“This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Bryan Boughton, the Fox News Washington bureau chief and chair of the TV pool, wrote in a memo to the White House press corps that was obtained by The Post. “ … There will be no replacement pool put in place. All other pool coverage will continue as normal, including Congress, VIPs, and selected events in Washington and around the country.”

In a joint statement Monday, the five members of the rotating TV pool wrote: “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

The three further allege that the White House’s decision Friday to revoke their credentials was “because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

I’ve basically quit TV News because I can’t stand to see any animated and speaking version of this icky slob of a hooman. Print media only for me. Trump-fee TV. That ought of cause the use of anxiety and and anti-depressants to plummet!  Here’s the New York Times coverage as reported by Michael M. Grynbaum and Ali Watkins. ”  Nobody shoots himself in the foot like Dementia Don.

Major television networks on Monday agreed to suspend their pooled coverage of President Trump after the White House refused to allow CNN to serve as a pool representative on Monday.

The move is an extraordinary escalation of an unfolding showdown between the Trump administration and the White House press corps, which began last week when the president barred journalists at CNN, MS NOW and Politico from entering the White House grounds. Those three outlets said on Monday they would sue to regain access.

Despite Mr. Trump’s years of lawsuits and threats against the news media, archrival news organizations have rarely undertaken this kind of collective action.

Five networks — ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC — have long shared the responsibility of providing television coverage of presidential events, splitting the financial costs and distributing footage that is carried by news organizations worldwide. The networks perform their duties on a rotation, and CNN had been slated to provide coverage for Mr. Trump’s travel on Monday to the United Nations General Assembly.

It is extremely unusual for a president to travel or hold public events without being accompanied by representatives from the television pool. The president’s activities on Monday are still expected to be covered by print, radio and wire journalists, along with still photographers.

“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Bryan Boughton, the Washington bureau chief at Fox News, wrote in a note to television pool members on Monday, which was obtained by The New York Times. (Mr. Boughton is the acting chair of the television pool consortium; the networks rotate the chairmanship on a quarterly basis.)

“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties,” Mr. Boughton wrote. “There will be no replacement pool put in place. All other pool coverage will continue as normal.”

“We will provide updates as this situation develops,” he added.

The five networks later issued a joint statement, writing: “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

Thanks for this and the featured song today JJ!

Trump continues to make a mockery of both foreign and national policy. This headline from the AP shows exactly how dumb he thinks we all are.  “Trump decries Democrats as ‘communists,’ even as he looks to impress China’s communist leader.”

Communism, President Donald Trump says, is the greatest threat the U.S. has ever faced.

This summer, citing similarly grave concerns, he took the rare step of delivering a primetime address to the nation, accusing China of “sinister election meddling” in 2020 and reviving his yearslong push to dispute his loss in that year’s election.

Even as Trump seeks to decry Democrats as communists ahead of November’s midterm elections, he is rolling out the red carpet this week for Chinese President Xi Jinping, the leader of the world’s most powerful communist country.

The state visit comes as the president himself has increasingly directed his administration to take large stakes in private companies to try to stimulate the economy — something even some Republicans decry as corporate socialism.

The contradictions between Trump’s words and actions risk muddying Republican attack lines on Democrats.

“I do think that we’re not offering a clear contrast,” said Marc Short, who was chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence and worked in Trump’s White House in his first term.

During the recent Republican midterm convention in Dallas, the president repeatedly branded Democrats as communists, even proclaiming, “It’s going to be a communist country if they win.”

“In state after state, the Democrat establishment has been overthrown and replaced by crazed lunatics and radicals,” he said, adding, “America has beaten communism before, and we will beat it again.”

Meanwhile, this happened.  This is from the Washington Post again.  “U.S. proposes AI incident alert system in talks with China. U.S. and Chinese officials plan to discuss “more transparency” on artificial intelligence at a summit in Washington this week.”

M’okay!  Explain this to me then. “White House Plan to Subsidize Stay-at-Home Parents Divides Conservatives. Some praise the idea championed by Vice President JD Vance to direct federal money to support traditional families, while others say it cuts against conservative principles.”  So, what’s the difference between this and the welfare mothers that Reagan used to belittle continually. Could it be racist stereotypes?   Coral Davenport has the lede.This is from the New York Times.  And, yes, in all the years this blog has been running I’m not sure why all of the sudden I’m relying on the big guys. Could it be the search engines maybe?

Republicans are sharply divided over a new plan being drafted by the Trump administration that would allow stay-at-home spouses to collect child care subsidy payments from a federal program intended to assist working parents.

Some commentators and lawmakers called the policy, which could help realize a vision of stay-at-home motherhood championed by Vice President JD Vance, a “grand slam,” “no-brainer” and “President Trump’s greatest legacy.”

Others eviscerated it as “socialism,” “rank politics” and “stupid.”

The split reaction reflects one of the emerging fractures in Mr. Trump’s MAGA coalition. Traditional Republicans, religious conservatives and America First populists have jostled for influence with the pronatalist movement, which aims for women to have more children and stay home to raise them, and supporters of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement.

And the role of the federal government in shaping family policy has proved to be a key flashpoint.

When news of the plan broke over Labor Day weekend, Rachel Campos-Duffy, the co-host of “Fox & Friends,” declared on air, “I think this might be my favorite policy, like, ever, that Trump has brought.”

Ms. Campos-Duffy, the wife of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and a mother of nine, is a prominent voice in the pronatalist movement. She and others in the movement said the proposed subsidy would be the administration’s largest step toward achieving pronatalists’ goals.

Conservative podcasts, broadcasts and social media buzzed with excitement. A coterie of conservative lawmakers, some of whom have tried but failed to push through legislation to pay stay-at-home parents, including Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, cheered their support.

But many on the right, even those who embrace Mr. Vance’s promotion of traditional families, said that handing out government money to parents so they could stay at home would go against core conservative tenets. They also maintained that the proposal contradicted the administration’s efforts to require Americans to work to get other forms of federal support.

Personally, I don’t understand–and here I go being an economist again–how most family’s will be able to simply make mom stay how and meet the bills with a measly tax break or some such nonsense.  Do all of them ignore the inflation index and the price of groceries, utilities and gas out there?  Also, with interest rates going up, many folks will find buying homes difficult.

So, right now I just can’t make sense of all these contradictory unsensible things that are supposed to make us all suddenly forget the reality of living in Trumplandia.

And back to the Chinese for one more thing.  I’m jumping to an Aussie new source because all the American press is doing today seems a bit pantomime to me. I have to wait to see how long they stick to their guns, frankly. But, this is ABC still, so you decide.  So I got these two contradictory new sources via Mueller She Wrote.

It still feels like Foxs news is still on the the side of our lying POTUS.

Is China helping Iran kill US soldiers? Is Trump having one of his man crushes on Xi?  WTF is going on here? Can we get some real news coverage on this please?  Also,what happened to Xi Jinping? Any one read anything on that little incident of his?  Oh wait, there’s some news from the Thai press. Notice a trend here? “China confirms Xi’s US visit after unverified health rumours.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping will make a state visit to the United States from September 23 to 25, 2026, for talks with President Donald Trump, China’s Foreign Ministry announced on September 21. The ministry said Xi would travel at Trump’s invitation.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Xi and Trump would hold in-depth discussions on major issues concerning China–US relations, world peace and development during the three-day visit.

China’s announcement came days after unverified claims circulated on social media that Xi had suffered a stroke. The allegation, circulated on X by Wanjun Xie, was not supported by independently verifiable medical evidence, hospital statements or official documentation.

Chinese authorities had not publicly commented on the rumours, Indonesian news outlet Sindonews reported on September 18. China’s September 21 visit announcement specified the travel dates and Trump’s invitation but contained no statement about Xi’s health.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs separately warned on September 17 against social-media posts claiming that several leaders had fallen ill after attending the New Delhi summit. The ministry described the posts as malicious, although its warning did not specifically name Xi, according to ABP Live.

Okay, I’m off to play some game about living on a beautiful island that seems to lack nation status.  Just what I need util Student Time tonight.

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