Mostly Monday Reads: Whitewashing Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Posted: October 13, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, kakistocracy, Polycrisis | Tags: Stagflation, Trump Chaos and Incompetency, Trump Stagflation, Trump Tarriffs, Trump Unemployment, Trump War on Science, Trup War on History | 7 Comments

“If it looks like a pig, smells like a pig, acts like a pig….” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Today, we celebrate the Indigenous tribes of America. Joe Biden was the first president to recognize the day in 2021. We still haven’t dropped Columbus Day, which glorifies a man who truly represents the worst of European colonization of other continents.

Christopher Columbus has become a controversial figure over the years, despite the federal holiday in his honor. While many credit the explorer with “discovering” America, many others condemn Columbus for forced conversion of native peoples to Christianity, the use of violence and slavery, and the introduction of new diseases that would cause serious and long-lasting harm to Indigenous people.

In 2021, former President Joe Biden became the first president to recognize Indigenous Peoples Day, celebrating it in tandem with Columbus Day. In 2025, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation condemning critics of Columbus.

Yes, you read that right. Trump issued one of his ugly proclamations, criticizing those of us who don’t stand by whitewashed history. Yam Tits and his ugly band of White Christian Nationalists reject the idea that anyone but them created places worth saving and celebrating.

On Oct. 9, Trump issued a proclamation titled “Columbus Day, 2025.”

Trump celebrated Italian explorer Columbus as “the original American hero” in the proclamation, accusing his critics of slander.

“Outrageously, in recent years, Christopher Columbus has been a prime target of a vicious and merciless campaign to erase our history, slander our heroes, and attack our heritage,” reads the proclamation.

Meanwhile, in the world of bill paying and trying to live, it’s still the Economy Stupid! This is from Reuters. “How the United States is eating Trump’s tariffs.” This is reported by “Francesco Canepa and Howard Schneider.”

U.S. companies and consumers are bearing the brunt of the country’s new import tariffs, early indications show, contradicting assertions by President Donald Trump and complicating the Federal Reserve’s fight against inflation.
Trump famously predicted that foreign countries would pay the price of his protectionist policies, wagering that exporters would absorb that cost just to keep a foothold in the world’s largest consumer market

But academic studies, surveys and comments from businesses show that through the first months of Trump’s new trade regime it is U.S. companies that are footing the bill and passing on some of it to the consumer – with more price hikes likely.

“Most of the cost seems to be borne by U.S. firms,” Harvard University professor Alberto Cavallo said in an interview to discuss his findings. “We have seen a gradual pass-through to consumer prices and there’s a clear upward pressure.

A White House spokesperson said “Americans may face a transition period from tariffs” but the cost would “ultimately be borne by foreign exporters.” Companies were diversifying supply chains and bringing production to the United States, the spokesperson added.

Cavallo and researchers Paola Llamas and Franco Vasquez have been tracking the price of 359,148 goods, from carpets to coffee, at major online and brick-and-mortar retailers in the United States.
They found that imported goods have become 4% more expensive since Trump started imposing tariffs in early March, while the price of domestic products rose by 2%.

The biggest increases for imports were seen in goods that the United States cannot produce domestically, such as coffee, or that come from highly penalised countries, like Turkey.

These price hikes, while material, have been generally far smaller than the tariff rate on the products in question – implying that sellers were absorbing some of the cost as well.

Yet U.S. import prices, which don’t include tariffs, showed foreign exporters have been raising their prices in dollars and passing on to their U.S. buyers part of the greenback’s depreciation against their currencies.

“This suggests foreign producers are not absorbing much if any of the U.S. tariffs, consistent with prior economic research,” researchers at Yale University’s Budget Lab think-tank said in a blog post.
National indices of export prices paint the same picture. The cost of goods exported by China, Germany, Mexico, Turkey and India have all risen, with Japan the only exception.

Dr. Paul Krugman has a serious economic analysis of the evolving trade relationship between the US and China today in his Substack. “How Trump Is Making China Great. Why we’re going to lose the trade war, and much more besides.” Yes, we’re still practicing the dismal science, but being forewarned is better than being caught unprepared.

There is, however, one big difference between Trump’s trade policy and China’s. Namely, the Chinese appear to know what they’re doing.

It should have been obvious from the beginning that if America were to get into a full-scale trade war with China, the Chinese would have the upper hand. For one thing, in real terms China has the bigger economy.

Furthermore, while our economies are interdependent, America is more vulnerable to a rupture than China is. True, Chinese industry has relied to an important degree on sales to the United States. But the U.S. economy is dependent on China for critical inputs, above all those rare earths. And here’s the thing: China can quickly compensate, at least in part, for the loss of the U.S. export market by stimulating domestic demand. Given time, America could wean itself from dependence on Chinese inputs — but doing so would take years.

That said, a year ago the United States still had some important advantages over China. Although China has made great strides in science and technology, America still had a commanding position, thanks in large part to our unmatched research establishment, our great research universities, and our ability — thanks in large part to the openness of our society — to recruit talent from all over the world.

Furthermore, America had allies — which, as Phillips O’Brien emphasizes, are a vastly underrated source of national power. China may sometimes make alliances of convenience, but no more than that. The U.S. could and did build a powerful alliance system, because America was more than a nation: It was an idea and a set of values, values we shared with the rest of the democratic world. And you should always bear in mind that Europe, in particular, while it sometimes acts weak, is an economic superpower in the same league as China and America.

OK, you know what’s coming: Since taking office, Trump and his minions have been systematically demolishing each of these pillars of U.S. strength.

The first pillar mentioned, and the most obvious, is the destruction of the institutions and incentives that support scientific research, which include universities, private industry, and government agencies. You may read more details on that at the link. It’s been rather obvious to most of us, but his list is a good, quick reference.

This administration is characterized by cruelty and incompetence. The absolute destruction of government institutions and specialists made to enhance advancements that private industries can’t afford to fund profitably is a hallmark of both. Nowhere is this felt more than in institutions that support Public Health. Firing experts, then attempting to either rehire or replace them, is unbelievably disruptive to any science-based endeavor. This article is from CNN’s Brenda Goodman and Meg Terrill. “More than half of CDC staffers recently fired by Trump administration have been reinstated.”

Hundreds of staff fired from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Friday have been reinstated, according to the American Federation of Government Employees.

After a new round of layoff notices sent late Friday night to around 1,300 workers at the CDC, approximately 700 were reinstated on Saturday, while about 600 remain laid off, according to the union, which represents federal workers.

“The employees who received incorrect notifications were never separated from the agency and have all been notified that they are not subject to the reduction in force,” said Andrew Nixon, director of communications for the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Among reinstated employees are staff that publish the agency’s flagship journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, according to Dr. Debra Houry, who recently resigned as the agency’s chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science. Houry and other high-level CDC officials resigned in August in protest over the firing of recently confirmed CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez.

Athalia Christie, the incident commander for the measles response, was among hundreds of employees mistakenly fired on Friday. The annual total of measles cases in the US – now up to 1,563 cases since January – is the highest by a significant margin since measles was declared eliminated in America a quarter-century ago.

Staff were also reinstated at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, the Global Health Center, and the Public Health Infrastructure Center, which manages more than $3 billion in grants to 107 state and local governments to help build local public health workforces, said Dr. Brian Castrucci, who is president and chief executive officer of the de Beaumont Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for public health workers.

Staff and officers at the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service who were able to check their emails have also received notices that their firings were in error, according to a CDC official with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

An analysis of the jobs and people reinstated is provided in the article. Meanwhile, the inhumanity and violence surrounding operations by ICE continue. Andrew Schwartz reports this headline. Documents Allege a Federal Agent at Portland ICE Threatened to Shoot an Ambulance Driver. Feds delayed medics who had come to pick up an injured protester. Then, according to confidential incident reports, the agents became aggressive.”

Late on Oct. 5, a Portland ambulance crew informed dispatchers over the radio that it was attempting to transport a patient from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center but that ICE officers were impeding its departure. Six minutes later, at 9:40 pm, according to publicly archived radio records, the medic driving the vehicle delivered an update: “We are still not being allowed to leave by ICE officers.”

Two confidential incident reports obtained by WW offer insight into what was going on inside the South Portland ICE facility at the time. The written accounts were filed by the ambulance crew members shortly after the incident—one report to their employer, American Medical Response, and another to a union representative—as documentation, as one report puts it, of a “conflict with federal agents.”

The two reports, filed by different medical workers, mirror each other’s accounts, and are consistent with publicly available audio recordings of emergency medical services radio communications, as well as 911 calls and dispatch reports obtained under public records law.

Both reports say that federal agents, in an effort to block the ambulance’s departure, stood directly in front of the vehicle. As the delay dragged on, according to the reports, the ambulance operator put the vehicle into park, causing it to lurch forward slightly.

The reports indicate the federal agents did not like this—so much so that an agent threatened to shoot and arrest the driver. The driver, frightened, asked why. An agent, according to the reports, responded that the driver had attempted to hit him with the ambulance.

“I was still in such shock,” the driver later wrote, “that they were not only accusing me of such a thing, but crowding and cornering me in the seat, pointing and screaming at me, threatening to shoot and arrest me, and not allowing the ambulance to leave the scene. This was no longer a safe scene, and in that moment, I realized that the scene had not actually been safe the entire time that they were blocking us from exiting, and that we were essentially trapped.”

The latest child abduction by ICE has occurred in Boston. This is from MASS LIVE. “Mass. 13-year-old was picked up by ICE after a police interaction and now he’s hundreds of miles from home.” The story was filed by Adam Bass. Is this really the kind of country we want to live in?

A 13-year-old boy from Everett who was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been transferred to a juvenile facility in Virginia.

Andrew Lattarulo, of Georges Cotes Law, said his firm received an email from the U.S. Attorney’s Office confirming the child was transferred on Friday at 9:30 a.m. He forwarded the email to MassLive.

The boy is still in custody, Lattarulo said.

The transfer occurred on the same day Judge Richard G. Stearns of the Boston federal court ordered the boy’s release by Tuesday unless ICE and the Department of Homeland Security could provide grounds for continued detention, according to court documents

ICE arrested the boy, whose family is from Brazil, after an interaction with the Everett Police Department, the Boston Globe reported.

The boy’s mother received a call on Thursday to pick her son up from the department; however, an hour and a half later, she was told ICE had taken her son, the Globe reported.

Something is very wrong with a human being who can support this level of cruelty. Meanwhile, The Hill‘s Emily Brooks reports on the callous and snivelling Speaker of the House’s latest shrug. “Johnson: ‘We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history’.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Monday the government shutdown is on its way to being one of the longest in history unless Democrats accept the House-passed, GOP-crafted stopgap bill to reopen the government.

“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history, unless Democrats dropped their partisan demands and passed a clean, no-strings-attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers,” Johnson said in a press conference on the 13th day of the government shutdown.

Congressional leaders have been locked in a standoff over government funding as Democrats demand that Republicans make concessions on health care, notably Affordable Care Act tax credits that are expiring at the end of the year. Republican leaders have refused to negotiate on health care during a shutdown, arguing that that Democrats must accept the “clean” funding stopgap the House passed in September — and which has failed to advance in the Senate seven times.

The shutdown, 13 days and counting, already marks one of the longest federal government funding lapses in modern history.

The longest government shutdown, which was also the last time a federal funding lapse occurred, was from 2018 to 2019 during President Trump’s first term, lasting 35 days.

Things are not going to get better until we’re rid of these tinpot Republicans. The signs of stagflation and the accompanying suffering are on the increase. I’m going wonky on you again with this article from Investors Observer. “This is stagflation (literally): U.S. hiring crashes to recession levels as ‘second stagflation mountain’ rises.”

Stagflation is no longer just a rhetorical device to describe the U.S. economy in 2025.

Real signs of its toxic mix of stagnant growth and stubborn inflation are emerging across both the labor market and consumer prices, painting a grim near-term outlook.

According to Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok, the U.S. hiring rate, a number of hires as a percentage of total employment, has fallen to recessionary levels.

A recent Apollo chart comparing the quits rate and hiring rate shows that hiring has plunged to levels last seen during the 2020 pandemic crash, and is now approaching lows from the Global Financial Crisis.

With slower job growth and rising unemployment, Slok warned that the labor market is nearing a virtual standstill, “where workers are not getting hired or changing jobs.”

At the same time, inflation remains stubbornly high. A separate Apollo analysis found that 60% of the CPI basket is currently rising at an annualized rate above 3%, well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

While that marks an improvement from recent months, when 72% of CPI components ran above 3%, the persistence underscores how broad-based inflation remains.

“Is a second inflation mountain emerging?” Slok asked, referencing the first inflation surge that began in 2021 and peaked in mid-2022 with headline CPI at 9.1%.

Together, the data of higher inflation and slower growth strengthen the case that the U.S. is now grappling with stagflation, a scenario the Fed may find difficult to reverse without triggering deeper economic pain.

One and done! One of the most disruptive institutions since the Trump regime of Terror has been the Supreme Court. This report by Adam Lipak finally shows how the Republican Appointees really are christofascists trying to hide behind the cloak of Conservatism and Originalism. We’ve seen more radical interpretations by the Roberts court than not. This was published in the New York Times. “Originalist ‘Bombshell’ Complicates Case on Trump’s Power to Fire Officials. As the Supreme Court seems poised to expand the president’s power, a leading scholar whose work the justices have often cited issued a provocative dissent.”

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in December about whether President Trump can fire government officials for any reason, or no reason, despite laws meant to shield them from politics.

There is little question that the court will side with the president. Its conservative majority has repeatedly signaled that it plans to adopt the “unitary executive theory,” which says the original understanding of the Constitution demands letting the president remove executive branch officials as he sees fit.

But a new article, from a leading originalist law professor, has complicated and perhaps upended the conventional wisdom. The legal academy treated the development like breaking news.

“Bombshell!” William Baude, a law professor at the University of Chicago who himself is a prominent originalist, wrote on social media. “Caleb Nelson, one of the most respected originalist scholars in the country, comes out against the unitary executive interpretation” of the Constitution.

Professor Nelson, who teaches at the University of Virginia and is a former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that the text of the Constitution and the historical evidence surrounding it grants Congress broad authority to shape the executive branch, including by putting limits on the president’s power to fire people.

Professor Nelson’s article was published Sept. 29 by the Democracy Project, an initiative at the New York University School of Law that plans to release 100 essays in 100 days by an ideologically mixed group.

The article is particularly notable, said Richard H. Pildes, who is a law professor at N.Y.U. and one of the project’s founders.

“If a highly respected originalist scholar like Professor Nelson, on whom the court relies frequently, denies that originalism supports the unitary executive theory,” Professor Pildes said, “that inevitably raises serious questions about an originalist justification for the court’s looming approach.”

Professor Nelson’s scholarship has been exceptionally influential. It has been cited in more than a dozen Supreme Court opinions, including ones by every member of the six-justice conservative majority.

Finally Friday Reads: Gone, Gone, the Damage Done

Posted: October 10, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: #FARTUS, #We are so Fucked | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Facist #FARTUS, Got big Crime in the White House, Maria Corina Machado, MIT’s president, Neil Young, Sally Kornbluth | 4 Comments

“Oops!” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It’s been another tough week watching the news and goings on in what used to be a mostly civilized democracy. The Nobel Prizes came out today, and of course, Yam Tit’s Caligula-level chaos and search for the 2025 Peace Prize once again went unrequited. He seems to be unaware of what these represent and the type of people rewarded. Does any of this sound remotely familiar? It seems that holding up the best among us shows the worst guy on the planet what he lacks.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 goes to a brave and committed champion of peace – to a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 to Maria Corina Machado.

She is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.

As the leader of the democracy movement in Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado is one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.

Ms Machado has been a key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided – an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government. This is precisely what lies at the heart of democracy: our shared willingness to defend the principles of popular rule, even though we disagree. At a time when democracy is under threat, it is more important than ever to defend this common ground.

Venezuela has evolved from a relatively democratic and prosperous country to a brutal, authoritarian state that is now suffering a humanitarian and economic crisis. Most Venezuelans live in deep poverty, even as the few at the top enrich themselves. The violent machinery of the state is directed against the country’s own citizens. Nearly 8 million people have left the country. The opposition has been systematically suppressed by means of election rigging, legal prosecution and imprisonment.

Venezuela’s authoritarian regime makes political work extremely difficult. As a founder of Súmate, an organisation devoted to democratic development, Ms Machado stood up for free and fair elections more than 20 years ago. As she said: “It was a choice of ballots over bullets.” In political office and in her service to organisations since then, Ms Machado has spoken out for judicial independence, human rights and popular representation. She has spent years working for the freedom of the Venezuelan people.

Ahead of the election of 2024, Ms Machado was the opposition’s presidential candidate, but the regime blocked her candidacy. She then backed the representative of a different party, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, in the election. Hundreds of thousands of volunteers mobilised across political divides. They were trained as election observers to ensure a transparent and fair election. Despite the risk of harassment, arrest and torture, citizens across the country held watch over the polling stations. They made sure the final tallies were documented before the regime could destroy ballots and lie about the outcome.

The efforts of the collective opposition, both before and during the election, were innovative and brave, peaceful and democratic. The opposition received international support when its leaders publicised the vote counts that had been collected from the country’s election districts, showing that the opposition had won by a clear margin. But the regime refused to accept the election result, and clung to power.

Democracy is a precondition for lasting peace. However, we live in a world where democracy is in retreat, where more and more authoritarian regimes are challenging norms and resorting to violence. The Venezuelan regime’s rigid hold on power and its repression of the population are not unique in the world. We see the same trends globally: rule of law abused by those in control, free media silenced, critics imprisoned, and societies pushed towards authoritarian rule and militarisation. In 2024, more elections were held than ever before, but fewer and fewer are free and fair.

Reading the entire announcement is not only a history lesson but a reminder of what a civilized democracy looks like. I’ve decided to showcase Editorial cartoons from around the globe to put things into perspective. It’s not a fun time when a small group of crazies has basically dropped you into the hands of a crazed Bond Villain. I’m continually reminded that the diverse group of humanity sits on the anti-Trump bench.

Here’s the Bulwark‘s Andre Egger’s Friday thoughts, as many of us take note of who stood up and who folded. The hero institution of the Nixon Watergate Scandal has gone beyond soft. It’s one of the many obvious places to be filled with the howls of surrender monkeys.

One of the most insidious things about Donald Trump’s decade-long turn atop our politics is the way it has seared our political conscience. For years, it has been a cliché to call his various awful behaviors and decisions “shocking, but not surprising.” These days, however, we seem to be losing some of our inability even to feel the shock.

You could see this in some of the early reactions last night to the news of Letitia James’s indictment on two counts of mortgage fraud. The New York attorney general has been near the top of Trump’s enemies list for a while, and literally nobody—at least that I can dig up—seems to be trying to argue that this indictment isn’t an act of naked political retribution. (To be fair, arguing this would be difficult after Trump removed all doubt last month by accidentally putting a post out in public that he had meant to send as a DM to Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding James’s prosecution.)

Instead, the Republican line—parroted by some who should really know better—is that this is a justified act of retribution, in some sort of street-justice sense. Or if not justified, at least understandable, from Trump’s point of view: They tried to get him, now he’s trying to get them. Most charitably, they say, it is an unfortunate tit-for-tat that can’t go on indefinitely—but also a situation in which Trump is just one bad actor in a cast of many.

An editorial from the new-look, more Trump-forgiving Washington Post editorial board this week cast the current moment along those lines. “Many Democrats still cannot see how their legal aggression against Trump during his four years out of power set the stage for the dangerous revenge tour on which he is now embarked,” it mourned. Those who were trying to hold Trump accountable had “show[n] little restraint” in their investigations—a big part of why he was now “showing still less restraint” while hitting back. It’s unfortunate that he lashed out at you like that—but maybe you shouldn’t have made him so mad.

We should be clear about this. There is no comparison between the acts Letitia James took as attorney general of New York to hit Trump’s companies and the ones he is now taking to hit “back” at her. The difference between them is not the difference between a lesser act of political malice and a greater one. (Although it is worth noting the massive difference of scale here: While James’s civil suit accused Trump’s companies of pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars off a years-long practice of misrepresenting properties, the indictment against James accuses her of filing a misleading loan application andcoming out ahead less than $20,000.) It’s the difference between the application of law and the application of raw power.

When people accuse James of “lawfare,” or of pursuing a “politicized” civil fraud case against Trump, they mean that she pursued that case with a zeal they believe she would not have shown against another target. Could be! But her fundamental case, as the New York Times noted last month, was not unreasonable. It was rooted in sworn testimony Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen had made before Congress that Trump habitually inflated the value of his properties to get favorable treatment in loans. She won her civil case against Trump at trial. This year, an appeals court vacated the financial penalty the initial judge had handed down, but did not vacate Trump’s civil liability. Trump had his day to argue in court that James’s investigations into him were vindictive and politically motivated—and the courts threw that argument out.

Justin Glawe from Public Notice explains Trump’s autocratic invasion and occupation of Portland, Oregon. “The impossibly dumb reason for Trump’s invasion of Portland. It’d be hilarious if he wasn’t the commander in chief.”

“Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening?”

That was Donald Trump, making an incredible admission to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek that he was confused about unrest in Portland while watching TV. The call took place on September 26. That same day, Fox News ran two segments in which b-roll of rioting in Portland from 2020 ran in the background as guests spoke to on-air personalities.

A Wall Street Journal report has details:

Trump recounted his conversation with Kotek during a weekend interview with NBC News’ correspondent Yamiche Alcindor. He alluded to their conflicting accounts of Portland.

“I spoke to the governor, she was very nice,” Trump said. “But I said, ‘Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? My people tell me different.’ They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place … it looks like terrible.”

In short, it sounds like Trump was watching old riot footage on Fox, thought it was happening in real time, then went on Truth Social the next day and said he was ordering troops to “war ravaged” Portland with “full force, if necessary.”

Trump’s confusion isn’t just darkly comical (and a troubling reminder of the president’s growing senility) — it’s also a stark illustration of the whiplash-inducing disconnect between his rhetoric and the reality on the ground in cities like Portland and Chicago.

Portland is not “on fire” as Trump has claimed. In fact, things are so calm there that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem took time on Tuesday to stand on the roof of the city’s ICE facility and have a staring contest with a man in a chicken suit. It was filmed, of course.

Between the attacks on L.A., Portland, and Chicago, I’d say those events will go down as days of infamy. The main difference from the usual usage of the term is that the hostile government attacking innocent Americans is our own. Is this really what those stupid Trump voters actually wanted?

We also have our own version of Tokyo Rose, ICE Barbie. This is from CNN. “Video of Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for shutdown rolling out at TSA security checkpoints across the country.” State propaganda, anyone?

In an extraordinary effort to inject politics into millions of Americans’ travel experiences, the Trump administration plans to roll out a video at airports across the United States that will blame Democrats for lapses in Transportation Security Administration workers’ pay because of the government shutdown.

People waiting in airport security lines will now be met with a new video of the Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem addressing the shutdown.

“It is TSA’s top priority to make sure that you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe,” she says. “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”

The video was first obtained by Fox News.

The Department of Homeland Security responded to CNN’s questions about the video in a statement that noted the “public service video is rolling out across the country,” then repeated the language in the video almost verbatim.

“We will continue to do all that we can to avoid delays that will impact your travel, and our hope is that Democrats will soon recognize the importance of opening the government,” the video concludes.

TSA checkpoints often include videos featuring government officials welcoming travelers and explanations of procedures, but they usually do not contain political messages.

MIT becomes the latest university to take arms in the War against Stupidity. This is from the once great Washington Post and Susan Svrluga. “MIT rejects Trump administration deal for priority federal funding. MIT is one of the nine schools that were asked to agree to adopt conservative priorities and policies in exchange for funding perks.”

MIT’s president turned down the Trump administration’s offer of priority access for federal funding Friday, publicly releasing a letterthat emphasized the eliteuniversity’s values including free expression and “the core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”

Last week, the Trump administration offered nine universities a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” presented as an opportunity to receive competitive advantages from the federal government and from private donors for institutions that sign on. It was the latest attempt by the administration to force colleges into compliance with President Donald Trump’s ideological priorities, after months of federal research funding freezes and investigations into schools’ adherence to civil rights laws.

The administration asked the schools to, among other changes, agree toprohibit consideration of factors such as gender, race or political views in admissions, scholarships or programming; freeze tuition for five years; adopt a strict definition of gender; and maintain neutrality at all levels when representing the institution. In a letter to universities, administration officials asked for feedback to the compact by Oct. 20.

One higher education leader in Texas immediately said it was an honor to be among the first schools asked to participate, and a White House official said other colleges had asked to sign on.

But free speech advocates and some experts in higher educationwarned the sweeping terms of the document would threaten universities’ independence and urged universities to turn it down. They also saidthat rejecting it would bring considerable risk, as the compact appeared to threaten research funding and access to student loans. Visas for international students and scholars could be yanked from universities that sign the compact and do not comply. “Institutions of higher education are free to develop models and values other than those below,” the compact stated, “if the institution elects to [forgo] federal benefits.”

Sally Kornbluth, MIT’s president, wasthe first to publicly turn down the offer. She shared her letter to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Friday with the campus community. In it, she wrote that she appreciated the chance to meet with McMahon earlier this year “to discuss the priorities we share for American higher education.” MIT’s clear values put excellence above all and MIT prides itself on rewarding merit, she wrote.

Notice the number of women doing the hard work of standing up to Fear Leader?

Anyway, I have to go to the clinic and get a check-up before they yank my Medicare or do something else awful to it. I hope you have a peaceful weekend. Tomorrow is my Dad’s birthday and the anniversary of his death. I miss him dearly, although I am glad he doesn’t have to see all this. Please listen to Neil Young’s song. It’s spot on. I almost transported myself back to Junior High School with my first guitar. I’m warming this song and that guitar up for October 18th. It even has a Woodstock guitar strap.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Don’t need no fascist rules
Don’t want no fascist schools
Don’t want soldiers walking on our streets
Got big crime in DC at the White House
There’s big crime in DC at the White House
Got to get the fascists out
Got to clean the White House out
Don’t want no soldiers on our streets
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House
No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House
No more money to the fascists
The billionaire fascists
Time to blackout the system
(No) no more great again
No more great again
Time to blackout the system
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House
No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House
No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House
No more great again
No more great again

Mostly Monday Reads: State Terrorism Straight out of the West Wing

Posted: October 6, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: USA State Terrorism | Tags: Attacks on judges, Bad Bunny, ICE Law suits, Steven Miller demon, Trump State Terrorism | 4 Comments

“Rumor has it, caravans are amassing south of the border.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Steven Miller is the root of all evil these days. He’s the Rasputin behind the Golf Cart. He’s been ranting about “radical left” judges appointed by Democrats endlessly. You may remember that five years ago, Judge Esther Salas’ husband was wounded while her son was killed. You may read a PBS interview with the Judge about her loss and the experience from this interview, which was published in May. I would like to highlight one bit of information from this article before I continue to the latest attack on a Judge and her family over the weekend.

Mr. Trump and members of his administration have been openly critical of some judges, calling them radical, lunatics or lawless, and suggesting some should be impeached. A recent report from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism found — quote — “Violent threats and calls for impeachment against judges have risen by an alarming 327 percent between May of 2024 and March of 2025

This should alarm every democracy-loving citizen in the country. I would like to share some analysis and statistics about the increased violence against the Judiciary prior to sharing the latest acts of violence perpetrated against South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein over the weekend. Inciting violence against Judges is a policy feature written into the public discourse coming from Steven Miller and many others. It’s been even more difficult to wrap my head around the incitements to violence and terror by Trump appointees to the DOJ and Homeland Security.

This analysis is from today at The Nation. “Trump’s Minions Are Trying to Terrorize Judges Into Submission. Facing rebukes from the courts, Stephen Miller and Elon Musk are threatening the independence of the judiciary.” Jeet Heer provides the analysis and reporting.

Donald Trump’s second term has been marked by attacks on the Constitution so extreme that even judges Trump appointed in his first term are aghast. On Saturday, US District Judge Karin Immergut, nominated by Trump in 2019, blocked the president’s deployment of 200 National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon. Trump had claimed that Portland was “war-torn” and “under siege” by “Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” Judge Immergut brushed off Trump’s justification as “untethered to facts” and affirmed, “This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”

Responding to the ruling on Sunday, Trump justified the charge that he was “untethered to facts” by misgendering Judge Immergut. “I wasn’t served well by the people who pick judges,” Trump complained to reporters on Sunday. “If he made that decision, Portland is burning to the ground…. That judge ought to be ashamed of himself.”

More alarming were attacks on the judiciary made by two of Trump’s most important political associates, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and tech billionaire Elon Musk.

On Saturday, Miller posted on X (a social media site owned by Musk):

Legal insurrection. The President is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge. Portland and Oregon law enforcement, at the direction of local leaders, have refused to aid ICE officers facing relentless terrorist assault and threats to life…. This is an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers, and the deployment of troops is an absolute necessity to defend our personnel, our laws, our government, public order and the Republic itself.

A White House official describing a judicial decision as “insurrection” is no small matter. But Musk took things further by calling on Trump to emulate Nayib Bukele, the authoritarian president of El Salvador who has destroyed his country’s independent judiciary. The right-wing pundit Eric Daugherty then quoted Bukele’s attack on the judiciary and insisted, “We need to Bukele our court system. WATCH how quickly this country is fixed.” Musk boosted Daughtery’s tweet and wrote, “essential.” He responded to another tweet critical of Judge Immergut by simply saying “treason.”

Former Obama adviser Tommy Vietor provided some essential context for Musk’s tweet, noting that “Bukele forced out independent judges, packed the courts with loyalists, then declared a state of emergency that allowed him to arrest and indefinitely detain people without any due process. When we say these guys are advocating for fascist ideas, it’s because they literally are.”

These incendiary attacks on the judiciary don’t just reflect anger at Judge Immergut, or the many other federal judges who have been ruling against Trump’s policies on immigration and other matters. They are also setting the stage for the series of looming battles that Trump faces at the Supreme Court.

While lower-level federal judges have been a major check on Trump’s policies, the Supreme Court is a different ballgame. It has granted Trump extraordinary (though supposedly temporary) power in a series of emergency rulings that have almost always favored the president. The Washington Post, citing the research of Georgetown legal scholar Irving L. Gornstein, notes, “The Trump administration has been overwhelmingly successful in these provisional cases, prevailing in 18, losing two and receiving mixed rulings in two others.” But the newspaper also points out that in the new term starting Monday, the court and Trump both face a “reckoning” because these provisional decisions will have to give way to “full, final verdicts.”

The court’s pro-Trump tilt would seem to make the president’s normal bullying tactics unnecessary. But why take chances? Miller and Musk could be trying to keep the court completely in line by making clear the full wrath of MAGA if judgments are made against Trump’s wishes.

This threat might even be literal. New York Times columnist David French, a Never Trump conservative, argues that Miller’s rhetoric is “incredibly dangerous” and could incite violence against Judge Immergut or any other judge who provokes Trump’s wrath. This claim is plausible given the history of MAGA violence, including the January 7, 2021, attack on the Capitol. (On Saturday, the home of Diane Goodstein, a South Carolina state judge, was burned to the ground. While it’s too early to say whether Goodstein was deliberately targeted or what any potential suspect’s motivation might have been, Goodstein had reportedly been receiving death threats after issuing a ruling against the Trump administration in September.)

The most optimistic reading of Miller’s words is that they come from a place of fear. Miller knows his window to establish enduring authoritarianism in America is small, and he has to act frantically now. This interpretation of events is given credibility by an unlikely source, the far-right thinker Curtis Yarvin, a writer much admired by tech lord Peter Thiel and vice president JD Vance. In a hysteria-laden Substack post, Yarvin worried that the Trump revolution was “failing” and is on the verge of producing a fierce political backlash:

Because the vengeance meted out after its failure will dwarf the vengeance after 2020—because the successes of the second revolution are so much greater than the first—I feel that I personally have to start thinking realistically about how to flee the country. Everyone else in a similar position should have a 2029 plan as well. And it is not even clear that it will wait until 2029: losing the Congress will instantly put the administration on the defensive.

Yarvin has to be read with care. He is unmoored from reality and mostly not a useful guide to events. But he does have a following on the far right because he is an accurate gauge of their mood. Further, there are ample reasons for Yarvin’s pessimism. Polls show that immigration, once a strong issue for Trump, is now one where a majority of the population disapprove of his policies. The New York Times reports that 51 percent of Americans feel Trump has gone “too far” with immigration enforcement. In cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, the immigration crackdown has been met by fierce local protests. Coupled with the pushback from federal judges and the pending midterms, there is ample reason to think Miller’s war on immigrants is running out of time.

Dr. Paul Krugman had this to say in his SubStack today. “State Terror, American Style. Forget about “soft autocracy.”

Over the weekend I talked to a couple of people, people who generally try to keep abreast of the news, about the Chicago apartment raid last Tuesday — and discovered that they hadn’t heard about it. And that’s extremely worrying. It suggests that many people don’t realize how fast and aggressively the Trump administration is moving to end rule of law and convert America into a full-fledged autocracy.

So while I’d like to devote today’s post to economics — you have no idea how happy I felt while writing yesterday’s primer about agglomeration and productivity — I couldn’t in good conscience avoid writing about the terrible things happening in Chicago and elsewhere, and what they may portend.

About that raid: It was reported in mainstream media, but didn’t get the screaming banner headlines it deserved. Here’s what happened, according to Reuters:

U.S. Border Patrol agents deployed to Chicago led a late-night raid on an apartment building this week, rappelling from helicopters onto rooftops and breaking down doors in an operation authorities said targeted gang members but which swept up U.S. citizens and families.

…

As part of the raid, some U.S. citizens were temporarily detained and children pulled from their beds, according to interviews with residents and news reports. Building hallways were still littered with debris two days later.

…

Hundreds of agents swarmed the apartment building during the raid on Tuesday, including some rappelling down to the roof from Black Hawk helicopters, according to NewsNation.

…

One resident, who asked not to be named, reported being made to lie down on the ground by agents during the raid and having his hands zip-tied.

ICE claimed that the building was targeted because it was “known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua (a Venezuelan gang) members and their associates” — that is, although ICE carried out the raid, it was supposedly about crime. And they arrested two suspected gang members, while also rounding up some undocumented immigrants. But they detained everyone in the building, smashed their doors, zip-tied their children, and ransacked their homes.

This was a wildly disproportionate and illegal response, even if the raid had actually had anything to do with crime.

But none of what the Trump administration is doing in Chicago has anything to do with fighting crime. Chicago has more violent crime than, say, New York or Los Angeles, but the post-Covid bump in crime has completely receded. City officials report that this past summer had the fewest homicides in 60 years. If we’d seen this kind of decline in crime after the Trump administration began flooding Chicago with ICE agents, rather than before, they’d be touting these results as complete vindication.

But as I said, this isn’t about crime. It’s about paranoid conspiracy theories and an attempt to dismantle democracy.

So, that incitment from Miller was posted on Saturday. Then, this happened as reported by Time Magazine. “House of South Carolina Judge Criticized by Trump Administration Burns Down.” Miranda Jeyaretnam is the reporter on the beat.

Police are investigating the cause of a fire that burned down the home of South Carolina Circuit Court judge Diane Goodstein, who had reportedly received death threats for weeks related to her work.

State law enforcement is investigating the house fire on Edisto Beach, which began at around 11:30 a.m. E.T. on Saturday, sources told local news outlet FITSNews. Goodstein was reportedly not at home at the time of the fire, but at least three members of her family, including her husband, former Democratic state senator Arnold Goodstein, and their son, have been hospitalized with serious injuries.

According to the St. Paul’s Fire District, which responded to the scene, the occupants had to be rescued via kayak. Law enforcement has not disclosed whether the fire is being investigated as an arson attack.

“At this time, we do not know whether the fire was accidental or arson. Until that determination is made, [State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel] has alerted local law enforcement to provide extra patrols and security,” South Caroline Chief Justice John Kittredge told FITSNews, adding that the fire appeared to have been caused by an “explosion.”

The 69-year-old judge had received death threats in the weeks leading up to the fire, multiple sources told FITSNews. Last month, Goodstein had temporarily blocked the state’s election commission from releasing its voter files to the Department of Justice, a decision that was openly criticized by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon and later reversed by the state Supreme Court. The DOJ had sought the information, including names, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and social security numbers, of over three million registered voters as part of President Donald Trump’s March executive order restricting non-citizens from registering to vote. (Non-citizens are already not allowed to vote in federal and state elections.)

The Trump Administration has sought to drastically reshape the election system in the name of election integrity by requesting, and in some cases suing, states for voter registration data to compile a comprehensive centralized database. The administration has sought data from more than 30 states and has considered pursuing criminal investigations into state election officials. Critics have argued that the Administration’s efforts are an attempt at disenfranchising voters from marginalized communities and overstepping states’ constitutional authority to control election procedures.

If the fire at the judge’s house turns out to be targeted, it may mark the latest incident of a startling rise in political violence in the U.S. And while the Trump Administration has blamed the left’s rhetoric for inspiring violence such as the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, an attack on a judge would come as the Administration has increasingly vilified the judiciary, blasting judges that rule against it as “U.S.A-hating” insurrectionists.

An excellent analysis of the rise in political violence follows.

The AP reports that a “Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from sending National Guard troops to Oregon.”

A federal judge late Sunday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying any National Guard units to Oregon at all, after a legal whirlwind that began hours earlier when the president mobilized California troops for Portland after the same judge blocked him from using Oregon’s National Guard the day before.

During a hastily called evening telephone hearing, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut granted a temporary restraining order sought by California and Oregon.

Immergut, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term, seemed incredulous that the president moved to send National Guard troops to Oregon from neighboring California and then from Texas on Sunday, just hours after she had ruled the first time.

“How could bringing in federalized National Guard from California not be in direct contravention to the temporary restraining order I issued yesterday?” she questioned the federal government’s attorney, cutting him off.

“Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order?” she said later. “Why is this appropriate?”

The White House did not immediately comment on the judge’s decision.

Illionis and Chicago have also sued the State Terrorist in Chief over the deployments there.

Also reported by the AP this morning is this little nugget. “FBI cuts ties with Southern Poverty Law Center, Anti-Defamation League after conservative complaints.” Yup, that guy did it. The most incompetent FBI Director in the agency’s history. This is reported by Eric Tucker.

FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau is cutting ties with two organizations that for decades have tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias, a move that follows complaints about the groups from some conservatives and prominent allies of President Donald Trump.

Patel said Friday that the FBI would sever its relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center, asserting that the organization had been turned into a “partisan smear machine” and criticizing it for its use of a “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States. A statement earlier in the week from Patel said the FBI would end ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights antisemitism.

The announcements amount to a dramatic rethinking of longstanding FBI partnerships with prominent civil rights groups at a time when Patel is moving rapidly to reshape the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency. The organizations over the years have provided research on hate crime and domestic extremism, law enforcement training and other services but have also been criticized by some conservatives for what they say is an unfair maligning of their viewpoints.

At least we have it on their own authority that today’s ‘conservatives’ are anti-semitic and racist.

I’m going to finish with a few nuggets about SCOTUS have been released. These can be found at Memeorandum.

Lawrence Hurley / NBC News: Supreme Court rejects Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal of her criminal conviction — Maxwell was convicted for her role in recruiting and grooming girls who were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein.
Associated Press: The Supreme Court will evaluate Trump’s expansive claims of presidential power in its new term — The Supreme Court is beginning a new term with a sharp focus on President Donald Trump’s robust assertion of executive power. Pivotal cases on voting and the rights of LGBTQ people also are on the agenda.
Sam Levin / The Guardian: Christian group ‘deceived’ supreme court about LGBTQ+ research, cited scholars say — Exclusive: Experts say Alliance Defending Freedom, arguing to revive conversion therapy, ‘profoundly misrepresented’ their work in case threatening trans and queer youth — On Tuesday, a Christian legal group

One last thing that I absolutely cannot believe is a thing. First they came for the Comedians. Now, they’re after Latino performers. This is from MSNBC. “MAGA’s Bad Bunny Meltdown: DHS Secretary Noem vows to send ICE agents to Super Bowl.”

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem warned international visitors and immigrants against going to the 2026 Super Bowl as Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny is set to draw massive attention for his halftime performance. Deadline Hollywood Executive Editor Dominic Patten joins Alex Witt to discuss the backlash the National Football League is receiving from conservative spaces over its halftime show pick.

How could one, hot, sexy, Puerto Rican cause this much hate? I dunno but he had something to say about it on the SNL opener last night.

I cannot even begin to express how I feel about the daily horror of living in this country. There are at least some brave enough to take on the rash of State Terror Now, we need to vote and take to the streets.

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

Finally Friday Reads: Project 2025 Plan to Destroy America is Offical

Posted: October 3, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: #FARTUS, #MAGAnomics, #We are so Fucked, People Power, Russell Vought, U.S. Politics | Tags: @repeat1968, Destruction of Federal Agencies, government shutdown 2025m, John Buss, Lousiana's Cancer Alley, People Power, Project 25, Russ Vought, Steven Brodner | 6 Comments

“I’m pretty sure all the Military Brass are impressed that the Secretary of War had his own personal makeup room built in the Pentagon. John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Most of us knew that Project 2025 would be the basis of policy. Republicans have wanted an Imperial Presidency for some time. Republicans have elected at least 3 useful idiots as President with the goal of destroying American democracy in mind. It’s why we have a huge deficit, and spending has been concentrated on the rich who can pay-to-play to get massive tax cuts and huge government subsidies.

There are examples in every state they control. Here in Louisiana, the damage from oil extraction and affiliated chemical industries has created massive damage, and just at the precise time that the EPA has been fully filleted. Not only has nothing real been done to abate the chemical spill that happened earlier this summer after a poorly managed plant that exploded in Roseland, a primarily black community, but it has not been fully abated. The actions behind the removal of LSU’s premier Lake Maurapas researcher have become clearer. Today, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health released this important research. “Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Is More Deadly Than Previously Imagined. New research shows that the industrial pollution—and the risk to human health—on Louisiana’s Cancer Alley have been significantly underestimated.

On an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, communities exist alongside some 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical production plants. Since the 1980s, the area has been known as Cancer Alley.

These plants process about 25% of the U.S.’s petrochemical products, Peter DeCarlo, PhD, associate professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, said in the July 2 episode of Public Health On Call—with many of the byproducts and emissions winding up in nearby communities’ air, water, and soil.

Residents of these communities suffer the effects of extreme air pollution, including increased rates and risks of maternal, reproductive, and newborn health harms; respiratory illnesses; and cancer. One area has the highest risk of cancer from industrial air pollution in the U.S.—more than seven times the national average.

But new research from DeCarlo, Keeve Nachman, PhD ’06, MHS ’01, professor in Environmental Health and Engineering, and their teams shows that the pollution—and the risk to human health—has been significantly underestimated.

In this Q&A, adapted from that podcast episode, DeCarlo and Nachman discuss their work measuring levels of pollutants in Louisiana and explain what these conclusions mean for how the U.S. should regulate carcinogens.

We may be drowning in toxic chemicals, but other states and cities are experiencing ICE Raids that resemble SS maneuvers. Additionally, we have new threats. Since the reality on the ground has embarrassed the Trump plan to send the military to “wartorn” Portland to defuse his imagined war on the ground, he’s come up with an alternative plan. This is from ABC News. “Leavitt says Trump exploring cutting aid to Portland.”White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump is exploring plans to cut federal funding to Portland due to what she said was a rise in “Antifa” related incidents.”

“We will not fund states that allow anarchy,” she told reporters.

Antifa is not a group, but rather a political philosophy or movement. The term comes from the longer “anti-fascist” and is used as a catchall for groups that oppose the concept of authoritarianism, neo-Nazism and white supremacy.

If you want to sum it up, try this hypothesis for size. Republicans are willing to let all of us starve and die as long as they can get paid for enabling modern-day Robber Barons.

About six months into this reign of terror, murder, and destruction, I’m still not certain the legacy media is getting the bigger picture. However, yesterday, an announcement by Trump made them perk their ears once more. Will it be enough? This is from the AP. “Trump no longer distancing himself from Project 2025 as he uses the shutdown to further pursue its goals.”

President Donald Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

You may recall that the implication of this document was central to the Democratic Party campaign. Kamala Harris made it a focal point of the convention and other speeches.

Top Trump campaign leaders spent much of 2024 livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing a book full of unpopular proposals that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

While many of the policies outlined in its 900-plus pages aligned closely with the agenda that Trump was proposing — particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies — others called for action Trump had never discussed, like banning pornography, or Trump’s team was actively trying to avoid, like withdrawing approval for abortion medication.

Trump repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the group or who was behind it, despite his close ties with many of its authors. They included John McEntee, his former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump insisted in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s campaign chiefs were equally critical.

“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in a campaign memo. They added, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

Trump has since gone on to stock his second administration with its authors, including Vought, “border czar” Tom Homan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission and now chairs the panel.

Heritage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Dans, the project’s former director, said it’s been “exciting” to see so much of what was laid out in the book put into action.

“It’s gratifying. We’re very proud of the work that was done for this express purpose: to have a doer like President Trump ready to roll on Day One,” said Dans, who is currently running for Senate against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

It was frequently averred that Stephen Miller was central to all plans for the project’s implementation. Only a few public intellectuals continued to warn of the plan and steps taken, while Yam Tit still shrugged off any implication that he was following the plan’s blueprint during the first six months. Well, that curtain has dropped.

AXIOS sums this evolution up neatly. “Trump charts path to total control amid government shutdown.’ This is reported by Zachary Basu.

President Trump is seizing on the government shutdown as an “unprecedented opportunity” to consolidate control in the Oval Office, accelerating a trend toward unchecked power.

Why it matters: Many Democrats see the shutdown as a necessary evil to halt — or at least slow — Trump’s steamrolling of democratic norms and independent institutions. So far, the standoff is only emboldening the White House.

Zoom in: Trump said he met Thursday with White House budget chief Russ Vought to discuss what “Democrat agencies” should get cuts, casting the shutdown as a chance to shrink a federal workforce Trump has long viewed as hostile.

Goading Democrats, Trump flaunted Vought’s role in Project 2025 (“he of PROJECT 2025 Fame”) — the hard-right blueprint for expanding executive power that Trump disavowed on the campaign trail after it became a political liability.
For Vought, the shutdown offers a unique opening: a live test of theories he has spent years refining on how to weaken Congress, purge the bureaucracy and concentrate power in the presidency.

Already, Vought has announced the termination of nearly $8 billion in funding for clean-energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and have Democratic senators.

He also has frozen $18 billion in New York City infrastructure projects, a thinly veiled shot at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Legal challenges are inevitable: Congress controls the power of the purse, and federal officials privately have warned that Vought’s plans for mass firings during the shutdown may violate appropriations law.

The big picture: As Axios has documented, the shutdown is only one front in Trump’s broader campaign of consolidation.

Military: In an unprecedented partisan address this week, Trump told more than 800 generals and admirals to prepare for a “war” against domestic “enemies,” urging them to treat America’s cities as “training grounds.”
Academia: The administration is asking universities to sign a 10-point “compact” that would grant preferential access to federal funding if schools agree to freeze tuition, protect conservative speech, apply strict definitions of gender, limit international students and other Trump priorities.
Rule of law: Days after Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to charge his political enemies, the Justice Department indicted former FBI director James Comey. Other Trump foes, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), are under investigation.
Civil society: FBI director Kash Patel severed ties with the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday, accusing the Jewish civil rights group of “functioning like a terrorist organization” after MAGA activists discovered that Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA was listed in its now-removed “Glossary of Extremism and Hate.” Trump also has urged the Justice Department to investigate Democratic megadonor George Soros’ Open Society Foundations as part of a crackdown on liberal groups following Kirk’s assassination.
Corporate America: Trump demanded last week that Microsoft fire its head of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, because she served in the Biden administration — a reminder that even corporate giants aren’t immune from political retaliation. Trump had previously called on Intel’s CEO to resign over alleged ties to China, but backed off after the U.S. government took a 10% equity stake in the chip-maker.

Mostly Monday Reads: Mass Shooting Mania

Posted: September 29, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: mass shootings, Power to the people | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social, @repeat1968. John Buss, GLBT News, immigration horror stories, mass shootings, Trump's Troops in US Cities | 11 Comments

“Eagle eye Kash solves another one!” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

My kids were Quarter Rats. We lived in the lower quarter for five years before settling about a mile downriver in a small, single, pre-Civil War house near the Mississippi. Prior to COVID-19, I still gigged there consistently. My last gig was on Bourbon Street, accompanying and DJing for two talented Drag Queens doing Drag Queen Cabaret. It ended in a very Bourbon Street way.

The club finally got to return to its strip club days when its permit got approved, and like me, all good things move downriver where the local talent can shine, and up until Airbnb forced tourists on us, we could just be New Orleans. I keep meaning to go back to the one activity that truly relaxes me, but like most of my neighbors, I fear the people who come from other cities that scream and yell biblical obscenities at my GLBTQ friends whenever they dare to have a public celebration. We’ve had all the local versions of piety performing bible bangers and right-wing white boy droogies. We’ve been safe from them to date, but we know it’s just a matter of time before they show up anywhere they’re not wanted.

Since then, I admit, I rarely head to the Quarter, let alone Bourbon Street. I’m generally only in the vicinity when the small, early Holiday parades fire up. This year, there have been two violent events on Bourbon Street, which were–as usual–a combination of plenty of alcohol and rage. Our law enforcement officials have begged the state, to no end, to set up a gun-free zone there. The Louisiana outback, with its constant gun violence, never puts the state on the map quite like an attack on Bourbon Street. The state determined the best defense was just a bunch of ugly,out-of-place barricades that did no good at all on Saturday night. No city has a fighting chance unless their states have sensible gun laws.

Over the weekend, Bourbon Street was one of three American locations that suffered a mass shooting. The first to hit the headlines created a war zone at a Latter-day Saints Church. I grew up with a Latter-day Saints Temple–the winter stakes one–on the same block as my home. My mother was over there doing so much work on the family genealogy that they even called her Sister Whittaker. I’m quite familiar with the religion and people. I could hardly stop my imagination from jumping from the Temple that is now burnt to the ground in Michigan, to the one sitting next to my cul-de-sac in Omaha.

For some reason, attacking a religious building appears to get more media hand-wringing than attacking a school of children or a mall full of tourists and service workers. This attack was huge, but had all the footprints of the uniquely American tragedy of a white guy, mad at the world, finding a way to commit suicide while bringing a lot of innocents with him. I’m waiting for the lies about this guy to start like a volcanic eruption from President Evil and his incompetent loyalists. You really have to be dumb to try to see this for what it was and what it was not.

This first read is from The New Republic. “Mormon Church Gunman Had Trump Sign Outside His Home. Thomas Jacob Sanford drove his car into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan, and opened fire.” Again, let’s see them spin this one.

Thomas Jacob Sanford, the 40-year-old Iraq War veteran identified as the suspect in a fatal Sunday attack on a Mormon church in Grand Blanc, Michigan, seemed to own Donald Trump memorabilia, with a campaign sign on display outside his house.

His reported home on East Atherton Road in Burton, Michigan, according to public records, is located less than 20 minutes by car from the church into which he ran his truck, before opening fire—killing at least four people—and setting the building ablaze.

As of June 2025, the house had a Trump campaign sign posted on its fence, per a Google Maps image. A picture posted to Facebook in September 2019, of Sanford with his wife and son, shows him wearing a camo shirt that reads “Re-elect Trump 2020,” and “Make liberals cry again.”

Mark Grebner, a Michigan Democratic consultant and data expert, told local outlet Bridge Michigan that Sanford signed two petitions a few years ago, both of which seemingly aligned with right-wing causes: one for Unlock Michigan, against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic restrictions, and an anti-abortion petition by Right to Life Michigan.

Local authorities and the FBI have not yet identified a motive for the attack.

Undoubtedly, everyone is waiting for the Director to pull something stupid out of his ass that will please Yam Tits and no one else.

Oh, right, I’m not being politically correct here. Now’s the time for useless thoughts and prayers, and not looking to solve this uniquely American and preventable tragedy. Sensible Gun Laws are cancel culture. Sending Troops to terrorize immigrants and protestors exercising their First Amendment rights is some kind of take back of America. I’ve purposefully kept the TV news off because frankly, I’m tired of the ritual dance they perform that includes the ‘Both Sides Do it’ Shuffle’ and the ‘What can be done about this?’ Mambo. Definitely don’t mention that the Secretary of War and FARTUS want cities to look like war zones. It’s part of the Macho, Macho, Man disco punch shuffle we get to view daily when FARTUS is trying to look all Village People.

This is from the Chicago Sun-Times. “Feds march into downtown Chicago; top border agent says people are arrested based on ‘how they look’. U.S. Border Patrol agents wearing tactical gear and carrying long guns made arrests in downtown Chicago and the River North neighborhood Sunday. “This is not making anybody safer — it’s a show of intimidation,” Gov. JB Pritzker said.”

Dozens of federal agents took individuals into custody during a winding patrol Sunday through downtown Chicago, and a top U.S. Border Patrol official told WBEZ the agents were arresting people based on “how they look.”

The agents, clad in military-style fatigues, roamed past some of Chicago’s most well-known landmarks on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. The highly visible show of force came just three days after Border Patrol boats carrying armed officers appeared on the Chicago River.

Gregory Bovino, commander at large of the border force, contrasted the people being arrested with a white WBEZ reporter, saying agents consider a person’s appearance before taking them into custody.

“You know, there’s many different factors that go into something like that,” Bovino said. “It would be agent experience, intelligence that indicates there’s illegal aliens in a particular place or location.

“Then, obviously, the particular characteristics of an individual, how they look. How do they look compared to, say, you?” he said to the reporter, a tall, middle-aged man of Anglo descent.

Bovino, who brought his “Operation At Large” deportation campaign from California to Illinois this month, made the comments about three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court said federal agents could continue stopping people based on factors including race and language during the campaign in California. The court’s majority did not explain itself.

Chicago has been on edge ever since President Donald Trump floated the idea of sending National Guard troops into the city in August. Though he never followed through, Sunday’s immigration patrols may have given him the photo opportunity he’s been looking for.

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker responded on social media by noting the officers appeared “to be carrying large weapons around downtown Chicago in camouflage and masks.

“This is not making anybody safer — it’s a show of intimidation, instilling fear in our communities and hurting our businesses,” Pritzker said.

Immigration agents were patrolling several other neighborhoods, Bovino added.

“Chicago’s got a lot of murders,” Bovino said. “We’re going to make the city a safer place.”

The city’s murder numbers have been falling fast in recent years, and studies show the vast majority are committed by U.S. citizens. Violent crime overall is down too.

Bovino said the deportation blitz also extends beyond Chicago’s borders: “It could be Cicero. It could be South Chicago. It could be anywhere in Illinois.”

As the immigration patrol continued through River North, people on a double-decker tour bus craned their necks to get a look at the commotion.

At one point, agents ran after a bicyclist who’d yelled at them. He got away.

I can tell you that it is the most intimidating, awful experience from all my friends in the service industry who had to deal with that situation in the French Quarter during the Super Bowl. It is fucking scary and intimidating. That was only a week or so compared to what L.A. went through.

I heard this directly from my grocery shopper this week. He’s a young black man with this for a side gig. He told me the same thing I would’ve told him as I left him with the old TV, saying, “Be Safe Out there.” He told me his idea of fun these days is staying at home.

Other than trips to the doctor, I pretty much stay within the confines of a few blocks in my neighborhood. I’m lucky I have all the friends and music venues, and a library within those confines. I’m just peachy. Meanwhile, I’m exercising like a marine. The saying on the avenue is that they will be coming for us. As a professor, that’s what I hear from colleagues, too. It’s also why I’ve been happily teaching online and off-campus for two years. We had a shooter at the Lake Front campus in the Library not that long ago, and I’m glad to share office space with two cats and a dog.

I will be testing the waters on October 18th, but luckily, the 9th ward is hosting the second “No Presidents’ protest and I’ll be blocks from home.

So, with cash incentives and the ‘do whatever’ set of orders, this headline from the New York Times is not surprising. (Shared link.) “‘I’m From Here!’: U.S. Citizens Are Ending Up in Trump’s Dragnet. As immigration agents take a more aggressive approach, they have stopped and in some cases detained American citizens.” How long before the arrest orders include other identifiers, like looking too much like a professor, a potential protester, or someone who is part of or supports the GLBTQ community?

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

While many of those detained have immediately declared their U.S. citizenship to officers, they have routinely been ignored, according to interviews with the men, their lawyers and court documents. In some cases they have been handcuffed, kept in holding cells and immigration facilities overnight, and in at least two cases held without access to a lawyer or even a phone call.

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

A review by The New York Times of publicly reported cases and court records found that since January, at least 15 U.S. citizens have been arrested or detained and questioned about their citizenship by immigration agents or local law enforcement officers enlisted to work with the federal authorities.

In late January, Julio Noriega, 54, of Chicago, had been handing out copies of his résumé to local businesses in Berwyn, Ill., when ICE officers approached him as he walked out of a Jiffy Lube auto service shop.

They handcuffed him and loaded him into a van, without allowing him to explain he was a citizen, according to a motion filed in the Federal District Court for Northern Illinois. He was released about 10 hours later, the court filing states.

School budgets and government programs are already being targeted by right-wing machinations in Yam Tit’s administration. We may have a government shutdown just because a few specific religious folks can’t take anyone not being exactly like them

Trump threatens to shut down US government unless Democrats agree to ban all trans health carehttps://www.thepinknews.com/2025/09/29/trans-care-ban-government-shutdown/?utm_content=1759153201&utm_medium=social&utm_source=bluesky

— PinkNews (@pinknews.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:40:02.77694129Z

From the link embedded above from Pink News. “Trump threatens to shut down US government unless Democrats agree to ban all trans health care. Proposed legislation behind the impending US government shutdown contains provisions that would ban federal funding for transgender adults, as well as youngsters.” This is reported by Amelian Hansford.

The bill has kept congress at a stand-still over the past few days after Democrats refused to provide the necessary votes for it to go through. Unless agreement is reached by 12.01am (Eastern) on Wednesday (1 October), sections of the government will be unable to function.

Donald Trump initially refused to meet with Democrats to avoid the shutdown, accusing minority leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer of making “unserious and ridiculous demands”. The Republicans control both the senate and house of representatives.

If passed, the law would prohibit trans surgeries, strip [health insurance] Medicaid coverage from transgender people and ban Pride flags from public buildings, such as schools and universities.

While Trump has since agreed to meet with Democrats, trans men and women have urged them not to bow to any pressure from the president.

One person on Reddit, whose post has gone viral, called on members of the public to “contact your senators and house reps asap”, urging them to protect “the rights and dignity of LGBTQ+ Americans”.

They went on to say: “These are not budgetary measures, they are ideological attacks [that] would erase protections, endanger lives and weaponise federal funding to coerce institutions into abandoning care. For many, access to HRT and affirming care is not optional, it’s life-saving.

“Democrats have the power to stop all this happening if they hold the line in the senate.”

This news via The Guardian is probably the most prescient window into the dark hearts of the Republicans sitting on the SCOTUS bench. Read it and weep. “Clarence Thomas says precedent might not determine cases on upcoming supreme court docket. The court is expected to weigh in next session on same-sex marriage, which it legalized in 2015.” Women’s rights were the first to be destroyed. Now, we’re moving on to the Old Testament version of GLBTQ rights.

Settled legal precedent in the US is not “gospel” and in some instances may have been “something somebody dreamt up and others went along with”, the US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has said.

Thomas – part of the conservative supermajority that has taken hold of the Supreme Court over Donald Trump’s two presidencies – delivered those comments Thursday at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law in Washington, DC, ABC News and other outlets reported. His remarks preceded the nine-month term that the Supreme Court is scheduled to begin on 6 October.

“I don’t think that … any of these cases that have been decided are the gospel,” Thomas said during the rare public appearance, invoking a term which in a religious context is often used to refer to the word of God. “And I do give perspective to the precedent. But … the precedent should be respectful of our legal tradition, and our country and our laws, and be based on something – not just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with.”

Among the various cases Thomas and his colleagues are expected to weigh in on is a request to overturn the 2015 Obergefell supreme court decision that legalized marriage for same-sex couples nationwide. Other cases being mulled by the Supreme Court for its 2025-2026 term involve tariffs, trans rights, campaign finance law, religious rights, and capital punishment.

Thomas was in the 5-4 minority that voted against the Obergefell decision.

Trump’s first presidency yielded him three supreme court picks that gave the panel a conservative supermajority which has frequently ruled in his favor after he returned to the White House in January.

In June 2022, as Joe Biden’s presidency interrupted Trump’s terms, that conservative supermajority also struck down the federal abortion rights which had been established decades earlier by the Roe v Wade supreme court precedent. Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in which he urged the court to “reconsider all … substantive due process precedents”, including in Obergefell as well as cases involving rights to contraception and same-sex intimacy.

Thomas reportedly told those listening to him at the Catholic University that he feels no obligation to hew to precedent “if I find it doesn’t make any sense”.

“I think we should demand that, no matter what the case is, that it has more than just a simple theoretical basis,” Thomas said. If it’s “totally stupid, and that’s what they’ve decided, you don’t go along with it just because it’s decided”.

Down here, we have Social Aid and Pleasure clubs, which originally sprang up to ensure folks could get a good send-off with a second line when they exited the earthly door. It’s morphed into a lot more than that now. It’s basically a tribe of neighbors looking out for each other. You may want to consider setting up some networks like this, as food and services for the elderly and children disappear. You may need it for more than that later.

I don’t think I need to remind you of German history and what happened when NAZIs went door to door. Oregon is now suing the Trump administration to keep troops out of Portland. This is from Politico. “Oregon sues to block Trump from deploying state’s National Guard in Portland. ”Local law enforcement has this under control,” the governor said.” Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney share the headline.

Oregon and its largest city, Portland, are suing to block President Donald Trump from deploying the state’s National Guard, calling it an unconstitutional abuse of power.

“Far from promoting public safety, Defendants’ provocative and arbitrary actions threaten to undermine public safety by inciting a public outcry,” the state and city contend in the lawsuit filed Sunday in federal court in Portland.

“I think this is a sad day for our country, a sad day for Oregon that the president of the United States does not listen to local leaders about what they need,” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, told reporters during a videoconference shortly after the suit was filed.

“When the president and I spoke yesterday, I told him in very plain language there is no insurrection or threat to public safety that necessitates military intervention in Portland or any other city in our state,” Kotek said. “Putting our own military on our streets is an abuse of power … Local law enforcement has this under control.”

“It’s actually un-American, if you think about it, to use the military against our own citizens but that’s exactly what’s happening right now, across our country,” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, told the press conference. He said his office plans to file within the next day for a temporary restraining order against the deployment.

The lawsuit follows Trump’s announcement on social media Saturday that he was ordering the Defense Department to send troops to Portland to use “full force, if necessary,” to combat protests that he said were interfering with immigration enforcement. Trump described the decision as the result of a request from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Oregon officials say the Pentagon followed through on Trump’s order on Sunday morning, calling up 200 members of the state’s 6,500-member National Guard contingent. State officials say even the relatively small call-up could damage the state’s ability to respond to emergencies.

Lawyers for the state say protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been small and relatively subdued, routinely featuring fewer than 30 people, and that there have been no arrests related to those protests from June until earlier this week.

One last read via PBUMP.Net. “How Trumpworld inflates the perceived danger of the left.”

It is stipulated at the outset that there have been gruesome acts of political violence in recent months that appear to have been motivated by hostility to right-wing politics or the administration. This is not really contestable and rarely seriously contested. There is, in fact, violence on the political left.

It is also the case, though, that right-wing political violence has been much more common in recent years. This is not a useful bit of information to the Trump administration, which actively seeks to ignore or bury it. It, like Trump himself, is committed to presenting political violence as centrally if not entirely a function of the left — obviously in part because doing so provides a rationalization for the administration to crack down on the president’s political opponents. Trump’s been champing at the bit to deploy the military against protesters, a desire so obvious that questions about his doing so were part of Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearings to serve as Defense Secretary.

Over the weekend, Trump announced on social media that he would be directing the (since-confirmed) Hegseth to “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” He further “authoriz[ed] Full Force, if necessary” — apparently giving the military a green light to shoot at the purported “terrorists”.

Why Portland? Well, that’s an interesting story that reflects one of the central ways that Trump and his allies convince the right that there’s an imminent threat — a tactic so convincing that it apparently convinced Trump, too.

The next section is my favorite.

In mid-June 2020, I noticed something weird about Fox News’s coverage of the racial-justice protests that had emerged in response to the killing of George Floyd: they were often accompanied by footage of violence or vandalism that had actually occurred more than a week prior. Tucker Carlson (then still a Fox host), Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham were incorporating footage into their shows that had been recorded in late May. The reason for doing so wasn’t subtle; they (and Trump, who was president) hoped to suggest that a firm hand was needed to keep the lunatic left under control.

It didn’t work. But what I couldn’t have anticipated then was that Fox would still be using that footage five years later.

Trump eventually backtracked on his threat to send troops to Portland. In an interview with NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor, he described a conversation he’d had with Oregon’s governor.

“I said, ‘Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? My people tell me different,’ ” Trump said of the conversation. “They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place…it looks like terrible.”

Well, yes, Man Who Has Access to the Breadth of Federal Intelligence Gathering. What you saw on TV was in fact not what was happening at the moment in Portland.

So what had Trump seen? Given his tendency to stay tuned to Fox News we can make some educated guesses.

Trump made his pledge to send troops to Portland on Saturday morning. On Friday, Fox News had several segments in which purported violence in the city was shown.

One featured Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security official who often appears on cable shows. As she was discussing an executive order Trump signed, the channel showed b-roll of events in Portland.

You will notice, though, that the footage was not timestamped for any date in September. Instead, they showed an encounter apparently involving tear gas that occurred back in June … and footage from protests in July 2020.

In the next hour, they ran the same playbook. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was on, talking about how dangerous the left was next to footage of Portland violence from July 2020.

You’re POTUS, you have thousands of intelligence reports and agencies at your beck and call, so who are you gonna call? Forget calling, just watch whatever crap Fox News or some other right-wing propaganda channel, and there you go! So this is obviously Philip Bump’s personal site, and it’s also quite the long-form read. Take some time and read the rest. Buckle up! Find your safe word! Collaborate with like-minded neighbors! You may need each other soon! More specifically, be safe out there!

What’s on your Reading, Action, and Blogging list today?

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