Trina's Kitchen: September 2025

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Liver and Onions in the Kitchen

Sky e-mailed to note Food.com's recipe for liver & onions:

ingredients

1 lb liver

4 tablespoons butter

1 large onion

1 cup flour

1⁄4 teaspoon pepper

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

directions

Slice and cook the onions in fry pan, using butter. Set aside, and keep warm.

Combine the flour, pepper and salt, mix well.

Coat the liver thoroughly in the flour mixture.

Cook in butter over medium heat, turning once - depending on thickness, about 5 minutes per piece. I always keep them warm in the oven, set on it's lowest heat, until all the liver is cooked.

When all done, reheat the onions in remaining butter.

Serve the onions on top of the liver.

Sky says she often adds a brown gravy mix to it. And she loves liver and has it twice a month. "People used to love liver when I was growing up but it seems like no one does anymore," she writes. My second oldest daughter is a new convert to liver. She likes it well enough but now consumes it every other week. She alternates it with salmon due to vitamin D. Both are rich in vitamin D and she started getting a skin rash near her nose about six months ago. The first two months, she just used a cream and it took care of it. But then it just stopped going away. I looked at it (as her mother and a nurse) and I thought increasing her vitamin D intake might make a difference. It did. It's all cleared up now without the cream.

I like liver and onions. I checked with a dietician I know because liver is the dumping ground of the body for all of us. She said that she advises patients to eat it no more than once a week. Sardines are also rich in vitamin D and the reason I've never needed a vitamin D supplement (not even during pregnancies -- but during pregnancy eat it in moderation).

News?

First, Christopher Wells and Isabella de Carvalho (Vatican News) report:

Pope Leo XIV has chosen “Preserving human voices and faces” as the theme for the 60th World Day of Social Communications, set to take place on 17 May 2026.

In a communiqué announcing the theme, the Dicastery for Communication – responsible for the World Day – states that “In today’s communication ecosystems, technology influences interactions more than ever before - from algorithms curating news feeds to AI authoring entire texts and conversations.”

Acknowledging that advances in technology offer “possibilities that were unimaginable just a few years ago,” the Dicastery warns that such tools “cannot replace the uniquely human capacities for empathy, ethics, and moral responsibility.”

Public communication, it says, “requires human judgment, not just data patterns.” Therefore, “the challenge is to ensure that humanity remains the guiding agent. The future of communication must be one where machines serve as tools that connect and facilitate human lives, rather than erode the human voice.”

Second, in terms of national politics, Kate Plummer (Newsweek) reports:

The Democratic Party’s chances of winning Florida‘s next gubernatorial election have increased, a new poll has indicated.

According to polling by The James Madison Institute (JMI), Florida GOP Representative Byron Donalds, who announced in February that he would run for Governor, has seen his lead on former Republican Congressman David Jolly, a Donald Trump critic who became a Democrat in April, decrease from 8 percentage points to 4. This narrowing lead suggests support for Jolly is growing.

The JMI Poll gave Donalds a 36 to 32 percentage points lead over Jolly. Earlier this month, a poll published by the AIF Center for Political Strategy had Donalds leading Jolly by 49 to 41 percent.

This is C.I.'s "The snapshot" for Monday:

Monday, September 29, 2025. Chump invades Portland, another death in ICE custody, a US citizen brings a lawsuit against ICE for beating him up, protests continue, the shutdown looms, Senator Patty Murray and US House Rep Rosa DeLauro call out the Supreme Court's latest effort to tear down the separation of powers, and much more.

It's Monday. At MEIDASTOUCH NEWS, Ben notes some of the weekend news.

Over the weekend, Portland, Oregon became the latest city Donald Chump to invade. Luke BroadwaterAnna Griffin and Hamed Aleaziz (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

President Trump declared on Saturday that he had directed troops to be sent to Portland, Ore., saying he had authorized them to use “full force” to quell protests directed at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.

The order was the latest instance of Mr. Trump’s use of the American military on the nation’s streets, after federal troops were sent to Washington last month in an effort to crack down on crime. Federal agents will begin arriving in Memphis as early as next week, after the president authorized the use of the National Guard there as part of a similar crackdown.

Like Mr. Trump’s other dispatches of federal forces, the Portland directive was quickly opposed by state and local officials, who called it unnecessary.

Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said in an afternoon news briefing that she had spoken with the president and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, on Saturday, and that she had told them to stay out. She did not plan to approve the use of the state’s National Guard, she added.

At MOTHER JONES today, Ari Berman notes, "Trump’s legal authority to deploy troops to American cities without state consent is legally dubious at best -- a red line few presidents have crossed. Abraham Lincoln did so early during the Civil War, for instance, in 1861, but that was in response to real crises, whereas Trump has been claiming made-up emergencies to justify his actions. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bars the president from using federal troops to enforce domestic laws. In September, federal District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled that Trump’s deployment of active-duty troops to Los Angeles ;executed domestic law in…prohibited ways'." Yet ICE continues terrorizing people and beating them up.

In fact, let's return to Monica Moreta-Galarza who was attacked last week by ICE. Samira Asma-Sadeque (PEOPLE) notes:

According to another video of the incident cited by CNN, the woman was seen with her arms interlocked with a man, understood to be her husband, as he was being detained.

One masked agent is allegedly seen grabbing the woman's hair while someone else is heard saying, “Just grab her, grab her and pull her away.

Monica's the woman we noted in Friday's snapshot who was assaulted by ICE:

Want to see something disgusting? Steam this video at THE NEW YORK TIMES of an ICE agent slamming a woman to the ground. Andy Newman and Luis Ferré-Sadurní report for the paper:

A federal agent shoved a woman and pushed her to the floor in front of what appeared to be her two young children on Thursday during a confrontation at an immigration courthouse in Manhattan.

A video shows a wrenching encounter in a hallway of 26 Federal Plaza in which the woman and a girl are desperately clinging to the woman’s husband, who is being detained. Agents pull the hair of the woman and the girl to get them away from the man.

After agents pry the family apart and lead the resisting man away, the woman yells, “You guys don’t care about anything!” in Spanish at an agent who is trying to get her to leave and telling her, “Adios, adios.” She puts a hand on his chest, and he shoves her. When she tries to grab onto him, he pushes her down.

This is not America, let's not pretend that it is. It's hell and it's brought you to be the tedious contributions of Convicted Felon Donald Chump and the corrupt Supreme Court.

These are thugs unleashed by Donald Chump who are not bound by laws -- per the Supreme Court -- and who terrorize people daily. And there is no real legal recourse presently, none at all. Federal courts try to do their job and follow the law -- including the Constitution -- and for that Chump attacks them publicly and the Supreme Court nullifies them.

That's why the mid-terms are so important.

That video was outrageous. And it got attention. Other video that has been outrages has not gotten the amplification it deserves and needs. Luis Ferré-Sadurní (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:

A federal immigration officer was “relieved of his duties” and is under investigation after he shoved an Ecuadorean woman whose husband had been arrested and pushed her to the floor at an immigration courthouse in Manhattan, the Department of Homeland Security said on Friday.

The altercation took place on Thursday at 26 Federal Plaza, the epicenter of President Trump’s immigration crackdown in New York City, and was captured in videos that spread rapidly on social media and beyond. The footage set off an outcry from New York City officials who denounced the behavior of the officer, who has not been identified, and demanded that he be disciplined.

[. . .]

“The officer’s conduct in this video is unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE,” said Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees ICE. “Our ICE law enforcement are held to the highest professional standards and this officer is being relieved of current duties as we conduct a full investigation.”

Ms. McLaughlin declined to elaborate when asked if the officer had been suspended or fired, saying, “That’s being determined pending investigation.”

On Friday, Representative Dan Goldman and Brad Lander, the city comptroller, both Democrats, referred the ICE officer to Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan for felony prosecution. The referral is a recommendation for prosecution, but the Department of Justice has the discretion to decide whether to pursue a case.

And that's probably where it now starts and ends. Homeland Security says they're investigating and they don't do a damn thing and then try to pretend that there's no reason to provide an update. Of course, there is. The simplest one being public trust.

No one should ever be treated the way Monica Moreta-Galarza was treated.

But ICE and Homeland Security will pretend the matter was addressed when it never was.

It can't be addressed. To do so would probably open the US government up to a lawsuit on the part of the ICE agent beating up the woman. That man would then sue if he was held accountable. And he'd note what ICE agents have told me: That they're instructed to do whatever they want and told they will face no consequences.

So watch Homeland Security bury the whole thing while pretending that they're addressing it.

Till Eckert (PRO-PUBLICA) notes:

It wasn’t the first time videos have captured scenes of immigration agents using violent force to carry out the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. But the videos of this incident — one of which I filmed for ProPublica — seemed to stir something different. In a rare move, the government publicly reprimanded an officer for such conduct.

“The officer’s conduct in this video is unacceptable and beneath the men and women of ICE,” an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, said. “Our ICE law enforcement are held to the highest professional standards and this officer is being relieved of current duties as we conduct a full investigation.”

I’ve only been in the U.S. as a reporter for eight weeks — so I just barely arrived. I come from Germany and am on the staff at Correctiv, a nonprofit investigative newsroom. I’d been alarmed by videos of masked ICE agents sweeping immigrants off the street, scenes I never thought I’d see in the United States, and I came with the goal of witnessing what was going on for myself. I wanted to report on how the administration’s immigration crackdown was playing out from the front lines.

At THE NEW REPUBLIC, Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling writes:

ICE agents across the country have taken to wearing masks in an attempt to shield their identities from public scrutiny as they ransack American communities. DHS has provided federal support to their anonymizing decision, openly acknowledging that officers would continue to violate agency-specific mask bans put in place by state governments.

But the agent who attacked Moreta-Galarza had his full face on display, allowing NPR to identify him as the same officer involved in the arrest of a court observer last month.

“The agent, who was unmasked and had been sitting in the waiting area earlier, yelled at NPR: ‘Stop fucking following me! Why are you fucking following me?’ before turning and yelling the same thing at the court observer,” the radio outlet reported.

The court reporter was then taken into an enclosed elevator bay, taken into federal custody, and ultimately received two citations, according to NPR—trespassing in a secure area and failing to follow lawful commands from an officer.

Monica's not the only one to be assaulted by ICE. And US citizens have been attacked. Rafie Ollah Shouhed was physically assaulted by ICE twice -- here for video. Ashleigh Fields (THE HILL) explains:

A U.S. citizen injured during a Los Angeles immigration raid has filed a $50 million federal tort claim against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and two of its agencies for the use of “excessive force.”

Rafie Ollah Shouhed, 79, said he suffered from multiple broken ribs, contusions and symptoms of a traumatic brain injury after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents allegedly slammed him to the ground earlier this month.

Agents were targeting five people from Guatemala and Mexico during the Sept. 9 operation that took place at his car wash business, according to a DHS statement shared with The Associated Press. DHS said Shouhed was originally arrested for “impeding” a federal officer.

“What can I do for you? Can I help you?” Shouhed recalled saying to the officers, according to the AP.

He was then thrown to the ground by three masked agents and briefly taken into custody, according to the claim. Shouhed was eventually released without charges.

“This was an outrageous and unlawful assault on a 79-year-old American citizen in his own place of business,” V. James DeSimone, Shouhed’s attorney, said in a statement.

“Federal agents body slammed Mr. Shouhed, pinned him to the ground with a knee on his neck, ignored his pleas for medical care, and left him broken and in pain for hours. Their actions violated the Constitution, California civil rights law, and basic human decency.”

ICE is untrained and it's out of control. What just happened Wednesday in Baltimore makes that incredibly clear:

A video showing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest in Prince George's County has left a community on edge.

It appears to show ICE officers pinning a man to the ground in Hyattsville in the middle of an intersection. During the scuffle, an agent's firearm appears to get loose and once retrieved, the agent seems to point it toward bystanders.

Instead of sending them into cities -- and troops to protect these abusers -- maybe it's time to put ICE on halt and train them in the way the Constitution works and the way the law works. Maybe teach them that smashing the windows of cars -- scaring children in the cars, traumatizing them -- is not appropriate procedure nor is putting your hands on people.

This morning, Jazmine Ulloa, Allison McCann and Jennifer Medina (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

U.S. citizens, many of them Latino men, have been stopped and in some cases taken into custody by law enforcement officers who are carrying out President Trump’s immigration crackdown and who suspect the men are living in the country illegally.

While many of those detained have immediately declared their U.S. citizenship to officers, they have routinely been ignored, according to interviews with the men, their lawyers and court documents. 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.

How many U.S. citizens have been swept up in the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps is difficult to say. No comprehensive log of such encounters is available from the federal government, and immigration agents are not required to document stops of citizens.

That's what happens when you have no real training and you're given free reign to act the fool and be a thug in public. There needs to be a Congressional investigation into the hiring and training of ICE officers and that needs to include statistics on how many complaints have resulted in disciplinary actions including firing. At present, there is no indication that any illegal action garners more than a slap on the wrist -- if even that.

Derek Seidman (TRUTHOUT) reports:

On the morning of September 4, dozens of masked federal agents raided a snack bar factory in the small town of Cato, New York. They claimed there was a “violent felon” in the plant, but proceeded to siphon off and hold anyone who looked Latinx. At least 69 workers were initially detained, with 57 still in custody or deported, though some say that could be an undercount. There are multiple reports of aggression — knees on necks, blows to heads — used during the raid.

The workers were mostly from Central America, especially Guatemala. Some had lived in the region for decades. Many are parents. Even those who presented valid working permits were taken. Sources tell Truthout that around a dozen workers have been deported while others linger in detention facilities across the U.S.

The raid in Cato has garnered national attention and shaken the immigrant community of central New York. While targeting and raids against immigrant workers and communities in the region are not new, some organizers told Truthout that the scale and the brazen racism, as well as the lack of transparency, on display in the Cato raid reflect an escalation in the federal government’s assault on immigrants in the state.

“I believe one goal of this operation was to push the boundaries of what’s acceptable,” Jessica Maxwell, executive director of the Workers Center of Central New York, told Truthout.

Protests took place over the weekend against ICE. Here for video of NYC's Stand Against ICE Day of Action protest. At THE NEW YORK POST -- no link to trash -- faux reporters Khristian Narizhaya and Rich Calder type that the protesters were paid activists. They offer no proof because there is none and because whores are always promoting themselves so they can get other clients. Khristian and Rich should be busy for days. Kristie Keleshian (CBS NEWS) reports:

Demonstrators marched down Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn and packed Sunset Park for one of eight events held across the city, started by members of the City Council Progressive Caucus.

"Not only our immigrant neighbors should know their rights, but regular U.S. citizens should know their rights because we see this administration is breaking, violating laws all over the place," Councilmember Alexa Aviles said.

"If they were doing things legally, there would be no issues or no problems, so I'm constantly questioning what they're doing," Assemblymember Marcela Mitaynes said.

Demonstrators were told to wear white as a way to show peace in their message.

"We reject this violent Trump agenda, and we want our neighbors to know that they are safe here," Aviles said.

Demonstrator Damien Andrade said he was participating to stand in solidarity with his father, who is undocumented.

"He's also very scared to go outside today, and since we're trying to get him papers and, you know, that process, it takes a very, very long time," he said.

CBS NEWS CHICAGO notes a local protest:

Protesters took to Daley Plaza Saturday afternoon, calling for Cook County State's Attorney Eileen Burke to investigate and close the Broadview ICE facility.

The demonstration was organized by a group called The Coalition Against the Trump Agenda.

A spokesman from the Cook County State's Attorney's Office told CBS News Chicago that their office does not conduct independent investigations into criminal conduct and does not have jurisdiction over federal agencies.

This comes as the protest outside the ICE facility in Broadview continues with clashes between protesters and ICE agents.

In California, Karla Sosa (KERO) reports:

Immigrant rights groups held their largest protest in four years on Saturday, marching from the Bakersfield Museum of Art to the Mesa Verde ICE Detention Center to protest what they claim are inhumane conditions at ICE facilities in Kern County.

Close to 200 people participated in the march, all with the same purpose of raising awareness about detention conditions and immigration enforcement practices.

Reverend Deborah Lee with Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity said this year's protest drew significantly more participants than previous demonstrations.

"Given the context of the racial profiling and the ice attacks on our communities, we have called for a much larger gathering," Lee said.

The protesters are also highlighting concerns about the facilities' impact on local communities and resources.

On protests, remember the upcoming No Kings October 18th rallies. Meanwhile people continue to die in ICE custody. Tim Pulliam (KABC) notes:

People gathered in Westminster on Saturday for a benefit event to help the family of a man who died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody this week.

Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, died on Monday at a hospital after five weeks at the Adelanto detention center. His death is now under investigation.

At Saturday's benefit, the community honored his life through food.

Ayala-Uribe's loved ones organized the pop-up event, selling lunch plates to raise money for his funeral.

Friends describe the 39-year-old as a beautiful soul.

And KTLA's Angelique Brenes adds:

Ayala-Uribe was pronounced dead at 2:32 a.m. on Sept. 22. He had been referred to the hospital the previous day to evaluate an abscess on his buttock and was scheduled for surgery. ICE reported that he was also hypertensive and displayed abnormal tachycardia. The cause of death remains under investigation by DHS.

Ayala-Uribe came to the U.S. as a young child and received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) protection in 2012. His renewal request was denied in 2016 following a DUI conviction. He was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Aug. 17 during an enforcement action at the Fountain Valley Auto Wash, where he had worked for 15 years, and was transferred to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center on Aug. 22 for immigration proceedings.

This morning, THE NEW REPUBLIC has already posted Greg Sargent's latest THE DAILY BLAST:

What if we told you that Donald Trump is a really unpopular president? Would that surprise you? It’s not something you hear much in the media. Yet in recent days new polls from the Associated Press, Gallup, Quinnipiac, Reuters, and the Economist all show Trump’s approval rating in terrible shape. The polling averages show the same. He’s in the toilet on specific issues, too: On the economy and trade he’s polling in the 30s, and he’s deeply underwater on immigration, his “best” issue. Many of his most dramatic recent moments, from the failed Jimmy Kimmel ouster to the buffoonish indictment of James Comey, have flopped. We talked to Lakshya Jain, co-founder of the data firm Split Ticket and head of political data at The Argument, who’s been explaining that Trump is in a weak position. We talked about what all this new polling data really shows, why the media—and Democrats!—still reflexively assume Trump is “strong,” and what it all means for the 2026 midterms. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.

So be sure to check that out. In other news, Cameron Joseph (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR) notes:

America is on the brink of a government shutdown. And without a surprise last-minute deal, the question becomes how long it will last – and how much damage it will cause.

Democrats have so far refused to accept a short-term deal to keep the government open at current funding levels through mid-November, and Republicans have refused to negotiate on Democrats’ demands to restore health care-related funding. President Donald Trump and congressional leaders from both parties have agreed to meet at the White House on Monday, but unless they can come to terms, the government will shut down at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

[. . .]

A YouGov poll released on Thursday found that 37% of U.S. adults would blame either President Trump or Republicans in Congress if the government shuts down – compared with 25% who would blame Democrats and 26% who would blame both parties equally. A mid-September Verasight poll found that if Democrats vote against a funding bill after Republicans refuse to restore health-care funding, more Americans would still blame Republicans (35%) than Democrats (24%), with 32% blaming both.

So bring it. And be prepared. As Ava and I noted last night in "Media: Flip the script? Acosta can't even lift it:"

In addition to the topics noted prior, there's also a good chance that the government will go into shut down this week. They have until Tuesday night to pass a short term funding bill. At midnight, it's over. Dems were supposed to meet with Chump last week but Chump cancelled the meeting and bluffed and blustered backing off only when polling indicated that the public could blame a shut down on the Republican Party since they control the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Now Chump rushes to meet with the Democrats on Monday.

Dems are concerned about the cuts to healthcare, to cite one important issue. They need to stand up for their concerns.

Without any real messaging, they are already winning.

And if the shut down happens? As soon as Tuesday night turns into Wednesday morning (midnight), Democrats should be in front of every camera pointing out Chump's inability to pull a budget together.

It should, in fact, go something like this.

Minority House Leader Hakeem Jeffries: He had time to golf but didn't have time to work on our nation's budget.

Minority Senate Leader Chuck Schumer: He had time to go after James Comey but he didn't have time to put together a budget.

Senator Patty Murray: He had time to repeatedly attack veterans' health care but he didn't have time to put together a budget.

Senator Ron Wyden: He had time to invade Portland, but he didn't have time to put together a budget.

Senator Maria Cantwell: He had time to demand Microsoft fire Lisa Monaco but he didn't have time to put together a budget.

Senator Tammy Baldwin: He had turn to destroy American farmers while bailing out Argentina but he didn't have time to put together a budget.

US House Rep Alexandria Ocasio Cortez: He had time to work on getting Jimmy Kimmel fired but he didn't have time to put together a budget.

Senator Elizabeth Warren: He's had time to launch attacks on Social Security but he didn't have time to put together a budget.

US House Rep Jasmine Crockett: He made time to terrorize immigrants without criminal records but couldn't make time to put together a budget.

If the country goes into a shutdown, that should be the messaging over and over. How Chump has stuck his big nose into everything -- including in private business, in colleges, in museum, etc, etc -- but he hasn't made time to go the actual work that a president is supposed to focus on.

The showdown all by itself will be evidence of Chump's failure. But Democrats can also use that event to demonstrate all the time he's wasted on everything but helping the American people.

That's how you flip the script.

Michael Tomasky (TNR) notes this morning:

This isn’t about Obamacare subsidies. I mean, sure: they are part of the discussion. But there is something much more vital at stake here. This shutdown is happening because the aforementioned party of dictatorship wants it to happen so it can destroy the federal government and vastly reduce the number of things it does for people. It’s happening because Donald Trump’s Republican Party is depraved.

If you find my language a tad overheated, then masticate on this more anodyne description, which appeared in a Washington Post news story over the weekend: “If Congress fails to fund the government next week, the White House is preparing for a shutdown that would reflect the purest version of President Donald Trump’s vision for the federal government, guided by White House budget director Russell Vought, an architect of the controversial Project 2025 playbook for Trump’s second term.”

What that means, as the Post article and other news stories have sketched out, is massive layoffs in many departments and agencies, with the hope of making as many as possible permanent. The Trump White House wants to cut the State Department by 84 percent, the Department of Housing and Urban Development by 43 percent, and the Labor Department by 35 percent. If the government shuts down Tuesday night, it wants to furlough as many people as it can get away with.

Except, of course, in two areas: immigration enforcement and defense. There, it’s party time. Immigration enforcement funding, as you may recall, grew by bajillions in the big, ugly bill, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (whose usual budget is around $9 billion) a whopping $75 billion more—$30 billion to round people up, and $45 billion to keep them in camps. As for defense spending, the Pentagon had requested $848 billion for Fiscal Year 2026. The bill sends the Pentagon more than $1 trillion.

One group is fighting to save We The People, the other is working to destroy us and the safety net. Paul Krugman has a column addressing the destruction. I tried to do a pull quote but it ended up being over half of his column. It's very in depth and it's very important so please make a point to read it.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

Washington, D.C. — Today, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair, and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03), House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member, issued the following statement on the Supreme Court’s preliminary ruling that allows President Trump to continue withholding billions in foreign assistance approved by Congress—including amounts which he is illegally seeking to cancel through a “pocket rescission.” The ruling is not a final decision on whether the president can unilaterally cancel funding approved by Congress via a “pocket rescission.”

“Congress can—and absolutely should—promptly reject President Trump and Russ Vought’s illegal effort to do an end run around the people’s elected representatives by passing a bill like the one we introduced last week. Republicans should join Democrats to stand up for our power of the purse, rather than allow a president and an unelected bureaucrat who do not respect Congress or the Constitution to continue attacking our power to fight for the people back home that we represent.”

Late last month, President Trump and Russ Vought submitted a rescissions request of $4.9 billion under the fast-tracked process provided by the Impoundment Control Act. But because the funds at issue are set to expire on October 1^st and the rescissions request was made with fewer than the 45 days the fast-tracked process affords Congress to consider the request, Trump and Vought absurdly and illegally claim they are able to cancel it unilaterally.

Congress can extend the period of availability of the $4.9 billion in funding that Trump and Vought have sought to cancel in order to reject their absurd gambit, which top Republican lawmakers—as well as the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—have made clear is illegal. The continuing resolution (CR) that Senator Murray and Congresswoman DeLauro introduced last week does exactly that: it extends the availability of the funds at issue to reject the president’s illegal ploy to do an end run around Congress.

Senator Murray’s statement in response to President Trump’s “pocket rescission” request can be found HERE. Congresswoman DeLauro’s can be found HERE.

More information on the CR that Congresswoman DeLauro and Senator Murray introduced last week, which would reject President Trump’s “pocket rescission,” is available HERE.

###

The following sites updated:

Saturday, September 27, 2025

Avocado and Tuna Salad Wraps in the Kitchen

Erica e-mailed to note a recipe she really likes, Good Housekeeping's Avocado and Tuna Salad Wraps:

Ingredients
1 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 1/2 Tbsp. olive oil
Kosher salt and pepper
2 5-ounce cans solid white tuna in water, rinsed
1 avocado, cut into pieces
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 cups mixed greens
4 10-inch wraps

Directions
Step 1 In a bowl, whisk together lemon juice, oil, and 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Toss with tuna, avocado, and scallion.
Step 2 Divide greens among wraps, top with tuna salad, and roll tightly.

She likes it because there's no cooking and because it' light an refreshing.

News? Aurelia Glass (Tribune News Service) explains:

For months, the Trump administration has been waging a multi-front war on the working class: ending collective bargaining rights for more than 1 million federal workers, ripping up signed union contracts, muzzling the agency tasked with overseeing private sector bargaining laws, and strangling manufacturing jobs while driving up costs for working families with costly tariffs.

Now Trump and his team are opening a new frontier by attacking minimum wage protections that benefit federal contractors, disabled workers and home care workers.

The first casualty was the minimum wage for federal contractors. In 2021, the Biden administration upped the minimum wage for private-sector workers on federal contracts, giving an estimated 327,300 workers a raise of about $9,256 per year. When the Trump administration assumed office this past January, these workers were earning at least $17.75 per hour — more than twice the current federal minimum wage. However, in March, the Trump administration revoked Biden’s executive order, reducing the allowable minimum wage on federal contracts to $13.30 per hour.

Next, the Trump administration reversed a policy that would have prevented corporations from legally paying disabled workers far less than the minimum wage. Federal minimum wage law allows employers to apply for a certificate, called a Section 14(c) waiver, which allows them to pay some disabled workers an average of $4 an hour in some states, rather than the federal minimum wage of $7.25. As of July 2024, an estimated 38,000 people were earning subminimum wages due to these waivers, which are held by more than 600 employers.

If you were every crazy enough to think Donald Chump cared about workers, the above should have cleared that up for you. I laugh at how he tries to pretend he's a rebel. He is and always was the establishment. But a lot of dumb idiots fell for his con job.

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot" for Friday:

Friday, September 25, 2025. Lawrence O'Donnell exposes the rot in Chump's trumped up case against Comey, an ICE thug attacks a woman in a court house and it's on camera, his shoving her, his knocking her to the ground, Sarah "Fergie" find that her lies about Epstein are not sticking, turns out Pam daBimbo Bondi wanted press for herself back when she did the binders and said the Epstein client list was on her desk (the administration explained to her back then to shut up about Epstein), Ezra Klein attacks abortion rights (that's what is I'm not in the mood to do a walk through, go back to January 2005 -- our archives -- when we last had to face the Bull Meese and their war on reproductive rights), Americans overwhelming see Chump as the threat to free speech that he truly is, and much more.

At the start, let's note Lawrence O'Donnell from his MSNBC show last night explaining Chump's illegal targeting of James Comey.

We've got a ton to cover. Space permitting, we'll come back to the topic, otherwise Ruth covered it last night Donald Chump: Convicted Felon and War Criminal"" and you can refer also to THE NEW REPUBLIC's "Transcript: Damning Reports Expose Trump’s Corruption in Comey Fiasco."

Want to see something disgusting? Steam this video at THE NEW YORK TIMES of an ICE agent slamming a woman to the ground. Andy Newman and Luis Ferré-Sadurní report for the paper:

A federal agent shoved a woman and pushed her to the floor in front of what appeared to be her two young children on Thursday during a confrontation at an immigration courthouse in Manhattan.

This is not America, let's not pretend that it is. It's hell and it's brought you to be the tedious contributions of Convicted Felon Donald Chump and the corrupt Supreme Court.

That's why the mid-terms are so important.

I see so much disgusting garbage right now. And I'm not talking about Chump or MAGA for this point. I'm talking about Democrats who don't have spines. They've tried to toss transpeople to the side. It's easier, they think, to abandon trans people than to fight for what's right.

It's probably is very easy for them. They're spineless.

But they'll abandon the trans community first and then they'll move on to --

Wait. They've already moved on. Ezra Klein's saying the Democratic Party has to give up support for reproductive rights (see Rebecca's "ezzie klein the fake democrat who's now attacking reproductive rights").

They're spineless and their cowards.

They're not going to help us win in November 2026. The American people will not reward the Democratic Party for cowardly abandoning principles as the spineless seek a quick fix.

These same people are having a fit over Zohran's campaign. There are reasons to criticize him -- true of any politician. But the spineless are doing nothing to help us turn out votes.

Reproductive freedom is a very popular position with the American public. Republicans realize that which is why they don't like a referendum on reproductive rights at election time.

These Ezra Klein's know nothing. Let's remember what that spineless crap is noted for: Lying.

Journo-List was about lying. That was Klein's baby. It was an attempt to fool the American people. A number of journalists got on this list-serv that Klein started. It was there where they told the truth and it was there where they sought feedback on how to lie.

Katha Pollitt watches Sarah Palin's national debut as John McCain's running mate and she freaks out. She takes it to the private list where she says that Sarah seemed likeable -- the horror! -- and she gets the feedback she needs to write, the very next day, at THE NATION about how awful Sarah Palin is, how uninspiring, how this, how that.

A leftist is a sexist pig nightly on MSNBC. We've never pimped him here so we'll leave him unnamed but I'm sure most will know who I mean -- he's no longer with MSNBC. Do his leftist peers hold him accountable? No. On the private list-serv they talk about how hateful he is towards women. But Scott Horton -- not ANTIWAR.COM's Scott Horton, this is the attorney who got trouble for misrepresenting his credentials -- and I'm oh-so-glad to have been a part of that take down -- Scott could say sure he's a sexist pig but he calls out torture so let's not say anything about his sexism.

These people are liars. They are filth. They were paid for their opinions and they didn't share them with you. They did share on the private list-serv and they plotted there how to be 'on point' and how to trick and deceive.

No one needs that but that's all Ezra has to offer.

No Democrat has to endorse Zohran. My personal opinion is you should only endorse in a race you can vote in. You know what race all Americans can vote in? The race for president.

We remember that, right? Last November. The only real choices were Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.

Each month the Michigan Green Party sends an announcement to us. I like them. In the past, for years, I've included everything they've e-mailed.

2024 changed that. Jill Stein had no shot at winning and shouldn't have run to begin with. She ran a lousy campaign in 2012 and we noted that after the campaign. That she would be given a chance in 2016 was bad enough. Again in 2024? Ridiculous. You're not a real party. That's reality. But the other reality? You're not trying to be a real party. First off, a real party doesn't nominate the same person three times. Especially not a third time when the country is getting tired of all the elderly people in elected office and Jill was 74 years old.

There's more. In 2023, Jill and the ethically challenged Chris Hedges tried to make Cornel West the nominee. Cornel eventually caught on that what they were promising couldn't be delivered. They tried to top-down force him on the party. This was after Chris and Cornel were going to be the nominees for whatever that fringe party was. And most people don't even know that to this day. Cornel, early in his People's Party -- that's what it was -- made the mistake of being honest in an interview and talking about how Chris recruited him for the presidential candidate and Chris was going to be his running mate but then at the last moment Chris' wife convinced Chris not to run and blah blah blah.

Why does it matter? Because Chris LIED in interviews and in the written word (online, I don't believe anyone bothers to print that crackpot's nonsense anymore). That's the mind set of the Ezra Klein's in fact.

I have my problems with DSA and I've noted that at this site many, many times oer the years.

Zohran's saying he's a Socialist. That takes care of my biggest problem -- lying to voters.

So while Ezra's trying to trick voters and weaken the party, Zohran's being honest and possibly bringing in voters to the Democratic Party. We'll see with the election.

If someone doesn't want to endorse him, they shouldn't. And people should shut up about Chuck Schumer. If Chuck doesn't want to endorse him, that's fine.

And I'm sure Zohran's fine with it. 2024 was between Kamala and Chump. And Zohran refused to endorse Kamala. Was part of movement to get people to not to vote for Kamala.

If people are bothered by this (see Stan's "Rachel Maddow and Kamala Harris" and Rebecca's "big tent? doesn't work just 1 way"), that is their right.

But, at his best, Zohran is trying to enlarge the party. And there's a great discussion about that now, about how to bring in leftists who aren't Democrats into the party. The way the GOP used to work to bring Libertarians into the party in other decades or the way today's GOP works to bring White Nationalists and KKK into their party.

While Zohran tries to bring leftists into the party, Ezra is working to try to drive leftists out of the party.

If you're a Democrat, whether you support Zohran's run for mayor or not, I hope you can appreciate that he's doing real work on party building whereas bean counter Ezra Klein is doing no work at all and going back to failed strategies that lead to lukewarm turn out and bad elected officials. What's the idiot's name that the Ezras all praised in the '00s. Jim Webb. They loved him. He was what they wanted the party to be -- the newly christened Democrat. Rah Rah Rah!

If you believed their lies.

We didn't I reported on the hearing where he came out against money for Agent Orange victims. We covered it here and other than veterans outlets, no one else did. They all wanted to protect Jimmy. He was and remains a piece of crap. And the Ezras in their haste to sell out to anyone put him in the Senate and he betrayed veterans. The press didn't want to report that. Even when he couldn't run for re-election because veterans and the families of veterans had made it clear that his Agent Orange remarks and position meant they would not vote for him again.

Jim Webb was a Vietnam veteran who was more concerned about the financial cost to the US government of Agent Orange related costs than he was about others who served in Vietnam and whose health destroyed by Agent Orange.

I don't want these fakes brought over to this party. I think we all saw the damage Joe Manchin -- and his evil twin "Green Party" Krysten Sinema -- did in the Senate. (And if you didn't figure out who the no longer with MSNBC sexist was -- Krysten dated him -- which was another reason people should have known not to trust her.)

Offline, when I'm offered something, I'll consider it in many cases. I'm okay with working with people I don't know. I'm okay working with people you can work with -- meaning, I've worked with them before and they might be great fun or might not be but they get the work done. But if I've worked with you and you made the experience hell? No, I'm not going back into a situation like that. You've burned that bridge.

In terms of politics, I'm fine with trying something news. I'm fine with someone like Zohran trying to bring new voters in. I am never fine with people picking up failed policies of the past and trying to pass them off as something new. There is nothing new about Ezra Klein's proposals and they do not increase turnout and they kill off enthusiasm.

In 2024, Zohran didn't endorse Kamala. It would be wonderful if he could admit that was a mistake. Because it was. But whether he admits it or not, we have got to win in the mid-terms.

That woman thrown down by ICE -- abused by a so-called officer of the law?

That woman being slammed down the hall and then shoved to the ground by that repugnant piece of trash who thinks he has the right to abuse people? She is all of us. We stand up now or we say we consent to that treatment. The easiest way to stand up to it now is to register to vote if you aren't already registered and then come November 2026 we turn out and we turn out for Democrats. We put power of the House and the Senate into Democratic hands.

Back to the NYT article:

Brad Lander, the city comptroller, a Democrat and frequent ICE critic who was arrested in June while trying to escort a migrant whom agents were trying to arrest, denounced the agent who manhandled the woman. Mr. Lander was arrested again last week, along with other Democratic elected officials, at 26 Federal Plaza after the officials demanded access to cells used by ICE to detain migrants.

“An ICE agent violently threw this bereft woman to the ground in front of her kids,” he wrote on social media. He added: “She did not pose any threat. She had to be taken to the hospital.” On the video, the woman can be seen standing up from her fall, and agents lead her and the children away. Mr. Lander said the agents who detained the man did not show a warrant or give lawful grounds for detention.

This is not a time to play. This is our country and we have got to protect it. Voting is essential in the mid-terms. Speaking out right now is essential. Those who are able to should participate in the No Kings October 18th rallies.

All roads lead to Epstein? Katie Hawkinson (INDEPENDENT) reports:

Attorney General Pam Bondi only gave White House aides a few minutes’ notice before she infamously handed out binders to a group of MAGA influencers about the investigation into the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, a new report reveals.

In late February, Bondi handed out thick binders titled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” to a group of MAGA influencers and activists at the White House.

The move would go on to generate public backlash from the MAGA base, in part because nearly all of the information inside was already in the public domain. That didn’t stop the influencers from proudly showing them off as they exited the White House in a now-famous photo.

Officials pulled an all-nighter to put the binders together, and President Donald Trump’s communications aides didn’t know Bondi was going to distribute them at the influencer event until she told them just a few minutes before it began, The Wall Street Journal reported.

After that meeting, White House aides complained to Justice Department officials that Bondi’s drawing attention to the Epstein case wasn’t helpful, the Journal reported. Top White House officials also told Bondi to tamp down the Epstein issue instead of highlighting it, according to the outlet.

So Pam da Bimbo Bondi needed some press attention and planned a big photo op but neglected to tell Chump and others before the plan was in motion.

We know they're unqualified, right? But do we also get that Chump should have fired Pam, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth because of the embarrassments and problems they created.

His failure to do so not only demonstrates he's not up for the job but it has also allowed this problem to continue.

And Bondi wanted the publicity. All of his Epstein problems today can be placed at her feet. It's to promote the binders that she goes on FOX "NEWS" and they ask her about the client list. And what does she say when asked about the Epstein client list? “It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that.”

Hawkinson notes:

Chump the con artist was having a good run. He's thugs rushing to defend him and to lie for him. Then along came Epstein to tear the teflon coating off. Suddenly, his voters who actually cared about protecting children and young adults from sexual abuse saw that all the whispers and Tweets from the Roseanne Barrs (I'm wording that as kindly as I can) was nonsense and garbage. While the press turned a blind eye during Chump's first term, Rosanne and others were insisting he was taking on a global pedophile ring. That lie was swallowed. Chump was moving. On the move. Even after he lost the 2020 election the lies continues. I have no idea why the press didn't cover them. By not covering these lies, they gave them credence. So Chump was really president -- the lie went -- and Biden was about to be arrested -- or had been arrested -- and Chump would be the president just as soon as Chump completely demolished this global sex trafficking.

It's like how the world was supposed to come to an end -- for the good people -- two days ago. Where was the coverage of that? Mass hysteria is not derailed by silence.

A lot of Chump voters believed in him. Thought he was the protector of children. Convinced that the mass media was covering up and/or involved in the global pedophile ring.

Don't know what to tell you, folks, but you got conned. And it would be nice if Roseanne and others who conned you would step up to the plate and say, "No, he doesn't care."

If he did care, he would have been addressing this.

He's a rotten politician and he is of 'the establishment' he pretends to attack. Grasp that. He didn't have the class to be part of it, so he was on the fringes. But the fringes didn't make one of the people.

And the Epstein scandal made it clear he was the swamp.

That's why he can't recover to this day.

Most people on the left and in the middle -- and even some on the right (and even some on the right who supported him) -- were unaware of how deep this lie was and how it was told endlessly -- not just via QAnon.

What we're learning right now -- all of us paying attention -- is that while Chump did stop the release of files because his name was in it; he was actually never for any release to begin with. Why? Probably because Pam telling him he was in the files was not a shock. How many times he was in them may have been. But they were telling Pam -- right after her binders moment -- to knock it off, that the Epstein matter wasn't something that they wanted to shine a light on.

The Republicans in Congress -- and Chump in the White House -- appear to want a shut down right now and are trying to force it into being. As Ed Kilgore (INTELLIGENCER) noted yesterday:

We’re now five days from a government shutdown, with no negotiations between the two parties in sight. At one point, President Trump agreed to meet with Democratic congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, but then called the meeting off, saying their “unserious and ridiculous demands” meant it wouldn’t accomplish anything. You’d still think that for the sake of appearances, the Republican leaders who control Congress would keep their troops in town in case of a last-minute deal to avoid a shutdown or to get stuff done before it happens. Instead, House Speaker Mike Johnson is keeping the House in recess.

Punchbowl News has the official GOP rationalization:

Johnson doesn’t want Republicans back in Washington next week with nothing to do. The House Republican leadership feels as if they’ve already done their job by passing a CR. Calling members back is a concession they have more work to do, GOP sources said.

Okay, maybe. But there’s another reason Johnson might want the House floor inactive in the days just ahead. Democrat Adelita Grijalva’s special-election victory in Arizona on Tuesday to fill the seat left vacant by her father’s death means there will be 214 Democrats in the House once she’s sworn in. She’s indicated she will instantly sign the discharge petition sponsored by Republican Thomas Massie and Democrat Ro Khanna to force a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would require the Justice Department to release everything it has on that explosive scandal. Three other Republicans, all of whom have been outspoken in various ways about pedophilia and sexual abuse, have signed the petition as well: Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Nancy Mace. Grijalva is likely to provide the 218th signature, the last needed to put the Epstein Act before the House. This is very much not what Johnson wants; he’s been ordered by the White House to let the president and Pam Bondi handle the Epstein matter without any messy and potentially disastrous public disclosures.

Moving over to VARIETY, this morning Alex Ritman reports:

Natalie Dormer has said she won’t promote ITV and Britbox‘s upcoming drama series “The Lady,” in which she plays Sarah Ferguson, following revelations over the Duchess of York’s connections to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Brit actress has also said she has donated her entire salary from the show to charities focused on child abuse.

The news comes after a leaked email from 2011 was recently published appearing to show Ferguson, the former wife of Prince Andrew, apologizing to Epstein having publicly rejected him years after he was jailed for sex offenses in 2008.

If you've been following this story you know that Sarah and her staff have been anonymously leaking to the press to try to create sympathy for Sarah. They've tried the she-was-afraid-he-would-sue-her. Now they're trying to convince people that she was afraid he would harm her children. A low estimate of the British royal family's wealth is $24 billion -- a high estimate takes them to almost $100 billion. They are protected twenty-four seven. That Sarah and her lackeys are trying to insult people's intelligence goes to just how desperate Sarah is to try to convince people what happened didn't really happen. Maia Davies, and Matt Spivey (BBC NEWS) report:

The family of Virginia Giuffre has called for the Duchess of York to be stripped of her courtesy royal title after she called sex offender Jeffrey Epstein a "supreme friend" in a 2011 email.

Seven charities have cut ties with Sarah Ferguson since the email - in which she also appeared to apologise for her public criticism of Epstein after claiming to have broken off contact - emerged last Sunday.

On Thursday, Ms Giuffre's sister-in-law, Amanda Roberts, told BBC Newsnight: "If you are not safeguarding the most vulnerable people in your community, why should you hold those positions of power?"

Harry Thompson (DAILY BEAST) reports, "Most Americans fear for the safety of free speech under President Donald Trump, a new poll has revealed. New data from Quinnipiac University showed 53 percent feel “pessimistic” about the sanctity of the right granted by the First Amendment despite Trump running on a promise to protect free speech." Of course they do. And of course they should.

We've got a nit wit as Attorney General. Pam daBimbo Bondi. She's threatened to crack down on those Americans who dare to practice their First Amendment rights. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) notes:

We get it: not everyone is a free-speech expert. A huge part of our job at FIRE is educating the public about their First Amendment rights, the scope of free-speech law, and the foundational principles that make free expression so important.

Most people don’t have the time to get in the weeds like we do, so it’s understandable for the average American to sometimes get things wrong about free speech. But when you’re the attorney general of the United States, like Pam Bondi, you really should know better.

While discussing the assassination of Charlie Kirk and campus antisemitism on the Katie Miller Podcast, Bondi said the Justice Department would investigate and prosecute incidents of “hate speech.” While she’s trying to go into damage-control mode and walk back some of her mistakes, it’s important to correct our nation’s chief law enforcement officer on what is and isn’t protected expression.

“There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech. And there is no place — especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie — [for that] in our society.”

This is, to put it bluntly, absolutely false — so-called “hate speech” is free speech.

The idea that “hate speech” is a separate and unprotected category of expression is one that we, unfortunately, have had to debunk time and time again. The fact is there is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, and there can’t be. The Supreme Court has rejected the notion on multiple occasions, and the reasons for this should be obvious to someone in Bondi’s position.

What constitutes “hate speech” is inherently subjective, so it’s impossible to narrowly define it in a way that passes constitutional muster — let alone in a way that doesn’t empower the government to target speech it disfavors.
As Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote in 1971’s Cohen v. California, “one man’s vulgarity is another man’s lyric.” Or as Justice Samuel Alito wrote in Matal v. Tam almost four decades later, “the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’” In that case, the Court unanimously found that the government couldn’t deny a trademark to an Asian-American band called the Slants because it found the name disparaging.

Some consider criticism of Israel or Black Lives Matter to be hate speech. Others believe criticizing LGBTQ+ advocacy or Christian conservatism fits the description. And some, like President Trump, want to push the idea that even critical news coverage of an elected official — namely, him — can be a form of hate speech.

Apart from the inescapably subjective sentiment that “hate speech is any speech I hate,” the only thing on which proponents of treating hate speech as unprotected agree is the desire to punish it. This apparently includes Pam Bondi:

“We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”

This is absolutely chilling. It’s why carving out a “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment is so dangerous. It grants the government the power not only to decide what constitutes hateful speech, but to punish it. And that dual empowerment inevitably facilitates attacks on the right to dissent, criticize, and hold accountable whoever is in power. Nothing is more antithetical to what America stands for than enabling federal speech police.

At the Libertarian CATO Institute, Thomas A. Berry denounced daBimbo Bondi's 'understanding' of the First Amendment. Free speech goes across political lines, support for it does. When the government attempted to get ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel last week, US Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican joined other Americans in denouncing this assault on free speech and he wasn't worried about party lines. Left, right and center most of us in this country value the First Amendment, grasp how important it is to democracy and consider it to be one of the finest rights we have.

Americans don't trust Chump or his administration because they can't.

Chump said he would release ll The Epstein files. And didn't. Pam daBimbo Bondi said that Epstein's client list was on her desk and would be released shortly. And then she said it didn't exist.

There's the person vendetta way Chump conducts himself going after one person after another.

Let's do a story -- and I'm rushing this morning so my apologies to my friend taking my dictation and to anyone who struggles to follow the leaps as I rush through this -- Jane Fonda got arrested at an airport coming back into the United States from Canada while Tricky Dick was president

She was carrying vitamins. They tried to say it was drugs. She was held for hours and hours and she was having her period and they would not let her go to the restroom because they did not have a female police officer. Again, hours and hours. Jane was then accused of kicking the police officer. If she did, good for her. You try being on your period and waiting forever because some asshole won't call in to get a female police officer to show up at the airport so you can go to the bathroom.

But the thing about the Chumps is they're idiots. And worse, they are greedy idiots.

Jane was actually detained because she was on Nixon's enemies list. It was an actual list. Her mail was to be opened, she was to be harassed when going through customs, her calls were to be tapped, etc, etc. Supposedly, the only agency that refused to follow upon Nixon's illegal requests was the IRS.

The case against Jane was dropped. Nixon was a crook but he wasn't greed driven the way Chump is.

Or the way the police officer was. He wasn't on duty at the time, he was moonlighting as a security officer at the airport. And he was kicked!!! Kicked!!!

And he was greedy.

So he decided to profit from the incident. He sued.

That was wonderful because it meant that discovery would expose the list -- that Jane and her attorney Mark Lane felt existed (they were right but I'm not using "knew" here because they suspected it, no one outside Nixon's circle knew it existed).

Rather than reveal the existence of the enemies list in court proceedings (from the civil case the greedy officer brought), Nixon had the entire matter dropped. Because it's illegal.

And Chump doesn't care that it's illegal. He's quite open about the people he's targeting. Stupid and greedy.

And that further erodes trust Americans might have otherwise had in him.

Steven Benen (MADDOW BLOG, MSNBC) notes:

If Donald Trump’s public comments are any indication, the president has been preoccupied with George Soros lately, repeatedly referencing the Hungarian American philanthropist in multiple Fox News appearances.

The Republican also recently targeted Soros online, posting an item to his social media platform that said the wealthy progressive donor should face racketeering charges after supporting “violent protests.”

The baseless accusations were ridiculous — there’s no evidence whatsoever to suggest the Soros family or the Open Society Foundations have financed “violent protests” — but the remarks were also largely overlooked as pointless presidential palaver. As I noted in a post, Trump’s weird rants against Soros are easy to shrug off unless the Justice Department starts acting on them.

So it’s significant that The New York Times reported a senior Justice Department official has “instructed more than a half dozen U.S. attorneys’ offices to draft plans to investigate” a Soros-backed group.

Or take the effort on the part of the administration to go after an FBI agent. Andrew Goudsward (REUTERS) reports:

A U.S. Justice Department official on Wednesday retracted a demand for information from an FBI agent who testified against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in a defamation case that resulted in a $1.3 billion verdict for spreading lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting.

The request came days after Ed Martin, the head of a Justice Department effort to remedy instances of alleged weaponization of the U.S. government against President Donald Trump and his supporters, sent a letter to the FBI agent’s lawyer seeking information about whether the agent received a financial benefit from his participation in the case.

FBI Special Agent William Aldenberg, a plaintiff in the case, testified at Jones’ civil trial in 2022 about responding to the scene at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 students and six staff members were slain.

Chump is the enemy of free speech. Even some of his one-time supporters are starting to recognize that reality. It's as plain as the Hitler mustache on racist Megyn Kelly's best friend Alex Jones.

We need to be winding down but this morning, Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

Every four years U.S. intelligence officials have published Global Trends, a public document that predicts what challenges the United States — and the world — will face in the coming decades.

With the intelligence community often focused on immediate issues, the Global Trends report has taken a longer-term look. Past editions warned of threats and shifts that came to pass, including climate change challenges, new immigration patterns and the risk of a pandemic.

But the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, led by Tulsi Gabbard, is eliminating the group that compiles the report.

Some of the warnings, most notably on climate change, had become politically inconvenient, according to former officials.

[. . .]

The elimination of the office last month was little noticed because it came amid a flurry of activity by Ms. Gabbard, including the closure of the National Intelligence University and sharp cutbacks of officers working on foreign malign influence and election threats.

The idiot Tulsi should never have been made Director of National Intelligence to begin with. As a cult member, her first alleigence will always be to "Guru Chris" -- her own personal savior. That's why you don't staff governments with cult members. But she also lacks experience and holding that position she puts the nation at risk due to her stupidity alone. Closing down that work group leaves us all at risk.

As we note every time the idiot pulls another stupid move, if we get attacked, it's on her head and on Chump's. She's not qualified. She was never qualified.

Let's wind down with this from THE BLACK COMMENTATOR:

The Black Commentator Issue #1056 is now Online

September 25, 2025