A horrible school shooting, this time at a Catholic school in Minnesota. A deranged and hate-filled killer, carrying three weapons.

Nothing will change until the GOP abandons its love of guns. Nothing will change unless Democrats regain control of the House and Senate and pass sensible gun control laws.

There will be no safety for anyone until deadly weapons are locked away.

When the party in control of government loves guns more than innocent human life, there will be no change. The carnage continues, abetted by our elected officials. They have no shame.

Marc Elias of Democratic Docket writes about Trump’s brazen indifference to the Constitution and the law, and the mainstream media’s tendency to normalize his statements and behavior. Yesterday, he said, was a day of tyranny in the nation.

Elias, a lawyer for democratic resistance, writes:

Sitting in the Oval Office, flanked by adoring aides standing stiffly at attention, Donald Trump yesterday announced: “A lot of people are saying maybe we’d like a dictator.”

The remark, delivered with his trademark mixture of menace and showmanship, might have been dismissed as yet another provocation — except that Trump immediately reinforced the point by declaring his intention to disregard Congress and federal law.

After musing about renaming the Department of Defense as the “Department of War,” a reporter noted that such a change would require congressional approval. Trump brushed aside the objection: “We are just going to do it,”before adding, “I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that.”

Here, in a single exchange, Trump revealed both his contempt for the rule of law and his calculation that the Republican-controlled Congress will not restrain him. Sadly, on both counts, he is correct.

His administration has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to trample legal and constitutional limits without hesitation. Meanwhile, the Republican Congress has reduced itself to a doormat — incapable or unwilling to challenge him even when its own power is at stake.

What is perhaps most troubling is the muted response from the broader political and media ecosystem. Scanning today’s headlines, I saw only fleeting references to Trump’s brazen comments. No major outlet gave the story front-page treatment. Even more telling, no prominent Republican leaders were pressed to respond. The silence was deafening — and dangerous.

Instead, the political news cycle became consumed with two of Trump’s other announcements: his pledge to expand the deployment of National Guard troops and federal military forces into major U.S. cities, and his unilateral decision to fire a sitting member of the Federal Reserve Board.

On the first, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker mounted a powerful rebuttal. Holding a press event in Chicago, Pritzker effectively demonstrated that Trump’s threats against blue cities were not only politically motivated but also a violation of federalism — the principle of state sovereignty enshrined in the Constitution.

On the second, last night, Trump announced that he had fired Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board. The move was shocking. Presidents lack the legal authority to remove federal governors except under the most extreme circumstances, and Trump had been explicitly warned by the Supreme Court that firing a Fed member would be a step too far. Yet Trump pressed ahead, disregarding both law and the risk that undermining the Fed could destabilize the U.S. economy.

In a single day, Trump managed to promote dictatorship, disregard Congress, trample federalism and defy the Supreme Court. It would almost be impressive if it weren’t so horrifying. This is the cold bleak reality of American democracy just seven months into his new term.

However, don’t lose sight of hope quite yet. There were still bright spots in the opposition movement. Pritzker’s speech was a tour de force of how to stand up to Trump. It was smart, forceful and powerfully delivered. 

The speech was all the better because Trump is clearly intimidated by Pritzker. Pritzker is everything Trump is not. His and his family’s wealth is the result of building great businesses and smart investments, not grifts and crypto schemes. Pritzker has used his advantages in life to benefit the people he serves, while Trump preys on his supporters — bilking them for money while cutting their government services. Most importantly, Pritzker is at ease with himself and others. He is admired as someone who is articulate, warm and kind. Trump is always performing an act that makes him the object of scorn and mockery.

One passage of Pritzker’s speech really stood out as both factually correct and important for everyone in the pro-democracy movement to absorb:

“This is about the President of the United States and his complicit lackey, Stephen Miller, searching for ways to lay the groundwork to circumvent our democracy, militarize our cities, and end elections.”

This statement is not hyperbole. It is an unvarnished description of the authoritarian project unfolding before our eyes.

Pritzker also offered important words of caution for the media.

“To the members of the press who are assembled here today, and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is. This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story. This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch that I so often see, where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president’s actions.”

The governor correctly points out that the danger is not just Trump himself but the normalization of his behavior. Each time he disregards the law and faces little pushback, the boundaries of what is tolerated shift. Each time the press downplays his authoritarian statements as “just rhetoric,” or Republican leaders remain silent, the line between democracy and strongman rule erodes further.

It is tempting to hope that institutions — the courts, Congress, the press — will act as guardrails. Yet institutions are only as strong as the people who inhabit them. If lawmakers cower, if journalists flinch, if judges equivocate, then the institutions collapse under the weight of cowardice.

Trump’s declaration that America might “like a dictator” should have been headline news across the country. Instead, it was met with shrugs and silence — a chilling sign of how desensitized we have become.

The danger is real. A president who flouts Congress, defies the Supreme Court and threatens states with military force is not joking. He is testing the limits of our democracy, probing for weakness.

History teaches that democracies rarely fall in a single dramatic moment; they decay gradually, through a series of small surrenders. Each time we excuse, ignore or minimize authoritarian behavior, we make the next step easier. The path back from that erosion is long and uncertain.

The question now is whether enough Americans will recognize the peril in time. Will Congress find its backbone? Will the press rediscover its watchdog role? Will citizens demand accountability? The future of our republic depends on the answer.

For a change, good news from Texas. Needless to say, the good news comes a judge, not the odious legislature, which is firmly controlled by Governor Greg Abbott. Judge Fred Biery blocked a law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. State Attorney General Ken Paxton urged schools to ignore Judge Biery’s decision. The Appeals Court for the Fifth Circuit has already knocked down a similar law from Louisiana.

A federal judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking a Texas law that would have mandated the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom across the state.

In his ruling on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio temporarily prohibited 11 Texas school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments. 

The Clinton appointee said a lawsuit filed by a coalition of Dallas-area families, faith leaders and civil liberties advocates raised questions about the constitutionality of Senate Bill 10, which would have required the displays in schools statewide starting September 1.

The decision marks the third time a federal court has struck down such a state-level requirement, following similar rulings in Louisiana and Kentucky.

Biery’s 55-page ruling emphasized the potential impact on students and teachers, noting that “even though the Ten Commandments would not be affirmatively taught, the captive audience of students likely would have questions, which teachers would feel compelled to answer. That is what they do.”

He maintained that such displays could lead to unintended religious discussions, placing educators in the difficult position of navigating complex theological issues in a public school setting, potentially infringing on students’ rights to a secular education.

As an example, the judge offered a fictional account of a similar law in Hamtramck, Michigan, where the majority Muslim community “decreed” that the Quran should be taught in public schools. As part of the example, Biery quoted directly from the Quran.

“While ‘We the people’ rule by a majority, the Bill of Rights protects the minority Christians in Hamtramck and those 33 percent of Texans who do not adhere to any of the Christian denominations,” the judge wrote. 

He also cited the biblical accounts of Abraham leaving the land of Ur to proclaim, as the judge wrote in quotations, “the one true God.” Naming Moses, Jesus and Mohammed as the “triad of the ‘desert religions,'” the judge said elsewhere other belief systems were formed, including “those which have come to exist in the American experience.”

Claiming that humans “evolved over several million years to be the only species which knows it will die,” Biery attributed the rise of human religion to people “not wanting their existence to end.”

Quoting everything from Stephen Hawking to Sonny and Cher, the judge also quoted from John 11:35, saying Jesus — who he called the “cousin” of Moses and Mohammed — would have wept if he saw the “blood spilled by their followers against each other.” 

Writing that SB 10 “officially favors Christian dominations over others” and “crosses the line from exposure to coercion,” Biery expressed concern that public displays of the Ten Commandments “are likely to send an exclusionary and spiritually burdensome message” that would identify the plaintiff families as “the other.”

“The displays are likely to pressure the child-Plaintiffs into religious observance, meditation on, veneration, and adoption of the State’s favored religious scripture, and into suppressing expression of their own religious or nonreligious backgrounds and beliefs while at school,” the judge wrote.

In his closing statement, Biery — a 77-year-old known for using puns and colorful language in his rulings — appeared to suggest Christians might resort to violence in response to his ruling. He offered a “prayer” using the New Testament phrase “grace and peace” and concluding with “Amen.”

“For those who disagree with the Court’s decision and who would do so with threats, vulgarities, and violence, Grace and Peace unto you,” he wrote. “May humankind of all faiths, beliefs and non-beliefs be reconciled one to another. Amen.”

The suit names 11 of some of the state’s biggest school districts, including Houston ISD, Austin ISD, and Plano ISD, but notably excludes Dallas ISD. The plaintiffs contend that the law passed by the Texas Legislature in 2024 violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which ensures the separation of church and state, and the Free Exercise Clause, which protects individuals’ rights to practice their religion freely.

The case is expected to move to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against a similar Louisiana law in June, before potentially advancing to the Supreme Court, where a 6-3 conservative majority could redefine the boundaries of church-state separation. 

Two important local elections produced great news for the Democratic Party.

In Iowa, a special election was held for a state Senate seat in a solidly Republican district that Trump won by 11.5 points in 2024. Democrat Caitlin Drey won, overturning a Republican supermajority in the state senate. Drey won by more than 10%. There was a 20-point swing to the Democrats.

In a ruby red district in Georgia, seven candidates vied for a state Senate seat. Democrat Debra Shirley came in first with 39% of the vote. There will be a runoff on September 23 and she will oppose the top-scoring Republican, who won 17% of the vote.

Andy Borowitz was a humorist for The New Yorker. He now has his own blog on Substack. Needless to say, this post is satirical.

Trump with his new Attorney General and two other associates. (Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In what experts are calling one of the most remarkable comebacks for a convicted sex offender in recent memory, on Friday Donald J. Trump announced that he was replacing Attorney General Pam Bondi with Ghislaine Maxwell.

Explaining his decision, Trump said, “Pam said there’s a client list, and Ghislaine said there isn’t. So I have decided Ghislaine would be better at this job than Pam.” 

In another stunning reversal of fortune, Trump announced that Bondi would be taking Maxwell’s place in prison, adding, “I wish her well.”

He said he was confident that Maxwell would receive speedy confirmation by Senate Republicans, noting, “If they confirmed Hegseth they’ll confirm anyone.”

Trump announced that he was “firing” Lisa Cook, a distinguished economist, as a governor of the Federal Reserve Board. Paul Krugman wrote a new analysis overnight.

He posted:

Yesterday Donald Trump said that he had fired Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. My wording is advisable: He “said” that he had fired her. I’m not a lawyer, but it seems clear that he does not have the right to summarily fire Fed officials, certainly on tissue-thin allegations of mortgage fraud before she even went to the Fed.

Cook has said that she will not resign. So at this point the immediate onus is on Jerome Powell, the Fed chairman. He has the right — I would say the obligation — to say, “Show me the legal basis for this action.” If Trump’s officials can’t provide that basis, he should declare that as far as he is concerned, Cook is still a Fed governor.

If Powell caves, or the Supreme Court acts supine again and validates Trump’s illegal declaration, the implications will be profound and disastrous. The United States will be well on its way to becoming Turkey, where an authoritarian ruler imposed his crackpot economics on the central bank, sending inflation soaring to 80 percent:

And the damage will be felt far beyond the Fed. This will mark the destruction of professionalism and independent thinking throughout the federal government.

So, about the legal authority. The Supreme Court, shamefully, has said that Trump has the authority to fire officials at will throughout the federal government, effectively eviscerating the principle of a professional civil service. But even the Court specifically carved out protections for Fed governors, saying that they can only be removed “for cause.”

Normally “for cause” means neglect of one’s job or malfeasance on the job. Yet even Trump’s people have made no claims that Lisa Cook has failed to fulfil her duties at the Fed or done anything wrong in her role as governor.

So what is the complaint about Cook? Trump says that she committed mortgage fraud by taking out two mortgages, claiming both properties as her primary residence, back when she was a professor at Michigan State, before joining the Fed.

Even if true, this accusation wouldn’t meet the standard for immediate dismissal from the Fed.

Furthermore, there’s no reason to believe Trump’s assertions that she committed fraud. So far, the Justice Department hasn’t even made any formal charges, let alone won a conviction. And we have no clear evidence of wrongdoing. As far as I can tell, the only evidence seen by outsiders shows that she took out mortgages on two properties, and the security instruments associated with these mortgages say that both properties are “principal residences.”

But as Adam Levitin at Credit Slips, says, “principal” isn’t the same as “primary”: someone who has a home in the city and a second place in the country might well consider both “principal” residences. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Cook even knew what the security instruments said — she may have done nothing more than promise to make her mortgage payments.

And a claim of mortgage fraud requires both that the borrower make a deliberate misrepresentation — as opposed to making a mistake on a complicated process — and that this misrepresentation caused financial harm to the lender. We’ve seen no evidence at all for either proposition.

This is not a case a nonpolitical Justice Department would even consider bringing to trial, or have much hope of winning. And again, it has no relevance at all to Cook’s work at the Fed, providing zero justification for dismissal “for cause.”

But of course Trump’s attempt to fire Cook has nothing to do with allegations of fraud. Her real crime, in his mind, is that she isn’t an obedient minion (oh, and that she’s a black woman.) The goal of his attempt to fire her is to replace independent Fed officials with lackeys who will take Trump’s orders — not just by getting rid of Cook but by intimidating everyone else.

As I wrote yesterday, the real message here is “If you get in our way we will ruin your life.”

The immediate test here is how the Fed itself responds. Cook is doing the right thing by refusing to resign. Jerome Powell now faces a moment of truth: Will he back her up, until or unless Trump demonstrates that he has the legal authority to fire her?

What if Trump uses some kind of force — deployment of U.S. Marshals? — to block Cook from continuing to work? Good. That will demonstrate to everyone the grotesqueness of this power grab.

And one way or another, this will end up in the courts, where we will find out whether our judicial system has any integrity left.

What will all of this mean for financial markets? The markets keep shrugging off the Trump administration’s lawlessness, and maybe they’ll do it again. But really, it doesn’t matter. This isn’t, ultimately, about monetary policy. It’s about whether we are still a nation of laws.

Yesterday, Trump took the unusual step of firing Lisa Cook, a governor of the Federal Reserve Board appointed by President Biden. As of now, it’s not clear that he has the authority to fire her. She might go to court to get injunctive relief. She said that Trump had no authority to fire her, and she will not resign. She is represented by high-profile lawyer Abbe Lowell.

A MAGA partisan claimed that she had committed mortgage fraud, but there have been no hearings, no independent review, no evidence. Just charges made on Twitter.

No President has ever removed a member of the Federal Reserve Board. Ever.

Paul Krugman is a Nobel-Prize winning economist who wrote a regular column for The New York Times for many years. He retired and started his own blog on Substack.

Yesterday morning, before Trump fired Cook, Krugman posted this column about Trump’s demand that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook resign, after being accused of mortgage fraud. Trump’s staff has also accused two other enemies of Trump of mortgage fraud: New York Attorney General Letitia James and Senator Adam Schiff of California.

Trump wants to gain control of the Federal Reserve Board, which is supposed to be independent and nonpartisan, because it sets interest rates. He wants lower rates to boost the economy. He has bullied the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, to resign, although Trump appointed him in his first term.

Be sure to watch the two-minute video at the end.

Krugman writes:

Donald Trump is threatening to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, over allegations that she made false claims on mortgage applications before she went to the Fed.

I am not going to lead with a discussion of what Cook may or may not have done. That would be playing Trump’s game. Clearly, he’s just looking for a pretext to fire someone who isn’t a loyalist — and who happens, surprise, to be a black woman. If you write about politics and imagine that Trump cares about mortgage fraud — or for that matter believe anything Trump officials say about the affair without independent confirmation — you should find a different profession. Maybe you should go into agricultural field work, to help offset the labor shortages created by Trump’s deportations.

The real story here isn’t about Cook, or mortgages. It’s about the way the Trump administration is weaponizing government against political opponents, critics, or anyone it finds inconvenient.

You should think about the attack on Cook in the same context as mortgage fraud accusations made against California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Or you should look at the attacks on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, over the cost of renovations at the Fed’s headquarters. Or the still mysterious raid on the house of John Bolton, who at one time was Trump’s national security adviser.

The message here clearly isn’t “Don’t commit fraud,” which would be laughable coming from Donald Trump, of all people. Nor, despite what some commentators have said, is it all about revenge — although Trump is, indeed, a remarkably vindictive person. But mainly it’s about intimidation: “If you get in our way we will ruin your life.”

As with individuals, so with institutions. Universities are being threatened with loss of research grants unless they take orders from the White House. Law firms are being threatened with loss of access unless they do pro-bono work on behalf of the administration. Corporations are being threatened with punitive tariffs unless they support administration policies — and, in the case of Intel, hand over part ownership of the company.

This newsletter usually focuses on economics, and I could go on at length about the ways rule by intimidation will hurt the economy. There’s a whole economics literature devoted to the costs when an economy is dominated by “rent-seeking” — when business success depends on political connections rather than producing things people want. I’ve been writing a series of primers on stagflation. One of the way things could go very badly wrong would be politicization of the Federal Reserve, with monetary policy dictated by Trump’s whims, and it would be even worse if Fed policy is driven by officials’ fear of what will happen if they don’t follow Trump’s orders.

It’s also important to realize that the Fed does more than set interest rates. It’s also an important regulator of the financial system, a job that will be deeply compromised if Fed governors can be bullied by personal threats.

But there’s much more at stake here than the economy. What we’re witnessing is the authoritarian playbook in action. Tyrannies don’t always get their way by establishing a secret police force that arrests people at will — although we’re getting that too. Much of their power comes not from overt violence but from their ability to threaten people’s careers and livelihoods, up to and including trumped-up accusations of criminal behavior.

Which brings me, finally, to the accusations against Lisa Cook. According to Bill Pulte, the ultra-MAGA director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Cook applied for mortgages on two properties, claiming both as her primary residence. This isn’t allowed, because banks offer more favorable mortgage terms on your primary residence than on investment properties.

Borrowers sometimes do sometimes commit deliberate fraud, claiming multiple properties as their primary residence when they always intended to rent them out. For example, Ken Paxton, Texas’s Attorney General, claimed three houses as his primary residence, renting out two of them, and has also rented out at least two properties that he listed as vacation homes. Somehow, however, Pulte hasn’t highlighted his case, let alone threatened him with a 30-year prison sentence.

The truth is that even when clear mortgage fraud has taken place, it almost always leads to an out-of-court settlement, with fees paid to the lender, rather than a criminal case. In 2024, only 38 people in America were sentenced for mortgage fraud. No, I’m not missing some zeroes.

So did Cook say something false on her mortgage applications? Pulte says so, but I’d wait for verification. Also, false statements on mortgage applications are only a crime if they’re made knowingly, which is a high bar. And nothing at all about this story is relevant to Cook’s role at the Federal Reserve. If the administration thinks it has enough evidence to bring charges, it should bring charges, not demand that she quit her job.

The important thing to understand is that we are all Lisa Cook. You may imagine that your legal and financial history is so blameless that there’s no way MAGA can come after you. If you believe that, you’re living in a fantasy world. Criticize them or get in their way, and you will become a target.

NONMUSICAL CODA

When Trump sent the military and ICE and the local police to control the streets of D.C., his close aide Stephen Miller scoffed at protests. He said the protestors were “elderly white hippies.” An anonymous artist posted this drawing on BlueSky:

PBS ran an important segment on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s decision to cancel $500 million in grants to study mNRA vaccine grants. These are the vaccines that broke the COVID pandemic.

PBS interviewed scientists about this surprise decision. If you would like to see the interviews, open the link.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel nearly half a billion dollars in federal funding for mRNA vaccine development has left many public health experts and scientists stunned.

mRNA technology was central in the battle against COVID and can be developed more quickly than traditional vaccines. But anti-vaccine communities and skeptics don’t trust its safety.

Geoff Bennett spoke with Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, about the latest in mRNA vaccine research and the implications of Kennedy’s move. 

“I can say unequivocally that this was the most dangerous public health decision I have ever seen made by a government body,” Osterholm said.

U.S. children’s health in decline

As the Trump administration works to reimagine public health through its “Make America Healthy Again” initiative, a new study paints a stark picture of the challenges facing the nation’s kids.

The health of American children has significantly worsened across several key indicators since 2007, according to a recent study published in JAMA.