This documentary is fascinating. It shows young Bobby’s idyllic childhood at the family’s sprawling, luxurious compound in Virginia. He grew up in a world of joy, fun, and privilege.
You can see how deeply he was scarred by the murder of his father, with whom he was very close. This was an experience no child should endure.
He is sent away to a boarding school, where he is soon kicked out. Then another, then Harvard, which was a given, in light of his name. At Harvard, he becomes addicted to drugs and a drug dealer. Pot, cocaine, heroin.
He goes to law school, flunks the bar exam, but eventually passes. He marries an eligible young woman, has children, divorces her. Still a drug addict. Meets a beautiful Catholic girl, marries her, has four children. He begins to find his niche as an environmental lawyer. Life is looking up. But he’s a sex addict and he keeps a record of his conquests–at least 37. His wife finds the record and hangs herself.
He believes he is destined for greatness. He is a Kennedy so he keeps looking for the vehicle that will catapult him to fame. He discovers angry mothers who are looking for the cause of their children’s autism. He latches on to the issue and becomes their champion. He also becomes a prominent anti-Vaxxer and conspiracy theorist.
He briefly runs for president in 2024 but soon realizes that his prospects are nil. Trump offers a big job if he joins his campaign. Bobby accepts his offer, to the dismay of his family.
Bobby speaks to large, adoring crowds. He loves it.
Trump appoints him to lead the government’s public health agency–Health and Human Services. His family is appalled. They know he is unqualified. They know he has no respect for science. He promises the Senate committee that he won’t stop vaccines, despite his long history as a critic of them. He wins approval.
He begins to fire prominent scientists and thousands of experienced employees. He throws the agency into turmoil.
Reuters reported that the U.S. Supreme Court put a hold on a lower court’s order to fully fund the SNAP program, which provides food for low-income people. About one of every eight Americans will go hungry because of the Court’s order. The lower federal district court in Rhode Island ordered the administration to fully fund SNAP. An appeals court declined to overrule the Rhode Island order. The administration was willing to offer about half of the funds needed.
But Chief Justice John Roberts concluded there was no rush to feed hungry people. I bet he went home to a dinner of steak, potatoes, green beans, and salad, accompanied by a splendid Cabernet.
The New York Times, however, said it was Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson who halted the lower court order. She too had a grand meal tonight while 42 million Americans go hungry. Let’s see: filet of sole and salad with a bottle of Chardonnay.
Food stamps: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson late Friday temporarily halted a lower court order that would have required the Trump administration to fund food stamps in full, fueling new uncertainty around the anti-hunger program’s immediate fate. The justice did not rule on the legality of the White House’s actions. Instead, she imposed a pause meant to give an appeals court more time to weigh the legal arguments raised by the government, as it seeks to withhold funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the shutdown. Some states had already said that they were preparing to send out full food stamp benefits.
Reuters reported:
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to withhold for now about $4 billion needed to fully fund a food aid program for 42 million low-income Americans this month amid the federal government shutdown.
The court’s action, known as an administrative stay, gives a lower court additional time to consider the administration’s formal request to only partially fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, for November. Chief Justice John Roberts, who issued the stay, set it to expire in two days.
The administration had filed an emergency request hours earlier asking the justices to put on hold a Rhode Island-based judge’s order that gave the administration until Friday to fully fund the program, which costs $8.5 billion to $9 billion per month.
Shareholders of Tesla just endorsed a contract with Elon Musk worth $1 trillion!
The dramatic inequality of wealth and income in the U.S. upsets many people, even middle-class people. The pain is spreading. In the past few months, many thousands of workers and corporate executives were laid off. What does the future hold for them?
The party in charge of the federal government has closed down the government rather than continue health insurance benefits for millions of their fellow citizens. The Republicans have gone to court and fought to cut off SNAP–food stamps–to feed the poorest Americans.
Yesterday, a federal Judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP. The Trump administration is going to a higher court in hopes of reversing the order. Let the hungry eat cake!
All the while, Speaker Mike Johnson sent House members home to avoid negotiating any changes in a cruel budget. When asked, he lies and says that Republicans are fighting to save the very programs they are killing. Lying seems to come naturally to him.
Here is the Trump ideal: Stockholders of Tesla just voted to award $1 trillion to Elon Musk if the company continues to prosper.
Tesla shareholders on Thursday approved a plan that could make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire, two days after New Yorkers elected a tax-the-rich candidate as their next mayor.
These discrete moments offered strikingly different lessons about America and who deserves how much of its wealth.
At Tesla, based in the Austin, Texas, area, shareholders have largely bought into a winner-takes-all version of capitalism, agreeing by a wide margin to give Mr. Musk shares worth almost a trillion dollars if the company under his management achieves ambitious financial and operational goals over the next decade.
But halfway across the country, in the home to Wall Street, Zohran Mamdani’s victory served as a reminder of the frustrations many Americans have with an economic system that has left them struggling to afford basics like food, housing and child care.
Judge J. Michael Luttig was appointed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush, where he served until 2006. He was a prominent conservative jurist, but was repulsed by the Trump regime, especially Trump’s contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law. He became one of the most outspoken critics of Trump. In this post, he criticized the Supreme Court for ignoring death threats to judges who disagreed with Trump.
This week, David French and I have both addressed the death threats on the lives of the federal judges who dare to rule against Donald Trump.
David did so this morning in the chilling piece in the New York Times linked below, and I did so on Tuesday in an hour-long interview with Meghna Chakrabarti of NPR’s On Point, one of the most thoughtful, intelligent interviewers I have ever had the pleasure to talk with.
During my conversation with Meghna, she played on air the actual audio of the death threat made to Federal Judge John McConnell referenced in David’s article. It was bone chilling. When Meghna asked for my reaction to the threat, I first thanked her on behalf of the entire Federal Judiciary for playing the audio for all of America to hear and then said “America is weeping at this moment, Meghna. America is weeping. I wish you could send this audio to the Supreme Court of the United States.”
I went on to say that the unconscionable attacks on the federal courts and individual federal judges by Donald Trump and his Attorney General will not only continue, but will continue to escalate until Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court of the United States denounce the President and the Attorney General for their unconscionable threats against the nation’s Federal Judiciary.
I explained that up to now, the Chief Justice and the Supreme Court have acquiesced in these assaults on the federal courts, tacitly condoning them, when the Chief Justice and the Court have no higher obligation under the Constitution of the United States of America than to denounce these attacks.
After my interview with Meghna, I forwarded the audio of the death threat to Judge McConnell to a number of the national media, with a note saying simply that “if the national media would saturate the American public with this chilling death threat against Judge McConnell, it could change the course of history.”
David French:
“Have you ever written words that you thought might get you killed? Have you ever written words that you worry might get someone you love killed?
That’s the reality that federal judges are facing across the nation. Our awful era of intimidation and political violence has come for them, and it represents a serious threat to the independence and integrity of the American judiciary.”
If you have ever wondered why I am crazy about Peter Greene, wonder no more. Just read this post that appeared on his blog. Peter is consistently smart, funny, wise, and insightful. He has a way with words. He is unerring in spotting phonies. He is fearless. Let me say it out loud: I love Peter Greene!
He wrote about the article that exposed Duncan’s true views. Until now, some of us had only inferred who he is. Now we know. Duncan”political advice” to Democrats–adopt Republican policies– is hilarious in light of Tuesday’s election results: across the nation, Democrats won school board races, and every Moms for Liberty candidate lost.
Peter Greene writes:
Mind you, on education, Duncan was always the kind of Democrat largely indistinguishable from a Republican, but with his latest print outburst (in the Washington Post, because of course it was), he further reduces the distance between himself and his successor as Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.
It’s yet another example of reformsters popping up to argue that what’s really needed in education is a return to all the failed reform policies of fifteen years ago. I don’t know what has sparked this nostalgia– have they forgotten, or do they just think we have forgotten, or do they still just not understand how badly test-and-punish flopped, how useless the Common Core was, and how school choice has had to abandon claims that choice will make education better in this country.
But here come Duncan and Elorza with variations on the same old baloney.
First up– chicken littling over NAEP scores. They’re dipping! They’re low! And they’ve been dipping ever since 2010s. Whatever shall we do?
Who do Duncan and Elorza think holds the solution? Why, none other than Donald Trump.
Seriously. They are here to pimp for the federal tax credit voucher program, carefully using the language that allows them to pretend that these vouchers aren’t vouchers or tax shelters.
The new federal tax credit scholarship program, passed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, allows taxpayers to claim a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit for donations to scholarship-granting organizations, or SGOs. These SGOs can fund a range of services already embraced by blue-state leaders, such as tutoring, transportation, special-education services and learning technology. For both current and incoming governors, it’s a chance to show voters that they’re willing to do what it takes to deliver for students and families, no matter where the ideas originate.
The encourage governors to “unlock these resources” as if these are magic dollars stored in a lockbox somewhere and not dollars that are going to be redirected from the United States treasury to land instead in some private school’s bank account.
Democratic governors are reluctant to get into a program that “could be seen as undermining public schools.” But hey– taking these vouchers “doesn’t take a single dollar from state education budgets” says Duncan, sounding exactly like DeVos when she was pushing the same damned thing. And this line of bullshit:
It simply opens the door to new, private donations, at no cost to taxpayers, that can support students in public and nonpublic settings alike.
“At no cost to taxpayers” is absolute baloney. Every dollar is a tax dollar not paid to the government, so the only possible result must be either reduction in services, reduction in subsidies, or increase in the deficit. I guess believing in Free Federal Money is a Democrat thing.
The “support students in public and nonpublic settings” is carefully crafted baloney language as well. Federal voucher fans keep pushing the public school aspect, but then carefully shading it as money spent on tutors or uniforms or transportation and not actual schools. And they are just guessing that any of that will be acceptable because the rules for these federal vouchers aren’t written yet.
Duncan and Elorza want to claim that this money will, “in essence,” replace the disappearing money from the American Rescue Plan Act. “In essence” is doing Atlas-scale lifting here because, no, it will not. The voucher money will be spent in different ways by different people on different stuff. They are not arguing that this money will help fund public schools– just that it might fund some stuff that is sort of public education adjacent.
But how about some “analysis” from Education Reform Now, which claims that the potential scale is significant.” They claim that “the federal tax credit scholarship program could generate $3.1 billion in California, nearly $986 million in Illinois and nearly $86 million in Rhode Island each year,” drifting ever closer to “flat out lie” territory, because the federal vouchers won’t “generate” a damned cent. Pretending these numbers are real, that’s $3.1 billion in tax dollars that will go to SGOs in the state instead of the federal government. It’s redirected tax revenue, not new money. Will the feds just eat that $3.1 billion shortfall, or cut, say, education funding to California? Next time I get a flat tire, will I generate a new tire from the trunk? I think not.
In classic Duncan, he would like you to know that not following his idea makes you a Bad Person. Saying no to the federal vouchers is a “moral failure.”
Next up: Political advice.
Over the past decade, Democrats have watched our party’s historical advantage on education vanish.
Yeah, Arne, it’s more than a decade, and it has happened because you and folks like you have decided that attacking and denigrating the public education system would be a great idea. You and your ilk launched and supported policies based on the assumption that all problems in school were the sole treatable cause of economic and social inequity in this country, and that those problems were the result of really bad teachers, so a program of tests followed by punishment would make things better in schools (and erase poverty, too).
But now the GOP states are getting higher NAEP scores, so that means… something?
This is Democrats’ chance to regain the educational and moral high ground. To remind the country that Democrats fight to give every child a fair shot and that we’ll do whatever it takes to help kids catch up, especially those left behind for too long.
Yes, Democrats– you can beat the Republicans by supporting Republican policies. And that “we’ll do whatever it takes to help kids catch up” thing? You had a chance to do that, and you totally blew it. Defund, dismantle and privatize public schools was a lousy approach. It’s still a lousy approach.
Opting in to the federal tax credit scholarship program isn’t about abandoning Democratic values — it’s about fulfilling them.
When it comes to public education, it’s not particularly clear what Democratic values even are these days, and my tolerance for party politics is at an all time low. But I am quite sure that the interests of students, families, teachers, and public education are not served by having the GOP offer a shit sandwich and the Democrats countering with, “We will also offer a shit sandwich, but we will say nice things about it and draw a D on it with mayonnaise.”
We have always heard that Arne Duncan is a nice guy, and I have no reason to believe that’s not true. But what would really be nice would be for him to go away and never talk about education ever again. Just go have a nice food truck lunch with Betsy DeVos.
I love and admire Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum. She recently retired as the leader of the nation’s largest LGBT synagogue. She looks 16, but she’s not. She is one of the wisest people I know. She is a fighter for justice and kindness. She is fearless.
She read the full transcript of the recent interview of Trump by Norah O’Donnell of “60 Minutes.” The final interview was heavily edited, which is standard practice. The actual interview lasts for about an hour, but only 20 minutes is aired. If you recall, Trump sued CBS for $10 billion for airing an edited version of the “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. He claimed that the interview was intended to hurt his candidacy, a totally meritless claim, since editing is routine and he suffered no injury. Rather than fight for its most prestigious news team, CBS caved and paid Trump $16 million. The corporation paid off Trump so that its merger with Paramount would be okayed by the FCC, which is the hands of a Trump flunkie.
Not mentioned by HRC was that O’Donnell asked Trump if he pressured Pam Bondi to prosecute James Comey and Letitia James. He denied it. She let it pass instead of showing the tweet in which he directed her to prosecute them. She should have asked why he did it, not whether he did it. The evidence was public.
HRC wrote:
At the end of her interview with President Donald J. Trump, recorded on October 31 at Mar-a-Lago and aired last night, heavily edited, on 60 Minutes, Norah O’Donnell of CBS News asked if she could ask two more questions. Trump suggested previous questions had been precleared when he mused aloud that if he said yes, “That means they’ll treat me more fairly if I do—I want to get—It’s very nice, yeah. Now is good. Okay. Uh, oh. These might be the ones I didn’t want. I don’t know. Okay, go ahead.”
O’Donnell noted that the Trump family has thrown itself into cryptocurrency ventures, forming World Liberty Financial with the family of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East. In that context, she asked about billionaire Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Binance. Zhao is cryptocurrency’s richest man. He pleaded guilty in 2023 to money laundering, resigned from Binance, paid a $50 million fine, and was sentenced to four months in prison.
Trump pardoned him on October 23.
O’Donnell noted that the U.S. government said Zhao “had caused ‘significant harm to U.S. national security,’ essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around.” She asked the president, “Why did you pardon him?”
“Okay, are you ready?” Trump answered. “I don’t know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. And what I wanna do is see crypto, ‘cause if we don’t do it it’s gonna go to China, it’s gonna go to—this is no different to me than AI.
“My sons are involved in crypto much more than I—me. I—I know very little about it, other than one thing. It’s a huge industry. And if we’re not gonna be the head of it, China, Japan, or someplace else is. So I am behind it 100%. This man was, in my opinion, from what I was told, this is, you know, a four-month sentence.”
After he went on with complaints about the Biden administration—he would mention Biden 42 times in the released transcript—O’Donnell noted, “Binance helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin. And then you pardoned [Zhao].” She asked him: “How do you address the appearance of pay for play?”
Trump answered: “Well, here’s the thing. I know nothing about it because I’m too busy doing the other….” O’Donnell interrupted: “But he got a pardon….” Trump responded: “I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I’m glad they are, because it’s probably a great industry, crypto. I think it’s good. You know, they’re running a business, they’re not in government. And they’re good—my one son is a number one bestseller now.
“My wife just had a number one bestseller. I’m proud of them for doing that. I’m focused on this. I know nothing about the guy, other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government. When you say the government, you’re talking about the Biden government.” And then he was off again, complaining about the former president and boasting that he would “make crypto great for America.”
“So not concerned about the appearance of corruption with this?” O’Donnell asked.
Trump answered: “I can’t say, because—I can’t say—I’m not concerned. I don’t—I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it. You just came to me and you said, ‘Can I ask another question?’ And I said, yeah. This is the question….”
“And you answered…” O’Donnell put in.
“I don’t mind,” Trump said. “Did I let you do it? I coulda walked away. I didn’t have to answer this question. I’m proud to answer the question. You know why? We’ve taken crypto….” After another string of complaints about Biden, he said: “We are number one in crypto and that’s the only thing I care about.”
If, among all the disinformation and repetition Trump spouted in that interview, he did not know who he was pardoning, who’s running the Oval Office?
It appears House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) doesn’t want to know. At a news conference today, journalist Manu Raju noted: “Last week…you were very critical of Joe Biden’s use of the autopen…[you said] he didn’t even know who he was pardoning. Last night, on 60 Minutes…Trump admitted not knowing he pardoned a crypto billionaire who pleaded guilty to money laundering. Is that also concerning?”
Johnson answered: “I don’t know anything about that. I didn’t see the interview. You have to ask the president about that. I’m not sure.”
Pleading ignorance of an outrage or that a question is “out of his lane” has become so frequent for Johnson that journalist Aaron Rupar of Public Notice, who is very well informed about the news indeed, suggested today that journalists should consider asking Johnson: “Do you ever read the news, and do you agree it’s problematic for the Speaker to be so woefully uninformed?”
Johnson continues to keep the House from conducting business as the government shutdown hit its 34th day today. Tomorrow the shutdown will tie the 35-day shutdown record set during Trump’s first term. Representative Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), whom voters elected on September 23, is still not sworn in. She has said she will be the 218th—and final—vote on a discharge petition to force a vote requiring the Department of Justice to release the Epstein files.
Trump and Johnson continue to try to jam Democratic senators into signing on to the Republicans’ continuing resolution without addressing the end of premium tax credits that is sending healthcare premiums on the Affordable Healthcare Act marketplace soaring. They continue to refuse to negotiate with Democrats, although negotiations have always been the key to ending shutdowns.
To increase pressure, they are hurting the American people.
The shutdown meant that funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits on which 42 million Americans depend to put food on the table ran out on October 31. Although previous administrations—including Trump’s—have always turned to contingency funds Congress set aside to make sure people can eat, and although the Trump administration initially said it would do so this time as usual, it abruptly announced in October that it did not believe tapping into that reserve was legal. SNAP benefits would not go out.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell of the District of Rhode Island ordered the administration to fund payments for SNAP benefits using the reserve Congress set up for emergencies. Since that money—$4.65 billion—will not be enough to fund the entire $8 billion required for November payments, McConnell suggested the administration could make the full payments by tapping into money from the Child Nutrition Program and other funds, but he left discretion up to the administration.
Today the administration announced it would tap only the first reserve, funding just 50% of SNAP benefits. It added that those payments will be delayed for “a few weeks to up to several months.” The disbursement of the reserve, it continued, “means that no funds will remain for new SNAP applicants certified in November, disaster assistance, or as a cushion against the potential catastrophic consequences of shutting down SNAP entirely.”
“Big ‘you can’t make me’ energy,” Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall noted. It’s also an astonishing act of cruelty, especially as grocery prices are going up—Trump lied that they are stable in the 60 Minutes interview—hiring has slowed, and the nation is about to celebrate Thanksgiving.
The shutdown also threatens the $4.1 billion Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) that helps families cover the cost of utilities or heating oil. Susan Haigh and Marc Levy of the Associated Press note that this program started in 1981 and has enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress ever since. Trump’s budget proposal for next year calls for cutting the program altogether, but states expected to have funding for this winter. Almost 6 million households use the program, and as cold weather sets in, the government has not funded it.
When the Republicans shredded the nation’s social safety net in their budget reconciliation bill of July, the one they call the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” they timed most of the cuts to take effect after the 2026 midterm elections. But the shutdown is making clear now, rather than after the midterms, what the nation will look like without that safety net.
In the 60 Minutes interview, O’Donnell noted an aspect of Trump’s America that is getting funded during the shutdown. She said, “Americans have been watching videos of ICE tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far?”
“No,” Trump answered. “I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the—by the judges, the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama.” (In fact, a review by Kyle Cheney of Politico on Friday showed that more than 100 federal judges have ruled at least 200 times against Trump administration immigration policies. Those judges were appointed by every president since Ronald Reagan, and 12 were appointed by Trump himself.)
It appears that the administration did indeed ignore today’s deadline for congressional approval of the ongoing strikes against Venezuela, required under the 1973 War Powers Act. It is taking the position that no approval is necessary since, in its formulation, U.S. military personnel are not at risk in the strikes that have, so far, killed 65 people.
Yesterday I wrote that President Donald J. Trump’s celebration of his new marble bathroom in the White House was so tone deaf at a time when federal employees are working without pay, furloughed workers are taking out bank loans to pay their bills, healthcare premiums are skyrocketing, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are at risk, that it seemed likely to make the history books as a symbol of this administration.
But that image got overtaken just hours later by pictures from a Great Gatsby–themed party Trump threw at Mar-a-Lago last night hours before SNAP benefits ended. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby skewered the immoral and meaningless lives of the very wealthy during the Jazz Age who spent their time throwing extravagant parties and laying waste to the lives of the people around them.
Although two federal judges yesterday found that the administration’s refusal to use reserves Congress provided to fund SNAP in an emergency was likely illegal and one ordered the government to use that money, the administration did not immediately do as the judge ordered.
Trump posted on social media that “[o]ur Government lawyers do not think we have the legal authority to pay SNAP,” so he has “instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible.” Blaming the Democrats for the shutdown, Trump added that “even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out.” His post provided the phone number for Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer’s office, telling people: “If you use SNAP benefits, call the Senate Democrats, and tell them to reopen the Government, NOW!”
“They were careless people,” Fitzgerald wrote, “they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
This afternoon, Ellen Nakashima and Noah Robertson of the Washington Post reported that the administration is claiming it does not have to consult Congress to continue its attacks on Venezuela. The 1973 War Powers Act says it does.
In 1973, after President Richard M. Nixon ordered secret bombings of Cambodia during the Vietnam War, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution to reassert its power over foreign wars. “It is the purpose of this joint resolution to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, and to the continued use of such forces in hostilities or in such situations,” it read.
On September 4, 2025, Trump notified Congress of a strike against a vessel in the Caribbean that he said “was assessed to be affiliated with a designated terrorist organization and to be engaged in illicit drug trafficking activities.” The letter added: “I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution.”
Monday will mark 60 days from that announcement, but the administration does not appear to be planning to ask for Congress’s approval. It has been reluctant to share information about the strikes, first excluding senior Senate Democrats from a Senate briefing, then offering House members a briefing that did not include lawyers and failed to answer basic questions. The top two leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Jack Reed (D-RI), have both said the administration has not produced documents, attack orders, and a list of targets required by law.
Representative Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Nakashima and Robertson: “The administration is, I believe, doing an illegal act and anything that it can to avoid Congress.”
T. Elliot Gaiser, who leads the Office of Legal Counsel under Trump, told a group of lawmakers this week that the administration is taking the position that the strikes on unnamed people in small boats do not meet the definition of hostilities because they are not putting U.S. military personnel in harm’s way. It says the strikes, which have killed more than 60 people, have been conducted primarily by drones launched off naval vessels.
Brian Finucane, who was the War Powers Resolution lawyer at the State Department under President Barack Obama and during Trump’s first term, explained: “What they’re saying is anytime the president uses drones or any standoff weapon against someone who cannot shoot back, it’s not hostilities. It’s a wild claim of executive authority.”
If the administration proceeds without acknowledging the Monday deadline for congressional approval, Finucane said, “it is usurping Congress’s authority over the use of military force.”
Thom Hartmann explains why the shutdown continues. The Republicans in the Senate have the votes to end it.
He writes:
— The GOP’s dirty little secret exposed, courtesy of Donald Trump: Republicans in the Senate could have ended the shutdown anytime they wanted. Ever since the shutdown started, I’ve been shouting into the wilderness that Senate Majority Leader Republican John Thune (who now holds the position Mitch McConnell held for so long) could reopen the government with the GOP’s so-called “clean continuing resolution” or “clean CR” any time he wanted. All it takes to suspend or even eliminate the filibuster rule — which is neither in the Constitution nor any law, but merely a Senate rule — is 51 votes. Republicans have 53 senators and the Vice President adds a 54th, so it shouldn’t be a particularly heavy lift. I pointed it out on Ali Velshi’s program, and a few days later Congressman Ro Khanna and I discussed it on my program; he went on to point it out over on Fox “News” (the host thought he was discussing reconciliation; they don’t hire the best and the brightest over there). But virtually none of the mainstream media have bothered to point out this simple reality; instead, they go along with the story that Republicans are essentially helpless victims of evil Democrats who are holding the nation hostage. Finally, though, Trump himself let the bomb drop in a posting on his Nazi-infested social media site, writing: “WE are in power, and if we did what we should be doing, it would IMMEDIATELY end this ridiculous, Country destroying ‘SHUT DOWN’… It is now time for the Republicans to play their ‘TRUMP CARD,’ and go for what is called the Nuclear Option — Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” I’ve argued for years that the filibuster helps the GOP and special interests far more than Democrats, and Schumer, et al, should have nuked it years ago when they had the power to do so. Hell, it was originally put into the Senate rules back in the early 19th century to protect against the passage of legislation outlawing slavery! Thune could suspend the filibuster for a single bill or blow it up altogether; either would be an improvement over the status quo. Yes, it would enable Republicans to pass more of their toxic and destructive legislation over the short term, but it would — importantly — also let Americans see the unvarnished consequences of Republican policies. And when Democrats come back into power, they could get a lot more done without the filibuster, including rolling back Citizens United and establishing an absolute right to vote. Let your Republican senators know (202-224-3121) they should take Trump’s advice and end the filibuster!
— Epstein, Rubio, or ego? What’s really behind Trump’s Venezuela madness? What the hell is going on with Trump’s provocations against Venezuela? It sure looks like he’s trying to gin up a war or regime change, neither of which are popular with the American people or consistent with Trump’s outspokenly loud anti-interventionist anti-nation-building campaign rhetoric. And he’s trying to do it the same way he tore down the East Wing of the White House: in secret until it’s such a done deal that nobody can undo it. But why? I’ve posited that — like Reagan and both Bush presidents — he thinks he needs a “little war” to distract us from his crimes, corruption, Epstein, and the weakness of the economy. But it’s also possible that this is being driven by Secretary of State “Lil” Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense “Whiskey Pete” Hegseth. Rubio rose to political power in Florida by lying for years that his parents were Cuban refugees who fled Castro and communism (in fact, they came to the US in May, 1956, more than 2 years before the Cuban revolution), and has long harbored anti-Latin-communist sentiments. It’s entirely possible that he still nurtures presidential aspirations and thinks taking down Maduro might be his ticket to the GOP nomination in 2028 (assuming there’s an election that year). Hegseth is a dry (?) drunk apparently doped up on testosterone who gets giddy every time he can use the words “lethal” or “kill” in a sentence; it’s a safe bet that he’d be orgasmic over the chance to murder more than just a few dozen people in small boats. Yesterday, the Miami Herald reported: “The Trump Administration has made the decision to attack military installations inside Venezuela and the strikes could come at any moment, sources with knowledge of the situation told the Miami Herald…” Adding to the intrigue, the DOD gave a secret briefing to the Senate Intelligence Committee and — get this — only allowed Republicans into the room. The committee’s senior Democrat, Mark Warner, called the unprecedented decision by Republicans “bullshit” and over in the House, where Democrats were allowed in, Democrat Seth Molton said: “What I heard here today was a tactical brief. I heard no strategy, no end game, no assessment of how they are going to end the flow of drugs into the United States…” Every day it seems more and more evident that this has little to nothing to do with drugs, which raises the question: “Why?” Why take such a chance by attacking a country with mutual defense agreements with Russia and China? Why risk war in our hemisphere? Why put our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen at such risk? Is it Epstein? Rubio‘s ambitions? Inquiring minds — and American patriots who care about our military and our reputation around the world — want to know.
— Trump’s new refugee policy: white, wealthy, and welcome. In a major change of a refugee policy that stretches back to the 1920s, the Trump administration has announced that only 7,500 people will be allowed into the US this year, and priority won’t go to Afghans who helped our troops or brown immigrants who’ve served in America’s military. Instead, the entire front of the line will be filled by white South Africans like Elon Musk’s father (who was in Moscow this week for a party with Putin). The white supremacy credentials of the Trump administration — including widespread layoffs of Black employees — are now absolutely impeccable.
— Hispanics not welcome either, unless they worked for one of Trump’s shabby golf motels. Alejandro Juarez illegally crossed the US border 22 years ago, and soon thereafter became one of Trump’s many undocumented workers (like the Poles who built Trump Tower, for example). ICE picked him up a few weeks ago and put him on a deportation flight to Mexico before, apparently, somebody from the Trump organization noticed he was missing. DHS is now frantically trying to find the valued worker and bring him back to the US so he can apply for long-term residency and a work permit. Irony of ironies…
— “Judge Boxwine” Pirro, recently recruited from Fox “News” for a federal judgeship, apparently demanded prosecutors delete the word “mob” to describe a member of the mob that attacked the US Capitol on January 6th. George Orwell famously wrote, “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.” It now appears that we’re falling deeper and deeper into an Orwellian world where Trump redefines the past so he can rewrite the future, much as the remnants of the Confederacy did with their Lost Cause mythology when Reconstruction collapsed in 1877. Pirro won’t explain why the description was excised, nor why the two prosecutors who wrote it into a sentencing recommendation have been relocated, perhaps in anticipation of being fired. But anybody with half a brain can figure this one out…
— Tear gassing trick-or-treaters: Noem’s new definition of American values. Puppy killer Noem refused to pause operations in Chicago so children can trick or treat. What have we become? Brutal is probably a good word, to begin with. In another example of the Trump regime’s frantic efforts to harass, imprison, and deport brown people — and perhaps to gin up an insurrection that could justify suspending elections — Noem denied Illinois Governor Pritzker’s request to hold off on the tear gas and masked terror operations for Halloween. When ICE recently raided a Chicago apartment building, they then trashed multiple apartments, ripping up furniture, smashing windows, breaking and scattering possessions, and removing and carting away phones and laptops. No warrants signed by judges were presented and one ICE thug, when asked about the shivering zip-tied American citizen kids standing in the freezing cold, said, “Fuck the children.” Setting aside the invocation of Epstein (and Trump?) the phrase immediately brings to mind, the brutal sentiment appears to be one embraced by ICE Barbie herself…
— From firebrand to outcast: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s midlife MAGA crisis. What’s happening with MTG? The MAGA firebrand appears to be undergoing some sort of a conversion experience, most recently calling out “pathetic Republican men” who she says are essentially telling her to sit down and shut up. Prior to that, she posted on social media: “Democrats did this with Obamacare 15 yrs ago and Johnson says Republicans have a mystery plan that is yet to be revealed to fix it. But no one knows what it is and we’re told to stay home in our districts.” Either Greene is in trouble politically in her district as she looks at an upcoming primary or next year’s midterm election, or she’s finally figured out that she’s been being played for a sucker by Trump and his Republicans all these years (along with so many others) and is no longer willing to play the game. I’ve invited her on my program for a friendly discussion; we’ll see if she shows up…
The mainstream media never tires of printing stories about the “miracle” of charter schools. A few days ago, the Washington Postpublished an article by Eva Moskowitz, leader of the Success Academy charter chain, titled “These schools are the answer to unlocking every child’s potential: Children born into poverty should not be consigned to failing schools.” The article was shameless self-promotion, announcing that she was expanding her brand into Florida.
But much to my surprise, readers were not buying any of her pitch. The comments following the article overwhelmingly criticized charter schools, saying they chose their students, they kicked out those with low scores, they excluded kids with disabilities, they were no better than public schools.
If all those readers get it, why don’t the editors at the mainstream media?
They still cling to the myth of charter success in New Orleans. NOLA has not been great for the students and their parents. But it has been a public relations coup.
Her article: “The ‘Miracle’ of New Orleans School Reform Is Not What It Seems: The city’s all-charter school experiment is a cautionary tale about what happens when democracy is stripped from public education.”
After the hurricane, parents wanted well-resourced community-based public schools. Instead they got charters focused on testing and no/excuses discipline.
The entire “reform” project is based on the practice of “charter churn.” Of 125 charters that have opened since Hurricane Katrina, half have closed and been replaced.
Burris writes:
The truth is that the all-charter experiment in New Orleans was built on the displacement of Black educators, the silencing of parents, and the infusion of foundation dollars with strings attached. As a result, students and families have faced disruption, instability, and hardship as charter schools open and close. Two decades later, the “miracle” is not what it seems. It is instead a cautionary tale about what happens when democracy is stripped from public education and governance is handed over to markets and philanthropies.
Diane Ravitch's blog 