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Month: September 2025

You Can Say It Over And Over Again But It Still Won’t Make It True

Published by digby on September 30, 2025

Jonathan Cohn at the Bulwark clears this up:

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY’S CLOSING ARGUMENT heading into the government shutdown is a big, brazen lie.

The lie is so big and so brazen that it’s almost not worth addressing, because doing so gives the claim far more credibility than it deserves.

But it’s become ubiquitous in Republican talking points, from the president on down. There’s also a chance some people will believe it, because it feeds into some common misconceptions about health care and immigration policy, as well as preconceptions of how the parties operate. And in a standoff that has been all about political leverage and public opinion, setting the record straight matters.

So let’s get to it.

The claim is about what Democrats are demanding in exchange for their support on a spending bill that would keep the government open past midnight tonight, when funding runs out. Remember, Republicans control both the White House and Congress, but need Democratic votes in the Senate to approve a new spending measure.

The central Democratic demand is about health care: They want Republicans to extend a temporary Biden-era program that has lowered health insurance costs for more than 20 million Americans buying coverage through the Affordable Care Act. And they want Republicans to undo at least some of the dramatic Medicaid cuts that the GOP enacted over the summer, as part of Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Trump and Republican leaders have refused to negotiate. And after flailing about with a few different arguments—including a preposterous claim that Democrats just want to pad the profits of insurance companies—they have settled on a new line: that Democrats want to fund health care for “illegal aliens.”

Reality check:

[P]eople who are in the United States unlawfully cannot get federally funded health insurance. They cannot sign up for Medicaid. They cannot get federally subsidized coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces.

In other words, what Trump, Vance and the other Republicans are saying is just not true.

The Republicans are relying on some bogus study by a fringe think tank that points to something in Obamacare that allows non-citizens who are here on protected status to buy into the system. They are not here illegally. But the GOP has decided that any non-citizen is in this country illegally.

And they say that some immigrants have somehow managed to game the system despite being ineligible which is utter nonsense. All immigrants are terrified of walking down the street right now for fear some hulking thug cos-playing Call of Duty will throw them to ground and kidnap them. It’s ridiculous to think they have put themselves in jeopardy by openly signing up for government benefits.

Why Isn’t The House GOP In DC Right Now?

Published by digby on September 30, 2025

It seems weird that with a looming government shutdown Mike Johnson has adjourned the House. But they have reasons:

Democratic congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva has arrived on Capitol Hill…Speaker Mike Johnson hasn’t sworn her into the House yet, though she was elected on Sept. 23 to succeed her father, the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva, in Arizona’s 7th District. And the looming possibility that the government shuts down at midnight would almost certainly make her entry into Congress even more complicated.

[…]

“The Speaker’s Office intends to schedule a swearing in for the Representative-elect when the House returns to session,” the spokesperson said.

That could be weeks or months. You’d think the Republicans would at least stay in town even if just to whine to the press about how the Democrats are creating havoc. But that’s not the only thing on Johnson’s agenda:

House Democrats are already speculating that there are ulterior motives behind the delays in Grijalva’s swearing in.

Her election puts the spotlight back on Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s discharge petition to compel the Justice Department to release documents pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein. Massie told reporters last week that Grijalva has promised to sign the petition.

I don’t think any speaker has just refused to swear in a new member of the opposite party before because … things. Maybe they have. But I think we can safely assume that it isn’t common.

They’ll do anything to avoid releasing those Epstein files.

Your President, Ladies and Gentlemen

Published by digby on September 30, 2025

In case you missed this:

I would say that’s shocking but this is the guy who put up a picture of the autopen in the gallery of presidential portraits so he has the mind of a 12 year old bully and he’s rapidly deteriorating.

Hello? Does Anyone Notice???

Published by digby on September 30, 2025

I’m with Robert Reich here:

Trump is showing growing signs of dementia. He’s increasingly unhinged. He’s 79 years old with a family history of dementia. He could well be going nuts.

You might think this would be covered in the news, but he isn’t facing anything like the scrutiny for dementia that Joe Biden did.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of Trump’s growing dementia is his paranoid thirst for revenge, on which he is centering much of his presidency.

The paranoia was becoming evident in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election. On November 11, 2023, he pledged to a crowd of supporters in Claremont, New Hampshire, that:

“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible — they’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream.”

Most media commentators chalked this up to overheated campaign rhetoric.

But since occupying the Oval Office, Trump has demanded that his attorney general target political opponents, urged the head of his FCC to threaten a major network for allowing a late-night comedian to say things Trump disliked, suggested that the government revoke TV licenses of network broadcasters that allow criticism of him, and pulled government security clearances from former officials whom he deems his enemies.

Less than two weeks ago, he demanded that the Justice Department prosecute a handful of named political opponents “now!” — including James Comey, whom Trump fired from his post in 2017 after Comey oversaw the FBI’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election; Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, who indicted Trump; and Adam Schiff, U.S. senator from California, who played an active role in the House hearings on January 6, 2021.

On September 19, Erik Siebert, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (initially selected for the position by Trump) resigned after Trump told reporters “I want him out.” Siebert had concerns about the strength of the evidence against both Comey and James.

The following day, Trump posted a message to his attorney general, Pam Bondi. “Pam,” it began, “Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’”

He said he was promoting Lindsey Halligan, one of his former personal attorneys, to take Siebert’s place, and fumed: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

On September 22, three days after Halligan assumed office, she secured a simple, two-count indictment against Comey for allegedly lying to Congress and for allegedly obstructing justice.

“JUSTICE IN AMERICA! One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to is James Comey,” Trump exalted on social media following the indictment. “He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation.”

The Comey indictment was a blip in the weekly news cycle. The media appeared to shrug: Yes, of course Trump is vindictive, so what else is new?

But wait. Are his acts those of a sane person? Or of an aging paranoid megalomaniac?

Even if it’s unclear to which category Trump belongs, shouldn’t this question be central to the coverage of his presidency? At the very least, shouldn’t the media be actively investigating?

As James Fallows quipped on BlueSky:

And we know just the best-selling authors who could dig into this!

Reich notes just the tip of the iceberg. Just in the last couple of weeks we’ve had the following and more: that post addressed to Pam was clearly a mistake that was meant to be private but once it got out to the public they just doubled down and pretended that he meant to say it. There was his wild Tylenol press conference, his inappropriate comments at the Charlie Kirk memorial and the craziness at the UN, the obsession with redecorating the White House like a cheap Pahrump whorehouse, these looney comments to the generals about declaring war on the cities, murder on the high seas, “enduring peace for all time” in the middle east, it goes on and on. He’s lost all inhibitions and is just saying and doing whatever passes through his mind. That is a symptom of dementia.

And according to Schumer and Jeffries yesterday, he doesn’t seem to know any of the details about the shutdown or his own domestic policies. “His people” are feeding him garbage, which he believes, so that he can concentrate on more gaudy, gilt trinkets in the oval office. He’s not all there.

And Yet His Approval Rating Remains Stable

Published by digby on September 30, 2025

According to The New York Times

So I guess Republicans are all good with this:

Here’s the drunken freak:

He also pretty much said that women are not welcome in the military. If I was in I’d get out as quickly as possible. He just created a field day for rape and abuse.

I don’t know how many of the top brass thinks this is just great and love them some Trump lunacy. I’d guess quite a few, sadly. But I have to wonder if any of them can stomach that performing seal Pete Hegseth lecturing them on “warrior ethos.” Almost all of these people have serious combat experience. And I would guess that most of them understand that he’s unleashed the beast within the military and the lack of discipline and order that will ensure is going to wreak havoc on readiness. He’s turning the U.S. military into a street gang.

It will be interesting to see if there’s any reaction to this lunacy. Will there be an exodus? Maybe. But if there is resistance within the military to this insanity I would guess that many of the seasoned bureaucrats in the Pentagon will have some ideas. That’s not a good thing constitutionally speaking but the whole idea of separation of powers and the civilian control of the military seem like quaint ideas these days. I never thought I’d say this but after listening to the president declare war on me, I think I might be rooting for a military coup.

47 Has Met The Enemy And He Is You

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 30, 2025

Countering Domestic Terrorism?

Donald Trump signs an executive order on June 4, 2020. (White House)

The Trump administration is “trying to use fear and threat to coerce your silence,” warns Adam Cochran on Twitter. He is responding to a presidential memorandum issued over the weekend. Essentially:

-They are creating grounds to use warrantless surveillance on anyone who dissents.

-And then use their financial and phone records to charge them as terrorists via RICO. It’s the largest expansion of the Patriot Act ever.

Ben Wittes at Lawfare calls last week’s “Antifa” Executive Order and the memorandum, NSPM-7, “a weird mix of nonsense and menace.” While technically not excluding federal investigative action against groups like the Proud Boys, the real menace is to the left:

The purpose here is naked: It is to turn federal enforcement away from political violence of the right and the Trumpist movement and to spark investigations instead of major grant-making organizations of the left and center on the basis of the lie that they are actually behind political violence in the United States. 

The factual premise is, as I say, nonsense. Focusing investigative attention on grant-making, which is presumptively First Amendment-protected activity, without any real basis for suspicion that people are knowing or intentionally funding violence is a grotesque abuse of law enforcement power. 

Some of this abuse will affect institutions with the money and power to defend their rights. But as with the law firms and the universities, it will tie up resources and time and energy, and it will have a chilling effect on smaller organizations that don’t have the clout to defend themselves. And some activist organizations will be destroyed merely by the pressure of investigation.

Cochran’s is a long thread with highlighted passages from the memorandum. Catch it unrolled here.

* * * * *

Our friend Susie Madrak is experiencing a cash crunch. She’s looking for whatever help you might lend this week. Making things worse is an insurance settlement delayed on account of paperwork. Plus:

In the meantime, my neurologist suspects I have an obscure lupus-like autoimmune disorder that’s causing all kinds of weird symptoms (for one thing, she says the signals my brain are sending to my feet aren’t making it through and I’m off balance) but first she has to rule out blood cancers, etc. There’s also a lesion on my lung and they want an MRI.

Susie has been posting at Suburban Guerrilla and Crooks & Liars for 20 years. It’s a calling, not a great-paying gig. We need to stick together. Help out Susie if you can.

Mind The Gap

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 30, 2025

Preserve your sanity

North Asheville activists group shot after weekly, rush-hour sign protest, 9/25/25. Photo by Julie Harrison.

If coping with news overload is becoming a challenge, James Fallows recommends an essay by Degenerate Art writer Andrea Pitzer. In “Minding the Gap,” she emphasizes that there is a “difference between being aware of or criticizing what’s happening and taking action.” Action not only beats despair, it staves off despair.

“It’s possible to be aware of the bad acts underway without letting them paralyze you,” Pitzer advises. “Instead, let each day’s events remind you how important it is to do something, and that publicly doing your part can help turn the tide.”

The “publicly” part is important. We’ll come back to that.

It’s great if you keep up with your favorite pundits, legislators and lawyers. “But in our society as it exists today,” Pitzer continues, “I think there’s a real danger among the general population of mistaking online engagement itself for action.”

Pitzer warns:

The danger for the left now is to get caught up in critiques of those who are actually doing things, in which the people doing the critiquing will mistake their contribution for something useful. At this stage, facing a closing window for outcomes without significant increase in state violence, putting your weight into the societal shift we need is far more valuable.

Much of that will take the form of small actions in your community. And that shift might be easier than you imagine.

Fallows adds:

Perhaps you’ll not be surprised to hear that she ends up with an exhortation to do something, right now, at the local level. (For instance, at food banks—as grocery prices soar, and federal aid is cut off.) I found it heartening to read someone who doesn’t have all the answers but is wrestling with the same questions I do.

Boiler-plate advice from Indivisible and other activist groups is that you write or call your representatives multiple times a week. Fine. But none of your neighbors see that. They need to see resistance.

There are two key takeaways from the major intersection protests I’m engaged in 4-5 times a week. (The one pictured at the top is the largest.)

First, it feels good to be doing something more than screaming at your TV, and doing it with friends reinforces the effect. It takes introverts outside of their comfort zones, sure, but it’s easier in a crowd and it’s empowering.

Second, neighbors still putting in their nine-to-five need you out there. (The group at the top is mostly retirees; we have the time.) You are not the only ones losing sleep and grinding your teeth over ICE raids and the president’s mania. The smiles and honks and waves and thumbs-up say you are lifting spirits that need lifting. (I play dance music.) The occasional middle fingers let you know you’ve made a Trump supporter’s ride home less enjoyable (if you’re into that kind of thing).

At a corner where I went solo with a “GRAB HIM BY THE | EPSTEIN FILES“ sign:

The response, especially from women, was loud and vigorous. There were not only horn toots, waves and thumbs-up aplenty. People cheered! Carloads of women cheered and applauded as they drove by. A passenger waiting at a light climbed out of his window to cheer and pump his fist over the roof of the car. A woman jogger told me all the bastards need to go, and then “the orange menace.”

Talk about an endorphin rush. But there’s more.

Week after week after week on the overpass, pedestrians under 35 — especially women — thank me when they see YOUR LIFE SHOULDN’T BE THIS HARD  and stop and ask to take a photo. A professional woman coming from work says it lifts her spirits to see me there each week. A young woman with tattoos headed to work. A Black veteran, mid-30s, says, “You’ve got that right, brother,” and slaps my back as he passes.

A young woman on a scooter stopped on the overpass last Friday to thank me. (I mean looks me square in the eyes THANK YOU.) She rode to the end of the bridge, turned around and came back, asked if she could take a photo, and thanks me again.

You are not the only ones struggling. Your neighbors need to feel they’ve been seen and heard. They need to know that they are not alone in the fight. Your public actions may not shift policy in D.C. or by themselves turn out “the orange menace,” but lifting spirits is worth doing. It feels good too and encourages others to get involved. The group at the top, about 40, started weeks ago as a mere handful.

* * * * *

Our friend Susie Madrak is experiencing a cash crunch. She’s looking for whatever help you might lend this week. Making things worse is an insurance settlement delayed on account of paperwork. Plus:

In the meantime, my neurologist suspects I have an obscure lupus-like autoimmune disorder that’s causing all kinds of weird symptoms (for one thing, she says the signals my brain are sending to my feet aren’t making it through and I’m off balance) but first she has to rule out blood cancers, etc. There’s also a lesion on my lung and they want an MRI.

Susie has been posting at Suburban Guerrilla and Crooks & Liars for 20 years. It’s a calling, not a great-paying gig. We need to stick together. Help out Susie if you can.

Trump’s Fatuous Bleats On Gaza

Published by digby on September 29, 2025

Fred Kaplan at Slate has the low down on the “big meeting” between Trump and Netanyahu today:

President Donald Trump appeared before the White House press corps Monday, proclaiming it “one of the great days ever in civilization … a historic day of peace … let’s call it eternal peace” for Gaza and the entire Middle East. But then, after 45 minutes of mutual back-rubbing, he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they would not take questions because they were waiting for “signatures and approvals” on many documents.

So does this mean the two leaders and the Arab powers in the Middle East didn’t make peace in our time?

Most crucially, Trump and Netanyahu admitted that Hamas had not agreed to any of the 22 articles in a peace proposal written mainly by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff; Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who helped write the Abraham Accords in his first term; and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, who has been involved in several Middle East peace ventures.

If Hamas still refuses to sign, Trump made clear, Israel would have the right to finish the war any way it wants—and the United States would support the assault.

That should probably be the lede here—Netanyahu got Trump’s endorsement for extending the war in Gaza to some vision of total victory—because, first, Hamas has rejected most of these terms in the recent past and, second, it is not clear that the Arab and Muslim powers in the region have agreed to all of the articles either.

There you have it.

The press conference was so bad I had to turn it off. The two of them congratulating themselves was just too much to take especially since it was pretty obvious that nothing substantive had happened except that Trump had promised if Hamas didn’t come to heel within 72 hours he gave permission to keep killing and destroying at will.

It was when Trump announced the “Board of Peace” for Gaza chaired by him that I had to check out, especially after listening to this garbage for more than half an hour:

Trump spent much of his monologue in the press room boasting, as he has many times, that no other president could have done this, especially “Sleepy Joe” Biden, whom he condemned or ridiculed three times. He also spent a few seconds moaning once more about the U.N. teleprompter that malfunctioned right before his speech to the General Assembly. (He noted that he delivered remarks “from the heart” anyway, adding, “Could Biden have done that? I don’t think so.”)

Yeah whatever. Kaplan concludes with this sad dose of reality:

If Trump and the Arab leaders are serious about making peace in Gaza, they will have to mount the same sort of pressure: Trump on Netanyahu, the Arabs (especially Qatar) on Hamas. Nothing in this proposal or in Monday’s press conference indicates that any of the outside powers are ready to impose such pressure. So the war is likely to thunder on.

Just another photo op in the gaudy, golden oval for Trump.

It’s The Rescissions, Stupid

Published by digby on September 29, 2025

I really wish the Democrats would make a bigger point of this:

What is different about the 2025 budget fight than previous ones?

A lot of the dynamics are still the same. You still have partisan fighting. And you still have some divides within the two parties that I think are worth mentioning. One example: There was a Senate vote just the other day on one of these budget resolutions, and a couple of Republicans voted with the Democrats. So for some of these more deficit-hawk Republicans, that concern is still playing a role.

What’s new this time around is this element of rescissions. This is a tool that’s been available since the 1970s in which presidents ask Congress to rescind spending that they had allocated. This is what happened earlier this year with the rescissions on public broadcasting – NPR and PBS – that got a lot of attention, as well as on USAID. Trump said he wanted to cut funding for public broadcasting – the GOP in the Senate and House voted to let him. They didn’t need 60 votes in the Senate for a rescission, either. Just a majority for this move.

So in this case, Democrats are looking at this and thinking, “Why should we negotiate, if you’re just going to rescind that later on without our consent?” That’s a major element that’s changed. While it’s a power that has been in place for a while, Trump and the Republicans have been really willing to wield that.

This seems to me to be the essential argument that plays into the administration’s autocratic approach to everything. They believe the Congress is irrelevant. Russell Vought will use the rescission power to spend money as the administration wants it spent regardless of the appropriations process. And the Republicans will come along later and co-sign whatever he does because they are a bunch of potted plants who no longer have minds of their own. They have already done it once and they’ll do it again.

There is no such thing as a “deal” on government spending anymore, whether it’s one that the Republicans jam through in the congress or whether it’s one with the Democrats under the threat of a government shutdown. The administration will do whatever it wants.

I don’t know where this leads us in terms of the current showdown. The Democrats have to hang tough because it’s the only power they have and their constituents are demanding that they use it. And there is a chance they might prevail temporarily because we’re going into an election cycle which has some Republicans worried about these Obamacare subsidies hitting hard. So, the Dems might pull off a “win.” But I would assume that Vought will rescind them again after the election because the whole point is to show that the president is king and they will do what they want.

By the way, I would also assume that the Supreme Court majority will back them. They too believe that Congress is a sort of ceremonial institution there for the purpose of naming post offices and tugging their forelocks for the president.

Here’s a gift link to a story by the NY Times today about Vought. If you are a regular reader here you already know about this miscreant but it’s good to see the mainstream press focusing on him at long last. He and Stephen Miller are running the government. And they are both very, very dangerous people.

**********

Our friend Susie Madrak is experiencing a cash crunch. She’s looking for whatever help you might lend this week. Making things worse is an insurance settlement delayed on account of paperwork. Plus:

In the meantime, my neurologist suspects I have an obscure lupus-like autoimmune disorder that’s causing all kinds of weird symptoms (for one thing, she says the signals my brain are sending to my feet aren’t making it through and I’m off balance) but first she has to rule out blood cancers, etc. There’s also a lesion on my lung and they want an MRI.

Susie has been posting at Suburban Guerrilla and Crooks & Liars for 20 years. It’s a calling, not a great-paying gig. We need to stick together. Help out Susie if you can.