meeting of the International Maritime Organization in London.
Eight envoys, officials and civil society observers from Europe, granted anonymity to describe the fractious closed-door discussions and protect their relationships with those involved, confirmed national delegates had reported they had been threatened with personal consequences if they went against Washington.
“Our negotiators had never seen this before in any international talks,” said one European official, who had spoken to negotiators. “People being summoned to the U.S. Embassy in London — intimidation, threats of cessation of business, threats of family members losing visas.” [!]
[…] Since Donald Trump’s return to office, the administration has sought to undermine global climate policy and promote U.S. fossil fuel interests. The president has called efforts to combat global warming a “con job.” He was particularly enraged about the maritime emissions effort, saying it would hit American shippers with unwarranted taxes.
[…] The U.S. strategy was laid out publicly ahead of the meeting, with a press release signed by the U.S. secretaries of state, transportation and energy. On top of threats of tariffs, port fees and visa restrictions on crews, the U.S. said it would also look at “sanctions on officials sponsoring activist-driven climate policies.”
[…] The deployment of personal threats in an international negotiation represents another departure by the Trump administration from diplomatic norms and signals further tension in relations between the U.S. and EU. [Trump has turned all of his lackeys into bullies in the Trump mode: ignorant and unrelenting.]
The threats were not limited to European delegations, according to officials and attendees briefed on the events in London.
[…] Delegates exposed to the intimidation campaign were unwilling to speak on the record for fear the U.S. would make good on its ultimatums. The Financial Times first reported the personal threats to delegates.
In a close vote, the summit chose to delay the emissions tax for a year — a feat viewed by many as a near-death blow to the measure and a major victory for Trump. Dozens of countries from Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia agreed to the delay.
[…] At a coffee break during the meeting, Vanuatu Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu told POLITICO that other island nations had been subjected to “relentless pressure” from the U.S.. “There’s bullshit going on,” he said.
Although tough tactics are nothing new in international talks, the bare-knuckle approach of the U.S. in London was seen as extraordinary.
“U.S. pressure created an atmosphere of fear, which in turn created chaos that ultimately led to the adoption to be delayed,” said Christiaan De Beukelaer, a senior lecturer in climate and maritime transport policies at the University of Melbourne, who was present at the talks in an observer capacity.
“Once you go around threatening countries, you undermine the design and functioning of multilateralism as it emerged since the Second World War,” he added. [True]
[…] in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the effort against the carbon price.
“Our coalition-building efforts paid off, proving that real diplomacy based on national interest — ours and theirs — can thwart unaccountable bureaucratic schemes. Should this initiative or any other similar one emerge from the U.N. bureaucracy again, our coalition against it will be ready—and larger,” said Rubio. [Rubio making additional threats.]
birgerjohanssonsays
The loon that made the train attack in Britain may have been involved in three other attacks.
As this gene is normally only active in the embryo, this might be of interest to PZ
.
Specific human gene can help the heart repair itself from heart attack or heart failure
A federal judge ruled late Sunday that the Trump administration cannot send in National Guard soldiers to Portland, Ore., for another five days, until she makes her final decision in the case. But she strongly suggested that she would keep them out permanently.
Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has quietly retreated from plans to eliminate Energy Star, a popular program whose iconic blue labels help consumers to choose energy efficient dishwashers, refrigerators and other home appliances.
StevoRsays
PBS Newsour segemnt / interview w transcript here :
Authorities in Israel detained the military’s top lawyer, a two-star general, and accused her of leaking a video that allegedly shows Israeli soldiers assaulting a Palestinian detainee. The saga renews an intense debate about how the legal system treats Israeli soldiers and Palestinian detainees. Nick Schifrin reports.
More than 730,000 New Yorkers have already cast ballots ahead of Tuesday’s mayoral election. It’s a race with big stakes for the city and beyond. Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani has vaulted from a relatively unknown state legislator to the frontrunner to lead the largest city in the country. William Brangham reports on what his potential victory means for New York and the Democratic Party.
NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter join Amna Nawaz to discuss the latest political news, including what to expect from Tuesday’s big races, President Trump’s lengthy interview with CBS News and what is soon to be the longest government shutdown of all time.
Scientists working with the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (COLDEX) have collected the oldest directly dated ice cores ever drilled: 6 million years old. In studying the air and water from the samples, they glimpsed the climate of the ancient Earth, when the planet was warmer than it is today and sea levels were higher — and discovered evidence of a long-term cooling period.
Led by Sarah Shackleton of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and John Higgins of Princeton University, the team collected the sample from the Allan Hills of East Antarctica, where the topography of the landscape brings ancient ice nearer to the surface. While the researchers expected to find ice up to 3 million years old here, the sample greatly exceeded expectations.
@405
“Yugen” is what every amateur astronomer will have experienced.
Apart from this list, German has a ton of useful expressions. People suffering from yet anither workplace re-organisation should know the word “schlimmbessern”.
birgerjohanssonsays
Just in:
the British rail worker who stopped the insane knife guy and got badly injured in the process is named Samir Zitouni and is a ‘darkie’. The knife man -by many assumed to be some muslim- turned out to be a non-muslim named Anthony something.
A new class action lawsuit against Spotify alleges the company has “turned a blind eye” to “mass-scale fraudulent streaming” on its platform and that one musician in particular has been the beneficiary of “billions” of fake streams: Drake.
The suit was filed in California District Court on Sunday night with rapper (and cousin of Snoop Dogg) RBX named as the lead plaintiff. While the most eye-popping allegations in the suit relate to Drake’s streaming numbers, there are no specific accusations of wrongdoing against the “Nokia” rapper. Only Spotify is named as a defendant.
Nothing here against Drake personally, only mentioned in the suit because apparently he has been one of the major beneficiaries of the fraud and the people bringing the suit have more statistical data on him. This is actually a repeat of a long running issue. This could be intentional fraud by somebody getting a percent of Drake’s revenue stream but much of it is fans setting up bots that continuously download Drake’s music, wasting internet bandwidth, making it look like he is more popular then he is and causing Drake to get paid more by Spotify.
This is a particular issue for Spotify because of the way it pays. Much of what Spotify pays each month is from a pool of payment money based on what Spotify got in ad money and other sources. This pool is then divided based on how much various artists get played. So not only are the bots inflating Drake’s money but they are doing it by draining other artists share. This payment system means Spotify has little interest in blocking fraud, it doesn’t effect their profits much. The system is not entirely Spotify’s fault, it was negotiated with the big record companies years ago.
JMsays
Legal AF: Trump DOJ SCRAMBLES to SAVE Indictments as Prosecutor FACES REMOVAL
Pam Bondi tries to paper over the Lindsey Halligan appointment issue by appointing her to an additional different position of special prosecutor and then back dating the appointment. The court should laugh at this before rejecting it. The special appointment on top of the US Attorney position is questionable legally itself, trying to back date it so that it’s official before the cases Halligan brought is absurd.
U.S. manufacturing contracted for an eighth straight month in October as new orders remained subdued, and suppliers were taking longer to deliver materials to factories against the backdrop of tariffs on imported goods.
Accounts from manufacturers in the Institute for Supply Management survey on Monday painted a dire picture of the factory sector, which ironically President Donald Trump’s sweeping duties are intended to stimulate. […]
“Tariffs have been roiling the sector for much of this year,” said Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Santander U.S. Capital Markets. “The comments from individual respondents suggest that firms are exhausted by all of the back and forth on tariffs since the beginning of April and are suffering mightily as their customers have pulled back significantly.”
[…] Among the 12 industries that contracted were textile mills, wood and chemical products as well as electrical equipment, appliances and components, machinery, and computer and electronic products.
Some makers of chemical products said business remained “difficult as customers are cancelling and reducing orders due to uncertainty in the global economic environment and regarding the ever-changing tariff landscape.” Others said “wonder has turned to concern regarding how the tariff threats are affecting our business,” adding that “orders are down across most divisions.”
[…] Machinery manufacturers complained about tariffs, noting “the products we import are not readily manufactured in the U.S., so attempts to reshore have been unsuccessful.”
Others said the Trump administration’s trade war had hurt agricultural exports, and impacted farmers’ finances and their ability to buy new equipment. [graph]
TARIFFS ARE CONSTRAINING PRODUCTION AT FACTORIES
The U.S. Supreme Court, opens new tab on Wednesday will hear arguments on the legality of Trump’s import duties. Trump has defended the tariffs as necessary to protect domestic manufacturing.
The ISM survey’s forward-looking new orders sub-index rose to a still-depressed 49.4 last month from 48.9 in September. This measure has contracted in eight of the last nine months.
[…] Consumer spending is mostly being driven by high-income households, who are the biggest beneficiaries of a stock market rally, economists said.
Backlog orders remained subdued last month as did export orders. Production was weak after briefly rebounding in September. Tariffs are gumming up supply chains, resulting in longer delivery times to factories.
[…] Factory employment remained weak, with the ISM noting that manufacturers continued to lay off workers and leave open positions unfilled to manage headcount.
“There have been a lot of deals made with countries committing hundreds of billions of investment in the U.S., but these plants can take several years to get set up,” said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS. “Workers will have to wait a while longer to join the assembly line, because there are no good jobs out there yet.”
“It’s a problem that the White House has fired so many IGs. The ouster of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s watchdog makes the problem much worse.”
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) has traditionally been a relatively low-profile federal office. That changed rather dramatically this year after the White House tapped Bill Pulte — a presidential sycophant recently described by The Washington Post as “a prominent Trump sidekick” — to lead the agency.
[…] Pulte has appeared eager to weaponize mortgage fraud allegations as part of the broader political campaign.
It’s against this backdrop that Reuters reported:
The internal watchdog for the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency is being removed from his role, four people familiar with the matter said, at a time when the housing regulator is playing a role in President Donald Trump’s targeting of perceived political enemies.
[…] Joe Allen, FHFA’s acting inspector general, was notified of his termination by the White House. “His ouster also came about as he was preparing to send a letter to Congress notifying lawmakers that the FHFA was not cooperating with the inspector general’s office,” the article added.
The developments come a month after Reuters also reported that Pulte “skipped over his agency’s inspector general when making criminal referrals” against Trump’s political enemies.
In other words, as the FHFA appears increasingly politicized by its partisan director, the agency’s internal watchdog, who is responsible for keeping the office on the straight and narrow, has been shown the door.
[…] Complicating matters is the scope and scale of the broader campaign Team Trump has launched against IGs.
As regular readers know, on the first Friday night of his second term, Trump fired at least 18 inspectors general who were responsible for rooting out corruption, ethical lapses and mismanagement in federal agencies throughout the government. The president didn’t appear to have the legal authority to take such steps, but he did anyway.
In the months that followed, the total number of IG firings reached roughly two dozen, which coincided with the White House defunding the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, the umbrella organization for 72 inspectors general across the federal government — despite the fact that Congress had already agreed to fund the office.
[…] Inspectors general exist to ensure that federal agencies abide by applicable laws and institutional rules (among other reasons). The White House often likes to ignore applicable laws and institutional rules, so Trump and his team tend to see inspectors general as annoying hindrances in need of removal. […] in some instances, why they’ve nominated controversial loyalists to serve in key offices.
[…] The result is a system of inspectors general that is now broken in significant ways, which necessarily opens the door to more corruption, more mismanagement, more ethical lapses and more departments acting beyond legal limits.
“Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh said polling sites at School 2 and School 10 in Paterson were shut down after threats were received.”
[…] some of these polling locations have already reopened to the public, while at others, voters have been directed to a nearby polling location to cast their ballot. “Voters should continue to have confidence that they can cast their ballot without fear of intimidation, and we will continue to work tirelessly to ensure a free, fair, and secure election. Make no mistake: We will not tolerate any attempts to interfere with our elections, and we will swiftly hold accountable anyone who seeks to interfere with the safety or security of our electoral process.”
Threats have been sent via email to the following locations:
Bergen County
Essex County
Mercer County
Middlesex County
Monmouth County
Ocean County
Passaic County
[…] This is a developing story, and News 12 will provide updates as information becomes available.
Downtown Los Angeles was a sea of blue clothing and confetti Monday as Dodger fans took to the streets to celebrate their team’s back-to-back World Series wins.
But some fans are questioning if their love for the team is reciprocated.
After all, Dodgers owner Mark Walter has a financial stake in the ongoing ICE raids that are ravaging Southern California’s Latino communities.
Amid President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy ICE agents and later National Guard members and Marines to Los Angeles, Walter already had a stake in some questionable facilities housing immigrants being targeted for deportation.
According to Black Press USA national correspondent Stacy Brown, Walter’s financial services firm Guggenheim Partners owns a 0.38% stake in GEO Group, a private prison company the Trump administration has contracted to build and operate immigrant detention centers.
On top of that, Walter is also CEO of multinational holding company TWG Global, which announced a partnership in March with software company Palantir to develop immigrant-tracking software, just months before the ICE raids began in L.A.
But as ICE agents were terrorizing local communities by detaining street vendors and raiding Home Depot parking lots, the baseball team so fervently loved by L.A.’s huge Latino population was notably silent.
The Dodgers don’t just play in a heavily Latino city; the team also leans into the culture when it’s convenient—and profitable.
By hiring mariachi bands during post-season games, hosting Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan heritage nights, and even trademarking their Spanish nickname “Los Doyers” and selling merch emblazoned with the moniker, the team owners make no attempt to mask the Dodgers’ longtime connection to the Latino community.
That made the team’s initial silence on ICE raids especially conspicuous.
Adding insult to injury, the team’s executives told Dominican American singer Nezza that she couldn’t sing the national anthem in Spanish amid the raids. She did it anyway.
This all lines up with the team’s visit to Trump’s White House in April, where the owner bent the knee to the president.
Dick Cheney’s political career began in 1969 when he became a staffer for Rep. William Steiger from Wisconsin, a man far greater than his more famous acolyte. He then joined the staff of a rising Republican star named Donald Rumsfeld. He rode the Republican lightning along with Uncle Don, holding a variety of positions in the Nixon and Ford administrations, including White House Staff Assistant in 1971, Assistant Director to the Cost of Living Counsel from 1971 to 1973, and Deputy Assistant to the President from 1974 to 1975. When Gerald Ford named Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense, Cheney was called on to replace Rummy as Chief of Staff. While working for Ford, Cheney decided that the best way his boss could fend off Reagan was to declare war on unions. He convinced Ford to break promises to labor, vetoing legislation to liberalize picketing around construction sites, so outraging Secretary of Labor John Dunlop that the latter resigned in protest.
This was a time when the Church Committee was investigating the executive branch abuses of the Nixon administration. Cheney’s reaction to this was outrage, as he already believed in the imperial presidency, an idea that the Trump administration is running with as part of its fascist play. And sure, yes, Cheney hates Trump and has actively opposed him in the Republican Party, but do not let that distract you from the rest of Cheney’s evil life. From that point forward, through his time in Congress and his role as Vice-President, Cheney consistently argued that Congress should cede power to the presidency, especially on the issue of national security. This has caused tremendous damage to the nation and contributed significantly to the deaths of millions of people.
Cheney then went to Congress, being elected to the House from Wyoming in 1978. He served five terms, leaving office in 1989. He was as horrible as you would expect. He voted against creating the Department of Education. He hated the idea of a holiday to honor Martin Luther King. He voted to defund Head Start. Of course, all of this just made him a rising star in a party increasingly committed to extremism. He was elected to be Chairman of the House Republican Conference in 1987 and then House Minority Whip in 1988.
I was assured by several Pharyngulites that there would be no more “free and fair elections”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Nevertheless, I broke reality and did the logically contradictory thing. I voted.
JMsays
@416 beholder: Election don’t have to be entirely free and fair for them to matter. The Senate distribution in the US is by no means fair. And attempts to stuff the vote with illegal or fake votes often only go so far, if enough people vote then the attempt to rig the vote may not fake enough votes.
Even in dictatorships the dictator may notice that he had to give himself +60% to win the election and decide it’s time to retire to some distant country that doesn’t recognize the ICC.
I know practically nothing about American baseball, except it’s kind of viewed as the quintessential American game. It is a little ironic that in this age of toxic nationalism that the star of American baseball right now Is Yoshinobu Yamamoto who is originally from Bizen, Okayama, Japan, and started his pro career in Japan.
“In his first term, the president cared more about things he saw on Fox News than in his intelligence briefings. Years later, very little has changed.”
Related video at the link.
After having spent the year saying effectively nothing about conditions in Nigeria, Donald Trump expressed sudden and dramatic interest in the African country late last week. The president, pointing to alleged attacks against the nation’s Christian population, announced via his social media platform that he was labeling Nigeria a “country of particular concern.”
A day later,Trump went considerably further, threatening to send U.S. troops into the country, “guns-a-blazing,” as part of a military offensive that he said would be “fast, vicious, and sweet.” The day after that, the president fielded a few questions from reporters aboard Air Force One and again raised the possibility of U.S. military intervention in Nigeria.
There’s no shortage of questions about what, if anything, might come of the saber-rattling, but there’s a related question that’s lingered in the background: How, exactly, did this issue come to Trump’s attention?
In a normal White House, one might assume that a president might learn about conditions in Nigeria by way of a Presidential Daily Brief, but Trump doesn’t read those. One might assume that such information would be included as part of an intelligence briefing, but Trump skips those, too.
So how did this get on Trump’s radar? NBC News reported:
A Fox News report prompted President Donald Trump to call out Nigeria over the killing of Christians and then threaten military action, setting off a scramble in the White House over the weekend, according to multiple U.S. officials. It’s still unclear what — if anything — the administration will do to counter Islamic militants in Nigeria, but precision drone strikes are among the preliminary options being considered, two U.S. officials said.
This reminded me of a story from almost eight years ago.
In January 2018, roughly a year into Trump’s first term, he raised eyebrows around the world by publishing an online item in which he boasted about the size of his “nuclear button,” effectively daring North Korea to demonstrate its nuclear capabilities. At the time, Trump’s tweet began, “North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’”
But the North Korean leader hadn’t “just” stated that; he’d actually made the comments days earlier. What had actually “just” happened was that Fox News had aired a segment on Kim’s comments, and Trump had “just” seen that.
Around the same time, the president sat down with a New York Times reporter and pointed to evidence of China providing oil to North Korea. Did he receive this information from a U.S. intelligence agency? No, Trump said he knew the information was true because “it was reported on Fox.”
The same day, he said his approval rating at the end of his first year was “the same” as Barack Obama’s. That was spectacularly untrue, but Trump said he saw it reported on Fox News.
Months earlier, he told the public about terrorist violence in Sweden — which, as it turned out, didn’t actually exist — because of something he saw on Fox News.
Around the same time, White House aides conceded that the network was Trump’s “primary source of information gathering.” [!] [Trump is already an ignorant bumblefuck. Fox News deepens Trump’s ignorance by feeding him constant diet of disinformation.]
Several years later, very little has changed.
The public may not fully appreciate just how quickly a sitting president can have any question answered. Trump can pick up the phone anytime and request information on any topic. Knowledgeable officials then prepare a detailed briefing and answer his questions in any level of detail he finds satisfying.
But the incumbent president doesn’t want to pick up the phone, he wants to pick up his remote. This was true to an unsettling degree in his first term, and the Nigeria story suggests it’s still true now.
“Patel has ‘launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution,’ the association said. There’s ample evidence to bolster the point.”
Related video t the link.
As this week got underway, there were some unconfirmed reports about FBI Director Kash Patel firing several officials linked to the faux controversy known as “Arctic Frost,” though soon after, there were related reports that the firings had been reversed.
Around the same time, The New York Times reported that Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., had intervened to “halt the dismissal” of some veteran FBI agents, insisting that their ouster “would hamper work on ongoing cases.”
A day later, it now appears they were fired anyway: MSNBC has confirmed the four experienced FBI agents have been kicked out of the bureau because of their work on former special counsel Jack’s Smith’s election investigation. [!]
The FBI Agents Association was not pleased. Its written statement read in part:
The actions yesterday — in which FBI Special Agents were terminated and then reinstated shortly after, and then only to be fired again today — highlight the chaos that occurs when long-standing policies and processes are ignored. An Agent simply being assigned to an investigation and conducting it appropriately within the law should never be grounds for termination. Director Patel has disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution. FBI Agents deal in facts, and we urge Director Patel to do the same. When leadership abandons due process, it doesn’t just erode trust — it makes the American public less safe.
If “Arctic Frost” were a genuine controversy, it might be easier to understand Patel’s crusade against those involved. But there is no actual scandal, and there’s still no evidence of Smith or anyone associated with his investigations having done anything wrong.
That partisan hysterics are ending the careers of veteran FBI agents is as ridiculous as it seems.
But adding insult to injury is the broader pattern. This week’s four firings come on the heels of Patel forcing out a special agent in charge Aaron Tapp, a 22-year veteran of the bureau, who had appeared in documents recently released by Senate Republicans as part of the same manufactured outrage.
Around the same time, the FBI’s beleaguered director also forced out Steven Palmer, a 27-year veteran of the bureau, because Patel was embarrassed by revelations that he used an official jet to fly out to see his girlfriend perform at a concert.
In early October, Patel also fired three other agents accused of being part of the “Arctic Frost” nonsense, while he simultaneously tore down the Washington field office’s federal corruption unit.
The moves were outrageous, but Patel has spent much of the year ousting agents who’ve done nothing wrong as part of an ongoing, monthslong purge.
Work on cases related to the criminal investigations into Donald Trump? Fired. Work on Jan. 6 cases? Fired. Took a knee for George Floyd five years ago? Fired. Display a gay pride flag on a desk at a field office? Fired. Refuse to needlessly humiliate a former director? Fired. [!]
The firings have reportedly destabilized the bureau. Indeed, reporting on the chaos, MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian noted in early August that the “purge that is ongoing is without precedent in the modern history of the bureau. It raises questions about whether the Trump administration is trying to turn the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency into an instrument of presidential whim — exactly the thing he baselessly accused his opponent of doing.”
That was roughly three months ago, and the problem is far worse now. Evidently, the unqualified former podcast personality and conspiracy theorist whom Republicans put in charge of the FBI doesn’t care.
[…] Trump said on Tuesday SNAP benefits will not go out to the nearly 42 million Americans who rely on the nutrition program until Democrats vote to open the federal government — despite an order from a federal judge that the administration must fund the program during the shutdown.
“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly “handed” to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!,” Trump wrote in a Tuesday Truth Social post. [A mega load of bull pucky.]
Senate Democrats quickly raised the alarm about the president’s statement, saying he can not defy a court order.
“I think that will be short lived and if he continues to ignore the courts then we’re in a full blown five alarm constitutional crisis,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told reporters in the Senate basement. “The President doesn’t get to pick and choose which court orders he complies with. The court said he has to start paying SNAP benefits and he has to start paying SNAP benefits.”
“The President who threw a Gatsby-themed party the night before he cut off SNAP benefits is now vowing to break a court order so that he can force millions of children, seniors, and veterans to go hungry,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) wrote on social media. “It’s sickening. I won’t stand for it.”
Trump’s statement comes after a federal judge ordered the administration over the weekend to keep the program funded during the shutdown, giving the Trump administration two choices: either provide full SNAP benefits to recipients by Monday or partial benefits by Wednesday.
The Department of Agriculture announced the administration picked the latter in a Monday legal filing, saying that officials would use the USDA’s contingency fund to cover 50 percent of the November allotments to current eligible households. USDA added that it might take states “a few weeks to up to several months” to disburse the money.
Trump’s statement is seemingly a reversal of the USDA filing, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt quickly walked back the president’s words on Tuesday.
“The administration is fully complying with the court order. I just spoke with the president about it,” Leavitt told reporters, claiming that Trump was talking about future situations. [Oh FFS again. Leavitt is making weak and false excuses for Trump’s perfidy.]
The Trump administration is now threatening to attack unemployment benefits amid the GOP’s government shutdown.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer broke the news during a press conference on Tuesday.
“As far as the Department of Labor goes, as was mentioned when we’re talking about the SNAP program, one of the other programs that we’re definitely concerned about—and we’ve sent letters out to all 50 states—is unemployment insurance as is delivered by those states,” she said. [video]
“That will be the next thing that we have to be concerned about,” Chavez-DeRemer added. “If people stop receiving their unemployment insurance, [it] will be another detrimental fact to the American workforce.”
Posted by readers of the article:
I’m concerned with Chavez-DeRemer. […] I’m concerned about her brain. She must know that these are state-run programs that are set in law. There’s no discretion for the fascists in the federal government to fiddle with them.
Also, you need to remember who pays for unemployment: employees and their employers. The fraction that comes from the federal government is for special circumstances […]
—————————-
Curtailing unemployment benefits was already in Project 2025 just like SNAP. They were going to do this regardless of whether the government was open or closed. The CR, if approved today, would expire on November 21. In 17 days, Johnson and Trump have nothing, and Johnson will have to reconvene the house if they want to put anything on the table. If he doesn’t, then “democrats won’t go along with cutting their own throats” turns exclusively into “I don’t want to release the Epstein Files.” At this point, voting for a CR that does not curtail any of this unlawful activity is not in the democrats best interest.
“Pam Bondi Puts Sticker On Lindsey Halligan’s Head That Says ‘Real Lawyer'”
“RETROACTIVELY.”
Welp, the lawyer who thinks you’re automatically off the record with a journalist as long as you use the fun disappearing messages on Signal, the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia who was placed there for the sole purpose of being a big enough idiot to prosecute Donald Trump’s enemies, regardless of whether evidence has been uncovered, she’s in another embarrassing situation.
There’ve been questions as to whether Halligan’s appointment was valid, and James Comey and Letitia James have been arguing through their lawyers in court that it indeed was not, in particular because her immediate predecessor, Erik Siebert, the one who had too much integrity and professionalism to prosecute Comey for imaginary crimes simply because Trump is upset with him, had already finished a 120-day term as interim US attorney. Therefore, say lawyers for Comey and James, Trump isn’t just allowed to appoint a whole new interim US attorney. […]
In reply, the US Justice Department says “neener” and now Attorney General Pam Bondi has put a sticker on Halligan’s head that says “Real Lawyer SINCE ALWAYS,” to clear up any confusion over whether she’s supposed to be there.
The Washington Post explains:
Justice Department lawyers on Monday defended Lindsey Halligan’s role as eastern Virgnia’s top federal prosecutor, saying in court filings that even if her appointment as U.S. attorney is ruled invalid, she now has an additional title that will allow her to continue overseeing cases against two of President Donald Trump’s perceived foes.
The department attorneys said Attorney General Pam Bondi designated Halligan last week as a “special attorney” to the Justice Department, assigned to oversee the cases against former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Lawyers for Comey and James have urged a federal judge to dismiss the charges against them on grounds that Halligan was unlawfully installed as U.S. attorney in September and has no authority to prosecute them.
“Whatever her title, Ms. Halligan is still an ‘attorney for the government’ authorized to conduct grand jury proceedings and sign indictments,” Henry C. Whitaker, a counselor to Bondi, wrote in court filings Monday.
New title, can’t get mad. New title, can’t get mad. Lindsey Halligan is Mommy’s Super Special Deputy Super Lawyer Princess Queen Of The World, and no stinky judge can say she hasn’t been since, um, whatever date it needs to be for the Comey and James indictments to be valid!
So it’s all fine now.
US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, US Attorney from Baywatch, WHATEVER HER TITLE. As long as grand juries keep indicting Donald Trump’s political enemies on hilariously stupid grounds after Halligan goes in there alone and does WHATEVER SHE DOES to get them to say yes. […]
And this all counts RETROACTIVELY.
Yes, you will note in the court filing below that Halligan’s appointment to this new super special secret Mommy’s Little Helper lawyer title is intended to count RETROACTIVELY back to the date of her original appointment, which is also around the same time we all started making fun of her. It’s also additionally, if you’ll remember, right before the statute of limitations expired on the bullshit charges they decided to bring against Comey against the advice of all the qualified lawyers.
Remember that week how Halligan rushed to get a bullshit indictment out? How Trump was babbling orders to Bondi on Truth Social, excoriating her for failing to prosecute his enemies? And Bondi and Halligan were like “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” and rushing to indict Comey for something?
In the court filing from Bondi, it says, “I hereby appoint Ms. Halligan to the additional position of Special Attorney, as of September 22, 2025, and thereby ratify her employment as an attorney of the Department of Justice from that date going forward.”
In addition, as the attorney general, Pam Bondi says, “[I] ratify Ms. Halligan’s actions before the grand jury and her signature on the indictments returned by the grand jury in each case.” [Screen grabs of documents]
So you can all stop arguing in court that Lindsey Halligan’s appointment is illegal, OK? Pam Bondi has retroactively ratified Halligan like a real constitutional thingie, a full month after the indictment of James Comey. All of this is very normal, you just don’t understand it because you’re not super special […]
All the lawyers in the Trump administration are top-notch, but these two, Halligan and Bondi? Whew.
In response, lawyers and other on Bluesky are ratifying and retroactively declaring things now. Retroactively declaring Kamala Harris the winner of the US presidency, retroactively declaring themselves lottery winners, saying it’s been ratified. [Social media posts, funny]
Yep, that’s how that’s going.
And now we get to see whether the judge is able to remain dignified in the face of this shit, or whether they’ll start laughing like everybody on Bluesky.
Jeansays
beholder @416
Your statement only shows that you have no idea what “free and fair elections” mean. Voting is an essential part but far from the only requirement. And no one outside the ones holding power can say at this time if the current elections qualify.
Once upon a time, CBS was known as the “Tiffany Network” — a reference to Tiffany & Co — because it had such prestigious, high-quality programming. Now, if anyone calls it the Tiffany Network, that would be because it’s been wandering around a dead mall sadly whisper-singing “I Think We’re Alone Now” to itself.
But one person who is not alone is Bari Weiss, the newly minted editor-in-chief of CBS’s news division. Why? Because the network is spending $10,000 a day to have her followed around by eight bodyguards and a caravan of SUVs at all times.
[…] going to cost Paramount about $3.6 million a year, which may be why they just laid off 100 workers, including former The View co-host Lisa Ling. Unlike Weiss, Ling has been an actual reporter since she was 21 years old, so maybe that was awkward for her. The network also eliminated senior foreign correspondent Debora Patta, who had been reporting on Gaza — which I think we can all reasonably assume will no longer be allowed with Weiss at the helm — as well as its entire Race & Culture Unit. After all, it would be some real woke DEI to have people with any actual expertise covering those issues. […]
The news station has already started making some interesting changes under Weiss’s guidance. For instance, this weekend, 60 Minutes cut a portion of an interview with Trump in which he could not explain why he pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance (which was used by terrorist groups like Hamas, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State to launder money and move millions of dollars around), who Zhao was, or whether or not it had anything to do with Binance helping Trump family’s crypto business, World Liberty Financial, strike a $2 billion deal with the United Arab Emirates. While the segment did not air, Trump did personally congratulate himself on having let interviewer Norah O’Donnell even ask him the question in the first place.
[…] 60 Minutes also cut a portion of the interview in which Trump gushed over how much he loves Bari Weiss and how much CBS had to pay him after they “edited” an interview with Harris in a way he believed was flattering to her. […]
It is not entirely clear why Weiss has more security than Beyoncé and Taylor Swift combined, though the Page Six article on her new pals suggests that it is a reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk. However, given the fact that Weiss left The New York Times partly over the fact that her co-workers did not like her and publicly said so, which she did not think was allowed, it’s possible that she thinks being constantly surrounded by a bunch of special-forces-looking guys will discourage that.
“The real truth about the Tudor succession comes to light. Literally.”
This is a very interesting account of history being rewritten to appease a bullying ruler, and an account of how the true facts have been revealed.
We are acutely aware today of how technology can be used to spread falsehoods serving a political agenda. But less appreciated is technology’s usefulness in uncovering the truth and bringing history close, as with the revelation of a more than 400-year-old disinformation campaign surrounding the death of England’s Queen Elizabeth I and her successor to the throne.
I have studied England’s Tudor dynasty — and Elizabeth I in particular — for as long as I can remember. I fell in love with these celebrated royals at 16, thanks to an inspirational teacher who encouraged her students to challenge the accepted narratives about the Tudors’ 118-year reign and to draw our own conclusions about what really happened in that turbulent period that changed England forever.
It is a lesson I always try to keep at the forefront of my mind when researching my books. And yet, I didn’t take it to heart enough when it came to the Elizabethan succession.
For more than 400 years, historians, myself included, have accepted the account, written by the 17th century antiquarian William Camden, of the Virgin Queen’s last-gasp naming of her closest blood relative, James VI of Scotland, to succeed her as ruler of England.
In our defense, Camden was a meticulous historian. He cut his teeth at Oxford before being appointed Head Master of Westminster School, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the country. He had spent years traveling extensively in pursuit of topographical and antiquarian information for his first major book, “Britannia,” determined to base it on primary materials rather than simply offering his own pontifications. The same was true of his “Annales, the true and royall history of the famous empresse Elizabeth” — popularly known as Camden’s Annals — which he had started writing during the 1590s and completed in 1615, once the queen’s successor was on the throne.
According to the Annals, as the dying queen’s anxious ministers clustered around her bed at Richmond Palace in March 1603, they urged her one last time to settle the succession — something she had consistently refused to do during her 45-year reign. Rousing herself from her stupor, she answered them: “Who if not my closest relation, the King of Scots?” She died shortly afterward, and the throne of England passed peacefully to James.
But detailed analysis of Camden’s original manuscript released by the British Library in 2023 has revealed that key sections were rewritten after Elizabeth’s death to make them more favorable to her successor. In addition to the numerous amendments that can be read with the naked eye, no fewer than 200 pages have been pasted in, 65 of them replacing original text with a new version. Advanced imaging technology using transmitted light has revealed the words that lie beneath.
Most of the concealed text concerns only details — the number of horses involved in a battle, for example. But a small number of the original pages hide material that challenges the version of Elizabeth’s history — and the succession — that has endured for the past four centuries. Rather than naming the King of Scots as her heir with almost her last breath, Elizabeth apparently upheld the policy that she had doggedly followed throughout her reign and went to her grave without nominating a successor. Camden’s original, undoctored manuscript even suggests that in the closing years of Elizabeth’s reign, James lost patience and might have plotted to have her assassinated.
This kind of discovery doesn’t come along very often. It is without a doubt the most important revelation of my 35 years as a historian. For the past four centuries, the transition from the Tudor to the Stuart dynasty has been presented as both smooth and, in the words of James’s contemporaries, “lawful and undoubted.”
Setting aside everything I had previously thought to be true, I researched the Elizabethan succession from scratch, looking with fresh eyes at the many other contenders for Elizabeth’s throne, any one of whom might have been proclaimed king or queen on her death. It soon became clear that the King of Scots was by no means the strongest candidate. In fact, Henry VIII, Elizabeth’s father, had barred his Scottish relatives from ever inheriting his crown or that of his successors. James’s cousin, Lady Arbella Stuart, faced the same problem when she asserted her claim.
Given that we have had a United Kingdom for at least 300 years, it’s easy to underestimate just how deep-seated the hostility between England and Scotland was at the time. By the dawn of the Tudor era in 1485, the two countries had been bitter enemies for almost half a millennium. Fierce rivalry, bloody battles and uneasy truces had marked their relationship ever since the Anglo-Scottish border was formed in the early 1000s. To Elizabeth’s xenophobic subjects, the Scots were just as much foreigners as the Spanish.
According to Henry VIII’s will, the person who should have been first in line to succeed Elizabeth was Lady Katherine Grey, sister of the “Nine Days Queen” Lady Jane Grey and granddaughter of Henry’s favorite sister, Mary. But Elizabeth neither liked nor trusted Katherine, and when Katherine made a secret marriage to a fellow blood claimant, the couple landed a spell in the Tower of London. Their claim, however, passed to their sons and grandsons, who remained a thorn in Elizabeth’s side for the rest of her reign.
The same was true of Henry Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, who had Plantagenet blood running through his veins, and even the Spanish Infanta, Isabella, daughter of Philip II, who could also trace her descent from England’s medieval kings.
As soon as I stopped seeing James VI’s accession as a foregone conclusion, the race for Elizabeth’s throne was cast in an entirely new light. It became clear just how easily one of James’s rivals could have pipped him to the post. The long-accepted story of the Tudor dynasty’s end and the Stuarts’s rise was transformed. Far from being the “peaceable coming in of the king” that James’s apologists claimed, his accession sparked deep-seated resentment that soon boiled over into open defiance.
Anticipating this, James’s supporters on the English council had placed extra security in key towns and ports and banned “disorderly assemblies.” Even so, there was reportedly “great unruliness” on the Scottish border, though this was drowned out by James’s carefully stage-managed journey south to claim his crown, which official reports claimed was greeted with “unspeakable joy.”
But the rising opposition to England’s new king could not be suppressed and soon found dramatic expression in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which aimed to blow the Scottish king to the heavens.
The darker, more turbulent story that Camden had tried to suppress would find even more devastating expression in the reign of James’s son and successor, Charles I. He took the Stuart belief in the divine right of kings to even greater extremes than his father, dissolving the English Parliament whenever it disagreed with him. In the end, that body took up arms against the crown, plunging the kingdom into a series of bitterly fought civil wars. The lie that had begun Stuart rule in England culminated in the destruction of the monarchy upon Charles’s execution in 1649, less than 50 years after Elizabeth’s death.
Researching all this has made me more humble — and skeptical — as a historian, reminding me of the crucial importance of questioning everything, even sources that have been relied upon for centuries. But I have also been struck by how current a story this is. Camden rewrote his account of Elizabeth’s deathbed to please her successor, who was literally breathing down the historian’s neck, forcing him to make numerous changes. “Many things were struck out and many things altered,” a beleaguered Camden confided to a friend. In short, those in power had controlled the narrative.
This has obvious resonance for us today, as we witness the spread of fake news — from digitally altered and manipulated images to misinformation and conspiracy theories — across social media. Much in the world has changed beyond all recognition since James VI claimed the throne of England. But discovering how he had history rewritten in his favor, spinning the succession to keep himself in power, has made the 1600s seem within touching distance.
birgerjohanssonsays
I just found out Alan Rickman’s son is running for mayor of NY. But why has he changed his last name?
.
Victorian era: There was a fad in the 1890s of nipple rings. For both genders.
birgerjohanssonsays
Must-view article with Donald Trump in People Magazine 1998.
[…] Several people mentioned the extraordinary command performance of senior military officers at Quantico, where Trump and his self-styled Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, lectured them on the need to battle “the enemy from within”—and, Hegseth added, to do more pushups. “When addressing the generals from around the world he summoned to Quantico, he politicized the U.S. military in a single hour of American history,” J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former appeals-court judge who has emerged as one of Trump’s most visible critics, wrote, “trashing our former Presidents and the ‘radical-left lunatics’ of the Democratic Party and announcing that, on his orders as Commander-in-Chief, the United States military will henceforth use America’s liberal cities as ‘training grounds’ for fighting the war against his political opposition, whom he called the ‘enemy from within.’ ”
Michael Kazin, a historian at Georgetown, was struck by the singular ambition of what Trump is attempting in his second term. “The most disruptive thing he’s done is also the most significant: Trump has set out to reverse some of the most prominent cultural and political gains that liberals and progressive movements achieved from the nineteen-sixties on: affirmative action, the legitimacy of public workers’ unions, an openness to immigrants from all over the world,” Kazin wrote. “The effort shows that Trump is the most radical and, if he mostly succeeds, will be seen as the most consequential president of the twenty-first century and perhaps the most consequential political figure in the world.” The only problem with Kazin’s extensive catalogue, which included several more examples, might simply be that it was too limited; others, such as the former Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass, added a long list of global disruptions, as well.
Taken together, the answers provided a sort of battle-damage assessment of the current moment, the kind undertaken while everyone is still patting themselves to figure out which parts survived the explosion intact. Nearly every respondent nodded to the larger themes that shadow us in the Trump Presidency: the politicization of previously nonpolitical institutions; the sweeping assertions of executive power to justify acts of overreach or outright lawlessness; the reorientation of America’s national-security doctrine away from confrontation with great-power adversaries such as Russia and China in favor of confrontation against “the enemy from within”; the “gobsmacking” self-enrichment of Trump and his family, as they leverage the power of the Presidency in service of their private interests; and the caving of those who could have stood up to Trump but chose not to—from Congress to the Supreme Court to various leaders of civil society.
This last item, I think, has been most stunning for many. Trump, after all, is a known quantity by now. It is as a mirror for the rest of America that he continues to amaze and stun us. “The most surprising—and it shouldn’t have been—was how well intimidation works,” said Miles Taylor, the former Department of Homeland Security official who wrote an anonymous op-ed from inside Trump’s first term, and who has been targeted for investigation by the President in his second term. “Entire sectors of society that stood up to Trump in his first term have been crumpled up and tossed like tissue paper, offering feeble resistance to his power grab and revenge campaign. We were unprepared for it. And it shows.”
That is what gets me, too. So many individual decisions have gone into the making of our American monarch. I suppose there’s a perfectly rational reason for South Korea’s President to give Trump a golden crown, and for the leaders of Apple and Amazon and other companies whose services we use every day to contribute millions of dollars to knock down the East Wing of the White House. Republicans in Congress, who have failed to perform their constitutional duty and stand up for their branch of government, may justify their inaction as the price they have to pay to hang on to their positions in a Party whose electorate will not tolerate anyone who defies its leader. Hence, the debacle of 2025: what looks rational for an individual has produced decisions of collective madness. I’ll leave the final word to a college friend, Robbie Baxter, a strategic business consultant and author in Silicon Valley. “I am most astounded,” she wrote, “by the fact that no one is really stopping him.”
The trial for Sean Dunn, famously known as the “Sandwich Guy” who threw a sub at a federal agent in Washington, D.C., is fully underway and there is some comedy gold going down in the courtroom.
Border Patrol Agent Gregory Lairmore took the stand Tuesday, nearly three months after being nailed with a hoagie in the chest.
“It smelled of onions and mustard,” Lairmore said on the stand, claiming he got a whiff after it “exploded” across his bulletproof vest.
The assistant U.S. attorneys prosecuting the case added to the hilarity with their court-submitted claim that “The defendant is being prosecuted for the obvious reason that he was recorded throwing a sandwich at a federal officer at point-blank range.” [LOL]
Dunn, a 37-year-old Air Force veteran, was a welcome example of humor in the face of the violent force being used on protesters across the country. But he also exemplifies the Trump administration’s over-the-top legal attacks on opposing voices.
In August, Dunn was a Justice Department paralegal and just one of many frustrated protesters who took to the streets of the nation’s capital after President Donald Trump sent in Border Patrol agents and the National Guard […]
After the police carried out a 20-man operation to raid Dunn’s home and arrest him, the Department of Justice sought federal assault charges with a maximum sentence of eight years in prison, which is a hefty price for lobbing a sub.
Fox News talking head-turned-U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro took it upon herself to seek maximum penalties for all protesters arrested in D.C., actually.
Which, when you think of it, feeds into the argument that the Trump administration is carrying out cruelty for cruelty’s sake against anyone who resists his autocratic moves.
Illinois congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh is facing her own federal indictment for allegedly slowing down an ICE officer’s vehicle by sitting peacefully on the ground.
Then there was Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University alumni and legal U.S. resident who was thrown into a Louisiana ICE detention facility thousands of miles away from his wife and newborn child because of his activism and advocacy for Palestine.
But the protesters’ arrests […] merely frame a larger picture of the cruelty being carried out against immigrants in the U.S.
Trump’s second term has seen pregnant women manhandled, day laborers ambushed outside of Home Depots, and immigrant families cowering in their homes in fear of ICE and Border Patrol’s wrath. And for those taken into custody, the alleged inhumane conditions in their facilities alone have been reason for protest as well.
Then again, if you ask Trump and his lackeys, it’s the radical, frog-suit wearing leftists protesting in the streets that deserve the accusations of violence.
And while Dunn’s trial is still underway, the Justice Department’s ham-handed attempt to paint a sandwich as a prison-worthy weapon only adds to the Trump administration’s pile of bologna.
Embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link.
“Administration hints furloughed workers may not be paid after shutdown”
“Agencies are sending messages indicating that workers who are on the job will be paid when the government reopens — with no mention of those on furlough, despite a 2019 law protecting their wages.”
The Trump administration is sending notifications to federal staff suggesting that only those who are working during the government shutdown will be paid when it ends, despite a 2019 law that also guarantees pay to furloughed employees.
“Once an appropriation or continuing resolution is enacted, excepted employees are entitled to receive payment,” read one message sent to some portions of the government and obtained by The Washington Post. That sentence — which leaves out furloughed workers — was not included in the first furlough notice issued last month, according to an employee who, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
[…] White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that the administration would negotiate over back pay as part of a potential deal with Democrats to end the shutdown. [“Negotiate”??!!]
“This is something we are very much open to discussing with Democrats as part of the discussions about the continuing resolution to keep the government open,” Leavitt said. “And it’s something that Republicans are talking with Democrats about right now.”
[…] At the State Department, notices issued this month and last never included assurance that furloughed workers would get paid, according to emails reviewed by The Post.
[…] More than 650,000 staffers have been furloughed, or sent home without pay, while their colleagues continue to perform their jobs, also without pay.
A smaller number of employees — mostly active-duty military or law enforcement — are continuing to receive their salaries, as the Trump administration has found various sources for the money.
OMB officials circulated a draft legal opinion last month arguing that furloughed workers wouldn’t get back pay unless Congress specifically approved it, appearing to contradict the 2019 law. […]
The shutdown is set to break the record for the longest closure in U.S. history overnight, eclipsing the 34-day mark from President Donald Trump’s first term.
In that span, the federal government has paid $15.7 billion in employee salaries, a 24 percent drop from the same period a year ago, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model. More than half of the money that hasn’t been paid would have gone to federal employees in the District of Columbia and eight states: California, Virginia, Maryland, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Washington.
Civilian employees from three departments — Defense, Health and Human Services, and Veterans Affairs — account for more than half of the $3.8 billion reduction in salary expenditures, the Wharton analysis found.
The shutdown has already imposed significant financial and personal burdens on federal workers, who have now missed two paychecks. Many are using credit cards to pay bills, going into debt and buying only the cheapest groceries.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday that the U.S. might be forced to close parts of its airspace if staffing shortages amid the government shutdown continue.
The Treasury Department said Monday that inflation ‘remained above the target of 2 percent in the third quarter,’ even as President Donald Trump and administration officials continue to assert that there is ‘no inflation.’
A federal appeals court said that there had been ‘undue delay’ by Judge Aileen Cannon in reaching a decision about whether or not to release the second volume of a report by Jack Smith, the former special counsel, on President Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, a case that was dropped after Trump returned to office. The ruling, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in response to a lawsuit by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columba University, gives Judge Cannon 60 days to ‘fully resolve’ pending motions that could trigger the release of the report.
Consultants who worked on Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaigns were paid more than $1.6 million to advise a conservative Albanian opposition party on its strategy for parliamentary elections in May, according to a finance report filed on Monday.
In the report, submitted to the Albanian election commission, the Democratic Party of Albania revealed payments totaling the equivalent of more than $1.62 million to the consulting firm of Chris LaCivita, who helped manage Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign, and nearly $65,000 for polling by the firm of Tony Fabrizio, who has advised the Trump political operation.
The Democratic Party of Albania lost badly in the May elections, despite efforts by Mr. LaCivita and Paul Manafort, who briefly ran Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, to position the party’s leader, former President Sali Berisha, as a sort of Trump-like figure.
The payments, which were listed in Albanian currency, came over the course of less than four months, beginning in mid-February and ending in late May, according to the report.
[…] American political consultants who win U.S. presidential races are often in high demand around the world, and it is not unusual for them to reap lucrative paydays from foreign campaigns.
[…] Mr. LaCivita and Mr. Manafort cast Mr. Berisha as the victim of a witch hunt engineered by domestic rivals and Democrats, including the billionaire megadonor George Soros, and the administration of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. [Same as it ever was.]
Mr. Berisha is facing corruption charges in Albania in connection with a property deal, and in 2021 he was sanctioned by the Biden administration for “significant corruption,” according to a statement from former Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He accused Mr. Berisha of misappropriating public funds and using his power to enrich his allies and family.
After Mr. Berisha’s party lost to the ruling Socialist Party of Prime Minister Edi Rama, Mr. LaCivita amplified claims by Mr. Berisha that the election was rigged.
A recount requested by Mr. Berisha’s party did not support those claims.
Kind of funny how repetitive the claims are. No new ideas, and no new tactics. They just run the same plays they ran for Trump. Good news that they lost.
“Iranian media reported last month that a court had sentenced the pair to decades in prison on spying charges.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that two French nationals were released from an Iranian prison after more than three years in detention on spying charges, which Paris said were unfounded.
Macron expressed “huge relief” at the release of Cécile Kohler, 41, and her partner Jacques Paris, 72.
“I welcome that first step,” Macron wrote on X, adding that the dialogue with Iranian authorities is continuing to allow them to return to France “as soon as possible.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on France 2 national television that Kohler and Paris were both “safe” at the French Embassy in Tehran while awaiting their “definitive release.”
“They are fine. They are obviously relieved and seem to be in good physical and mental health,” he added.
Barrot declined to answer questions about when and how the pair may be allowed to return to France.
“We will continue to work discreetly. That’s in-depth work which is the work of diplomats to ensure their return to France as soon as possible,” he said.
In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei confirmed the release of the two French citizens.
“Two French citizens who were in jail for some time over security charges were released based on bail according to a verdict by related judge and they will be under supervision until next judicial stage,” he said. He did not elaborate in the remarks that were carried on the ministry’s Telegram channel.
Kohler and Paris were arrested in May 2022 while visiting Iran. France had denounced their detention as “unjustified and unfounded.” […]
@ 439
These manifestations of evil become more frequent because the construction of the underground temple beneath the East Wing is nearing completion.
StevoRsays
Asexcpected Zohran Mamdani wa swonthe battle to be Mayor of NYc – Aussie ABC news c24 is covering thsi live on telly and this blog here :
With most ballots counted, Mr Mamdani was polling about 50 per cent of the vote. Former New York governor Andrew Cuomo stood as an independent after failing to be pre-selected for the Democrats and was second with about 41 per cent, while Curtis Sliwa, from the Republican Party, was a distant third.
Mr Mamdani’s blueprint for change has put him on a political collision course with President Donald Trump — a New Yorker himself — who has threatened to cut federal funding for the city if it elected a “communist”.
… (Snip)…
… The result in New York City comes as some polls show approval ratings for the Democrats have plummeted to their lowest point in decades. Despite that, the party’s candidates won gubernatorial races in two states — New Jersey and Virginia — which were also held on Tuesday.
Democrat Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey lawmaker serving in the US House of representatives, is projected to win the governor’s race in the Garden State. In one of several races that are seen as both a referendum on US President Donald Trump and a bellwether for the 2026 midterm elections, Sherill will succeed fellow Democrat Gov Phil Murphy.
… (Snip)…
..The congresswoman edged out Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former state legislator. Her victory comes after fellow liberal Abigail Spanberger won the governor’s race in Virginia.
Prop 50 passes in California.
Mamdani wins NYC mayor.
NJ and Virginia both elected a Democrat Governor and Virginia flipped its house (?) to majority Dem.
Those are just the more prominent election results but the pattern holds across the country. The Democrat candidates are winning by huge margins.
California Prop 50 voters commit to long lines at the polls to be heard on redistricting
Video is 6:46 minutes, with Rachel Maddow reporting alongside other MSNBC reporters.
In the first substantial blow to the Trump administration’s redistricting power grab in red states across the country, California voters on Tuesday approved a proposal to redraw the state’s congressional district lines. Governor Gavin Newsom and state Democrats pushed the measure to help offset Trump’s nationwide gerrymandering blitz in red states.
The ballot measure’s success was clear nearly immediately after polls closed on the west coast. The AP called the race at 11 p.m. ET.
The ballot measure, known as Proposition 50, was spearheaded by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and was introduced earlier this year. Trump has been successful in forcing several Republican-led state legislatures to revise their congressional maps midcycle to try to ensure Republicans maintain control of the U.S. House.
In June, the Trump administration began pressuring Texas Republicans to approve new congressional maps. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was quick to bow to Trump pressure in August, and signed a bill to adopt new maps ahead of the 2026 elections. In direct response, California’s Democratic-controlled legislature approved new congressional maps that could not go into effect until California voters approved Proposition 50.
That’s because California, like many blue states, self-polices the creation of congressional district lines. It’s a good government approach to congressional map drawing that helps guard against the kind of racial and political gerrymandering that Trump is currently, successfully pressuring red states to embrace (many red states have embraced the practice for years and many long before Trump even emerged as a figure in American politics).
In 2008, California voters approved a measure that shifted the role of drawing congressional districts and state legislature districts from the state legislature to a nonpartisan independent redistricting commission made up of five Republicans, five Democrats, and four non-affiliated members. The California Citizen Redistricting Commission adheres to strict nonpartisan rules, enacted as a way to ensure that districts have fair representation. The commission has been tasked over the years with drawing congressional, State Senate, State Assembly, and State Board of Equalization district lines.
Newsom proposed the ballot measure, Proposition 50, in an effort to work around the commission, temporarily, during a time when urgent action is needed by Democrat-led states to help national Democrats offset Trump’s power grab.
For months now, Trump has been pressuring Republican-controlled legislatures to redraw their maps mid cycle, as opposed to waiting until after the Census in 2030, which is when maps are usually redrawn. As it stands now, several Republican-controlled states, including Missouri, Texas, and North Carolina have all approved new gerrymandered congressional maps that are expected to flip seats currently held by Democrats.
The newly approved measure will shift the percentage of Democrats and Republicans in ten California congressional districts, giving Democrats an advantage in Republican-led districts as well as areas that are considered swing districts.
California has 52 congressional seats, nine of which are Republican and 43 of which are Democrat. The new map, however, will potentially flip five Republican-held seats to Democratic seats.
Proposition 50’s passage will allow new legislature-drawn congressional maps to go into effect — maps that temporarily override those drawn by the independent redistricting commission. The new maps will only apply for the next three election cycles: 2026, 2028, and 2030. After 2030, the redistricting commission will once again have the authority to certify new district maps.
Lines for voting in California were long, and turnout was impressive. Especially for an off-year election.
Democrat Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, was projected by multiple news outlets to become New York City’s next mayor—an outcome that would have been unthinkable just a year ago.
He defeated disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent after losing the Democratic nomination in June, and the GOP nominee, Curtis Sliwa, frequent New York candidate perhaps best known for his red beret and love of cats.
As of publication, Mamdani led with 50% of the vote to Cuomo’s 41%, with 75% of the expected vote counted, according to the Associated Press. […]
What started as a sleepy reelection bid for incumbent Mayor Eric Adams evolved into a full-blown political reckoning, reshaping the city’s political map and derailing Cuomo’s attempted comeback tour.
The path to this moment took a dramatic turn in late September, when Adams withdrew from the race amid plummeting approval ratings and ongoing scandals, including federal corruption probes. In late October, he endorsed Cuomo, hoping to persuade his small base of backers to support another scandal-plagued independent.
Yet Mamdani’s insurgent campaign didn’t falter. His message was steadfastly focused on the city’s cost-of-living crisis, with him proposing policies like rent freezes, higher taxes on the wealthy, free buses, and city-owned grocery stores. And clearly, it has resonated with voters. Despite facing millions in super PAC attacks as well as a well-funded establishment candidate, he built a devoted coalition of progressive activists, younger voters, and working-class New Yorkers.
Cuomo and his allies tried to frame Mamdani as untested and extreme, pointing to his pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel. President Donald Trump and far-right billionaire Elon Musk also waded in, with both endorsing Cuomo on Monday.
Earlier this year, Trump falsely branded Mamdani a “communist,” and threatened to withhold federal funding if Mamdani enacted policies the president disagreed with. “Remember, he needs the money from me, as President, in order to fulfill all of his FAKE Communist promises,” Trump posted online in September. “He won’t be getting any of it.”
Right-wing news outlets also waged a war against Mamdani. Fox News aired segments suggesting he should be deported, while the New York Post churned out near-daily front page warnings of radical rule in City Hall. (Both outlets are owned by right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch.)
[Glad to see that all negative attacks against Mamdani didn’t work, and that includes Trump lies. If Trump’s lies had any effect, it was minimal.]
[…] the attacks seemed to only harden Mamdani’s base. His campaign mobilized a grassroots operation. Volunteers hit subway stations, organizers livestreamed rallies, and voters lined up at early-voting sites across the city—a wave of energy that recalled the campaign that propelled Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress seven years ago. […]
Even as Mamdani’s rallies drew massive crowds, much of the Democratic establishment was hesitant to embrace him. […]
For months leading up to June’s Democratic primary, Cuomo led nearly every poll, but Mamdani closed the gap and won the party’s nomination, thanks to a surge of younger voters and working-class New Yorkers fed up with the status quo. By August, polls of the general election showed him overtaking both Cuomo and Sliwa as the Democratic base consolidated around their candidate. [Poll results]
Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani immigrated to New York at age 7, grew up in the city’s public schools, and has now become the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century. His election marks others firsts as well: He is the city’s first Muslim mayor and its first mayor of Indian heritage.
Cuomo’s downfall reads like a political tragedy. Once a master of New York’s backroom machinery, he launched his campaign as the heavy favorite, armed with money, name recognition, and a long resume—but also a cloud of scandal. He resigned in 2021 after a report accused him of sexually harassing at least 11 women, which he denies. He has faced allegations of covering up nursing home deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. And as of May, he was under federal investigation for allegedly lying to Congress.
For Democrats, the implications go far beyond City Hall. A Mamdani win suggests a leftward shift in America’s largest city—and a reminder that even after years of internal division, progressive energy isn’t going anywhere.
“I will be the mayor for every New Yorker, whether you voted for me, for Gov. Cuomo, or felt too disillusioned by a long-broken political system to vote at all,” he said after winning the Democratic nomination in June. “I cannot promise that you will always agree with me, but I will never hide from you. If you are hurting, I will try to heal. If you feel misunderstood, I will strive to understand. Your concerns will always be mine, and I will put your hopes before my own.”
Fox News hosts and guests wanted to see Mamdani deported. That approach backfired.
“Trump rails against election results before Democrats romp to victories”
“The four elections that Trump targeted on social media broke handily for the Democrats”
[…] Trump railed against the results of several elections before they were officially called for the Democrats on Tuesday, previewing a slew of losses for the president’s party in the first major elections since he started his second term.
In social media posts Tuesday, Trump claimed without evidence that there was widespread fraud surrounding California’s Proposition 50 ballot measure
[orange doofus tells lies, as usual]
[…] Trump also insulted Jewish voters who supported Zohran Mamdani in New York City, and alleged that energy costs and crime would spike if Democratic gubernatorial candidates won in New Jersey and Virginia.
“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote about Proposition 50, alleging the system is under “very serious legal and criminal review.”
California election officials said that the White House’s claims were “baseless,” and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) called Trump’s comment “the ramblings of an old man that knows he’s about to LOSE.” The ballot measure was declared passed shortly after polls closed late Tuesday night. […]
More at the link, including more of Trump’s hysterical rantings on social media.
StevoRsays
According to France24 scrollbar thingy at bottom of screen islamophiobiuc far reichwing polly Geert Wilders has now conceded defeat in the Dutch election in more good electoral news albeit from Holland.
In his first speech as the next mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani made clear he and his city are coming for President Donald Trump.
“If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him,” Mamdani said at his victory speech in Brooklyn Tuesday night. “And if there’s any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.”
“So Donald Trump,” he added, “since I know you’re watching — I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.”
The crowd responded with the raucous cheers that Mamdani no doubt hoped Trump would hear.
“…AND SO IT BEGINS!” Trump posted on social media during the speech.
[…] Mamdani tapped into a Democratic Party hungry for generational change […] He ran on a platform of addressing concerns of working people, including the soaring costs of child care, transportation, housing and food.
In his speech Tuesday night, Mamdani promised to deliver.
The Republican Party has made clear that it will try to make Mamdani the face of the Democratic Party in the 2026 midterm elections — including in areas that are less liberal than New York. In a statement after Mamdani’s win over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters labeled Mamdani’s agenda as “radical.” […]
“New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and as of tonight, led by an immigrant,” Mamdani said. “So hear me, President Trump, when I say this: To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.” […]
“In this moment of political darkness,” Mamdani said, “New York will be the light.”
A great result – Mamdani has ended up with (just) a majority of the vote (unlike Trump last year – and you know that will sting!). The bankruptcy of the Democratic establishment is evident in their failure to find anyone better than Cuomo to represent them in New York. I mean, seriously – you need a candidate who will in effect be running against Trump – and you choose a corrupt, lying, sexual predator?
StevoRsays
Not surprising but informative and indicating what model of society make sthfor the best happiest results for people & isa therefore best followed :
For the eighth year in a row, Finland has been named the happiest country in the world, while the United States hits a new low. Plus, more on the state of happiness and well-being around the globe.
…(Snip)..
The United States has hit a new low, falling to number 24—its worst ranking since the World Happiness Report was created in 2012.
This annual report ranks global happiness in more than 140 countries around the world. The report is based on a variety of sources including the Gallup World Poll, looking at factors like social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom from corruption, generosity and more. The report is released every year in honor of the International Day of Happiness.
This year’s top 10 list is similar to previous rankings in 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019, with many of the Nordic countries in the same high spots. Denmark again comes in at number two, followed by Iceland (number three) and Sweden (number four). Norway ranks number seven.
For 2025, Afghanistan is the unhappiest country in the world, ranking last once again. Sierra Leone and Lebanon round out the list of unhappiest countries.
Finland: The Happiest Country In The World
So what is Finland’s secret? “Taking care of social needs and the feeling of belonging to a community is an integral part of national character and a source of creativity,” Heli Jimenez, senior director of international marketing at Visit Finland, said in a statement.
Good news for an endangered spider WARNING : for any Arachnophobes here spider photo immediately appears with this linked article :
A critically endangered spider, not seen in the UK for 40 years, has been rediscovered in a remote nature reserve accessible only by boat.
Aulonia albimana, which was last recorded in the UK in 1985, was uncovered at the National Trust’s Newtown nature reserve on the Isle of Wight – about 2km (1.2 miles) from the spider’s former colony.
The tiny orange-legged arachnid has informally been named the white-knuckled wolf spider by those who found it.
Mark Telfer, who carried out the search with fellow entomologist Graeme Lyons, called it “one of those unforgettable discoveries”.
Lichens were already widespread more than 410 million years ago, according to a new international study that identifies a fossil from Brazil as one of the oldest lichen in Earth’s history.
The team used cutting-edge X-ray imaging and other modern techniques to examine a fossil known as Spongiophyton, from the Devonian time period (about 419.2 to 358.9 million years ago).
The study brought together more than 20 institutions and advanced facilities in Brazil, Australia, the U.S., the U.K., and France. The results are published in Science Advances.
According to lead author Dr. Bruno Becker-Kerber from Harvard University, the fossil shows a similar combination of fungi and algae to modern lichens. “Our findings show that lichens were not marginal organisms, but key pioneers in the transformation of Earth’s surface,” he said. “They helped create the soil that allowed plants and animals to take hold and diversify on land.”
The results suggest ancient lichens first evolved in the cold polar regions of the supercontinent Gondwana, in areas that correspond to modern-day South America and Africa.
This is really significant and major news if confirmed :
For years, astronomers have been on the hunt for the first generation of stars, primordial relics of the early universe. And now they may have just found them. Ari Visbal from the University of Toledo, Ohio and colleagues believe they’ve glimpsed so-called Population III (Pop III) stars following a detailed analysis of previous James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations of a distant galaxy called LAP1-B.
…(snip)..
In their paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the team believes their discovery satisfies all three requirements. First, the Pop III stellar system formed in the exact environment scientists predicted, namely, a dark matter clump around 50 million times the sun’s mass.
Another reason is that the stars are massive, ranging from 10 to 1,000 times the mass of our sun. These huge stars clustered together, but only in small groups totaling a few thousand solar masses, confirming the third prediction.
“LAP1-B is the first Pop III candidate to agree with three key theoretical predictions for classical Pop III sources,” wrote the researchers.
Further evidence comes from the gas surrounding LAP1-B,..
The US government shutdown on Wednesday entered its 36th day, making it the longest on record. The previous longest-running shutdown took place during US President Donald Trump’s first term in office.
The current stalemate is rooted in a battle over health care in which the Democrats are insisting on firm commitments to extend health care benefits. “Why is this happening? We’re in a shutdown because our colleagues are unwilling to come to the table to talk about one simple thing: health care premiums,” Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said in a late evening speech. “Stop this mess, come to the table, negotiate it,” she said.
UN climate summits have been a major focus of fossil fuel companies looking to delay the energy transition. Last year, one analysis said more than 1,770 fossil fuel lobbyists were granted access to COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan — outnumbering all but three country delegations.
In 2023, researchers revealed that fossil energy companies paid Meta — which owns social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — up to $5 million (€4.3 million) for climate disinformation ads in the lead-up to COP28 in the United Arab Emirates.
Four of the world’s largest oil and gas majors — Shell, ExxonMobil, BP and TotalEnergies — accounted for 98% of that advertising spending.
Plus
The Brazil-led Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change will, for the first time at any UN climate summit, be part of the official COP30 agenda. The scheme aims to fund research, investigative journalism and climate communications campaigns that counter contrarianism and amplify climate science – and solutions.
In addition to :
Meanwhile, the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition (CAAD), a global climate watchdog, is asking media and Big Tech to screen “harmful false content” about the climate for their audiences, and to be transparent about the source of any disinformation to ensure “transparency and accountability,” noted Philip Newell, CAAD’s communications co-chair.
But climate lies, most lately emanating from the Trump administration about the cost and job creation potential of renewable energy, are being replicated in the media globally.
The global research landscape is currently facing a turning point: According to a new survey published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” (PNAS) periodical, Chinese scientists had already taken the leading role in almost half of all collaborations with US colleagues in 2023. This is a historical figure that underlines Beijing’s rapid influence gain. China now sets the research agenda when it comes to key international issues.
China’s leading role: Change of power at the top based on new criteria
It’s not just conventional indicators such as the prestigious, but also antiquated Nobel Prizes or mere publication numbers that reflect actual scientific power. China’s rise is now measured by other criteria as well. An analysis of some six million research papers shows that 45% of leadership positions in US-Chinese joint studies were in Chinese hands in 2023, compared to 30% in 2010. If this trend continues, China will reach parity with the US in leading roles in strategic areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductor research and materials science by 2027-8.
China is also in the lead in terms of scientific publications. According to the latest G20 Research and Innovation Report, almost 900.000 scientific publications originate from China, which amounts to a threefold increase compared to 2015. In the Nature Index, which evaluates the 150 most important medical and natural science periodicals, China has long since overtaken the US. Among the ten leading institutions, whose publications in periodicals are evaluated by the Nature Index, seven are Chinese institutions.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered a ravenous supermassive black hole that existed during a period of the cosmos called “cosmic noon” that occurred around 4 billion years after the Big Bang. The discovery could further shine light on the mystery of how supermassive black holes grow to sizes of millions and even billions of times that of the sun.
This black hole is part of a collection of objects the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been discovering in the early cosmos called “little red dots,” mysterious specks of light that were only recently discovered thanks to the incredibly powerful infrared eye of this $10 billion space telescope. However, with a mass equivalent to 100 million times that of the sun, there is really nothing “little” about this black hole at all, with the discovery team dubbing it “BiRD,” which stands for Big Red Dot.
Jared Isaacman is in line to be NASA chief — again.
President Donald Trump just tapped the billionaire tech entrepreneur to lead the U.S. space agency, five months after pulling his nomination for the same post.”Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and unlocking the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era,” Trump wrote Tuesday (Nov. 4) in a post on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns.
The sun has fired off not one but two colossal X-class solar flares in less than 12 hours, causing radio blackouts across the sunlit portion of Earth at the time of eruption and marking a dramatic uptick in solar activity.The first eruption, an X1.8-class flare, exploded from sunspot AR4274 and peaked at 12:34 p.m. EST (1734 GMT). It triggered a strong R3 radio blackout across much of North and South America. A few hours later, at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT), a second X.1.1-class flare erupted from a region still hidden beyond the sun’s southeastern limb, triggering another strong radio blackout across the North Pacific Ocean, New Zealand and parts of eastern Australia.
Both eruptions unleashed coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — vast plumes of magnetized plasma — but early modelling shows neither is directed at Earth. However, the outer edges of these CMEs could interact with a fast stream of solar wind later this week, sparking minor to moderate (G1-G2) geomagnetic storm conditions around Nov. 6-7, according to NOAA.
“The morning after the 2025 elections, the president didn’t literally say, ‘Don’t blame me for the political mess I created,’ but it was the subtext.”
Related video at the link.
After Democrats up and down the ballot racked up impressive victories in the 2025 elections, a Punchbowl News analysis summarized, “If Republicans aren’t scared by what happened Tuesday night, they should be.” From the report:
One year after President Donald Trump and Republicans won the White House, Congress and every battleground state, Democrats struck back by painting Virginia and New Jersey blue Tuesday night, shifting the map leftward in county after county. … This was a Democratic romp. … It should send a stark message to Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune that the national tide has shifted decisively from last year’s Republican victories.
This is unambiguously true. The president sparked a public backlash; Democrats ran the table with election wins nationwide; and Republicans weren’t just left to lick their wounds, they were also left with some difficult questions about how best to navigate the road ahead.
As the results came in, the president who helped drag his party down scrambled to avoid blame.
In fact, the morning after Election Day 2025, Trump spoke to Senate Republicans at the White House and attributed the Democratic victories to the government shutdown — the same shutdown he and his party have been blaming on Democrats for the past 35 days.
[social media post, with video]
The president didn’t literally say, “Please don’t blame me for the political mess I created,” but it was arguably the subtext.
For Trump, the calculus is simple: He desperately wants GOP officials to continue to follow him blindly. His scramble to avoid responsibility appears motivated by a fear that Republicans will start distancing themselves from him to save their own skins as the prevailing political winds blow at Democrats’ backs.
It seems to have led him to point fingers at the shutdown, despite overwhelming evidence that this was not the reason for Democratic wins.
But stepping back, GOP officials and candidates weighing their options should understand a simple truth: Trump’s skills may include convincing people to vote for him, but they don’t include saving his allies. Consider some recent history:
2017: Democrats had a great year, winning gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey.
2018: Democrats took back the U.S. House majority.
2019: Democrats won gubernatorial elections in Kentucky and Louisiana — not exactly reliable blue states.
2020: Joe Biden defeated Trump.
2021: Democrats had mixed results, but they defied a historical trend and won in New Jersey again.
2022: Democrats defied a historical trend again and expanded their majority in the U.S. Senate.
2023: Democrats held on to Kentucky’s gubernatorial office again.
2025: Democrats dominated in off-year elections.
Obviously, the 2024 cycle doesn’t fit this model, but therein lies the point: When Trump is literally on the ballot, Republicans tend to do well; when Trump is figuratively on the ballot, Democrats fare well.
And since the president cannot legally appear on the ballot ever again, we’re left with a GOP that has little reason to be optimistic about its near future.
I won’t pretend to know what Republicans will do next (and they probably don’t want my advice anyway), but after this week’s election results, GOP officials should probably stop pretending that Trump is a highly popular figure. He’s largely responsible for the party’s humiliating showing, and the sooner Republicans come to terms with that, the better off they’ll be.
fter Texas Republicans redrew their state’s congressional district map to give Republicans five additional U.S. House seats, Democrats in California decided they had little choice but to respond in kind. They could not, however, simply approve a gerrymandered map of their own, because state law prohibits such tactics.
To succeed, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies would need voters’ permission to create an exception to state law. The result was Proposition 50, and as my MSNBC colleague Allison Detzel explained, it was a triumph for its proponents.
Voters in California have given Gov. Gavin Newsom the green light to redraw the state’s congressional maps ahead of next year’s midterm elections. NBC News’ Decision Desk projected resounding approval for Proposition 50, which will allow the state to temporarily scrap its independent redistricting commission and use a more Democratic-friendly congressional map in 2026.
The results were lopsided: Based on the latest vote tally, roughly 64% of Californians voted in support of the ballot measure, while only 36% opposed it.
Democrats already control 43 of the Golden State’s 52 seats. Once the new map is approved, that total will be on track to reach 48 of the 52 seats.
Several hours before the polls closed in California, Donald Trump wrote online that the redistricting effort was “unconstitutional” (a word he routinely applies to stuff he doesn’t like), before adding that the voting process was “RIGGED.” The president concluded that the process “is under very serious legal and criminal review,” which sounds very much like a hollow threat.
[That’s not just a hollow threat, Trump’s statement is also full of lies and hypocrisy.]
Soon after, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that there was “fraud” in the election, and when pressed for evidence, the president’s chief spokesperson added that her baseless claim is “just a fact” — because she said so.
[social media post, with video … Karoline Leavitt is smug ignorance personified]
The morning after Prop 50’s landslide win, House Speaker Mike Johnson went further, calling the voters’ verdict a “tragedy,” before condemning Newsom’s “immoral leadership” and California Democrats’ willingness to “rig the system to win.”
[LOL, LOL, LOL] [social media post, with video]
So when Republicans engage in mid-decade redistricting abuses in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina and take steps to ensure GOP victories long before voters have the chance to cast ballots, that’s fine. When Democrats respond in kind, that’s “unconstitutional,” “fraudulent,” “tragic” and evidence of a party indifferent to propriety.
It’s helpful when Republican leaders clarify their position on matters like these for the public. [LOL]
[…] The highest-profile contests offered obvious proof of the Democratic breakthrough: Governors-elect Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger won their races by double digits in New Jersey and Virginia, respectively, […] In New York City, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani ended former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s career with a decisive 9-point victory.
[…] the scope and scale of the party’s triumphs extend well beyond the top of the ballot. From Mississippi to Pennsylvania, Minnesota to Maine, Democrats celebrated an electoral clean sweep. [Embedded links to sources are available at the main link.]
Even in Georgia, where Democrats haven’t won a nonfederal statewide race in almost two decades, Democratic candidates successfully (and easily) defeated two Republican members of the state’s utility board. A separate Times report noted, “The closely watched races for two of the five seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission had been viewed not only as a referendum on rising electric bills but also as a bellwether for next year’s contests for governor and U.S. Senate.”
GOP officials looking for good news from Election Day 2025 will need magnifying glasses.
[…] I found myself thinking about the commentary from a year ago. After Donald Trump won a second term, the conventional wisdom was that Republicans had entered an era of electoral dominance. Trump had successfully realigned the American electorate to put the GOP in a position to control the nation and its future.
The same commentary held that the Democratic Party wasn’t just defeated, it was also small and divided, with a demoralized and disheartened base, filled with voters who were prepared to withdraw from civic life for a long while.
In the weeks and months that followed, there was a near-obsessive focus on Democrats and their “brand.” Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado told NBC News in March that his party’s brand was “problematic.” Around the same time, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said the Democratic brand was “toxic.” Days earlier, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania told Politico, “If we don’t get our s— together, then we are going to be in a permanent minority.”
Such talk was in short supply on Tuesday night as the election results came in.
Republicans just got routed. In Tuesday’s elections, Democrats didn’t merely hold on—they demolished the GOP across the map, from Virginia and New Jersey to California, where voters approved a ballot measure expected to hand Democrats as many as five new U.S. House seats.
Add in two big special-election wins in Georgia, and it’s clear: The Trump brand is electoral poison, and the Republican Party can’t help but guzzle it anyway.
A deluded President Donald Trump likely expected a big repudiation of his hated Democratic Party foes, and he spent Election Day doing what he does best—screaming at his supporters on Truth Social.
“Virginia and New Jersey, VOTE REPUBLICAN IF YOU WANT MASSIVE ENERGY COST AND CRIME REDUCTIONS,” he raged on one post. “The Democrats will double and even triple your Energy Costs, and CRIME will be rampant. A vote for the Democrats is a DEATH WISH! VOTE REPUBLICAN!!!”
Voters didn’t vote Republican.
He followed up with another tirade: “Why would anyone vote for New Jersey and Virginia Gubernatorial Candidates, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, when they want transgender for everybody, men playing in women’s sports, High Crime, and the most expensive Energy prices almost anywhere in the World? VOTE REPUBLICAN for massive Energy Cost reductions, large scale Tax Cuts, and basic Common Sense! Under President Trump, ME, Gasoline will come down to approximately $2 a Gallon, very soon! With the Democrats, you’ll be paying $4, $5, and $6 a Gallon, and your Electric and other Energy costs will, likewise, SOAR. VOTE REPUBLICAN FOR A GREAT AND VERY AFFORDABLE LIFE. All you’ll get from voting Democrat is unrelentingly High Crime, Energy prices through the roof, men playing in women’s sports, and HEARTACHE!”
Voters tuned out Trump’s all-caps panic about MEN IN WOMEN’S SPORTS and ZOMG TRANSGENDER. They were too busy paying more for groceries thanks to Republican mismanagement. So voters didn’t vote Republican.
And as if to make sure nobody missed the point, he went even louder: “VIRGINIA AND NEW JERSEY, REMEMBER THIS: A VOTE FOR A REPUBLICAN MEANS SUBSTANTIALLY LOWER ENERGY PRICES, A VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT, ESPECIALLY THESE TWO LOSERS WHO ARE RUNNING, MEANS A DOUBLING, TRIPLING, AND EVEN QUADRUPLING OF YOUR ENERGY COSTS. IT WILL NOT BE SUSTAINABLE, AND YOU WILL RUE THE DAY THAT YOU VOTED TO DESTROY YOUR LIFE! FAILING TO VOTE TOMORROW IS THE SAME AS VOTING FOR A DEMOCRAT.”
[Sheesh. Trump sounds even more demented that usual! His social media posts clearly reveal that he is running scared. He is losing … and he is powerless. Schadenfreude moment.]
Those “losers” didn’t just win—they buried the GOP.
The scale of the Democratic victories was dramatic. In New Jersey, where several polls claimed the governor’s race was neck and neck, Democratic Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill walloped Republican Jack Ciattarelli by 13 points, 56–43. Just four years ago, Ciattarelli lost his bid against Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy by only three points.
The difference? In 2021, Ciattarelli kept his distance from Trump. This time, he wrapped himself around the toxic bigot in the half-demolished White House.
In Virginia, Democrats handily swept the three statewide races on the ballot—governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. But that wasn’t even the most amazing part: Democrats picked up 13 seats in the House of Delegates, expanding their narrow 51–48 majority to a near-supermajority 64–36 in a chamber Republicans controlled as recently as 2023. That’s their largest majority in 40 years.
That’s a serious ass-whooping.
[…] In trying to deflect blame, Trump just told every Republican exactly what they fear most: Trump can’t save them anymore.
Trump’s shutdown excuse is as close as he’ll ever get to an accidental confession. The shutdown isn’t a Washington parlor game—it’s a national disaster, and voters know exactly who lit the fuse. His proposed “solution”—ending the Senate filibuster—only underscores how disconnected he is from reality.
Voters didn’t punish Republicans for failing to end the shutdown; they punished them for causing it, for gleefully smashing government and the public services that millions of Americans—especially rural conservatives—depend on.
Trump is toxic—more unpopular today than at any point during either of his two presidencies. […]
With these results, the GOP’s fate in 2026 seems clear. They can finally start to distance themselves from Trump and maybe earn a fighting chance in next year’s midterms—or they can stay the course and go down with the ship.
Posted by readers of the article:
there are so many gerrymandered districts where the greater fear is a primary from an even more pro-Trump extremist
——————
sometimes a gerrymandered district will only moderately favor a particular party. Under normal circumstances, so long as the district is not a toss up, the candidate of the favored party will win. But that could change in 2026 due to anger over problems with SNAP, the ACA, and other extreme Trumpian policies. Districts that moderately favored the Republican Party in 2024 might become toss ups in 2026, or might even moderately favor the Democratic Party.
In such a district, a hard core MAGA Republican might make a Democratic victory more likely.
————————
There were 17 constitutional amendments on the Texas Ballot. 2 were worthwhile. 15 were tax breaks for the rich, landowners, business owners, and people that did not want to pay taxes. Anti LGBTQ, anti Trans, etc. All of this is now enshrined in the Texas constitution.
—————————-
The GOP should continue to embrace Trump for 12 more months…I don’t believe they’ve learned their lesson yet.
—————————–
Trump is a mentally ill man. Don’t think for a second that Republicans will respond to reality. Not until Trump is out of the way.
——————————.
The oligarch controlled media won’t do our messaging for us
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In Virginia, Latinos overwhelmingly voted Democratic. There was record turnout in NYC—Mandami got over a million votes.
——————————
What really boggles my mind is that the man said to hold the most powerful position in the world sends out these all caps mentally unhinged rants like ,well, like a mentally unhinged person. I shudder at what the rest of the world thinks when they see these. How in the name of cristjeezus did we get here???? Just read those tweets!!! We are talking full blown nutjob.
* The White House has pushed Kansas Republicans to redraw their congressional map to defeat Rep. Sharice Davids, the only Democrat in the state’s four-person House delegation. That isn’t going to happen any time soon: The Associated Press reported that the Kansas House’s top Republican has “dropped efforts to force a redraw of U.S. House districts that would have thrust the state into a widening national battle for partisan advantage in the 2026 elections.”
* Speaking of redistricting, some key legislative leaders in Maryland have balked at redrawing their state’s district map, but Democratic Gov. Wes Moore initiated the process this week anyway, announcing a redistricting commission to draft proposed maps ahead of the midterms. [Washington Post source]
* In Cincinnati’s mayoral race, Republican Cory Bowman — best known as Vice President JD Vance’s half-brother — lost badly to Democratic incumbent Aftab Pureval. [USA Today source]
The Trump administration has ordered states to investigate certain individuals enrolled in Medicaid to determine whether they are ineligible because of their immigration status, with five states reporting they’ve together received more than 170,000 names — an “unprecedented” step by the federal government that ensnares the state-federal health program in the president’s immigration crackdown.
Advocates say the push burdens states with duplicative verification checks and could lead people to lose coverage just for missing paperwork deadlines. But the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Mehmet Oz, said in a post on the social platform X on Oct. 31 that more than $1 billion “of federal taxpayer dollars were being spent on funding Medicaid for illegal immigrants” in five states and Washington, D.C.
[…] It wasn’t clear from Oz’s statement or an accompanying video over what period the spending happened, […]
Only U.S. citizens and some lawfully present immigrants are eligible for Medicaid, which covers low-income and disabled people, and the closely related Children’s Health Insurance Program. Those without legal status are ineligible for federally funded health coverage, including Medicaid, Medicare, and plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
Several states disputed Oz’s comments.
“Our payments for coverage of undocumented individuals are in accordance with state and federal laws,” said Marc Williams, a spokesperson for Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy & Financing, which administers the state’s Medicaid program. “The $1.5 million number referenced by federal leaders today is based on an incorrect preliminary finding, and has been refuted with supporting data by our Department experts.”
He added: “It is disappointing that the administration is announcing this number as final when it is clearly overstated and the conversations are very much in the education and discussion phase.”
“Once again, the Trump administration is spreading misinformation about standard uses of Medicaid dollars,” said Illinois Medicaid spokesperson Melissa Kula. “This is not a reality show, and there is no conspiracy to circumvent federal law and provide ineligible individuals with Medicaid coverage. Dr. Oz should stop pushing conspiracy theories and focus on improving health care for the American people.”
The Washington State Health Care Authority, which runs the state’s Medicaid program, was also blunt.
“The numbers Dr. Oz posted on social media today are inaccurate,” said spokesperson Rachelle Alongi. “We were very surprised to see Dr. Oz’s post, especially considering we continue to work with CMS in good faith to answer their questions and clear up any confusion.”
In August, CMS began sending states the names of people enrolled in Medicaid that the agency suspected might not be eligible, demanding state Medicaid agencies check their immigration status.
[…] Colorado had been given about 45,000 names, Ohio 61,000, Pennsylvania 34,000, Texas 28,000, and Utah 8,000. More than 70 million people are enrolled in Medicaid. […]
Oz said in his X post that California had misspent $1.3 billion on care for people not eligible for Medicaid, while Illinois spent $30 million, Oregon $5.4 million, Washington state $2.4 million, Washington, D.C., $2.1 million, and Colorado $1.5 million.
[…] In June, advisers to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered CMS to share information about Medicaid enrollees with the Department of Homeland Security, drawing a lawsuit by some states alarmed that the administration would use the information for its deportation campaign against unauthorized residents.
In August, a federal judge ordered HHS to stop sharing the information with immigration authorities.
State Medicaid agencies use databases maintained by the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security to verify enrollees’ immigration status.
If states need to go back to individuals to reverify their citizenship or immigration status, it could lead some to fall off the rolls unnecessarily — for example, if they don’t see a letter requesting paperwork or fail to meet a deadline to respond.
“I am not sure that evidence suggests there really is a need for this” extra verification, said Marian Jarlenski, a health policy professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.
Oz made clear that the Trump administration disagrees. […]
The Supreme Court is hearing lengthy arguments Wednesday over whether President Donald Trump has the legal authority to impose most of his sweeping tariffs, a high-stakes test of his signature economic policy. The closely watched case could have major implications for global trade, the U.S. economy and the pocketbooks of Americans. It is also the first case in which the justices will examine the underlying legal merits of a piece of Trump’s second-term agenda.
Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch questioned why statute would allow a president to shut down all international trade or impose trade quotas, but not allow a 1 percent tariff.
“That leaves, in the government’s words, an odd doughnut hole in the statute,” Gorsuch said.
Benjamin Gutman, an attorney arguing against the Trump administration’s tariffs, disagreed with the analogy, saying they were “fundamentally different” powers.
“It’s not a doughnut hole — it’s a different kind of pastry,” Gutman said, as oral arguments, which started shortly after 10 a.m., stretched into the lunch hour.
[…] Neal Katyal, the lawyer representing the opposition to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, […] said that is because “Congress has specifically been given the exclusive power over tariffs” on foreign goods. What the administration is pushing for, he said, is “miles away from any delegation we have ever seen.”
[…] Neal Katyal, the lawyer arguing against President Donald Trump’s tariffs, alleged that the Trump administration was “terrifying the entire world in peacetime” with his wide-ranging tariffs. Katyal also sought to cast doubt on the notion that Congress would have passed several different statutes allowing the president to impose tariffs if the president already had such power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as Trump is arguing he does.
“Why would any president look to all of the different tariff statutes and Title 19 [of the United States Code], if you can just IEEPA them all, French Revolution them all?” Katyal asked rhetorically.
[…] Rather than rely on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), President Donald Trump could seek to use other authorities to impose at least some of his tariffs, said Neal Katyal, the attorney arguing against the Trump administration’s tariffs Wednesday.
Katyal noted other presidents had used Sections 201 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to impose tariffs on steel and on China in particular circumstances. He also cited Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 and Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 as examples.
“Every other president has used all this suite of other authorities … this president has come along and said something different,” he said. “And with all due respect, we don’t think IEEPA allows him to do this junking of the worldwide tariff architecture.”
[…] Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh questioned the lawyer for the opposition to tariffs, Neal Katyal, on the precedent of President Richard M. Nixon imposing a 10 percent tariff on imports in 1971. Congress was aware of those, he pointed out, which Nixon announced prominently.
Nixon used a different law to impose the temporary tariffs than the one being argued here, which was passed in 1977. Katyal responded that Nixon’s method was different.
[… Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. pressed Neal Katyal, the attorney arguing against the tariffs, about how the issue relates to a president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs.
Roberts said the tariffs are tied to “foreign affairs, a core power of the executive.” Katyal conceded the point in part, saying he agreed that “tariffs have foreign policy implications.”
“Absolutely,” Katyal said. “Our founders recognize that; that’s in the Federalist Papers.”
But that power was committed to Congress, not the presidency, Katyal said.
[…] Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas asked Neal Katyal, the lawyer representing the opposition to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, if his argument wouldn’t also apply to embargoes. Katyal said it did not, since tariffs are ways of regulating revenue.
“Embargoes stop the shipment, tariffs start the tax bill. … Tariffs are constitutionally special because our founders feared revenue raising, unlike embargoes,” Katyal said. “You know, there was no ‘Boston Embargo Party,’ but there was certainly a Boston Tea Party.” […]
More at the link.
My conclusion: Neal Katyal is far more well-informed than the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the conservative justices are obviously looking for a way to ignore the law(s) so that they can give Trump authority to impose all the tariffs.
Tethyssays
@KG 455
A great result – Mamdani has ended up with (just) a majority of the vote (unlike Trump last year – and you know that will sting!). The bankruptcy of the Democratic establishment is evident in their failure to find anyone better than Cuomo to represent them in New York.
No idea what you are trying to say here, Mamdani IS the Democratic candidate, after he beat Cuomo in the primary. Cuomo then ran as a independent, and was endorsed by his fellow orange sexual predator. The Dems obviously did not fail.
Running for office in America is self-selected. The party doesn’t decide which candidates can run.
coffeepottsays
maybe democratic leadership should have endorsed their candidate
Tethyssays
@coffeepott
Yes, Mamdani should have been endorsed by his local Dem leadership, but the borough of Queens does not constitute the “Dem Leadership” of New York.
I think the local Dem leaderships failures in governance is the primary reason Mamdani ran for Mayor in the first place. It’s not really surprising they aren’t fans.
coffeepottsays
i meant national leaders (who happen to also be congresspeople from the state of new york)
Tethyssays
@coffeepott 76
Coulda, shoulda, woulda. The point is moot since Mamdani won by a significant margin.
AOC campaigned with him, but sure, keep repeating propaganda talking points from Daily Fail and Faux news.
Dems are weak! Dems are bad, spineless, etc…
Dems just swept every election from deep red states to California with decisive to whomping margins. Record turnout!
“Senate Republicans keep saying that the filibuster rule will remain intact. The president keeps begging them to get rid of it anyway.”
The morning after a dominant Democratic performance in the 2025 elections, Donald Trump had one priority on his mind in remarks to Senate Republicans: eliminate the filibuster. [video]
Repeatedly at his White House event, Trump implored GOP senators to execute the so-called nuclear option and bring a rapid end to legislative filibusters, claiming that such a move would make it “impossible to beat” Republicans in upcoming elections. “If we do what I’m saying,” he added, Democrats will “most likely never obtain power.”
[Trump doesn’t really care about the future because he doesn’t really have one. He wan’t results in the here and now. His last chance. He doesn’t care about unintended consequences in the future.]
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters after the gathering, “I know that where the math is on this issue in the Senate, and it’s not — it’s just not happening.” The South Dakota Republican added that the votes simply aren’t there to execute the scheme the White House wants.
The president clearly does not accept this. Indeed, he hasn’t just lobbied senators directly on the subject, he’s also turned to his social media platform to publish a seemingly endless stream of missives devoted to his new favorite subject.
“TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!!!” he wrote as election results came in on Tuesday night. This followed another item just minutes earlier that used identical phrasing, which came on the heels of a different post that also pushed the line.
In all, Trump has published eight such demands over the last five days. “Republicans, you will rue the day that you didn’t TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER!!!” one of the messages read on Saturday. “BE TOUGH, BE SMART, AND WIN!!! This is much bigger than the Shutdown, this is the survival of our Country!”
As regular readers know, Trump pushed similar pleas during his first term, and GOP senators ignored him then as well. […]
What the president might not fully understand is how counterproductive this lobbying campaign is.
For one thing, the more he begs his own party’s senators to take the radical step they’re refusing to take, the weaker he appears.
For another, the Republican Party’s message for weeks has been “The shutdown is the Democrats’ fault, and it’s up to them to end the standoff.” Trump is undermining that talking point with increasing frequency, effectively telling the public that there’s something GOP senators could do to resolve the shutdown on their own, if only they’d take his advice.
If recent history is any guide, the president will continue to obsess over this, but he isn’t doing his party any favors.
“[Trump] doesn’t have just one problem when it comes to groceries; he has three related problems.”
When it comes to groceries, Donald Trump doesn’t have just one problem; he has three related problems.
The first and most obvious is their cost. The president has spent months insisting that he’s somehow succeeded in lowering the prices American consumers pay at supermarkets, but his claims are obviously untrue, no matter how many times he repeats them. (This led to an especially contentious exchange on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” when Trump became agitated after being confronted with reality.)
The second problem is that he considers “groceries” to be an exotic word. “It’s such an old-fashioned term, but a beautiful term: ‘groceries,’” Trump said in April, as if he were introducing the public to foreign terminology. “It says ‘a bag with different things in it.’”
But as weird as it’s been to see the president lie about grocery costs, while lecturing the public on the definition of a word we’re all familiar with, there’s also a third problem: Trump still doesn’t know how people buy products at grocery stores.
This came up quite a bit during his first term. In 2018, for example, the Republican insisted that consumers had to show ID to purchase breakfast cereals (they do not). He later added that it was also necessary to present identification to buy bread (also wrong).
At a Tuesday-morning event at the White House, Trump went even further down the same path. [video]
As part of a pitch on proposed election restrictions, the president told Senate Republicans, “All we want is voter ID. You go to a grocery store, you have to give ID. You go to a gas station, you give ID. But for voting, they want no voter ID.”
For now, let’s put aside the fact that in-person voter fraud is extraordinarily rare, making voter ID laws an unnecessary solution to an imaginary problem. Let’s instead consider the simple fact that the incumbent American president, 10 years into his political career and five years into his White House tenure, is so detached from the lives of everyday Americans that he has no idea that people buy groceries all the time without presenting identification.
Whether Trump appreciates this or not, he’s making it far easier for his critics to paint him as woefully out of touch.
Indeed, last week, as millions of American families confronted soaring health care costs and the loss of food assistance, their wealthy president prepared to leave his mansion for another golf weekend at one of the glorified country clubs that he owns. Before he left, Trump focused on the new marble bathroom he had installed at the White House (complete with an above-toilet chandelier), before dashing off to Florida — during a government shutdown that he’s made little effort to stop — for a trip that included a fancy party with his wealthy customers in the theme of a classic novel about some awful people who wasted money on lavish soirees.
This week, he reminded the public that he doesn’t understand how grocery shopping works, either.
Lists of Democratic wins, as posted on BlueSky by Daniel:
—Prop 50 wins
—VA Dems flip Gov, LG, AG
—Dems gain leg seats in VA, NJ, & MS
—Dems defend NJ-Gov
—Dems win NJ+VA trifectas
—Mamdani wins
—PA Dems win state supreme court
—ME anti-mail voting measure loses
—GA Dems flip 2 statewide offices
—Larry Krasner & Bragg win
—Coloradoans fund free school meals
—JD’s half-brother loses
—PA Dems flip Erie County exec, Bucks DA + sheriff
—PA Dems oust all GOPers from Bucks school boards once ‘ground 0’ of right-wing takeover
—Charlotte approves transit tax
—Dems flip CT towns like New Britain.
—PA Dems 2 open statewide judge seats in PA
—PA Dems flip Erie County exec, + defend swing counties
—Dems flip NY’s Onondaga & Dutchess counties, a first in decades, & PA’s Luzerne County
—Seattle GOP city attorney trails big
—MN Dems defend state Senate
—Dems defend swing leg seats in NY, WA
—Dems break GOP’s supermajority in MS’s Senate.
Still unknown:
—Some school boards I’m watching still counting, tho the right is losing seats.
—Seattle mayor will take a while.
—RCV for Minneapolis mayor tomorrow.
Washington Post link, to an article written by the Washington Post Editorial Board.
“Trump’s tariffs are finally scrutinized — and they don’t hold up”
“Most of the justices seem to understand there is no distinction between tariffs and taxes.”
During oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to believe things that just aren’t so. He insisted again and again that the government, in imposing tariffs under International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA), is not asserting a power to tax.
But no such distinction exists between taxes and tariffs. They are taxes on imported goods. Fortunately, most of the justices seem to agree.
One of the surest signs that they are taxes is that they bring in money to the government. Customs and Border Protection said the IEEPA tariffs have raised $89 billion through Aug. 31 and no doubt billions more than that by now. The government’s brief in the case said that the court must leave the tariffs in place in part because they are projected to reduce the national deficit by $4 trillion over the coming years. Yet Sauer said the tariffs are regulations, not taxes, and that the revenue they raise is only incidental to their regulatory and foreign policy purposes.
The president doesn’t seem to think that’s true. Past White House statements have bragged about “shattering tariff revenue records” that are “topping $100 billion in a fiscal year for the first time ever.” The White House estimate for the budgetary impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act included $2.8 trillion in deficit reduction from tariff revenue over the next 10 years.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doesn’t seem to think that’s true, either. He has said tariff revenue is “how we clean up the fiscal mess we inherited” and that it will help “lower the deficit and reduce the national debt for the American people.” That’s fiscal policy, not foreign policy.
One can agree or disagree on whether the tariffs are a good idea while still acknowledging that they are taxes, and that the administration is using them for fiscal policy purposes. So long as they are, the Constitution is clear on where the power lies to impose them: Article I, the legislative branch.
The Founders intended this: They believed taxation is one of the most coercive powers of government, and that it should not be undertaken without deliberation among the people’s elected representatives.
The importance of that design became apparent as Justice Neil M. Gorsuch questioned Sauer. Under the government’s logic, Gorsuch postulated, a future administration could declare an emergency for climate change and then impose taxes to address that emergency. Sauer conceded that it probably could.
That’s an idea that even President Joe Biden thought went too far. Biden never tried to unilaterally impose taxes to combat rising temperatures; instead, he went to Congress to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which he hailed as the most significant U.S. climate legislation ever enacted.
Trump refuses to do the same with his tariffs. If he really thinks the trade deficit is a problem, he can ask the Republican majorities in the House and Senate to codify the tariffs he wants. He could also use several trade and national security statutes to target specific goods and specific countries, as he did in his first term and is doing alongside the IEEPA measures.
What he cannot do is use a law that never mentions tariffs, and has never before been interpreted to permit tariffs, to impose them and then gloat about all the revenue he is raising with them, while simultaneously contending that these tariffs aren’t taxes. A potential $4 trillion tax increase is a big deal — roughly nine times the size of Biden’s student loan program that the Supreme Court struck down — and is the proper subject of legislation, not one man’s whim. […]
Nice attempt at revisionist history, but we won’t forget that the Democratic Party tried to burn Mamdani’s campaign to the ground, even after he was nominally the Democratic candidate for mayor. The leadership would rather lose than win with someone like Mamdani, and he delivered their worst nightmare last night because he was still that good at running a campaign. A campaign he won in spite of the Democrats, not because of them.
You are well known as a troll who can’t think their way out of a paper bag.
Quoting a cherry-picked part of my comment and then accusing me of revising history is inane. Mamdani won the Democratic Primary, and Cuomo ran as an Independent after he lost the primary to Mamdani.
I don’t know what KG means by blaming Dem Leadership for Cuomo, since they and the voters clearly rejected him x3.
Vowing revenge against unnamed ‘theys’ in NY state Democratic leadership is an especially ridiculous idea.
IIRC, beholder does not live in NY, and has zero leverage over the current NY Dem leadership.
I’m sure Mamdani knows names, and luckily was just elected Mayor. I foresee some resignations from those volunteer party members in the very near future.
I’m sure they are very confused by this thing called Democratic Socialism. The voters are clearly not.
The political wind blows leftward.
Tethys @ 485: “You are well known as a troll who can’t think their way out of a paper bag.”
In The Infinite Thread I discourage calling other commenters names that amount to personal insults. You can make your arguments without the personal insults. Do that.
President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs appear to be on shaky legal ground, with Supreme Court justices on Wednesday indicating he may not have the authority to impose them under a law designed for use during a national emergency.
The U.S. military killed two people Tuesday in another strike on boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced. It was the 16th announced strike in the offensive that began in early September, and raised the death toll to at least 67 people in attacks in both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that it will reduce air traffic by 10% across 40 ‘high-volume’ markets beginning Friday morning to maintain safety during the ongoing government shutdown. The agency is confronting staffing shortages caused by air traffic controllers, who are working unpaid, with some calling out of work during the shutdown, resulting in delays across the country.
Voters in Maine approved a ‘red flag’ law on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, giving families the option to petition a judge to order weapons removed temporarily from a troubled relative. The ballot measure, known as Question 2, passed two years after a gunman in Lewiston used an assault rifle to kill 18 people at a bar and a bowling alley.
The Trump administration will end temporary deportation protections for migrants from South Sudan, according to a notice posted by the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday. Around 230 South Sudanese nationals are currently approved to live and work in the United States through the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, according to a department estimate.
As Steve Benen notes, that is the latest in a series of TPS reversals. Lots of confusion and chaos.
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called on Democrats to reform the Supreme Court should they win a ‘trifecta in 2028’ on Monday, calling it ‘a broken institution’ that was causing ‘an untold amount of damage to the fabric’ of the country.
birgerjohanssonsays
More entertainment
“Hits In Sweden, Flops In The U.K.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=SklknM-r-3g
The Swedish pop audience seems slightly more welcoming to a bit more unusual/ less ortodox pop songs.
Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:
For the convenience of readers, here are few links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-2/#comment-2281799
“[…] you can take some joy from how the DOJ’s malicious prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey are hilariously incompetent.”
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-2/#comment-2281798
Trump approves disaster declarations for red states, as blue states go without
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-2/#comment-2281784
Sheer Assholery
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-2/#comment-2281781
Bipartisan call for term limits in Congress grows during prolonged shutdown
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-2/#comment-2281776
Justice Department wants to keep Todd Blanche off the stand in Kilmar Abrego Garcia case
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-2/#comment-2281752
“[…] this report showed that not only could Australia do the right thing by people seeking refuge, but in the long run it would also benefit the Australian economy.”
Planned Parenthood moves to block Medicaid termination in Ohio
Link
Elon Musk:
WIRED link
More at the link
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: Average Obamacare premiums are set to rise 30 percent, documents show”
“The price increases — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — are by far the largest annual premium increases in recent years.”
More at the link.
Washington Post link
“Social Security increase is in line with inflation but trails key expenses”
“Millions of Americans who collect retirement, disability, survivor and dependent benefits will see a 2.8 percent bump in 2026.”
NBC News: U.S. to send aircraft carrier strike group to Caribbean in an escalation of boat strikes
“Hegseth said Friday that the U.S. struck a boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea, marking at least the third time this week that the U.S. has attacked a vessel it says was involved in drug trafficking.”
Physiological signs of domestication / reduced aggression that show up in the fossil record.
A Russian scientist domesticated foxes, and revealed something amazing
.https://youtube.com/shorts/CHH4kaOmPbs
The human fossils show signs of self-domestication indicating early humans got less aggressive. There is also a link to debunking the whole “alpha” nonsense as it was based on a flawed study.
The Fascist Roots of Bibi’s Zionism: Mussolini, Jabotinsky, and Betar
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=aQeU3XiESfQ
‘Bibi’ is the nickname of Netanyahu
Paul Fellows has this fascinating clip here –
Have we caught stellar evolution in action? which is twelve minutes and twenty -seven seconds long and covers somethingt hat is really unusal and the nature of red turned yellow hypergiant star WOH G64 with abreif mention at the end of anotjer simialr star W26 inthe Westerlund star cluster.
Lynna, OM@7,
Moving an aircraft carrier strike group to the Caribbean suggests the real target is not random smugglers (or fishing boats). An attack on Venezuela aimed at regime change, or the seizure of the Panama Canal, seem plausible alternatives. Of course, such is the irrationality and incompetence of both Trump and Hegseth, there may be no real plan or goal at all.
KG @11, I agree.
In other news: Tourists balk at White House demo as Trump eyes ballroom tribute…to himself?
Video is 10:48 minutes.
https://www.msnbc.com/all
Pablo Torre reacts to bombshell gambling arrests: ‘The dark present of the NBA’
Video is 10:10 minutes
New York Times:
Link
Cartoon: Sincere apology
Via fb. Not a fan of things that have any whiff of Conspiracism but I do find this scarily plausible and makes a horrid kind of sense here :
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/newsmax-guys-wax-nostalgic-for-days
“Newsmax Guys Wax Nostalgic For Days When ‘Being A Woman’ Was A Legit ‘Pre-Existing Condition’ ”
More Mehdi brilliance ‘I’m More American Than You’ – Mehdi unloads on Matt Walsh – 8 mins long.
^ Reckon Ed Brayton would approve..
New York Times link
“Donor Who Gave $130 Million to Pay Troops Is Reclusive Heir to Mellon Fortune”
“Timothy Mellon is a billionaire and a major financial backer of President Trump.”
The latest If You’re Listening ep which I reckon is always a pretty worthwhile show here – Sizing up the Gaza rebuild – 21 mins long.
Source : https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-3/#comment-2281851
Dóh!
make that source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/senators-cornyn-and-cruz-clap-back-against-smithsonian-space-shuttle-disassembly-claims-call-for-doj-investigation
Source : https://techxplore.com/news/2025-10-framework-reveals-smarter-faster-coal.html#google_vignette
With Antoinette Lattouf Hedges SLAMS hostile Australian interview, unpacks Press Club mess + western media betraying Gaza – 37 minutes length.
She should be POTUS now :
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2n7k2veywo
She’s right y’know.
Owen Jones clip
OOF! Mamdani DESTROYS Cuomo – Over 15 mins long.
@ ^ Clickbaity title but some good points made veryn well by Mamdani & Jones.
Pollen data: Neanderthals and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers shaped European landscapes long before agriculture, study reveals
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-neanderthals-mesolithic-hunter-european-landscapes.html
EXCLUSIVE: White House tightens the clemency process as Trump resumes pardons
“People familiar with pardon discussions told NBC News that top White House officials became concerned about attempts from outsiders to profit from the clemency process.”
Since when was the Trump administration concerned about earning a profit? Maybe they just don’t want “outsiders” to profit?
https://www.wonkette.com/p/east-wing-to-be-turned-into-golf
“East Wing To Be Turned Into Golf Court Filler. Oh, The Indignity.”
Tropical Storm Melissa, forecast to become major hurricane, barrels toward Jamaica and Cuba
“At least three people have already been killed in Haiti as a result of devastating flooding.”
StevoR @26: Great interview with Chris Hedges. Talking about the disgusting state of mainstream media reminded me of this song by the Aussie group Flash and the Pan.
Propaganda alert, at least to some degree: Bloody letters and battlefield art: Russian museum’s tribute to North Korean soldiers in Ukraine
“When they are not fighting, they write poetry, letters home or words of praise to their supreme commander,” said one of the directors at Moscow’s Museum of Victory.
“Federal workers flock to D.C. food bank as they miss first full paycheck of shutdown”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/federal-workers-dc-food-bank-miss-first-full-paycheck-shutdown-rcna239698
Link</a.
The truth behind the grooming gang prosecution in Britain
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GDWL3ytGQ/
Jeremy Clarkson – of all people – is fed up with Nigel Farage of Reform UK
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1N9GMAxJpW/
Actor June Lockhart, who played mom in ‘Lassie,’ dies at 100
Lockhart starred in the iconic TV shows “Lassie” and “Lost in Space,” and won what is now a Tony Award for her performance in “For Love or Money.”
Link
The Damage Report: MAGA Completely UNRAVELS In Alarming Racist Rage Over Trump Ally’s Post
Nice little run down of recent incidents where Indian-American politicans are attacked by the MAGA base. Either for mentioning a religion other then Christianity or for not being white. Dinesh D’Souza gets the lead for the following Twitter posts
It’s funny because D’Souza is saying this while supporting Trump. So an amazing degree of oblivious or doublethink going on.
A very important historical lesson.
Resistance Dispatch | “When the Federalists Tried to Destroy American Dissent…And Lost”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=jtOsfLUlR1Q
Cartoon: Dancing with the devil
Unfettered and unaccountable: How Trump is building a violent, shadowy federal police force, by ProPublica
More at the link.
Washington Post link
Netanyahu says Israel will decide which international forces are ‘unacceptable’ in Gaza
“Israeli forces carried out a ‘targeted strike’ on an individual in central Gaza on Saturday, Israel’s military said, the latest incident since the ceasefire came into effect.”
Hurricane Melissa strengthens to Category 4, could be Jamaica’s most powerful storm in history
“There is nowhere that will escape the wrath of this storm,” said Evan Thompson of Jamaica’s Meteorological Service.
Related video at the link.
“The technology is now popping up onscreen in everything from “The Morning Show” to “St. Denis Medical”—but nothing on air this year could compete with reality,” by Inkoo Kang
Excerpt from a longer article in The New Yorker.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/what-hollywood-is-missing-about-ai
Excerpt from a longer article published by The New Yorker, and written by Adam Gopnik.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/03/why-trump-tore-down-the-east-wing
Link
“Venezuela’s Maduro says US ‘fabricating war’ as it deploys world’s largest warship”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c891gzx7xn4o
I thought Trump would attack Mexico to distract from his second term problems.
“Efforts to avenge Charlie Kirk’s death have fallen apart everywhere — except where it counts”
https://www.salon.com/2025/10/23/efforts-to-avenge-charlie-kirks-death-have-fallen-apart-everywhere-except-where-it-counts/
I’m happy that the efforts to dox people critical of Charlie Kirk have stalled. But yeah, the administration is still a big part of right wing cancel culture.
“Trump Hits Canada With New Tariff Over Reagan Ad”
https://www.joemygod.com/2025/10/trump-hits-canada-with-new-tariff-over-reagan-ad/
He’s such garbage. I know there’s so much to oppose but I hope the Reagan speech on tariffs being bad is kept out there and I hope the accuracy of the ad is defended in the face of Trump’s lies about it.
“In Florida, Obamacare Price Hikes Pose an Outsized Threat”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/us/obamacare-price-spikes-lost-subsidies-threaten-florida.html
“If the extra subsidies that help Americans pay for Obamacare insurance plans expire at the end of the year as expected, the most intense reverberations will be felt in South Florida, the country’s top market for the coverage.”
How to write a convincing Villain
.https://youtube.com/shorts/Y47mZME-X5U
“My country has a long history of manufactured suffering.”
After Rome burned, Nero built his ostentatious ‘Golden House’. The moment he was gone, it was torn down. Later emperors built a bath on its ruins. I will not suggest what to build on the footprint of Trump’s Golden House, but I definitely would like to see it brought down.
@57 birgerjohansson: The ballroom should go or be cut down but it’s priority will depend on what Trump actually builds. No formal plan has been put forth and the proposal pictures don’t entirely make sense. There are going to be a lot of high priorities for the next president and the ballroom probably won’t be high on the list.
It might not make the top ten list of things to do in the White House. First priority is pinning down the location of presidential records and secret files, searching Maralago again if need be. Then do the same thing for presidential property, no big case was ever made of it but things gifted to the presidents went missing when Trump left last time. Then go over security protocols to see what holes Trump carved. Somebody is going to have to go over the White House and remove the stupid gold bits he has pasted around. If nothing else it’s too likely some bit is bugged someplace. As a quick bit reorganize presidential portraits, Trump has moved them around to hide Biden and Obama.
Trump has been talking about a new monument that would amount to an Arc de Trump. If Trump does actually build something that just amounts to a monument to himself then it has to go as soon as he is gone. Tear it down and then spend a year or two getting proposals for a new monument to America.
Democracy Docket: Group Founded by Trump Ally Stephen Miller Sues John Roberts in Bid to Control Courts
Absurd case but a straightforward attempt to seize power. The functions of the Judicial Conference do contain some functions that could be considered executive but the independence of the Judicial Branch requires that they be separate. The case seems legally invalid along with being logically absurd but I have not heard any legal experts discuss it yet.
I doubt it’s being raised because they expect to win, it’s a political propaganda bit. The case spends a lot of time talking about Congress meddling with the courts but of course none with how the administration has meddled with the courts or how putting essential parts of the court under Trump administration control would enable more meddling.
Cartoon: Wrong kind of mule
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4aqzua5vsewimmusg66fyajl/post/3m43zf2qnu222
Photo at the link.
More details, as well as video and photos at the link.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:3w75iygkvtcrqvu4x4ux2hzv/post/3m43outfmje2l
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:mxc7liuon6iq5gzapmmwkq22/post/3m3v6xdki3s2k
Photo at the link.
Phil Moorhouse
“How Canada Has Trump Beaten in Trade War”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=_kqXmGcR0fM
Must-read suggestions (from Branomander)
“Cosmic Horror That Makes Lovecraft Look Tame”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=nj9-PjajTPw
Reality itself as cosmic horror? (Reads newspaper) It tracks!
9mm AP Ammo (Czech and Swedish) vs Level IIIA Armor — The Results Are Shocking!
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Vjhn9Mp11ck
For a real “bulletproof” vest that is leightweight enough to carry around, you may need carbon nanotube fiber. With trauma plates made of Unobtanium.
“Democrats Could DOMINATE Midterms with New Virginia Map”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=eIygxFdOnQE
Trump and Abbot simply assumed the Dems would sit on their hands as usual. Surprise! Acts have consequences.
FIFTY years ago today, the Doctor encountered Sutekh and his gift of death for the first time.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/fRQTv6FXmdQ
Argentina heads to the polls, the results shuld arrive on Monday.
Scientific Frontline – Dusty air is rewriting your lung microbiome
@ 68 birgerjohansson
I like the call-out to Victoria. Some nice deep continuity there. Victoria was a 2nd doctor companion, literally from Victorian (19th century) England. She was forgettable apart from being in one of the most poignant scenes in early Dr Who.
The party of the incumbent Trump ally has won Argentina’s midterm elections.
Is Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales the last decent tech baron? | Jimmy Wales
.https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/27/people-thought-i-was-a-communist-doing-this-as-a-non-profit-is-wikipedias-jimmy-wales-the-last-decent-tech-baron
The Guardian
ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour | US immigration |
.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/26/ice-detains-british-muslim-journalist-laura-loomer
Ukraine war briefing: Russia claims test of nuclear-powered missile condemned as ‘flying Chornobyl’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/27/ukraine-war-briefing-russian-claims-test-of-nuclear-powered-missile-known-as-flying-chornobyl
Björn Andrésen, Swedish actor who starred in Death in Venice, dies aged 70
The Truth About China’s 2nd-Gen Automatic Rifle Program (the usual purges and political chaos)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=TRJLSMitCsQ
Combat veteran news
“Russia So Desperate Its Drafting Women into ASSAULT UNITS”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=-TxoreZnnBo
Philosophers ranked by their punk credentials
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DP34AmYrB/
The 7-Stage Collapse Pattern: Spain, Britain, USSR… USA Is At Stage 5
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=wb39CeK_yWg
Me @ 80
The one thing not mentioned is, USA has traded a manufacturing economy for a service economy (something 45/47 is incapable of understanding).
If you want to prepare yourself for debates I highly recommend you watch this.
“Responding to Charlie Kirk on the US founding”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=EAjskIgXaMM
Hating the refugee and switching off empathy:
“Stephen Miller’s Favorite Book: A Glimpse Into His Mind & Trump’s Agenda”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=tEMr3Ow9waM
“Canada SHOCKED as Sweden’s Gripen OUTPERFORMS the F-35!”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=o_UZltGcqyQ
If you read Stderr you will be familiar with the problems of F-35. So me reposting this link is not a parochial sales pitch for Gripen. Pentagon simply messed up again (I am old enough to recall when F-111 was supposed to replace B-52).
“Night-flying insects over UK in decline, weather radar study reveals”
.https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/27/night-flying-insects-over-uk-in-decline-weather-radar-study-reveals
The Massive Impact of Nordic Weapons in Ukraine”
Together with the Baltic states and the Dutch they are supplying most to Ukraina as per GDP.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=LwCeC9v9ZVM
External Debt By Countries 2025
The numbers for USA are alteady obsolete. USA hit 36 trillion in August and 37 by late October – the fastest debt rise ever!
Observe that Britain with a smaller population has a greater debt than Germany. Thank you, Boris and the tories.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=fLm4H4WeyMQ
I am not surprised to see Mississippi in this list. And Nevada has a fragile, tourism-dependent economy to accompany its dry, vulnerable climate.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=cdm01OE4DHs
Me @ 88 I forgot the headline:
“If a U.S. Recession Hits, These 6 States Will Collapse First”
Phil Moorhouse:
Another racially motivated rape
“Shocking Truth About Racist Attacks In The UK!”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=QRTtGJiZTdI
“How To Spot A Fascist – Hilarious Children’s Song Parody About Trump, MAGA and Authoritarianism”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=POclg1uogZ0
Sam Harris: “This Is Why Trump Cheats at Golf”
(See the comments for mote Trump golf cheating stories)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=eRmOmutBeSA
Where is the commentariat? I am getting worried about your health.
@ birgierjohansson @82.
Yeah, that’s a good one, I just happened to watch that yesterday. i always knew good ol’ CK was a complete scumbag, but didn’t really have a full appreciation of just how ignorant he was. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Trump renews talk about seeking a third term: ‘I would love to do it’
A followup of sorts to comment 95.
Link
Embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link.
In Our New Gilded Age, Everything Is for Sale
Same link as in comment 97.
Trump insists he is smart after spending weekend showing he is not
Link
Cartoon: Status report
Link
Trump will NOT have a third term.
.
Psychologist Dr. John Gartner recently went through the list of Trump’s biggest “gaffes” of the last few months and explained how each one can be linked to dementia.
Here is Farron Cousins making a summary.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=7xvlodo-KIM
Newsbisquit: Manhunt for asylum seeker nets six suspects who aren’t him
.https://www.newsbiscuit.com/post/manhunt-for-asylum-seeker-nets-six-suspects-who-aren-t-him
Re 98:
IIRC one of the running gags in Garfield the Cat (the comic strip and the TV cartoon series, both of which I’ve seen some of) was that Garfield tried to get rid of the annoying kitten side character Nermal by repeatedly sending her in a mail package to Abu Dhabi (a stand-in for random, remote foreign location), while she kept coming back. The KAG saga now looks similar, but even more comical, because the Trump administration is apparently systematically trying to deport him to any and each country that hasn’t (yet) been specifically ruled by a court to be out of bounds.
Washington Post link
“Monster hurricane to hit Jamaica: ‘We’re witnessing satellite history’”
“Hurricane Melissa is forecast to bring up to 40 inches of rain, 9 to 13 feet of storm surge and destructive winds when it makes landfall in Jamaica late Monday into Tuesday.”
More at the link.
Trump acknowledges recent MRI but hedges on why doctors ordered it
“After conceding that he recently had an MRI, the president did not disclose any details, despite his frequent boasts about transparency.”
Today was Louis Jr’s First Kayak Adventure!!! 🛶😸😍
The original Louis passed away this summer. Here is Louis Jr !
(It is wossname the cat breed that grows huge)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=waH8P74NIE8
Company tied to Don Jr. randomly wins big Pentagon contract
‘A damn ballroom’: Tim Walz slams GOP shutdown hypocrisy
Rich-as-hell treasury secretary feels the pain of the common farmer
Associated Press:
The Editorial Board of the New York Times:
Russia’s Lukoil to sell off foreign assets as US sanctions bite
“Restrictions imposed by Washington will force the company to end its exports to European countries.”
Big News: Welcome Louis Jr and Leon
While nothing can replace the late maine coon Louis here are the two new family members.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pbJosX4h9oo
Re: birgerjohansson @ #108…
Maine Coon?
whheydt@ 115
Thanks!
.
NB I just heard the White House is replacing NYTs press credentials with the media outlet for the My Pillow guy.
This is apparently not satire, so I hope it is just a hoax.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/media-pretty-sure-its-fine-for-trump
New York Times:
New York Times link
More at the link.
NBC News:
Associated Press:
New York Times:
New York Times:
Followup to comment 109.
New York Times:
Deadline:
As Steve Benen says, “Given that Dickerson is one of the best in the business, it’s difficult to be optimistic about the future of CBS News.”
King Charles meets the new Pope…
.https://youtube.com/shorts/m2NneLgdA_0
Link
Same link as in comment 126.
Link
The “tag” of the National Front was indeed the initials N and F, but they were fused so that the right vertical stroke of the N was also the vertical stroke of the F – I well remember seeing it scrawled on walls, lamp-posts, etc. I wonder how Farage scrawled his “NF”.
Re: Lynna at 113:
Incidentally, Lukoil owns a daughter company named Teboil that operates (almost entirely) in Finland, franchising a substantial portion of Finland’s gas stations. It has been in the local news a lot since the latest sanctions against Lukoil were announced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teboil
The company originated from two Finnish oil companies that ended up in USSR state ownership after WWII, one by a private sale and the other by treaty confiscation due to its German owners. Much later, these ended up being fused under Lukoil’s ownership.
Since 2022, many Finnish customers have boycotted Teboil, while others (esp. commercial drivers) remained loyal customers due to the slightly lower gas prices. This was justified on the basis that any cash flow from Teboil to the parent company was supposedly blocked by existing sanctions – though some have expressed doubts on that. The petroleum products themselves come from the same sources as those sold by competitors, and all the operations in Finland are run by Finns.
Now, there’s a lot of confusion on what will happen, whether and how soon Teboil gas stations will have to close (due to their petroleum suppliers being banned from doing business with them), whether their customers (particularly Finnish transport companies) could be subject to sanctions and whether some rural areas will now have severely reduced access to gas stations. It’s still not clear whether Teboil is among the assets Lukoil intends to sell.
Link
The US government deliberately downplayed the killing of the American-Palestinian journalist by Israeli sniper
.http://youtube.com/post/UgkxqNsLXNfrJS5JCyAbrZx9USNHASnZ_VDl
lumipuna @130, thanks a lot for that additional perspective on Lukoil and the daughter company Teboil. That was all new information to me. It sounds like the recently-imposed sanctions on Lukoil are going to create chaos in the market for and distribution of petrol in Finland.
9 ways to divide France (mainly according to stereotypes)
.https://www.facebook.com/share/1DsbRiUwyC/
Black history.
She poured their tea. She swept their floors. And she listened to every word.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/175yKQH6mn/
He couldn’t read or write. So he invented a whole writing system for the Cherokee language.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FnKhomtty/
Rufus thw bull caught the Ranger out in the open.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cipuhx_IM4k
All around one star with a catalogue “name” – TOI-2267 :
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/exoplanets/scientists-discover-3-earth-size-exoplanets-that-may-have-double-sunsets-like-tatooine-in-star-wars
“The Anime Where a Boy Marries a Moomin”
20 minutes unpacking the weirdest shit outside actual hentai.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=5nyKFXEnQSQ
Jimmy Kimmel
Trump Demolishes East Wing of White House, Reveals He Had an MRI & Jimmy Issues Him an IQ Challenge
Also, Ireland had a presidential election without any weird shit.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=RWoDkB7wkIw
The actress Prunella Scales has died at 93. She played Sibyl, the wife of John Cleese’s character in Fawlty Towers. She was married to Timothy West – another well-known actor – who died last year.
Professor Gerdes Explains: Russian Commanders Order FPV Strikes on Their Own
This is daily coverage of events in Ukraine and globally relating to the war. The important bit is at 8:30, the Russians have started using their own drones to strike Russian soldiers trying to surrender. He also covers a report that Russian soldiers have been ordered to shoot other soldiers that try to surrender.
The Russians have for some time had special units stationed behind the front specifically to capture or kill any Russian soldiers trying to flee. That is a WWII tactic for the Russians to keep front line soldiers on the front. This is taking it to the next level. It also indicates an army with major issues. If the risk of surrender or desertion is so high they are willing to use their own drones to kill their own soldiers their commanders are losing control of the situation.
Ah, yes. “Blocking detachments”, one of Stalin’s ideas.
An atheist joke at the MAGA Christians
.https://www.facebook.com/share/1BRxTnNuVC/
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Trump bulldozes top donor’s family legacy in vulgar White House demolition
Video is 4:47 minutes
Trump’s predictable bad faith on election security gives his opponents an advantage
Video is 7:41 minutes
‘We need to watch out’: Maddow sounds alarm on ICE surveillance as Trump wields new weapon
Video is 5:17 minutes
Rachel Maddow: Why protesting against authoritarians matters
Video is 5:42 minutes
Business Basics: Russia’s Mortgage Crisis is Worse than the Military Collapse: Kremlin Bankrupt, Homeless Everywhere
The title is a bit click bait but it is a real huge issue in Russia. The government stopped mortgage subsidies on new loans last year because they couldn’t afford it any more, resulting in a collapse of housing sales. Mortgage rates paid by buyers went from 6-8% to 20-30%. It has not caused as much of a drop in construction as you would expect. The government is still backing the construction companies as part of their program to keep the economy going and the government has told them to keep building.
How long this can keep going is unclear, the construction industry is showing cracks but as long as the government keeps shoveling money they will keep building. It’s the sort of economic bubble where everything will look functional until something breaks and then the entire thing will come down like a house of cards.
As a side effect of sanctions the market for wealthy housing right around Moscow is still reasonably strong. The rich have few other options and are putting their money in land and housing.
Another pastor hit by pepper shot as Team Trump’s clashes with faith community worsen
“There are now three Christian ministers who’ve been hit with pepper shots while peacefully protesting against the White House’s deportation agenda.
Photos and video at the link.
Link
GOP’s James Comer unveils the latest in a series of anti-Biden duds
“The Oversight Committee chair spent the last Congress trying and failing to uncover a Biden scandal. This year, Comer is still trying — and still failing.”
Link
The Administration’s Ghastly Game Plan for Savaging Abrego Garcia
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/the-administrations-ghastly-game-plan-for-savaging-abrego-garcia
Details at the link.
Before you use your time machine, you need to get this item.
.https://youtube.com/shorts/tgyZwxPHdgY
PS if you go back just one generation, tip off everybody about Epstein and his orange friend.
Warn them about Dubya, bin Laden and Putin.
And tell them Musk’s SpaceX will fail. Sometimes, a lie is justified.
Same link as in comment 151. That link leads to a collection of news reports.
Link
“Mass job cuts on the horizon as Trump’s economy backslides”
Cartoon: The mask says it all
CBS News: Trump administration to reassign ICE officials in bid to intensify deportation campaign
Exactly who is being moved isn’t clear yet but the overall pattern is clear. Border Protection leaders are being brought in to get more arrests and more aggressive action. Border Protection are the agents actually guarding the border against people physically trying to cross and of all the groups dealing with illegal aliens they get the biggest guns and have the most leeway in their action.
In light of what ICE has been doing the idea that they need to be more aggressive is stupidity that is likely get people shot, both illegal aliens and American citizens.
A Confederate statue toppled in Washington, D.C., in 2020 has been reinstalled
Link
Much more at the link.
Link
I think Netanyahu is looking for excuses to continue devastating strikes against the Gaza Strip.
Washington Post link
“U.S. military strikes four alleged drug boats in eastern Pacific, killing 14”
“The latest operation in the eastern Pacific brings the total to nearly 60 killed in more than a dozen strikes since early September.”
States sue Agriculture Department over looming suspension of SNAP food assistance
“With benefits expected to run out Saturday because of the government shutdown, Democratic leaders of 25 states allege that the USDA is required to keep providing funds.”
I snipped propaganda from Republicans that shows they are using taxpayer funds to blame Democrats. That propaganda effort includes statements on official federal websites.
Apple becomes third company in history to crack $4 trillion market value
“AI chipmaker Nvidia and tech giant Microsoft hit $4 trillion in July.”
Link
Hungary plans new anti-Ukraine bloc with Czechia, Slovakia
“Budapest wants to boost its political alliances in Brussels, Viktor Orbán’s political director says.”
Southpaw:
There’s another photo by CNN’s Mustafa Hussain.
Commentary:
I suppose his elbow has risen a little higher than his neck.
Reuters: Exclusive: US military officials required to sign NDAs tied to Latin America mission, sources say
There are really 2 reasons for NDAs. The first to keep secrets you have to share, everything that might be covered by that is already covered by military security. The second is to use as a threat when there is a situation that might lead a person to make something public. There are lots of reasons the Trump administration might want to lean on military officers to keep secret things that are not national security but highly embarrassing to the administration or reveal non-military crimes.
Sky Captain @125, A lot of Trump administration doofuses seem to enjoy cosplay. Kristi Noem is another good example.
JM @166, that looks like a threat to me.
In other news: On foreign investments, Trump keeps inflating his ‘unbelievable’ numbers
“The president’s latest claim is that he’ll have secured $21 trillion in foreign investments by the end of the year. […] that total is bonkers.”
Avelo Airlines outcry shows companies will pay a price for assisting Trump’s takeover, by Rachel Maddow.
Related video at the link.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/god-help-us-all-the-pet-anti-vaxxers
“God Help Us All, The Pet Anti-Vaxxers Have Arrived”
https://www.wonkette.com/p/exxon-sues-california-for-tort-of
New York Times, opinion guest essay: I Led Product Safety at OpenAI. Don’t Trust Its Claims About ‘Erotica.’
Steven Adler is the author of the newsletter Clear-Eyed AI and a fellow of the Roots of Progress Institute. He worked at OpenAI from December 2020 to November 2024.
Canada is likely to lose its measles elimination status. The U.S. could be next.
“Neither country has been able to stop continuous spread of the highly contagious virus within the past year.”
Another of Daily Kos’s Good News Roundups.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/10/28/2349947/-GNR-for-Tuesday-October-28-2025-Science-shows-that-hope-is-good-for-you
I just noticed today. Marco Rubio is the secretary of state, he is also the acting directory of USAID, the acting Archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration and the interim National Security Advisor.
Acting director of USAID ok. It’s an important job but the political director normally doesn’t have a huge amount to do. Of course Trump is gutting the agency so there is even less. Archivist is a little heard of job but very important because they are responsible for keeping all the records and making sure everything legally required to be recorded is recorded and kept. Given how evasive the Trump administration has been I’m sure Rubio is more concerned with making sure the right records get lost. And having one person as Secretary of State and National Security Advisor is loading too much on one person. Both of those are jobs with a pile of reports to review every day and lots of things to keep track of if you are doing the job right.
Quoted by Lynna @171
Just like the way Volkswagen programmed their diesel cars to recognize when they were being emissions tested so they could run leaner than they would in normal operation in order to pass the test. Same Capitalist bullshit, different application.
The U.S. ambassador to Canada delivered an expletive-laced tirade at Ontario’s trade representative
The jackassery never ends.
@175 Militant Agnostic: Not exactly the same, Volkswagen knew what it was doing. This is emergent properties of the LLMs, things they are not intentionally programmed to do but learn from their training data and experience.
If the LLM learns that method of cheating X helps it win games then X is helping it reach one of it’s goals. If it’s then told not to do X because it’s discovered during testing then there is a chance the LLM will try to hide the next cheating method it discovers from testing. The LLM has no sense of morality or ethics, it is just programmed to reach it’s goals.
JM @177
Just like a corporation. The difference is the management of the corporation may have started out having morality and ethics, the Psychopathy is a convenient emergent property of the goal of maximizing quarterly profits. The difference is the LLM never had any brakes, in a corporation the brakes faded very quickly.
On those recent found but fossillesed tens iof millipons of years ago Edmontosuar mummies New Edmontosaurus Mummies: Spikes, Hooves, and Skin by the Raptor Chatter yt channel – under 5 mins long.
Best cartoon music ever? Hear The Mysterious Cities of Gold Re-Orchestrated – The Winged Serpent [2011 Update] plus Mysterious Cities of Gold – St. Elmo’s Fire and
Les Mystérieuses Cités d’Or – Les Larmes de Zia arranged & performed by Sébastien Ridé (srmusic)L I reckon.
Then there’s
Mysterious Cities Of Gold soundtrack 10 Sailors Plus Ulysses 31: The curse of the gods (Remastered version) in addition to Star Blazers Theme Season 1 (intro song)
https://www.msnbc.com/all
‘Gut-punch’: Obama photographer reacts to Trump White House demo
Video is 8:14 minutes
‘They’re spending more than I’d tax them’: Mamdani slams mega-donors funding Cuomo
Video is 10:02 minuts
Seen tonight on fb on the Carl Saganm Visions page & reckon thsi is pretty much spot on :
Then there’s the almost half hour long compilation of Mysterious Cities of Gold here by Marc Racordon – The Mysterious Cities of Gold reorchestration.
Also we have the
Battle of the Planets Opening and Closing Credits and Theme Song and then too Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea Opening Theme Full Version Ah nostalgia, imagination, wonder and music.
StevoR @183
This excerpt is particularly apt now: “[…] we should care. To honor the ancestors who clawed through ice ages and plagues, to gift our descendants a world where they too can marvel at Saturn’s rings or a humpback’s song—this is our covenant. It is a covenant broken every time a parent chooses the easy lie over the difficult truth.”
I would edit that last sentence to read: “It is a covenant broken every time the Trump administration chooses the easy lie over the difficult truth.”
@ ^ Lynna, OM : Yup.
Correction to comment 185: I didn’t mean to imply that Carl Sagan should have focused his rhetoric on political organizations. His original words are powerful. No need for editing by me, or any other peanut gallery doofus. I just wanted to emphasize the universality of what Sagan said about the choosing the easy lie over the difficult truth.
In other news: ‘We don’t need anything more from Congress’: Trump has no legislative agenda
“As far as the president is concerned, his legislative agenda, for all intents and purposes, no longer exists. It’s worth appreciating why.”
Majority Report w Sam Seder
Bill Maher’s Bigotry On Full Display – ten minutes long.
Republicans’ anti-Biden endgame comes into view: It’s all about the pardons
“Biden preemptively protected a variety of people on Trump’s enemies list with pardons. Republicans want to strip them of those protections.”
Targeting Jack Smith, House GOP presents old, dull information as new and scandalous
“The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee has uncovered proof of what we’ve known for three years: The Jan. 6 committee cooperated with Jack Smith.”
Josh Hawley speaks with forked tongue:
Link
New York Times:
Link
Same link as in comment 193.
Re: Lynna at 167 (On Trump making up big foreign investment figures):
I laughed out loud, in part because of Trump using one of his most iconic worn-out stock phrases. The bit also reminded me of how any mention of trillions would be actually almost unheard of in Finnish news reporting. This is mainly because the national economy of Finland, like most countries, does not reach into trillions of dollars (or euros, practically the same).
At one point during his first term, Trump made up the claim that climate change mitigation would cost “trillions of dollars” (unlike suffering the effects of climate change, apparently). Like many of his brain farts, this bit was widely translated and quoted in news all over the world. An editor at the Finnish public broadcaster had to include a note assuring the readers that he really did say trillions, it’s not a mistranslation for billions. As you may know, Finnish and probably many other languages exclusively use the number convention where “milliard” stands for billion, “billion” stands for trillion and “trillion” stands for million times trillion.
So in Finnish discourse the word “biljoona” stands out from both “miljoona” and “miljardi”. It sounds like something that belongs in astronomy, not economy. Notwithstanding this cultural safeguard, I’m reminded of the often-repeated wisdom that people in general tend to have great difficulty in mentally handling and properly appreciating the difference in scale between millions, billions and trillions. People also tend to not have enough trivia knowledge to easily conduct a “smell test” to see whether some figure like $17 trillion of foreign investment makes sense. These factors undoubtedly make it easy for someone like Trump to get away with whatever figures he can make up, the more fantastical sounding the better.
re Lynna @187:
As always, he never really wanted the job, just the ability to abuse the power of the office. He thinks (I use the term very loosely) that he can just play golf for four years while he orders people around to do his dirty work.
lumipuna @195, thanks for that analysis, and for the new information.
I also laughed out loud when I read Trump’s statement. He thinks he is respected, but a lot of people are laughing at him.
I agree that “people in general tend to have great difficulty in mentally handling and properly appreciating the difference in scale between millions, billions and trillions,” which is, unfortunately, true.
Still, I think it becomes more obvious over time that Trump is almost always telling lies. His phrases like, “And that’s numbers that have never been heard of before,” are tells. You can tell he is telling a lie even if you have trouble discerning differences in scale when large numbers are involved.
Trump is an embarrassment. I do wonder though if his goal of creating doubt and confusion has already been achieved.
johnson catman @196, I agree with you. Trump remains as clueless as ever. He is also allergic to actually doing the work required of president.
In other news:
Link
Musk is ill-informed and/or stupid, plus bigoted … and rich. What a terrible combination.
lumipuna @195:
Wikipedia – 1,000,000,000
The Oxford Dictionary article citation didn’t give a time frame.
Legal AF: Trump Gets DEVASTATING NEWS from 29 JUDGES as Trial STARTS
9th court says it’s going to review en banc. It’s a complex situation but the critical bit today is that the national guard will be staying in their barracks. The judge made one ruling, the appeals court reversed it and then the 9th circuit court reversed the initial 9th circuit appeal court ruling and said they will do an en banc review.
3 significant things seem to have lead to the en banc review. First, some of the evidence about how many federal agents had to be sent to Portland for protection was wrong. Second, the federal agents are causing most of the issues that Trump claims he needs the national guard to stop. Third, regular criminal activity doesn’t justify sending in the national guard.
The whole thing may end up pointless if the Supreme Court rules on a related case today but who knows.
Link
Details at the link.
Trump Wanders Around Japan, Tells ‘Em About Wet Magnets
“Not gonna stop asking questions about his dementia anytime soon.”
Washington Post link
“The dangerous combination that made Melissa a monster hurricane”
“Hurricane Melissa’s power was undeniable, intensifying faster than most storms on record.”
Images at the link.
Federal Reserve cuts key interest rate for the second time this year
Paris has emerged as a top target of Moscow’s hybrid war.
More at the link. I snipped a lot.
Scientific Frontline – Dopamine increases willingness to wait for rewards
Scientific Frontline – Sublethal antibiotic levels found to boost spread of resistance genes in the environment by up to 45 times
Hossenfelder alert
‘Mysterious “Dark Star” Possibly Made of Dark Matter Spotted in Webb Telescope Data’
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=q8YxmhFaPQM
Better AI in the future? “Neuromorphic computer prototype learns patterns with fewer computations than traditional AI”
.https://techxplore.com/news/2025-10-neuromorphic-prototype-patterns-traditional-ai.html
Mutation yields hot new clues for treating immune ‘cold’ tumors, adding rapamycin.
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-mutation-yields-hot-clues-immune.html
Phage G genome: AI analysis maps out world’s largest cultivated bacteria-killing virus
.https://phys.org/news/2025-10-phage-genome-ai-analysis-world.html
LazerPig adds his own unique perspective on the debate about drones.
If you are interested in milbloggers, he is much recommended.
“BuT tAnKs ArE oUtDaTeD bEcAusE dRoNeS!1”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=jdBgK9AGw2s
Storm update, as reported by NBC News:
New York Times:
New York Times:
@birgerjohansson #209:
{Trivia}: I recently learned, that despite the latin root, *-mycin meds are neither produced by a fungus, nor necessarily targeted at fungal infections. They come from bacteria in the genus Streptomyces, whose name happens to mean ‘twisted fungus’: because those bacteria grow mycelium filaments, make spores, and live in soil & decaying vegetation (the phylum was once thought to be fungus).
“Streptomycetes produce over two-thirds of the clinically useful antibiotics of natural origin.” Also antivirals, antifungals, antiparasitics, anticancers, herbicides, and immunosuppressants.
Kyiv Post: Putin Offers ‘Ceasefire for Journalists’ as He Claims Russian Troops Encircle Pokrovsk
Not clear exactly what is going on. It’s possible that this is bait to give Russia time to advance during the ceasefire. It’s possible that Putin thinks the city is surrounded. From what I have seen some Russians have made it into Pokrovsk but the city isn’t surrounded. I suspect it may be Putin trying to stage a publicity event because the Russians are offering to escort journalists around. In any case it is unlikely this ceasefire will be accepted because Putin is only offering a few hours.
WTF??
Washington Post:
Link
More details at the link.
What 150 Gripen Fighters could mean for Ukraine’s future
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=N0kzULN20kE
The Gripen (“Griffon”) was specifically designed for this kind of war
“More Republican Seats UNDER FIRE Ahead of 2026 Midterms in New York”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=0bP85h7BgV4
South Park’s New Episode Just Hit Trump Where It Hurts Most 🚨
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=dCsqNWM-Oxk
The Onion
Neighbors Always Knew Teen Gunman Was Evil And Did Nothing Because They Are Evil Too
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Rf8ywX3MYXE
Trump gets Blindsided as Senate GOP Turns AGAINST HIM on Vote
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=CZ3x-n-EmKM
“Citing Trump Order on “Biological Truth,” VA Makes It Harder for Male Veterans With Breast Cancer to Get Coverage”
https://www.propublica.org/article/veterans-affairs-male-breast-cancer-coverage-trump-executive-order
Kamala Harris was interviewed on last night’s 7.30 Report here :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-29/sarah-ferguson-speaks-to-former-us-vice-president-kamala-harris/105948950
Folks can watch or click button to see transcript if they’d prefer.
Jimmy Kimmel
“Trump Continues Asia-Palooza Tour & Rep. Jasmine Crockett Accepts His IQ Test Challenge”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=f9pM63WHbug
Asia-palooza indeed, and good riddance.
Stephen Colbert
“Trump Is Crowned The Burger King Of South Korea | Fear Of Windmills | Herpes Monkeys On The Loose”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=6wU7nfqJ2SI
Lab monkeys on the loose? That is how 28 Days Later started.
Maybe make Trump Last King of Scotland…
About Colbert’s Obama joke: If you kill men that you can easily capture – especially if they are unarmed – instead of bringing them to justice (which is what happened to nazis that had murdered more than 12 million victims) it is a lynching.
.
What Trump is doing at sea are lynching by missiles. What Obama did with bin Laden (and later with a young American citizen not suspected of being a terrorist) was a lynching. Just a reminder of the American exceptionalism mindset.
Trump Blindsided by New Lawsuit as Prosecutor DESTROYS EVIDENCE?!?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=1-nODGuJgNQ
Starbucks has to close 400 stores across Noth America because of its stance about the Gaza genocide. Boycotts work.
Seth Meyers
‘Trump Takes “Easy” Cognitive Test at Walter Reed’
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=CWCc9pgW52Q
Update to my 130: Lukoil is reportedly selling all its international assets (including Teboil), and a buyer has already been found:
https://yle.fi/a/74-20191234
The company is named Gunvor, an international oil trader registered in Cyprus (a popular holiday/business colony for Russian oligarchs) and headquartered in Switzerland. Former major owners include the infamous oligarch Gennadi Timochenko. Sounds about as shady as I expected. If US officials accept this sale as not too shady, Teboil can continue operating in Finland … for now.
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/top-researchers-consider-leaving-u-s-amid-funding-cuts-the-science-world-is-ending
What the..?! Greenpeace had to pay? There ain’t no justice here. Grrrr..
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/judge-orders-greenpeace-to-pay-345-million-in-pipeline-lawsuit-cutting-jury-amount-nearly-in-half
Extemely impressive from 400 light years away :
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/exoplanets/scientists-use-james-webb-space-telescope-to-make-1st-3d-map-of-exoplanet-and-its-so-hot-it-rips-apart-water
WASP 18 b is a very Hot Jupiter and almost a brown dwarf really at ten Jovian masses with an orbital period of udner a day long.
Trump’s Shutdown Layoffs Hit Blind Workers Who Help The Blind
.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-shutdown-layoffs-blind-workers_n_69026d4ce4b0e763a61c852f
Source : https://phys.org/news/2025-10-halloween-fireballs-cosmic-impact-airburst.html
Source : https://phys.org/news/2025-10-china-track-astronauts-moon-space.html
“Carl Gustaf 4-Ammo Live-Fire – High-Explosive to 7.62mm Sub-Cal Practice”
I include this because it is a common weapon in Ukraine. I am not a weapon enthusiast, but it is cool Swedish stuff is used to stop Putin. This is our revenge for the battle of Poltava (present-day Ukraine) 310 years ago.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=bx8V1OO7ccQ
Synthetic biology to supercharge photosynthesis in crops (encapsuling rubisco)
.https://phys.org/news/2025-10-synthetic-biology-supercharge-photosynthesis-crops.html
https://www.msnbc.com/all
‘Unspeakable’: Bernie slams Trump over ‘hungry children’ as SNAP clock ticks
Video is 9:04 minutes
‘Weak’: Hayes says Trump’s ‘third term’ fantasy is just MAGA faking strength
Video is 8:22 minutes
lumipuna @232, yes that definitely sounds shady. Sounds like Lukoil may have found a quasi-legal way around the sanctions.
Touting ‘high-risk pools,’ Republican senator endorses rolling back the clock
“Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana wants a debate about bringing back a failed pre-ACA health care idea. He should be careful what he wishes for.”
Link
Targeting Schumer, Trump again suggests criticism of him is ‘almost treasonous’
“It’s not at all healthy that a president falsely accusing people and institutions of ‘treason’ has become the background noise of our civic lives.”
‘Not a big issue’: Republicans shrug as consumers confront health-care sticker shock
“As Americans confront vastly more expensive health-care coverage, the Republican answer to the problem is to downplay the problem’s importance.”
Health-care coverage is a big and important issue to me … and to all of my friends and family.
New York Times:
Link
Cartoon: A track record
Dystopia.
Link
Cartoon: Tom the Dancing Bug offers a rare peek inside the writers room that’s ruining your life
Chris Geidner of LawDork:
Abené Clayton of The Guardian says that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved of an extension which will keep National Guard troops in Washington D.C. until at least February.
Trump-Loving County Loses Labor And Delivery Unit Thanks To Medicaid Cuts
“Now patients will have to drive an hour and a half to give birth.”
Good news, for once
Geert Wilders [the racist one] faces shutout as centrists hail huge gains in knife-edge Dutch election
.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/30/geert-wilders-faces-shutout-centrists-dutch-election-netherlands
Washington Post link
“Trump moves to block public servants from loan forgiveness based on ideology”
“Those who work with undocumented immigrants, provide gender transition care for minors or publicly protest could be blocked from student loan forgiveness under a new rule.”
FBI slams House proposal to grant Tulsi Gabbard leading role on counterintelligence
More at the link.
Link
Link
Prince Andrew to be stripped of titles and told to move out of his palace.
Just in: Andrew will finally lose royal titles and have to leave royal lodge.
.
“The least frightening films ever – ranked!”
.https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oct/30/the-least-frightening-films-ever-ranked
Kiki’s Delivery Service by Studio Ghibli looks cute.
“Vampire Moth Evolved To Drink Blood for a Bizarre and Unusual Reason”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=1pHEGqOrPAA
It begins…
“Your Grocery Store Will Close Without SNAP. In Trump Country First.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/10/29/2351017/-Your-Grocery-Store-Will-Close-Without-SNAP-In-Trump-Country-First
“Trumpers are afraid of the rabble – Living on Military Installations”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/10/30/2351242/-Trumpers-are-afraid-of-the-rabble-Living-on-Military-Installations
HE LOST! Trump folds again in trade war, Nobel economist breakdown
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=LAkYqUdF3hw
@250. Lynna, OM : Reminds me of Carl Sagan”s words :
(A summary version; not verbatim.)
&
.
Source : https://todayinsci.com/S/Sagan_Carl/SaganCarl-Nuclear-Quotations.htm
StevoR @265, Carl Sagan is right.
In other news, here is a storm update from NBC News:
New York Times:
NBC News:
Wall Street Journal:
Link
Link
Steve Shives Why I Hate Ghost Tours – 17 mins long.
“Can bowhead whales with their 200-year lifespan help us to slow ageing?”
I have stated many times: Bowhead whales and naked mole rats carry genetic secrets of extreme longevity. When the secrets are unlocked, the opposition to GM will melt away.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/oct/29/can-bowhead-whales-with-their-200-year-lifespan-help-us-to-slow-ageing
The most evil people ever.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CbqP2L5ct/
You Can’t Handle the Truce !
Stephen Colbert:
‘Where Is South Carerdddd? | Date Night With Kash Patel | Embracing “67”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=6xe_e9JHIOI
Surprisngly entertaing despite the technical sounding title with a good speaker Dillon The Biologist : (discussing) The Story of Bolitoglossa Salamanders 35 mins long mini -doco.
https://www.msnbc.com/all
Kash Patel slammed FBI jets—then used one for date night
Video is 9:12 minutes
Pentagon quietly building up 500-troop ‘quick reaction forces’ in every state: WSJ
Video is 5:58 minutes
Trump presses Democrats to help clean up the Republicans’ health care mess
“With Republicans in control of federal power, why does the president expect the Democratic minority to “do something” about health care costs?”
Related video at the link.
Link
Link
Same link as in comment 278.
“Unacceptable”: UN human rights chief condemns Trump admin’s boat strikes
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: As U.S. ramps up the pressure, Venezuela pleads with Moscow for help”
“Documents show Maduro drafted letter asking Russia for missiles, radars and upgraded aircraft as U.S. forces amass in the Caribbean.”
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: Kennedy Center ticket sales have plummeted since Trump takeover”
“Nearly nine months into the president’s oversight, sales for orchestra, theater and dance performances are the worst they’ve been since the pandemic, according to a Washington Post analysis.” [Photo showing empty seats.]
More at the link.
Washington Post:
Commentary:
Link
@281 Lynna, OM: Russia is in no situation to substantially help Venezuela. Russia can’t provide enough air defense for it’s own army or cover it’s capital. They might give/sell Venezuela some symbolic or useless gear but the only useful stuff they can give right now is information on how to build stuff. The same goes for Iran, they might like to help but other then some information on how to build drones they don’t have the capacity.
China could help but probably won’t. China is more likely to make the point that they are staying out of the US’s back yard and the US should stay out of China’s.
On Project 2025’s Recommendation, Trump Admin Targets New Census Initiative With Widespread Potential Impact
“The failure to adopt a new federal data collection standard ahead of the 2030 Census risks significantly further diminishing the political and economic power of non-white voters, experts tell TPM.”
JM @284, I agree. China, Iran and Russia are all (for various reasons) unlikely to offer significant help to Venezuela at this time. The Trump administration probably factored that in when they escalated attacks against Venezuela. Still, it is a dangerous game when Trump is counting on other countries to stay out of the fray.
We also see realignment against the USA happening all over the place, and that includes recent statements from United Nations leaders: “Unacceptable”: UN human rights chief condemns Trump admin’s boat strikes.
GOP: Let’s starve families even after the shutdown ends
Posted by readers of the article:
Washington Post link
“Judge orders Trump administration to release billions in SNAP contingency funds”
“Officials must act ‘as soon as possible’ to avoid prolonged interruption, a federal judge in Rhode Island said.”
https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/trump-orders-ice-agents-to-pick-crops
Satire.
Pentagon concedes Trump admin. doesn’t know who it’s killed in boat strikes
“Who has the U.S. killed in recent boat strikes? It’s a problem that we don’t know. It’s an even bigger problem that the administration doesn’t know, either.”
New York Times:
Link
More details, video and images are available at the link.
Associated Press:
USA Today:
Huffington Post:
Link
As Steve Benen noted: “How pitiful.”
Trump stooge’s sham prosecutions are falling apart fast
AP: Lawyers for Comey seek grand jury transcript, bringing fresh challenge to a case pushed by Trump
This is a new set of issues beyond the already raised vindictive prosecution and illegal appointment issues. Comey’s legal team wants to go over everything from the grand jury in detail because there are already too parts that look off. This is a sort of weak matter in that they are not pointing to any specific mistake, only the number of questionable bits. It’s hard to question a grand jury result because it’s taken that if the person is innocent then they can prove it in court and if there is some technical filing error the prosecutors could simply file before a new grand jury. However there are so many issues that Comey may get the court to go along. This really matters in this case because if the original charges are thrown the statue of limitations is past, the government can’t bring a new case.
This is the first time Comey’s lawyers have brought it up in court. The charges against Comey don’t spell out what he said that was a lie well enough. If it’s the statement it appears to be then Comey gave an unfriendly but literally true answer so there is no case.
The politics of hate: Republicans call SNAP beneficiaries “crack addicts,” “beasts,” and “illegal”
Heretic Coffee offers free ‘SNAP’ breakfasts to aid families facing food insecurity
Some people added negative comments to this article, but the response has mainly been positive.
Examples of negative comments:
Washington Post link
“The slaughter at El Fashir”
“This week’s massacres in Sudan followed an 18-month siege.”
The report above is authored by The Washington Post’s editorial board.
Trump’s push to resume nuclear testing ‘immediately’ is unrealistic and could backfire, experts say
“Preparing the lone available site for testing would require hundreds of millions of dollars and at least two years, nuclear experts said.”
Federal judge rules Trump can’t require citizenship proof on the federal voting form
“U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the proof-of-citizenship directive is a violation of the separation of powers.”
More details:
“Trump sets 7,500 annual limit for refugees entering US. It’ll be mostly white South Africans”
https://apnews.com/article/refugees-admissions-cap-immigration-trump-administration-197a8ef1c9c219ce6167da4aba3f5a6e
“Trump pushes an end to medical care for transgender youth nationally”
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/10/30/nx-s1-5588655/transgender-trump-medicare-medicaid-gender-affirming-care
Not surprising but disgusting breaking news from Aussie politics. The Nationals – or Nats are the ‘N’ (Nasty) in the Lying Nasty Party or LNP; our dregs of the leftovers of the sad excuse for the opposition or alternative to the govt here. The Nats are meant to be for the rural community where they have their supposed voter base but are actually basically a tool of the big mining companies and rich and partners to the Libs (Liberals – very much misnamed and in the Aussie not USA sense of word) – the Lying party in the Coalition who are also nasty too just as Nats are also liars.. This has been a contentious -somehow (cough, Fossil Fool lobby, cough) issue for some time now when it conmes to Aussie Climate Action :.
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-01/nationals-ditch-net-zero-support-in-party-platform/105959532
More bad news – Aussie ABC on why Mamani won’t be able to arrest Netanyahu even if he is the Mayor of NYC :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-01/zohran-mamdani-pledge-to-arrest-netanyahu-impossible-say-experts/105955338
So basically Trump and the USoA’s refusal to accept and work with the ICC plus diplomatic immunity.
Most other nations aren’t in this miserable boat and many including Oz might be able to arrest him tho’.. Wuish it wuld happen tho’doubt it will.
Comet ATL:AS /31 is surprising us by being brighter faster than expected :
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/comets/interstellar-invader-comet-3i-atlas-is-still-full-of-surprises-an-unexpected-brightening-has-scientists-baffled
YT short WARNING : (esp for John Morales) but still good info on The Return of Nanotyrannus seemingly answering for good the questionof whther this is a real species or not.
See also this 10 mins long clip here – The Most Controversial Dinosaur In History Just Returned – tho’reckon Spinosaurus would give it arun for its money here on that dubious honour!
Plus wikipage : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotyrannus
EurekAlert – Golden spruce trees: Gold forms nanoparticles in the needles
Another ongoing study is looking at similar processes in aquatic mosses, which might help remove minerals from water that’s been contaminated by mining.
Re: Lynna at 300 (On Trump’s demand to resume nuclear testing):
Based on a Finnish news story I saw, security experts in Europe are confused or uncertain on what he actually meant. Some strongly suspect he actually wanted to test nuclear weapon delivery systems, apparently provoked by some recent such tests conducted by Russia. (As has been noted, Russia or China haven’t tested actual nuclear warheads since ages.) Russia has also tested a nuclear-powered torpedo/sea drone.
I have to say, this theory makes an huge amount sense, except for the minor detail that Trump himself almost certainly missed the difference (as opposed to just being a sloppy communicator, as usual), and now perhaps expects to see a video of a nuclear bomb exploding somewhere.
lumipuna @309, I agree. What Trump said about nuclear testing was confusing. And it is highly likely that Trump himself is confused and has no real idea concerning what is actually going on when it comes to Russian testing of delivery systems.
In other news: Trump renovates bathrooms as his team ramps up the military machine
Video is 10:53 minutes. https://www.msnbc.com/all
Trump says he’ll fund SNAP if courts give more clarity
Video is 4:31 minutes. https://www.msnbc.com/all
The first video listed in comment 310 includes Chris Hayes discussing Trump’s attacks against Venezuela. Lot’s of big and new threats of military use, plus even more snippets of Trump walking back some of the threats he issued earlier. I don’t think Trump remembers what he said before.
Marco Rubio and Hegseth seem to be more involved than Trump.
Trump, in the meantime posted six times about redecorating the Lincoln bathroom in the White House with marble and gold. Trump posted 24 pictures of his bathroom renovation.
Independent UK: JD Vance sparks fierce debate after claiming Christian settlers ended child sacrifice in the ‘new world’
JD Vance was speaking at a Turning Point USA even where he played at debating students like Charlie Kirk used to. I will give him some respect for fielding random questions from students for several hours, that part isn’t easy. He botched a couple of answers though. The one making the news is his comment that he hopes his wife converts to Christianity. I think the above bit is more offensive because it builds on the common Christian lie of claiming their opponents sacrificed children.
White House Limits Media Access to West Wing Offices in Latest Indignity for the Trump Press Corps
Link
https://www.wonkette.com/p/trump-throws-literal-actual-great
“Trump Throws Literal, Actual ‘Great Gatsby’ Halloween Party As Food Aid Runs Out For Families Nationwide”
In the photo of Trump’s remodeled bathroom off the Lincoln Bedroom, the bathroom looks like a slip-and-fall hazard to me. And, of course, there is a gaudy chandelier.
The article also includes a photo of Trump’s Great Gatsby/Roaring 20s-themed party at Mar-a-Lago.
A line from The Great Gatsby:
Followup to comments 288, 297, and 298.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are still on an extended paid vacation as they have not returned to Washington D.C. to work. The government shutdown does not prevent representatives from working. Republicans just chose not to work.
This tight-knit community was recovering from a cultlike leader. Then measles got in.
“Years after the reign of Warren Jeffs, the Short Creek community on the Utah-Arizona border is focused on rebuilding. Missed vaccines were low on the list of priorities, until now.”
China’s pause on rare earth export controls extends to EU
“Beijing agreed this week to suspend its latest round of rare earth export restrictions for one year, a delay that applies to the EU as well as the U.S.”
Moldova installs pro-EU Munteanu as new prime minister
“New PM will help lead the country’s push to become an EU member.”
Russia failed.
New York Times: “Daylight saving time ends tomorrow.”
Wikipedia:
Information from other sources, including The Hill:
Link
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4aqzua5vsewimmusg66fyajl/post/3m4knmarrus25
Video at the link.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:3ilzhrzkar3icae4mfyupmqp/post/3m4kxvg24hs2e
Politico: McConnell pans Heritage Foundation for its defense of Tucker Carlson’s Nick Fuentes interview
There are some inside politics going on here, which is why the Heritage foundation felt like stepping in. Carlson had been opposed to Fuentes as an outright antisemitic fascist, which Fuentes is. However Carlson finally caved to Fuentes’s popularity and gave him a friendly interview. The Heritage foundation is trying to provide friendly cover for the action, pretending that the Republicans still object to Fuentes’s positions but oppose cancelling him so it’s fine they are providing publicity to an outright fascist. McConnell is not antisemitic enough to accept this.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:sey7sepxyhnke3h5aa6ttbon/post/3m4jgkbkpq22l
https://www.wonkette.com/p/conservatives-shocked-shocked-to
“Conservatives Shocked, Shocked To Find Nazis In This Establishment”
Anthropology.net – How Ancient Lead Exposure Shaped the Hominid Brain
Anthropology.net – The Slow-Drip of Mayan Collapse
South Park:
JD Vance, continues to plot with co-conspirator Peter Thiel, who is keeping a demonically possessed Eric Cartman on ice.
Well this is depressing -and important. Climatologist Simon Clark discusses The worst month of climate news in my entire career. Almost twenty minute slong.
Plus :
Also
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/nasa-is-sinking-its-flagship-science-center-during-the-government-shutdown-and-may-be-breaking-the-law-in-the-process
Plus more obvs.
Is there hope for TRAPPIST e and by implication some of its other outer worlds yet maybe? –this clip here –
TRAPPIST-1e Could Be Earth 2.0 (20 mins long) albelbeit misleading title because definitley NOT like Earth in many ways by Astrum suggests so.
America’s fiscal crisis is worsening. Everyone should take note. By Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
NBC News: Trump tells Defense Department to ‘prepare for possible action’ in Nigeria
Idle threat at this point but a weird one. It isn’t an issue that Trump cares about, so how did this idea get planted? Did somebody he talked too raise this issue? There are some evangelicals that he has talked too that could have raised it. Is it something he saw on Fox news?
I have seen some suggestions on social media as too why but they don’t make a lot of sense. At this point it’s better chalked up to a random grandpa moment then anything.
Link
Unfortunately, Trump has no intention of letting anyone clean up the mess he is making.
Belgium says suspicious drones ‘come to spy’ on fighter jets, ammunition
Link
More at the link.
New York Times link
New Yorker link
“Inside the Data Centers That Train A.I. and Drain the Electrical Grid”
“A data center, which can use as much electricity as Philadelphia, is the new American factory, creating the future and propping up the economy. How long can this last?” by Stephen Witt
Much more at the link. I snipped a lot.
Possibly good news: A glimmer of light, in the fight against Citizens United- from ruby red, Big Sky Country
Posted by readers of the article:
Followup to comment 340: From Caroline Mimbs Nyce, Newsletter editor for The New Yorker
“Sweden To Send Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Vehicles To Latvia”
(40 mm Bofors gun, aided by a modern radar)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=4IIBIOOzPbI
There is a technology demonstrator too, I hope the good stuff will find its way to Ukraine.
Wired – AI Agents Are Terrible Freelance Workers
Sky Captain @344, there’s so much hype around AI that I think people are struggling to realistically assess what AI agents can do, and what they can’t do. People like Elon Musk (and his DOGE lackeys), as well as Jeff Bezos are not helping. They are obscuring the truth.
“Graphene Perovskite just revolutionised the Solar PV industry!”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=UNIEOecdOXk
Washington Post link
“Republicans re-up trans attacks on Dems that worked for Trump in 2024”
More at the link.
Hamas returns bodies of 3 deceased hostages to Israel
“Israel said the bodies will be taken for forensic identification after being delivered from Gaza by the Red Cross on Sunday.”
Related video at the link.
EU climate chief says US absence from COP30 is ‘watershed moment’
“Clearly that does damage,” EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra tells Bloomberg.
DailyBeast – Serial Traffic Violator ICE Barbie Rants About Dangerous ‘Foreign’ Drivers
re CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain @350: Typical republican bullshit. Laws for thee but not for me. Or a blast from the past: IOKIYAR.
“Brexit Brits are suddenly jealous of Germany” | Outside Views on Brexit and Britain
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=hte3Z7FlZr8
When incompetence is good
Farron Cousins :
“Judge Appears Ready To Toss Trump’s Indictment Against Letitia James”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=YfrnManElbs
The ugly “sport” -really just a form of gambling – that is horse racing has been censoring the videos to remove the many times horses die and riders are injured as this notes :
(Article goes on to provide footage – WARING possiby upsetting, animal suffering images & many further examples.)
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-02/horse-racing-disappearing-video-replay-ethical-concerns/105812252
The ugly “sport” -really just a form of gambling – that is horse racing has been censoring the videos to remove the many times horses die and riders are injured as this notes :
(Article goes on to provide footage – WARING possiby upsetting, animal suffering images & many further examples.)
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-02/horse-racing-disappearing-video-replay-ethical-concerns/105812252
See also the Honest Govt Ad : Honest Government Ad | The Melbourne Cup 2 mins 30 secs approx.
Phil Moorhouse:
“Why Are Russians Fleeing Crimea?”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=bFoyloWiV9A
If I recall history correcly Crimea became a trap for another invader 82 years ago.
Meidas Touch
“New Jersey: GOP in Utter Panic as Election Results Areive Early”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=p7fVfhnC53k
Meidas Touch
“Trump LOSES IT in HIGHLY EDITED 60 Minutes Interview”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=swuvpgpSfzE
WARNING : Confronting scenes of animal death and suffering.
This – The dark side of Australia’s horse racing industry – 7.30 old but powerful program – watch this if you can bear it. I reckon they should play this on big screens all around the Melbourne Cup ground from start to finish on a repeating loop before anyone is allowed in – if anyone after seeing that still wants to go. (50 minutes long.)
Source : https://horseracingkills.com/2025/10/28/breaking-record-number-of-horses-killed-from-racing/
Steve Shives Nuclear Paranoia Is Back! – under 15 mins.
Plus on Trump’s new nuclear testing issue and more there’s tonight’s Planet America here – Testing times as Trump goes nuclear 30 minutes length.
The Military Show: Ukraine’s BRUTAL Push at Pokrovsk Makes Russia BLEED for Every Inch
Up to date review of the situation in Pokrovsk. There are Russian soldiers in the city, enough to be a threat but not enough to take the city. Enough that the Ukrainians don’t want to try and clear them out by force. Russia is trying to get more soldiers in but Ukraine is retaking the villages around Pokrovsk and cutting off the Russians.
The Ukrainians are picking off those Russians in Pokrovsk bit by bit whenever they make a mistake and expose themselves. This is balanced by Russia slipping in soldiers who making the trek on foot. They are being resupplied by drone drops, which isn’t enough to supply them well but it’s enough food, water and ammo that the soldiers can hold out in covered areas for a long time.
The Russians have an 8-1 manpower advantage in the region but lacking in everything but manpower. This has reduced their offense to sending in squads of soldiers on foot to infiltrate and taking land section by section at great cost.
Oh and Scott Manley Is Russia’s Nuclear Powered Cruise Missile A Legitimate Threat? – 11 minutes temporal length at standard play time without accelkeraton or pauses.
^ To nearest whole minute.
Whilst for something totally different and an analysis that adds a twist that there there along along but I for oen just realised onthe ending of LOTR Did Frodo curse Gollum to fall into the Cracks of Doom?
^ Fix because already half past one a.m. here :
.. that adds a twist that was there there all along but I for one just realised on the ending of LOTR ..
Followup to JM @334.
Trump threatens Nigeria with a ‘guns-a-blazing’ response, adding to his target list
“As the president eyes possible military intervention in eastern Africa, it’s worth appreciating just how long Trump’s international target list has become.”
When the president signed an executive order in March asserting radical powers over elections, he invited lawsuits. He’s now losing the court fights.
Good news. Trump is losing.
The president said that he pardoned Changpeng Zhao despite not knowing who he is. If he’s lying, that’s a problem. If he wasn’t, it’s worse.
Related video at the link.
The Guardian
‘I was a mess for hours afterwards’: readers on their scariest films of all time
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/03/i-was-a-mess-for-hours-afterwards-readers-on-their-scariest-films-of-all-time
Angel Heart and Jaws were decent. Halloween and Candyman were just silly.
China’s leader just played Trump like a chump—again
He believes this bullshit!
“We Watched Trump’s 60 Minutes Interview. It’s Nuts.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=iSafCXk9HD4
’60 Minutes’ buries damning clip of Trump interview
Cartoon: The man who knew too little
While the Japanese manga themes are all over the place, one advantage is there is no shortage of LBTQ titles (here from a Swedish book site)
How My Daddies Became Mates Vol. 1 – Mikkamita –
https://www.bokus.com/bok/9798891602335/how-my-daddies-became-mates-vol-1/
“60 Minutes” of gish-galloping gaslighting madness, few follow-ups or fact-checking of Trump lies
Link
Followup to comment 377, and several other comments up-thread that discuss Trump’s “60 Minutes” interview.
Propaganda much?
Howard University announces $80 million gift from MacKenzie Scott
“Scott has made several significant donations to historically Black colleges and universities in recent weeks.”
re Lynna @377: says The Orange Turd:
So . . . we are totally doomed.
“Can it happen here?”
.https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Ct9FhaCsU/
Washington Post link
“Trump administration says it is paying out half of November’s SNAP benefits”
“The administration will release enough funds to pay for half of November’s SNAP benefits, following a court order to avoid food insecurity for nearly 42 million Americans.”
Another take on the disgraceful interview
Edited from 73 to 28 minutes…
Trump LOSES IT in HIGHLY EDITED 60 Minutes Interview
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=swuvpgpSfzE
Followup to comment 383.
The good news for those receiving federal food aid is that there will apparently be some relief. The bad news is it will be temporary and meager.
Related video at the link.
Cartoon: You get to go to jail, and you get to go to jail, and you get to go to jail!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/sorry-rfk-jr-study-shows-covid-in
“Sorry, RFK Jr.! Study Shows COVID In Pregnancy Associated With Higher Rates Of Autism”
“What will the anti-vaxxers do?!?”
Washington Post link
“EXCLUSIVE: Trump administration is planning new mission in Mexico against cartels, current and former U.S. officials say.”
“The new operation would include U.S. troops on the ground in Mexico striking drug labs and cartel leaders, according to current and former U.S. officials, though a deployment is not imminent.”
Related video at the link.
US accused of threatening EU diplomats during bid to kill green shipping rules
“Negotiators at shipping talks in London were told both they and their countries could be punished unless they voted with the U.S.”
The loon that made the train attack in Britain may have been involved in three other attacks.
The Guardian
Police investigate four knife incidents possibly linked to Cambridgeshire train attack
.https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/03/boy-stabbiing-knifeman-barbers-cambridgeshire-train-attack-huntingdon
Can you say why America is the greatest country in the World
(short)
Skepticrat 259
Heath is Furloughed Edition
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=Cx9ySovthl0
Large brains require warm bodies and big offspring in vertebrates, study finds
.https://phys.org/news/2025-11-large-brains-require-bodies-big.html
Turning on an immune pathway in tumors could lead to their destruction
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-immune-pathway-tumors-destruction.html
Plant-like complexity evolved multiple times in different algae lineages, phylogenomics study reveals
.https://phys.org/news/2025-11-complexity-evolved-multiple-algae-lineages.html
As this gene is normally only active in the embryo, this might be of interest to PZ
.
Specific human gene can help the heart repair itself from heart attack or heart failure
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-specific-human-gene-heart-failure.html
First clinical trial of pig kidney transplants gets underway
.https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-clinical-trial-pig-kidney-transplants.html
New York Times:
New York Times reports good news:
PBS Newsour segemnt / interview w transcript here :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/israel-arrests-military-lawyer-accused-of-leaking-video-showing-alleged-abuse-of-detainee
Also via PBS Newshour :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-mamdani-win-could-change-new-york-city-and-the-democratic-party
In addition to :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/tamara-keith-and-amy-walter-on-what-to-watch-in-tuesdays-elections
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/earth/scientists-discover-oldest-air-on-record-trapped-in-6-million-year-old-antarctic-ice
As usual, Jon Stewart delivers laser-focused criticism.
“Trump Throws Gatsby Party as SNAP Funding Expires, Makes It Rain on Argentina”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=JWfUcyPUl48
This list of useful, non-English words includes at least three from Scandinavia. Jayus (Indonesian) might apply to many standup wannabees.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17KU9PAjuV/
@405
“Yugen” is what every amateur astronomer will have experienced.
Apart from this list, German has a ton of useful expressions. People suffering from yet anither workplace re-organisation should know the word “schlimmbessern”.
Just in:
the British rail worker who stopped the insane knife guy and got badly injured in the process is named Samir Zitouni and is a ‘darkie’. The knife man -by many assumed to be some muslim- turned out to be a non-muslim named Anthony something.
Rolling Stone: Lawsuit Against Spotify Claims ‘Billions’ of Drake Streams Were ‘Fraudulent’
Nothing here against Drake personally, only mentioned in the suit because apparently he has been one of the major beneficiaries of the fraud and the people bringing the suit have more statistical data on him. This is actually a repeat of a long running issue. This could be intentional fraud by somebody getting a percent of Drake’s revenue stream but much of it is fans setting up bots that continuously download Drake’s music, wasting internet bandwidth, making it look like he is more popular then he is and causing Drake to get paid more by Spotify.
This is a particular issue for Spotify because of the way it pays. Much of what Spotify pays each month is from a pool of payment money based on what Spotify got in ad money and other sources. This pool is then divided based on how much various artists get played. So not only are the bots inflating Drake’s money but they are doing it by draining other artists share. This payment system means Spotify has little interest in blocking fraud, it doesn’t effect their profits much. The system is not entirely Spotify’s fault, it was negotiated with the big record companies years ago.
Legal AF: Trump DOJ SCRAMBLES to SAVE Indictments as Prosecutor FACES REMOVAL
Pam Bondi tries to paper over the Lindsey Halligan appointment issue by appointing her to an additional different position of special prosecutor and then back dating the appointment. The court should laugh at this before rejecting it. The special appointment on top of the US Attorney position is questionable legally itself, trying to back date it so that it’s official before the cases Halligan brought is absurd.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Maddow: Chicagoland sets the example for countering Trump’s abuses
Video is 9:29 minutes.
Maddow shows Trump in polling free fall ahead of first election test of new term
Video is 11:19 minutes
US manufacturing mired in weakness as tariff gloom spreads
Team Trump’s campaign against inspectors general goes from bad to worse
“It’s a problem that the White House has fired so many IGs. The ouster of the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s watchdog makes the problem much worse.”
Bomb threats force closures at some New Jersey polling places
“Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh said polling sites at School 2 and School 10 in Paterson were shut down after threats were received.”
Dodgers relish World Series win—but owner’s ICE ties have fans feeling blue
See also: Link
I was assured by several Pharyngulites that there would be no more “free and fair elections”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.
Nevertheless, I broke reality and did the logically contradictory thing. I voted.
@416 beholder: Election don’t have to be entirely free and fair for them to matter. The Senate distribution in the US is by no means fair. And attempts to stuff the vote with illegal or fake votes often only go so far, if enough people vote then the attempt to rig the vote may not fake enough votes.
Even in dictatorships the dictator may notice that he had to give himself +60% to win the election and decide it’s time to retire to some distant country that doesn’t recognize the ICC.
Another one of Daily Kos’s Good News Roundups.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/11/3/2351801/-From-the-GNR-newsroom-Its-the-Monday-Good-News-Roundup
I know practically nothing about American baseball, except it’s kind of viewed as the quintessential American game. It is a little ironic that in this age of toxic nationalism that the star of American baseball right now Is Yoshinobu Yamamoto who is originally from Bizen, Okayama, Japan, and started his pro career in Japan.
Following his first-term model, Trump’s vision is still steered by Fox News segments
“In his first term, the president cared more about things he saw on Fox News than in his intelligence briefings. Years later, very little has changed.”
Related video at the link.
FBI Agents Association: Kash Patel ‘disregarded the law’ with latest personnel purge
“Patel has ‘launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution,’ the association said. There’s ample evidence to bolster the point.”
Related video t the link.
Oh FFS.
Trump Says He’ll Defy Court Order, Withhold SNAP Until Dems Drop Demands and Reopen Gov’t
GOP’s next hostage in shutdown: Unemployed Americans
Posted by readers of the article:
Followup to comments 193, 295, 321 and 409.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/pam-bondi-puts-sticker-on-lindsey
“Pam Bondi Puts Sticker On Lindsey Halligan’s Head That Says ‘Real Lawyer'”
“RETROACTIVELY.”
beholder @416
Your statement only shows that you have no idea what “free and fair elections” mean. Voting is an essential part but far from the only requirement. And no one outside the ones holding power can say at this time if the current elections qualify.
Educate yourself.
https://www.wonkette.com/p/following-layoffs-cbs-is-spending
Washington Post link
“The real truth about the Tudor succession comes to light. Literally.”
This is a very interesting account of history being rewritten to appease a bullying ruler, and an account of how the true facts have been revealed.
I just found out Alan Rickman’s son is running for mayor of NY. But why has he changed his last name?
.
Victorian era: There was a fad in the 1890s of nipple rings. For both genders.
Must-view article with Donald Trump in People Magazine 1998.
.http://youtube.com/post/UgkxZgX8kmrDNL-wfJfuD147_JrlbohKk-__
.
This should be on posters all over the country. What has the Democrats been doing since 2015???
Excerpts from a longer New Yorker article by Susan B. Glasser:
‘It smelled of onions’: Sandwich-throwing protester’s trial is hilarious
Embedded links to additional sources are available at the main link.
Followup to comments 340 and 342.
Cartoon: Give me your grid!
Not the first time this subject has come up.
“Administration hints furloughed workers may not be paid after shutdown”
“Agencies are sending messages indicating that workers who are on the job will be paid when the government reopens — with no mention of those on furlough, despite a 2019 law protecting their wages.”
Washington Post link
NBC News:
NBC News:
New York Times:
New York Times:
Kind of funny how repetitive the claims are. No new ideas, and no new tactics. They just run the same plays they ran for Trump. Good news that they lost.
2 French nationals freed from Iranian prison after more than 3 years in detention
“Iranian media reported last month that a court had sentenced the pair to decades in prison on spying charges.”
The Onion: White House maid shrieks after spotting Melania on ceiling.
.http://youtube.com/post/UgkxWRElz0OPojGr_3A3_ARR4JONeFJHeFRd
@ 439
These manifestations of evil become more frequent because the construction of the underground temple beneath the East Wing is nearing completion.
Asexcpected Zohran Mamdani wa swonthe battle to be Mayor of NYc – Aussie ABC news c24 is covering thsi live on telly and this blog here :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-05/nyc-election-results-set-to-deliver-win-for-zohran-mamdani/105968288
As he speaks now.
@ ^ From which :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-05/nyc-election-results-set-to-deliver-win-for-zohran-mamdani/105968288
From BBC World News :
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c24lglz90y1o
Prop 50 passes in California.
Mamdani wins NYC mayor.
NJ and Virginia both elected a Democrat Governor and Virginia flipped its house (?) to majority Dem.
Those are just the more prominent election results but the pattern holds across the country. The Democrat candidates are winning by huge margins.
Quick run down of these and other results so far.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/E5RjG1VNRkA
Edged? The last numbers I saw were Sherrill 61% to Ciarratelli 37%. I would call that a resounding defeat.
Re: Tehtys @ #445…
Latest numbers I see are 56% to 43%, with 95% of the votes counted. In politics, that’s still a blowout win.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
California Prop 50 voters commit to long lines at the polls to be heard on redistricting
Video is 6:46 minutes, with Rachel Maddow reporting alongside other MSNBC reporters.
California Voters Approve Measure to Offset Damage of Trump’s Red-State Gerrymandering Blitz
Lines for voting in California were long, and turnout was impressive. Especially for an off-year election.
Mamdani wins in New York, defeating disgraced creep and the beret guy
Fox News hosts and guests wanted to see Mamdani deported. That approach backfired.
Washington Post link
“Trump rails against election results before Democrats romp to victories”
“The four elections that Trump targeted on social media broke handily for the Democrats”
More at the link, including more of Trump’s hysterical rantings on social media.
According to France24 scrollbar thingy at bottom of screen islamophiobiuc far reichwing polly Geert Wilders has now conceded defeat in the Dutch election in more good electoral news albeit from Holland.
See :
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20251103-dutch-centrist-jetten-set-to-be-youngest-ever-pm-after-narrow-election-win
Although doesn’t mention Wilder’s concession which seems to have come later :
Link
It’s going to be a wait-and-see situation now. People will be watching to see how Mamdani governs.
WARNING SWEARING but Owen Jones here – Trump SH*TS Self Over Mamdani – President THREATENS New York – almost 20 mins long. Before results were known FWIW.
Lynna, OM@449,
A great result – Mamdani has ended up with (just) a majority of the vote (unlike Trump last year – and you know that will sting!). The bankruptcy of the Democratic establishment is evident in their failure to find anyone better than Cuomo to represent them in New York. I mean, seriously – you need a candidate who will in effect be running against Trump – and you choose a corrupt, lying, sexual predator?
Not surprising but informative and indicating what model of society make sthfor the best happiest results for people & isa therefore best followed :
Source – NB. Limite dnumber of free articles : https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2025/03/20/the-20-happiest-countries-in-the-world-for-2025-according-to-a-new-report/
Good news for an endangered spider WARNING : for any Arachnophobes here spider photo immediately appears with this linked article :
Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg1y66y80ro
Source : https://phys.org/news/2025-10-fossil-lichen-devonian-era-fungi.html
This is really significant and major news if confirmed :
Source : https://phys.org/news/2025-11-astronomers-stars-big.html#google_vignette
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/us-government-shutdown-now-longest-ever/a-74621074
Plus
In addition to :
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/push-to-counter-disinformation-at-cop30-climate-summit/a-74539051
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/china-is-the-new-science-power-how-will-europe-respond/a-74618481
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/black-holes/james-webb-space-telescope-spots-big-red-dot-in-the-ancient-universe-a-ravenous-supermassive-black-hole-named-bird
Huh..
Source : https://www.space.com/space-exploration/trump-nominates-billionaire-jared-isaacman-for-nasa-chief-again
Source : https://www.space.com/astronomy/sun/sun-unleashes-2-colossal-x-class-solar-flares-knocking-out-radio-signals-across-the-americas-and-pacific
KG @455, I agree.
In related news: After sparking a public backlash, Trump tries to avoid blame for Democratic election wins
“The morning after the 2025 elections, the president didn’t literally say, ‘Don’t blame me for the political mess I created,’ but it was the subtext.”
Related video at the link.
California voters gave Gov. Gavin Newsom the green light to redraw the state’s congressional maps. The response from GOP leaders is a hypocritical mess.
More details concerning Democratic Party wins:
Link
The Trump brand is poison—and that should terrify the GOP
Posted by readers of the article:
News summarized by Steve Benen:
Trump’s HHS orders state Medicaid programs to help find undocumented immigrants
Washington Post link
More at the link.
My conclusion: Neal Katyal is far more well-informed than the conservative justices on the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the conservative justices are obviously looking for a way to ignore the law(s) so that they can give Trump authority to impose all the tariffs.
@KG 455
No idea what you are trying to say here, Mamdani IS the Democratic candidate, after he beat Cuomo in the primary. Cuomo then ran as a independent, and was endorsed by his fellow orange sexual predator. The Dems obviously did not fail.
Running for office in America is self-selected. The party doesn’t decide which candidates can run.
maybe democratic leadership should have endorsed their candidate
@coffeepott
Yes, Mamdani should have been endorsed by his local Dem leadership, but the borough of Queens does not constitute the “Dem Leadership” of New York.
I think the local Dem leaderships failures in governance is the primary reason Mamdani ran for Mayor in the first place. It’s not really surprising they aren’t fans.
i meant national leaders (who happen to also be congresspeople from the state of new york)
@coffeepott 76
Coulda, shoulda, woulda. The point is moot since Mamdani won by a significant margin.
AOC campaigned with him, but sure, keep repeating propaganda talking points from Daily Fail and Faux news.
Dems are weak! Dems are bad, spineless, etc…
Dems just swept every election from deep red states to California with decisive to whomping margins. Record turnout!
Trump’s obsessive focus on scrapping the filibuster isn’t doing the GOP any favors
“Senate Republicans keep saying that the filibuster rule will remain intact. The president keeps begging them to get rid of it anyway.”
Why it matters that Trump thinks Americans need to show ID to buy groceries
“[Trump] doesn’t have just one problem when it comes to groceries; he has three related problems.”
Lists of Democratic wins, as posted on BlueSky by Daniel:
—Prop 50 wins
—VA Dems flip Gov, LG, AG
—Dems gain leg seats in VA, NJ, & MS
—Dems defend NJ-Gov
—Dems win NJ+VA trifectas
—Mamdani wins
—PA Dems win state supreme court
—ME anti-mail voting measure loses
—GA Dems flip 2 statewide offices
—Larry Krasner & Bragg win
—Coloradoans fund free school meals
—JD’s half-brother loses
—PA Dems flip Erie County exec, Bucks DA + sheriff
—PA Dems oust all GOPers from Bucks school boards once ‘ground 0’ of right-wing takeover
—Charlotte approves transit tax
—Dems flip CT towns like New Britain.
—PA Dems 2 open statewide judge seats in PA
—PA Dems flip Erie County exec, + defend swing counties
—Dems flip NY’s Onondaga & Dutchess counties, a first in decades, & PA’s Luzerne County
—Seattle GOP city attorney trails big
—MN Dems defend state Senate
—Dems defend swing leg seats in NY, WA
—Dems break GOP’s supermajority in MS’s Senate.
Still unknown:
—Some school boards I’m watching still counting, tho the right is losing seats.
—Seattle mayor will take a while.
—RCV for Minneapolis mayor tomorrow.
Followup to comment 472.
Washington Post link, to an article written by the Washington Post Editorial Board.
“Trump’s tariffs are finally scrutinized — and they don’t hold up”
“Most of the justices seem to understand there is no distinction between tariffs and taxes.”
@Lynna #469:
Reposting Colbert: Republicans keep getting in that elevator like it’s 2016.
@473 Tethys
Nice attempt at revisionist history, but we won’t forget that the Democratic Party tried to burn Mamdani’s campaign to the ground, even after he was nominally the Democratic candidate for mayor. The leadership would rather lose than win with someone like Mamdani, and he delivered their worst nightmare last night because he was still that good at running a campaign. A campaign he won in spite of the Democrats, not because of them.
“Zohran Mamdani knows how to win”
https://www.salon.com/2025/11/03/zohran-mamdani-knows-how-to-win/
@beholder
You are well known as a troll who can’t think their way out of a paper bag.
Quoting a cherry-picked part of my comment and then accusing me of revising history is inane. Mamdani won the Democratic Primary, and Cuomo ran as an Independent after he lost the primary to Mamdani.
I don’t know what KG means by blaming Dem Leadership for Cuomo, since they and the voters clearly rejected him x3.
Vowing revenge against unnamed ‘theys’ in NY state Democratic leadership is an especially ridiculous idea.
IIRC, beholder does not live in NY, and has zero leverage over the current NY Dem leadership.
I’m sure Mamdani knows names, and luckily was just elected Mayor. I foresee some resignations from those volunteer party members in the very near future.
I’m sure they are very confused by this thing called Democratic Socialism. The voters are clearly not.
The political wind blows leftward.
Something to take your minds off politics.
.
Perfect Cell Vs Homer Simpson [Blender Animation]
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=sJsaPt5cVes
Tethys @ 485: “You are well known as a troll who can’t think their way out of a paper bag.”
In The Infinite Thread I discourage calling other commenters names that amount to personal insults. You can make your arguments without the personal insults. Do that.
Thank you.
Followup to comments 472 and 481.
NBC News:
New York Times:
Associated Press:
New York Times:
New York Times:
As Steve Benen notes, that is the latest in a series of TPS reversals. Lots of confusion and chaos.
Yahoo news:
More entertainment
“Hits In Sweden, Flops In The U.K.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=SklknM-r-3g
The Swedish pop audience seems slightly more welcoming to a bit more unusual/ less ortodox pop songs.
Underrated BRUTAL Space Monsters
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=2bczbPQA9pE
maklelan2981
The Bible doesn’t tell women they have to cover up
.https://youtube.com/shorts/F5zdJUMYx6Y
Hits In France, Flops In The U.K.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=DtQsGHpqCes
“The Beauty of 70s Fantasy Movies” | Top 10 Most Underrated Fantasy Movies
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vHNAdL8NCr0
Bond actressess and Doctor Who actors are necessary for a successful Sindbad movie.
“Hits In Germany, Flops In The U.K.”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=6GKcD2f-02A
Realization: Ctulhu is just ‘middle management’ in Lovecraft’s pantheon.