Posted: December 27, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: 1%, 2, 3, 4, 5, Donald Trump, Kennedy Center, marble armrests, Ron Filipkowski, Russia, strikes on Nigeria, Top 25 Trump administration villains, Trump class battleships, U.S. Economy, Ukraine |
Good Afternoon!!
By Hiroki Takeda
I’m having some serious eye problems that I’m being treated for. I can’t see that well on the computer, but I’m going to do my best to post a few stories along with some lovely watercolor cat art.
Yesterday, Ron Filipkowski of Meidas+ posted a list of his choices for the 25 worst villains of the Trump administration. It drew quite a bit of attention on social media. Here are the top 5:
#5. TODD BLANCHE. Most of the worst abuses in multiple areas by DOJ are orchestrated by Blanche. While Bondi and Patel have gotten most of the public blame and scrutiny, Blanche is the architect of it all. Blanche was Trump’s criminal defense lawyer before he became president, and has acted as his criminal defense lawyer while running DOJ. He met privately with Ghislaine Maxwell in prison, then had her moved to a minimum security Club Fed. He has repeated lies about the contents of the Epstein files and is the point person for covering them up with delays and redactions. He ended investigations and dropped charges against some of America’s worst criminals for political reasons. While Bondi and Patel are bad, Blanche is even worse.
#4. RUSS VOUGHT. The man who orchestrated the comprehensive right-wing policy blueprint for this admin called ‘Project 2025’, this zealot keeps a lower profile than others – preferring tangible results with ruthless efficiency behind the scenes as OMB Director. Vought is the brains behind Stephen Miller’s evil bombast, organizing the policy agenda that controls the administration. During the 4 years Trump was out of office, Vought organized and drafted 350 different executive orders and regulations to implement if Trump got a second term – most of the ones he issued came from Vought – including the plan to invoke emergency powers and national security to justify bypassing Congress in a variety of areas. In fact, most of the agenda Vought devised was specifically intended to find ways an authoritarian-minded president could implements things while ignoring Congress, or reversing legislative acts by executive order.
#3. PETE HEGSETH. Chaos ensuedalmost immediately after the drunken fool former Fox host took over an office that he was unfit and unqualified for. He divulged war plans and classified info in a Signal chat which included a reporter, but then tried to cover himself by claiming he declassified it. He fired his own senior advisors because of his paranoia over press leaks, then ousted the Pentagon press corps with onerous rules that abused their first amendment rights. He gleefully released videos of nearly 100 people on boats he has murdered, without providing any evidence of their guilt or due process. He alienated allies with an insane speech in Europe that resulted in the admin sidelining him from giving any more. He ousted seasoned career officers and made it clear he has no use for women serving in the military in any role other than support positions, or for rules of engagement designed to minimize collateral damage and civilian casualties. He summoned hundred of Generals and Admirals from their commands around the world to DC so he could give them a deranged speech they found utterly ridiculous and juvenile. He constantly gives partisan political speeches to active-duty troops in violation of laws and regulations, which he mixes with a healthy dose of christian nationalism. It is hard to imagine how Trump could have found a worse person for one of the most important jobs on the planet.
Cat’s Promenade Yuliya Podlinnova
#2. HOWARD LUTNICK. The architect of so many corrupt, shady and misguided policies of the Trump admin while serving as Commerce Secretary – including tariffs and selling citizenship in the form of ‘Trump Gold Cards’. Lutnick is a shameless habitual liar and flip-flam huckster, constantly hyping his policies with fantastical claims while moving the goalposts weekly on his predictions. In a different century he’d be selling miracle cures out of tent at a carnival. In this century, he’s a billionaire. Lutnick is the prime mover behind the admin’s embrace of data centers, AI, and Stalinist moves like the government ownership of companies. Even Trump has grumbled behind the scenes to aides that Lutnick is a “manipulator”, but despite that he continues to adopt each of his worst ideas. Trump constantly had to reverse himself on catastrophic tariff announcements after disastrous consequences ensued – which resulted in the moniker ‘TACO’ for caving so much. All of those disastrous announcements came directly from Lutnick, with Bessent, Musk and others seeking reversal from Trump.
Note – I fully realize Bessent should probably be in this Top 25 somewhere, but I left him off simply because there is a lot of reporting that he has reversed some of the worst ideas behind the scenes despite his repugnant public persona. Go ahead and yell at me if you want – I personally can’t stand the guy either. But I have read comments from a lot of people I respect who say that without Bessent pushing back on some things behind the scenes we would be far worse off economically than we already are because everyone else is much worse. I guess I will buy that he might be the voice of reason behind the scenes, but time will tell.
#1. STEPHEN MILLER. This was the easiest selection, and there was probably never any doubt from most of you that he would be first. He is the WH policy director who is really running the US govt while Trump plays golf, receives awards, puts gold of everything, trolls social media, and builds his ballroom. Most of the policies aren’t Miller’s original ideas because he really isn’t that smart, but he knows how to implement them with a ruthlessness not seen since 1930s Germany. He has made the 2nd most TV appearances this year after Homan, much to the chagrin of Republicans running for election in swing districts. We know all the things that make Miller the worst person to ever serve in a senior position in US history, so there is no point in cataloguing them or this column would go on forever. The hate, the racism and bigotry, the phobias – he’s the personification of political evil. Trump is the only person who would even consider putting this twisted misfit in a position of authority. But he has, and as dementia takes hold and the old man plays with this trophies, ballrooms and golden baubles, Stephen Miller is running the country. Trump is President In Name Only.
God help us.
Check out the rest at the Meidas+ Substack.
Filipkowski’s next project: “Tomorrow, I will begin my list of the ‘500 Worst Things Trump Did in 2025’, with my first 100 in chronological order beginning with things he did in January 2025 and continuing to present.”
Some News:
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy plans to meet with Trump today at Mar-a-Lago. Russia responded by attacking Ukraine. AP: Russia attacks Kyiv with missiles and drones, killing 1 and wounding many ahead of Ukraine-US talks.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with missiles and drones early Saturday morning, killing one person and wounding 27, a day before talks between Ukraine and the U.S., authorities said.
Porter and Sully, by Dora Hathazi Mendes
Explosions boomed across Kyiv for hours as ballistic missiles and drones hit the city. The attack began in the early morning hours Saturday and was continuing as day broke.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepared to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday for further talks on ending the nearly 4-year-old war. Zelenskyy told reporters he was on a plane en route to Florida on Saturday afternoon, and would stop in Canada on the way to meet Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Zelenskyy said he and Trump plan to discuss issues including security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions….
Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed airports in Lublin and Rzeszow near the border with Ukraine for several hours during the Russian attacks, the country’s armed forces command said on X. There was no violation of Polish airspace, it said. Civil aviation authority Pansa said the two airports had since resumed operations. It was unclear what caused the alert in Poland when the Russian attacks were focused on Kyiv, which is far from the border.
The New York Times: Some G.O.P. Senators Join Democrats in Urging Trump to Adopt Hard Line With Putin.
As President Trump prepares for an expected meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Sunday, he is facing some pressure from within his party to take a tough approach to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Three Republican senators joined five of their Democratic colleagues in issuing a statement on Thursday that described Mr. Putin as a “ruthless murderer who has no interest in peace” and who “cannot be trusted.” It decried Russian attacks on Ukraine that continued over the Christmas holiday.
The statement was signed by the Republican senators John Barrasso of Wyoming, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. It did not criticize Mr. Trump’s handling of the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and it was not joined by the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch, Republican of Idaho and a close Trump ally, nor by most of the G.O.P. members on that committee. (Mr. Risch’s office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.) Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the committee, led the statement.
Still, the statement took a harsher tone toward Mr. Putin than Mr. Trump has often used. Although Mr. Trump has at times berated Mr. Putin on social media, urging him to stop his military assault on Ukraine, he has also boasted about their positive relationship, saying he gets along well with the Russian leader. He has repeatedly threatened severe sanctions on the Russians to urge them to make peace, but he has followed through only occasionally.
“It bears repeating that President Zelensky agreed to a Christmas truce, but Putin declined, yet he directs soldiers to continue to commit brutal crimes of aggression on one of Christianity’s holiest days,” said the statement, which was also signed by Senator Angus King, a Maine independent, and by Senators Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Chris Coons of Delaware, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, all Democrats.
Some folks in Nigeria are confused about why Trump bombed their homes. CNN: Fear and confusion in Nigerian village hit in US strike, as locals say no history of ISIS in area.
Abuja, Nigeria — A day after part of a missile
fired by the United States hit their village, landing just meters from its only medical facility, the people of Jabo in northwestern Nigeria are in a state of shock and confusion.
Suleiman Kagara, a resident of this quiet and predominantly Muslim farming community in Tambuwal district of Sokoto state, told CNN he heard a loud blast and saw flames as a projectile flew overhead at around 10 p.m. on Thursday.
Soon after, it came crashing down, exploding on impact with the ground and sending the villagers fleeing in fear.
“We couldn’t sleep last night,” Kagara said. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”
White Liza, by Roman Franta
Kagara did not realize it at the time, but what he was witnessing was part of a US strike that President Donald Trump would later refer to as a “Christmas present” for terrorists.
Not long after the impact in Jabo, Trump declared on Thursday that the US had carried out a “powerful and deadly strike” against ISIS militants in the region, who he accused of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries!”
According to US Africa Command, the operation neutralized multiple ISIS militants.
But Trump’s explanation has left Kagara and his fellow villagers scratching their heads.
While parts of Sokoto face challenges with banditry, kidnappings and attacks by armed groups including Lakurawa – which Nigeria classifies as a terrorist organization due to suspected affiliations with Islamic State – villagers say Jabo is not known for terrorist activity and that local Christians coexist peacefully with the Muslim majority.
But Trump is supposedly the “peace president.”
Trump’s plan to build giant battleships is being panned by folks who actually know what they are talking about.
Miliatry.com: Trump Announces New Class of Battleships Despite Century of Evidence Proving the Large Warships Are Obsolete.
President Donald Trump announced Monday the Navy will build a new class of battleships called the Trump class, with the first ship to be named USS Defiant (BBG-1).
The ship will displace more than 35,000 tons and be capable of speeds exceeding 30 knots, according to the Navy. The battleship will carry nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons, electromagnetic railguns and directed energy weapons. Navy Secretary John Phelan said Trump plans to begin with two ships and eventually build 20 to 25 battleships.
The announcement marks the first battleship construction plan since 1944, when the USS Missouri was delivered to the Navy. The Missouri was the last active battleship in U.S. service before it was decommissioned in 1992.
Trump claimed the new battleships will be “the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.” The claim is factually incorrect. In fact, the American Iowa-class battleships of World War II were larger by 15,000 to 20,000 tons.
Japan’s battleship Yamato, launched in 1940, displaced 72,000 tons and remains the largest warship ever constructed and put to sea. Trump’s proposed battleship is less than half Yamato’s size. American carrier aircraft sank Yamato in 1945, proving bigger is not better.
Historically speaking, battleships have been obsolete since at least 1921, when a simple bombing demonstration off Virginia’s coast proved the large warships are vulnerable to air attack. That vulnerability has been validated repeatedly through World War II and ever since as aircraft, submarines and cruise missiles systematically demonstrated that bigger and more expensive warships are easier to sink.
CNBC: The ‘Trump-class’ battleship faces a large obstacle in its way: Reality.
Once symbols of naval might with their massive guns, battleships have long since been eclipsed by aircraft carriers and modern destroyers armed with long-range missiles.
While labeling the new surface combatants as “battleships” could be a misnomer, defense experts say that there remain several gaps between Trump’s vision and modern naval warfare.
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, dismissed the idea, writing in a Dec. 23 commentary that “there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail.”
Cats and Fruit by Mary Fedden, 1990
He contended the program would take too long to design, cost far too much and run counter to the Navy’s current strategy of distributed firepower.
“A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water,” Cancian said.
Bernard Loo, senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, described the proposal as “a prestige project more than anything else.”
He compared it to Japan’s World War II super-battleships Yamato and Musashi — the largest ever built — which were sunk by carrier-borne aircraft before playing a significant role in combat….
He added that the size of the proposed battleship — displacing more than 35,000 tons and measuring more than 840 feet, or a little over two football fields long — would make it a “bomb magnet.”
“The size and the prestige value of it all make it an even more tempting target, potentially for your adversary,” Loo said.
The “president” is a moron. But we already knew that.
Trump apparently thinks his economy will win the 2026 midterms for Republicans.
Politico: Trump to POLITICO: Midterm elections will be about ‘pricing.’
President Donald Trump says he believes the 2026 midterm elections will center on “pricing” as Republicans head into a critical period with control of Congress on the line.
And he told POLITICO Friday night that he is confident Americans will be receptive to his economic message: that his administration is cleaning up the mess he inherited from former President Joe Biden.
“I think it’s going to be about the success of our country. It’ll be about pricing,” Trump said in an exclusive interview. “Because, you know, they gave us high pricing, and we’re bringing it down. Energy’s way down. Gasoline is way down.”
Trump’s comments follow a string of favorable economic reports over the last two weeks showing inflation is cooling and the economy is hotter than expected. The White House is keen to tout the latest data as it confronts cost-of-living concerns that have underpinned a string of Democratic overperformances across the country.
Still, polls show Americans are struggling. Nearly half of respondents said they find groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation difficult to afford, according to The POLITICO Poll conducted last month by Public First.
Trump’s acknowledgment that 2026 will focus on “pricing” underscores the administration’s concern that the Democrats have, for the moment, a popular message. After insisting that affordability was a Democratic “con job”, Trump over the last few weeks has repeatedly sought to reframe the issue, arguing that it was the Democrats under Biden who caused prices to increase and that he is bringing them down.
Meanwhile, reality raises its ugly head.
The Washington Post: Bankruptcies soar as companies grapple with inflation, tariffs.
Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades.
At least 717 companies filed for bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s roughly 14 percent more than the same 11 months of 2024, and the highest tally since 2010.
Companies cited inflation and interest rates among the factors contributing to their financial challenges, as well as Trump administration trade policies that have disrupted supply chains and pushed up costs.
But in a shift from previous years, the rise in filings is most apparent among industrials — companies tied to manufacturing, construction and transportation. The sector has been hit hard by President Donald Trump’s ever-fluid tariff policies — which he’s long insisted would revive American manufacturing. The manufacturing sector lost more than 70,000 jobs in the one-year period ending in November, federal data shows.
By Hiroki Takeda
Consumer-oriented businesses with “discretionary” products or services, such as fashion or home furnishings, represented the second-largest group. This contingent usually tops the list and includes many retailers, and its retrenchment is a signal that inflation-weary consumers are prioritizing essentials….
Economists and business experts say the trade wars have pressured import-heavy businesses, which are reluctant to raise prices by too much for fear of alienating consumers. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Though inflation is currently lower than many economists expected — prices climbed at an annual pace of 2.7 percent in November — many businesses still are eating new costs themselves to hold the line on prices for buyers, experts say. That’s leading to a certain culling of the herd as already-fragile companies struggle to keep up.
“These companies are acutely aware of the affordability crisis confronting the average American,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a professor at Yale University’s school of management. “They are doing their best to offset the cost of tariffs and higher interest rates but can only do so much. Those with pricing power will pass on the costs over time … others will fold.”
One more from The Daily Beast: Billionaire Trump Threatens Kennedy Center With Tacky Marble Makeover.
Not content with completing his takeover of the Kennedy Center by slapping his own name on the building, President Donald Trump has revealed the next phase of his current redesign obsession.
The 79-year-old president hinted on Truth Social that the ’60s modernist building in Washington, D.C., would be getting the Mar-a-Lago special with a gold and marble interior refit, starting, of course, with the theater’s armrests.
“Potential Marble armrests for the seating at The Trump Kennedy Center. Unlike anything ever done or seen before!” Trump announced on Friday evening.
Accompanying images show the hard-stone armrest examples that Trump apparently wants to install in the chairs of the center’s three main theaters.
It’s just the latest round in the president’s ongoing commandeering of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a “living memorial” to the 35th president, who was assassinated in 1963.
See photos of the ugly proposed armrests at the link.
That’s it for me today. I hope you found something worthwhile to read here.
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Posted: November 22, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Russia, Trump weakness, Ukraine, Zohran Mamdani |
Good Afternoon!!
Lornie at the Coast by Amelia Opie
Yesterday was another wild and crazy day in Trump’s U.S.A. I’m sure no one will be surprised to see me say this: the “president” is not well. He may be suffering from dementia and/or may be certifiably insane. He is also stupid, evil, and corrupt. Trump’s one consistent behavior is his willingness to to anything for money. This is the man who runs our foreign policy and controls our nuclear weapons.
Yesterday Trump met in the oval office with New York City mayor elect Zohran Mamdani. I had a feeling that Mamdani would be able to charm Trump, and that’s exactly what happened.
Trump has been screaming for months that Mamdani is a communist, and Republican have centered their plans for the midterms around attacks on Mamdani and his support from Democrats. Now that has been blown out of the water.
Dana Rubinstein and Benjamin Oreskes at The New York Times:
There were smiles and more than a few laughs. Compliments, ranging from genuine to diplomatic, were abundant.
And when reporters tried to interrupt the unexpected buddy movie that emerged in the White House on Friday, President Trump warmly placed his hand on Zohran Mamdani’s arm and gently advised him to keep it simple in response to a question about whether Mr. Mamdani considered him a fascist.
“You can just say yes,” the president said. “It’s easier.”
It was an astonishingly affectionate performance that sent heads spinning, as New Yorkers confronted the once-unthinkable possibility that Mr. Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City, and the president actually got along.
“I mean, it did seem like a little bit of a bromance,” said Nicole Malliotakis, the Republican congresswoman from the conservative stronghold of Staten Island. “Based on the election results, we knew Mamdani was charming, but who thought he’d be able to charm the president?”
I thought he would. Mamdani is quite charming and popular and Trump is weak and unpopular. His polls are terrible, and continuing to drop. He has wrecked the economy, sent troops into American cities for no reason, pardoned thousands of convicted criminals, blown up fishing boats in the Caribbean for no reason, torn down part of the White House, and his tariffs have increased the cost of everything.
Back to the NYT story:
For weeks, New York leaders have been bracing for the likelihood of a devastating confrontation between the Trump administration and a City Hall led by Mr. Mamdani. They have gamed out what, precisely, it might look like if Mr. Trump sends federal troops or a surge of immigration enforcement agents into New York City. They have fretted about more funding cuts. They have formed rapid-response groups and enlisted the help of business leaders.
They have had reason to worry. Not only has Mr. Trump threatened New York City, but he also personally tried to prevent Mr. Mamdani from winning the mayoral election, even going so far as to urge Republicans to abandon their party nominee in favor of Andrew M. Cuomo, the Democratic former governor.
But then the cameras went live on Friday from the Oval Office. There was Mr. Mamdani, standing with a quiet smile by Mr. Trump’s side as the president lavished him with praise; commended his decision to keep the current police commissioner; applauded his pro-housing, pro-affordability inclinations; and helped him swat away unfriendly questions from the conservative press.
To hear Mr. Trump tell it, the two men, who occupy starkly opposing positions on Israel and Gaza, even found common ground there.
Casting himself as the consummate peacemaker, Mr. Trump said Mr. Mamdani, too, “feels very strongly” about “peace in the Middle East.”
Ron Filipkowski at Meidas+:
… Zohran Mamdani visited Trump today at the WH, and it did not go the way most Republicans thought it would. Trump has always recognized and fawned over star power, and that is exactly the way he treated Mamdani. Fox reporter to Mamdani: “You referred to Trump as despot… Trump interrupts: I’ve been called much worse than a despot. So it’s not that insulting.”
… I was laughing hysterically during this entire meeting with Trump praising Mamdani. I was a one-way love fest from Trump to Mamdani, with Zohran playing it cool the entire time.
… Trump: “I tell you, the press has eaten this thing up. I have had a lot of meetings with the heads of major countries, nobody cared. The biggest people come over from other countries and nobody cares but they did care about this meeting, and it was a great meeting.”
… Q to Trump – “Would you feel comfortable living in NYC under a Mamdani admin? Trump: Yeah, I would.”
… Republican campaign consultants built their entire midterm strategy around making Mamdani into the devil incarnate and the face of Democratic Party, then Trump slobbers all over him today in the Oval!
… Trump then proceeded to end Elise Stefanik’s campaign for governor: Q – “Stefanik has campaigned on calling Mamdani a jihadist. Do you think you’re standing next to a jihadist? Trump: No… but she’s out there campaigning. You say things sometimes in a campaign. You’d have to ask her about that. I met with a man who is a rational person.”
… I’m dying!!! I soooo wish I could see her face right now. (First time I’ve ever said that).
… Mamdani: “I told the president that, you know, so much of the focus of our campaign has been on the cost of living crisis and when we asked those New Yorkers who had voted for the president, when we saw an increase in his numbers in NYC, that came back to the same issue: Cost of living, cost of living, cost of living. Trump: We have to get Con Edison to start lowering their rates. Mamdani: Absolutely.”
… I just pissed my pants laughing. I’m crying!
… Trump: “He has a chance to do something great for NY and he does need the help from the fed govt. And we will be helping him. But he’s different than your average candidate. He came out of nowhere.”
… Love is love. There’s no point in fighting it.
By Eduard Zentsik, 1975
I’m really starting to feel more hopeful for the future of our country. Trump is getting weaker by the day and it hasn’t even been a year yet. If the Democrats can manage to take over the House in the midterms, he will be a lame duck in danger of impeachment.
Norman Eisen at The Contrarian: Has Trump’s Power Peaked?
Since Jan. 20, this column and The Contrarian have been clear-eyed that Donald Trump is not merely a rhetorical autocrat; he actually wants to be a dictator. But if all dimensions of our society wake up and assert peaceful, lawful, vigorous pro-democracy power in opposition, his autocratic push can be defeated and democracy reinforced. This week’s events culminating in Trump’s Oval Office U-turn on Mamdani were an inflection point in that opposition. They were a sign that we are headed for a democracy U-turn of the kind that many nations have achieved in ousting authoritarianism.
The most dramatic evidence of democracy’s resilience and Trump’s dictatorial frustration was his getting steamrolled on the bill requiring the release of the government’s Epstein files, including those relating to Trump. He has for months fought the disclosure of these files and the remainder of his administration’s materials about the child rape and sex trafficking ring run by his long-time associate Jeffrey Epstein. Trump went so far as to privately lobby or publicly attack the handful of Republicans who originally joined all Democrats in the House in forcing a vote on a bill to release the files.
He ultimately failed—and abysmally so, with the bill passing both houses of Congress with just one vote against it (the execrable Rep. Clay Higgins). It was a sign of just how potent the Epstein scandal is and how politically shaky the president is at the moment.
Trump’s lack of strongman cred was further revealed when, in the span of 24 hours, we went from wondering whether Trump’s allies would block consideration of the bill in the Senate to unanimous consent to pass the legislation as soon as it arrived from the House. That was an indication of Trump’s weakness, sure, but credit where credit is due: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer read the room and pounced on the opportunity to move the bill….
But the signs of Trump’s weakness did not stop there. We saw an unhinged tantrum from him that can be explained by his own feelings of inadequacy. It came after members of Congress cut a video telling service members that they should not follow illegal orders.
Trump went haywire threatening the six members of the House and Senate who cut the video, all veterans: Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, Rep. Chris DeLuzio of Pennsylvania, Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. He called the video “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL” and called the lawmakers “traitors” who “should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.”
A video by members of Congress urging that the law be followed hardly amounts to sedition. But, given Trump’s other bizarre and baseless criminal investigations, we need to take his threats seriously. This whole controversy shows just how unhinged he has become with his continued losses. And it appears that more defeats are ahead for Trump in his wave of unfounded revenge prosecutions.
Read the rest at the Substack link above.
At The New York Times, Annie Karni reports on another surprising turn of events: Marjorie Taylor Greene Says She Plans to Resign in January.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right Georgia Republican, said on Friday night that she would resign from Congress in January.
Her announcement came days after President Trump branded her a “traitor” for breaking with him and helping compel the Justice Department to release its files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender.
By Gina Litherland
Ms. Greene, who was elected in 2020 and positioned herself as a die-hard Trump supporter until a series of recent ruptures with the president on a variety of issues, made the abrupt announcement in a video and statement she posted online, filmed from her home in Georgia, her Christmas tree on display behind her.
“Loyalty should be a two-way street, and we should be able to vote our conscience and represent our district’s interest,” Ms. Greene wrote in a long post. She said that if she had been cast aside by “MAGA Inc,” it was indicative that “many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well.” [….]
It is extremely unusual for a member of Congress to up and leave in the middle of a term, barring an illness or some extenuating circumstance that makes it impossible to carry on.
But Ms. Greene said she had made the decision to leave because she did not want to endure a “hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president we all fought for, only to fight and win my election while Republicans will likely lose the midterms.”
She added: “I refuse to be a ‘battered wife’ hoping it all goes away and gets better.”
Her impending departure will shrink the already slim Republican House majority, bringing it down to 218 members until her seat in a deep-red district can be filled.
There are rumors that Greene may run for Georgia governor or senator.
Trump is finally abandoning Ukraine.
Reuters: Exclusive: US threatens to cut intel, weapons to press Ukraine into peace deal, sources say.
KYIV, Nov 21 (Reuters) – The United States has threatened to cut intelligence sharing and weapons supplies for Ukraine to press it into agreeing to the framework of a U.S.-brokered peace deal, two people familiar with the matter said.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Kyiv was under greater pressure from Washington than during any previous peace discussions, and that the U.S. wanted Ukraine to sign a framework of the deal by next Thursday.
“They want to stop the war and want Ukraine to pay the price,” one of the sources said.
Washington has presented Ukraine with a 28-point plan, which endorses some of Russia’s principal demands in the war, including that Kyiv cede additional territory, curb the size of its military and be barred from joining NATO.
A delegation of senior U.S. military officials met with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday to discuss a path to peace.
The U.S. ambassador in Ukraine and the army public affairs chief travelling with the delegation described the meeting as a success and said Washington sought an “aggressive timeline” for the signature of a document between the U.S. and Ukraine.
After veering wildly this year over how to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, President Trump appeared in recent weeks to have settled into a strategy of suggesting he was willing to put long-term pressure on Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.
He imposed new sanctions on oil sales, though not as strong as many in Congress would have liked. He agreed to provide arms to Ukraine’s forces as long as they were purchased by the Europeans, bringing billions of dollars to American defense contractors. At one point, he even floated the notion that he would provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, only to back away from offering the long-range weapons after a conversation with Mr. Putin appeared to convince him it could escalate into a direct American conflict with Russia.
Then he blew the whole thing up — yet again.
Many of the 28 points in the proposed Russia-Ukraine peace plan offered by the White House read like they had been drafted in the Kremlin. They reflect almost all Mr. Putin’s maximalist demands: Ukraine would have to cede to Russia all of the lands that Moscow has declared for itself in Donetsk and Luhansk. The United States would recognize that as Russian territory. No NATO forces could be based inside Ukraine that might prevent the Russians from regrouping and taking the whole country. The Ukrainian military would be limited to 600,000 troops, a 25 percent cut from current levels, and it would be barred from possessing long-range weapons that could reach into Russia.
In return, all sanctions on Russia would be lifted, and the country would be “reintegrated into the global economy,” — Mr. Putin’s most critical objective at a time when Russia is reeling from the long-term costs of a war he thought would be over in a week or two.
To add to the pressure, Mr. Trump set a short deadline, Thursday, Thanksgiving Day in the United States, for Ukraine to decide whether to give up not only part of its territory, but also its ability to defend itself with a fully staffed military and an arsenal of long-range weapons.
It is unclear what would happen if President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine were to refuse to surrender both his territory and Ukraine’s freedom to defend itself and form alliances with other nations, especially in Europe. But the implicit threat is a loss of military support — and critical intelligence — from the United States, especially if Mr. Trump decides to wash his hands of the conflict, no matter what the risk to European allies.
Use the gift link if you want to read more.
Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic (gift link): The Murky Plan That Ensures a Future War.
The 28-point peace plan that the United States and Russia want to impose on Ukraine and Europe is misnamed. It is not a peace plan. It is a proposal that weakens Ukraine and divides America from Europe, preparing the way for a larger war in the future. In the meantime, it benefits unnamed Russian and American investors, at the expense of everyone else.
By Tokuhiro Kawai
The plan was negotiated by Steve Witkoff, a real-estate developer with no historical, geographical, or cultural knowledge of Russia or Ukraine, and Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and spends most of his time making business deals. The revelation of their plan this week shocked European leaders, who are now paying almost all of the military costs of the war, as well as the Ukrainians, who were not sure whether to take this latest plan seriously until they were told to agree to it by Thanksgiving or lose all further U.S. support. Even if the plan falls apart, this arrogant and confusing ultimatum, coming only days after the State Department authorized the sale of anti-missile technology to Ukraine, will do permanent damage to America’s reputation as a reliable ally, not only in Europe but around the world.
The central points of the plan reflect long-standing Russian demands. The United States would recognize Russian rule over Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk—all of which are part of Ukraine. Russia would, in practice, be allowed to keep territory it has conquered in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. In all of these occupation zones, Russian forces have carried out arrests, torture, and mass repression of Ukrainian citizens, and because Russia would not be held accountable for war crimes, they could continue to do so with impunity. Ukraine would withdraw from the part of Donetsk that it still controls—a heavily reinforced and mined territory whose loss would open up central Ukraine to a future attack.
Not only would this plan cede territory, people, and assets to Russia; it also seems deliberately designed to weaken Ukraine, politically and militarily, so that Russia would find it easier to invade again a year from now, or 10 years from now. According to a version of the text that appeared in the Financial Times yesterday, the plan does state that “Ukraine’s sovereignty would be confirmed.” But it then imposes severe restrictions on Ukrainian sovereignty: Ukraine must “enshrine in its constitution” a promise to never join NATO. Ukraine must shrink the size of its armed forces to 600,000, down from 900,000. Ukraine may not host foreign troops on its soil. Ukraine must hold new elections within 100 days, a demand not made of Russia, a dictatorship that has not held free elections for more than two decades.
In return, the plan states that Ukraine “would receive security guarantees.” But it does not describe what those guarantees would be, and there is no reason to believe that President Donald Trump would ever abide by them.
Read more with the gift link, if you wish.
One more on the Ukraine story from Politico: ‘Witkoff needs a psychiatrist’: Europeans fume at Trump’s plan to profit from frozen Russian assets.
BRUSSELS — Donald Trump has hurled a wrench into one of the most sensitive negotiations currently under way in Europe, potentially derailing efforts to help fund Ukraine to stay in the fight against Russia.
For months European Union officials have been trying — and failing — to work out a way to use around €140 billion of immobilized Russian state assets held largely in Belgium to support Kyiv’s war effort. The cash is desperately needed as Ukraine is at risk of running out of money early next year.
Talks in Brussels are now at an extremely delicate stage, diplomats said, as top officials try to finesse a legal text that would enable the frozen funds to be used for a loan to the Ukrainian government.
By Tokuhiro Kawai
But the United States’ new 28-point blueprint for a ceasefire includes a rival idea for using those same assets for American-led reconstruction efforts once a truce has been agreed. The U.S. would take “50 percent” of the profit from this activity, the document said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the new Trump plan confronted his country with one of the most difficult moments in its history: a potential choice between losing its “dignity” and losing “a key partner.”
Multiple EU diplomats and officials said they feared the proposals, from Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, would wreck their chances of the loan proposal being agreed by the EU’s 27 governments. European leaders had been hoping to finalize the so-called “reparations loan” deal at a crunch summit next month.
A former French official, granted anonymity like others to discuss sensitive matters, said the Witkoff idea “is, of course, scandalous.”
“The Europeans are exhausting themselves trying to find a viable solution to use the assets for the benefit of Ukrainians and Trump wants to profit from them,” the person said. “This proposal is likely to be rejected by everyone.”
A few more stories to check out:
The New York Times: What to Know About the Nearly 10% Climb in a Key Medicare Expense for 2026.
CNN: Washington resident dies of complications from bird flu strain never before reported in humans.
The Washington Post: White House blew past legal concerns in deadly strikes on drug boats.
AP: Leaders adopt a declaration at the start of South Africa’s G20 summit despite US opposition.
The Washington Post: EPA just approved new ‘forever chemical’ pesticides for use on food.
That’s it for me. I hope you’re enjoying the weekend.
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Posted: September 10, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Donald Trump, Epstein birthday book, ICE, israel, Jeffrey Epstein, NATO, Poland, Qatar, Russia |
Good Afternoon!!
I’m even more overwhelmed than usual with the news today. It’s absolutely insane.
Yesterday we got to see Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday book, and it is simply disgusting, as JJ wrote yesterday. Trump can deny he wrote the note with his signature all he wants. No one is buying it. He was closse friends with this man for 10-15 years and had to know what Epstein was up to. Not only that, Trump makes other sickening appearances in the book, including one about buying a “fully depreciated” woman from Epstein.
That would be enough horrible news to deal with today, but there’s much more. Poland shot down Russian drones that entered their air space. Israel bombed a building in Qatar. The Supreme Court decision to legalize racial profiling continues to be a top story (Dakinikat covered that extensively on Monday.). ICE is continuing to terrify residents of numerous cities. Trump ventured out of the White House last night with some cabinet members and was called Hitler by citizens of Washington DC.
The Birthday Book
Charley Warzel at The Atlantic (gift link): You Really Need to See Epstein’s Birthday Book for Yourself. This time, the conspiracy theorists were right.
Looking back, I don’t know what exactly I was expecting when I opened “Request No. 1,” the PDF file containing the contents of Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th-birthday book. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and co-conspirator, created the book in 2003 by soliciting tributes from the financier’s friends and associates. Given the crimes Epstein was convicted of, I steeled myself before scrolling. Somehow, my internet-addled imagination failed me. This book is a nightmare.
The book was released yesterday by Congress after Epstein’s estate, which was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee, provided a copy. It is the same book that contains the now-infamous letter and “bawdy” sketch from Donald Trump that ends: “May every day be another wonderful secret.” When The Wall Street Journal reported on the letter’s existence in July, the newspaper described it but did not republish the letter itself, so Trump vehemently denied that it was real and sued for defamation. But the now-public letter certainly looks real, and so does Trump’s signature. Many of the people who encountered it for the first time yesterday made a similar observation: Its creepy prose is framed by a markered sketch of what looks like the caricature not of a woman’s body, but of a girl’s. (The White House can no longer plausibly deny that the letter exists, but it now insists that Trump did not write or sign it.)
The Trump letter makes the birthday book inherently newsworthy. But it is far from the most disturbing or lecherous of the book’s contents. A section titled “Brooklyn” includes recollections of Epstein’s horrible sexual escapades, apparently including making a maid watch people have sex and holding a knife up while telling women to take off their swimsuits on a boat—a story told in the book under the heading “Girls on My Boat.” Given what we know about Epstein’s sex crimes, including his sex crimes against minors, the birthday book is a sickening document. Over its 238 pages, Epstein’s friends, “girlfriends,” and business acquaintances offer lurid tributes to the pedophilic multimillionaire in the form of acrostic poems, drawings, and letters extolling him as “a liver, a lover,” and, affectionately, the “Degenerate One.” Individual contributions vary but it is the sheer volume of sexual references and jokes that ends up being most shocking. So much so that I suggest you read the document yourself.
The book’s contributors apparently include former President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, the billionaire retailer Leslie Wexner, and, of course, Maxwell herself, as well as a prominent fashion designer, financiers, and a media magnate. Clinton, Mitchell, and Wexner did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Clinton referred The Wall Street Journal to a previous statement that said, “The former president had cut off ties more than a decade before Epstein’s 2019 arrest and didn’t know about Epstein’s alleged crimes.” Wexner declined to comment to the Journal but previously told reporters he cut ties with Epstein in 2007.
Not all of the entries in the book allude to sexual activity, and it’s plausible that not all of the contributors knew about Epstein’s crimes. Still, the document is conspiracy jet fuel—visual and textual confirmation of the long-held suspicions that Epstein’s sex pestery was an open secret, enabled by powerful people who may have participated in it themselves or laughed it all off as a friend’s roguish quirk….
Sanitizing this document would be wrong, so I’ll be blunt: The Epstein birthday book is full of contributions from wealthy and powerful people who appear fully aware of Epstein’s attraction to “girls.” In fact, they seem to celebrate it and, in some cases, allude winkingly to Epstein’s predatory lifestyle.
Use the gift link to read the rest. I haven’t looked through the entire book yet. I suppose I should do it, but I’m not looking forward to it after what I’ve already seen and heard.
One more on the birthday book from Matthew Goldstein, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, and Steve Eder at The New York Times: A Phony Trump Check and a ‘Depreciated’ Woman in Epstein’s Birthday Book.
The splashy focus of Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday book released by lawmakers on Monday was a lewd drawing apparently signed by Donald J. Trump. But Mr. Trump’s cameo in another part of the book also provided fodder for Democrats and other critics of the president.
An entry in Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday book, contributed by the Florida real estate developer Joel Pashcow.
The entry, included in a bound volume in 2003, was made by Joel Pashcow, the former chairman of a real estate company in New York and a member of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, Fla. It shows a photograph of Mr. Pashcow at the resort with Mr. Epstein, another man and a woman whose face is redacted. Mr. Pashcow is holding an oversize check that appears to have been doctored, with a seemingly phony “DJ TRUMP” signature.
A handwritten note under the photo, which was taken in the 1990s, joked that Mr. Epstein showed “early talents with money + women,” and had sold a “fully depreciated” woman to Mr. Trump for $22,500.
The woman, whose name is also redacted in the files released by the House Oversight Committee, was a European socialite then in her 20s, according to two people familiar with the original photo. She had briefly dated both Mr. Epstein and Mr. Trump around that time, according to court transcripts and a person close to Mr. Epstein. The birthday book entry appears to be a reference to the competition between the two men for the woman’s affections.
The nature of the woman’s relationship with Mr. Epstein is murky. The New York Times is not naming her because she may have been one of his victims.
A lawyer for the woman said she knew Mr. Epstein in “a professional capacity” when she was a student but severed ties with him in 1997. She did not know anything about the letter or its “derogatory content,” the lawyer added.
A bit more information:
Mr. Pashcow appears to have contributed several consecutive pages to the book. On the page before the mock check is a vulgar cartoon depicting Mr. Epstein’s grooming of young girls: On one side, marked 1983, Mr. Epstein is handing out balloons to a group of girls; on the other, labeled 2003, he is receiving a naked massage from four topless young women. “What a great country!” it reads at the bottom.
The photograph with the giant check offers fresh insight on the social circles shared by Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein. It is no secret that the two were friendly in the 1990s and early 2000s, before Mr. Epstein was convicted of sex crimes in 2008.
A visual analysis by The Times found that the photo was taken at Mar-a-Lago after the resort opened as a club in 1996 and was landscaped with palm trees and other features.
Use the gift link to read more details if you so desire.
NATO Shoots Down Russian Drones in Poland
CNN: NATO shoots down Russian drones in Polish airspace, accusing Moscow of being ‘absolutely reckless.’
NATO fighter jets shot down multiple Russian drones that violated Polish airspace during an attack on neighboring Ukraine early on Wednesday, as the military alliance denounced Moscow for “absolutely dangerous” behavior that ratcheted up tensions to a new level.
The operation marked the first time that shots were fired by NATO since the start of the war in Ukraine. Polish and Dutch jets intercepted the drones, with assistance from Italian, German and NATO’s multinational forces, officials said.
People watch as a house is damaged after a drone or similar object struck a residential building according to local authorities, following violations of Polish airspace during a Russian attack on Ukraine.
Addressing the Polish parliament, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that while there was no reason to say that Poland was in a state of war, it was closer to a conflict than any time since World War II. He said the country was facing an “enemy that does not hide its hostile intentions.”
Tusk also announced that Poland has invoked Article 4 of NATO, meaning the alliance’s main political decision-making body will now meet to discuss the situation and its next steps.
Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement that it had carried out a strike against Ukraine overnight. It said that “no targets on the territory of Poland were planned for destruction,” and that the drones it used in Ukraine have a flight range that of no more than 700 kilometers (435 miles).
The Russian foreign ministry then said that these “specific facts completely debunk the myths repeatedly spread by Poland in order to escalate the Ukrainian crisis further.”
NATO chief Mark Rutte said, however, that the violation of Poland’s airspace was not an “isolated incident.”
Jenny Gross at The New York Times: Poland Has Invoked NATO’s Article 4. What Comes Next?
Poland invoked Article 4 of NATO’s treaty on Wednesday after the alliance’s fighter jets shot down Russian drones that entered its airspace in the early hours of the morning. Russian drones have crossed into Poland before, including twice last week, but this was the first time that Russian drones had been shot down over the territory of a NATO country.
“What is clear is that the violation last night is not an isolated incident,” said Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general. “We will closely monitor the situation along our eastern flank, our air defenses continually at the ready.”
Here’s what to know about NATO’s Article 4….
Article 4 allows a member state to start a formal discussion among the alliance about threats to its security. While invoking Article 4 does not commit NATO to any military action, it is a required step toward a NATO decision to invoke Article 5. (An invocation of Article 5 is often assumed to have military implications, but the NATO treaty says only that its members will “assist” the party that has been attacked. This can also mean economic or political action.)
Article 4 states that the alliance’s members “will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the parties is threatened.”
Since NATO’s founding in 1949, Article 4 has been invoked eight times. Before Wednesday, the last was on Feb. 24, 2022, the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Now what?
The joint NATO response early Wednesday showed how quickly the war in Ukraine could escalate into a military confrontation between Russia and NATO.
Mr. Rutte said that the alliance’s air defenses were activated to ensure Poland’s protection. The response included fighter jets and air-defense systems from the Netherlands, Germany and Italy, he said.
“The security situation of our airspace has been stabilized, and ground-based air defense and radar reconnaissance systems have returned to standard operational activities,” the Polish military said on social media.
So, we’ll see what happens.
Israeli Strike Inside Qatar
CNN: Israel targets Hamas leadership in Qatar strike.
• Israel carried out an unprecedented attack against Hamas leadership in the capital of Qatar, which has been a key mediator in Gaza ceasefire talks — putting hostage negotiations at risk.
• Hamas said the strike killed five members but failed to assassinate the negotiating delegation. A Qatari security official also died in the strike.
• US President Donald Trump expressed displeasure about the attack. “I’m not thrilled about the whole situation. It’s not a good situation,” he said, adding he would issue a full statement on Wednesday. Qatar’s prime minister was visibly angry as he described the strike as “state terrorism.”
This is a developing story.
The Independent: Qatar says it has a right to respond to Israeli attack that killed six in Doha: Latest.
Qatar said it has the right to respond to Israel’s strike in Doha that targeted Hamas political leaders, which it decried as a “blatant attack”.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, described Tuesday’s attack as “state terrorism” that targeted the security and stability of the region.
Aftermath of Israeli strike inside Qatar.
“Qatar… reserves the right to respond to this blatant attack,” he told a late night press conference.
“We believe that today we have reached a pivotal moment. There must be a response from the entire region to such barbaric actions.”
US president Donald Trump said he was “very unhappy” about Israel’s airstrike that killed six people, saying it advances neither Israel nor America’s goals.
Trump called the strike on Hamas’s political wing “unfortunate” and said he had directed US envoy Steve Witkoff to warn Qatar but it was too late to stop the strike.
Hamas said five of its lower-ranking members and a Qatari security official were killed in the airstrike, but that all its leaders survived the attack.
ICE Commentary
Garrett Graff at Doomsday Scenario: ICE is Eating the Soul of America.
A big change happened yesterday, when the Supreme Court said it was okay for ICE and the Border Patrol to racially profile individuals walking freely on America’s streets. If you’re brown, speak Spanish, and work in a blue-collar job, you officially belong to a different class of citizen and according to Chief Justice John Roberts, it’s okay to racially profile you.
We have never in US history seen a federal law enforcement agency operate the way ICE has operated this summer — it marks the arrival of a new style of domestic policing, more in line with the infamous “brown shirts” of authoritarian regimes the world over than any regular policing tradition in the nation’s interior. Yes, we’ve seen similar abuses of civil liberties and due process stem from corrupt and racist state police and country sheriffs in the Jim Crow south, and plenty of local police departments even today suffer from localized corruption scandals, but never we seen what is happening with ICE right now take place the whole country over.
All of the nation’s law enforcement are blending together into an “ICE auxiliary.” — Garrett Graff
The day-to-day behavior and aggression of ICE is corrupting the soul of America. I encourage you to watch this video of federal agents policing the start of an elementary school in DC — there not to secure the school and children, but specifically to intimidate and punish schoolgoers. Tell me that isn’t the picture of authoritarianism? You know how you’re going to be the bad guy in the eyes of history? If school children and mothers have to push their way through your armed, masked gang while you’re carrying assault weapons in order to attend school. I can’t help but think how the Trump administration has turned the proud tradition of the US Marshals at the University of Mississippi or the 82nd Airborne at Little Rock Central High on its head. Similarly, this video of a masked officer detaining a father outside immigration court in New York City — the masked officers are indistinguishable from Wild West bank robbers.
There are four things that have really struck me about ICE’s operations over the last month, all of them worrisome about the trajectory of that agency and the presence and role of federal law enforcement in American life. (Separately, I’m going to write about the warning signs already visible in ICE’s dramatic hiring surge.) Taken together, they paint a picture of an already rogue agency that feels it operates outside of the Constitution and owes nothing to the Americans it’s supposed to serve.
(NOTE from BB: You’ll need to go to the link to read the entire explication under the four headings)
1) Everything is now ICE.
The most worrisome aspect of the quick militarization and turbo-charging of ICE is how American law enforcement across the board — and much of the government beyond — is being subsumed by ICE’s mission and lowering themselves, from hiring to behavior to tactics, down to ICE’s standards.
We have different federal law enforcement agencies for a reason — and moreover, as citizens, we as a country need and want federal law enforcement. The FBI, DEA, ATF, Secret Service, and the US Marshals all have their own lanes, authorities, and responsibilities, but right now we’ve watching the Trump administration turn all of federal law enforcement across both the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security into an faceless quasi-ICE auxiliary, blending all these agencies and agent into some amorphous anonymous blob of masked, brown tactical-vest-wearing federal law enforcement. I wrote recently about how this precisely is what authoritarian regime looks like — armed, masked, anonymous agents of the state jumping from unmarked vehicles and whisking people away….
2) Collapse of Moral Legitimacy.
I wrote earlier in the summer about how in a democracy policing requires moral legitimacy and the permission of the policed. That’s been one of the hallmarks of policing ever since Sir Robert Peel built the first modern police force in London’s Metropolitan Police. One of his core principles of policing was: “To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.”
The DC police department was literally created originally in Peel’s image, which is why it too is known awkwardly as the “Metropolitan Police.” Now, in a historical irony, it is ground zero for the erosion of the moral legitimacy of federal law enforcement writ large….
3) Operating without due regard for civil liberties and due process.
In my essay at the end of August about how America has tipped in fascism, I wrote, “America has become a country where armed officers of the state shout ‘papers please’ on the street at men and women heading home from work, where masked men wrestle to the ground and abduct people without due process into unmarked vehicles, disappearing them into an opaque system where their family members beg for information.”
Few of the videos that have surfaced since have indicated otherwise; normal ICE procedures barrel right past normal due process and civil liberties; here, after wrestling someone to the ground, officers lose interest the moment he makes clear he’s a US citizen. Here masked officers start pushing a man before he can even provide proof of citizenship. Is this what America has come to?
4) Avoiding transparency and accountability.
Add up all of the above and you have a portrait of a rogue agency, which is what leads me to my final dangerous warning sign: This agency clearly knows that it can do no wrong in the eyes of the White House and administration — there is no level of violence, brutality, or abuse of civil liberties that would get any of these agents or officers in trouble with their bosses. Earlier this summer, I wrote about how ICE is acting as if it will never face accountability again. We’ve seen ICE flaunt federal law that requires congressional oversight — and, instead, it has tried to arrest and charge federal lawmakers, a bright line if there ever was one.
At every turn, though, the agency is going out of its way to make it harder to hold officers accountable. ICE officers don’t routinely wear name tags or easily visible badge numbers (in this video, check out how you have to zoom in on his badge on his belt to even begin to identify his badge number.) Moreover, though, despite the fact that we’re weeks and months into this national ICE takeover, the agency has made no effort to make its masked officers on the streets identifiable to either the public — or even to itself.
Tom Nichols at The Atlantic (gift link): The Government Wants to See Your Papers.
You there. Stop what you’re doing. Take off that tool belt and hard hat—let’s see some ID. Why? Because we don’t think you’re a citizen. Now show us your papers.
This kind of behavior by government officials is now legal in the United States.
Masked ICE agents in Los Angeles
Yesterday, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court allowed ICE officials to conduct roving patrols and use racial profiling to stop and detain people for no other reason than their skin color, the language they’re speaking, suspicions about their national origin—or, really, if immigration officials just feel like it.
But wait, you might object. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits unreasonable search and seizure. Did the Court explain why that protection apparently no longer applies to you if you’re a day laborer or running a fruit stand? Good luck with that: This Court’s majority doesn’t explain itself to anyone. It merely lets stand or overturns the decisions of lower courts—lately, almost always in favor of expanding the power of, and corroding any checks on, President Donald Trump.
Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo is a case from Los Angeles about whether ICE can stop people because of a suspicion of their being in the United States illegally, based solely, as SCOTUSblog summarized it, on any combination of four factors: a person’s “‘apparent race or ethnicity,’ speaking in Spanish or accented English, being present at a location where undocumented immigrants ‘are known to gather’ (such as pickup spots for day laborers), and working at specific jobs, such as landscaping or construction.”
A California district-court judge had earlier enjoined ICE from making such stops, perhaps appalled by this example:
Plaintiff Jason Brian Gavidia is a U.S. citizen who was born and raised in East Los Angeles and identifies as Latino. On the afternoon of June 12, he stepped onto the sidewalk outside of a tow yard in Montebello, California, where he saw agents carrying handguns and military-style rifles. One agent ordered him to “Stop right there” while another “ran towards [him].” The agents repeatedly asked Gavidia whether he is American—and they repeatedly ignored his answer: “I am an American.” The agents asked Gavidia what hospital he was born in—and he explained that he did not know which hospital. “The agents forcefully pushed [Gavidia] up against the metal gated fence, put [his] hands behind [his] back, and twisted [his] arm.” An agent asked again, “What hospital were you born in?” Gavidia again explained that he did not know which hospital and said “East L.A.” He then told the agents he could show them his Real ID. The agents took Gavidia’s ID and his phone and kept his phone for 20 minutes. They never returned his ID.
In overturning the lower court’s decision, five of the Court’s six right-wing justices—there is no other reasonable way to describe them at this point—took advantage of their right to remain silent, but Justice Brett Kavanaugh gamely tried to speak up in a concurrence. If his goal was to be reassuring, he did not help matters: Such stops are usually “brief,” he explained. Again, I am not a scholar of the Constitution, but I had no idea that I could be deprived of my rights under the Fourth (or any other) Amendment as long as my getting roughed up takes only a few moments out of my busy day.
Use the gift link to read the rest.
Trump Dines in DC
The Independent: Trump labeled ‘Hitler of our time’ as hecklers crash his DC dinner plans.
President Donald Trump stepped out for dinner in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday only to find himself immediately confronted by protesters calling him “the Hitler of our time,” forcing him and his entourage of cabinet officials to stand awkwardly listening to their taunts before they could sit down to eat.
Activists took advantage of Trump’s rare public outing to to Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab, a short walk from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to heckle and berate the president with cries of “Free D.C.! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!”
“You are not welcome here!” one woman can be seen telling him in a video shared on social media. “Yes he is,” another diner countered.
Trump initially looked unfazed by the provocation but then gestured to his security team and said impatiently: “Come on. Let’s go. Get them out of here.”
The activist in question was escorted out of the dining area but continued to yell, despite some boos: “He’s terrorizing communities all over the world! From Puerto Rico… to Palestine to Venezuela! He’s not welcome to D.C.! He’s not welcome to Palestine! Palestine is not for sale!”
Only after she had been removed could Trump and his guests take their places at their table.
Joining the president for dinner were Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other senior White House officials.
Those are my offerings for today. What’s on your mind?
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Posted: August 9, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: Alaska, cat art, caturday, Covid-19, Donald Trump, Harvard University, measles, RFK Jr, Russia, Space Cat, Steve Witkoff, UCLA, Ukraine, vaccines, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky |
Good Afternoon!!
Book cover
A couple of Caturdays ago, I posted illustrations from a 1950s children’s book called Space Cat and the Kittens. My brother had shared them with me after he bought the book at a used bookstore. This week, he came across the first book in the four-part series, and I’m going to post some of the illustrations from that book today. I think they are really cute. The story:
A little gray kitten with a taste for adventure stows away on an airplane, and the daring stunt turns out to be his first step toward becoming … Space Cat! The plane’s pilot, Captain Fred Stone, names his fuzzy new friend Flyball and welcomes him to an experimental station set up in the middle of the desert. Flyball enjoys supervising the station’s workers and takes particular interest in the big rocket ship that he’s not allowed to explore. Regardless of the rules, the kitty is determined to hitch another ride, and before you know it, Flyball’s wearing a custom-made pressurized suit and headed for the Moon.
As for the news, everything is awful as usual today. We’re dealing with a “president” who is well on the way of becoming a dictator. He plans to meet with fellow dictator Vladimir Putin to hand over territory in Ukraine; He is allowing his HHS secretary RFK Jr. to endanger Americans with anti-vaccine policies; and he is deliberately damaging American higher education.
Ukraine and Russia
Tyler Pager and David E. Sanger at The New York Times: Trump Says He Will Meet With Putin in Alaska Next Week.
President Trump said he would meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia next Friday in Alaska, as he tries to secure a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Mr. Trump announced the meeting Friday shortly after he suggested that a peace deal between the two countries could include “some swapping of territories,” signaling that the United States may join Russia in trying to compel Ukraine to permanently cede some of its land.
“We’re going to get some back, and we’re going to get some switched,” Mr. Trump said while hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for a peace summit at the White House. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both, but we’ll be talking about that either later, or tomorrow.”
The meeting, the first in-person summit between an American and Russian president since President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met with Mr. Putin in June 2021, reflects Mr. Trump’s confidence in his ability to persuade Mr. Putin in a face-to-face encounter, a goal that has eluded Mr. Trump and his predecessors. For Mr. Putin, the meeting itself is a victory after he spent the past several months largely isolated from the international community, with NATO leaders — other than Mr. Trump — refusing to communicate directly with him.
Carrying cat to the rocket
At least he didn’t invite Putin to the White House, but will Putin try to get him to give Alaska back to Russia while they are swapping land in Ukraine?
The meeting also presents a host of challenges. Ukrainian leaders have adamantly opposed relinquishing any of their land to Russia, and the country’s constitution bars President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine from ceding any territory.
There would also be numerous political and military hurdles for Ukraine in turning over land to Russia, as well as questions including security guarantees for Ukraine and the future of frozen Russian assets. And many diplomats have suggested that Mr. Putin may be more interested in dragging out diplomacy to give him time to pummel Ukraine than in securing a peace deal.
White House officials declined to say exactly where in Alaska the two leaders would meet or why Mr. Trump decided to hold the meeting there, though it is the closest U.S. state to Russia. In 2021, the Biden administration held talks with China in Anchorage, Alaska.
Mr. Trump also provided little additional detail about the meeting, what territory could be swapped or the broader contours of a peace deal, saying earlier Friday that he did not want to overshadow the peace pledge between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But he told European leaders earlier this week that he planned to follow up his session with Mr. Putin with a meeting with Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelensky.
The New York Times: Zelensky Rejects Ceding Territory to Russia After Trump Suggests a Land Swap.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday flatly rejected the idea that Ukraine could cede land to Russia after President Trump suggested that a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia could include “some swapping of territories.”
“Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video address from his office in Kyiv, several hours after Mr. Trump’s remarks, which appeared to overlook Ukraine’s role in the negotiations.
“Any decisions made against us, any decisions made without Ukraine, are at the same time decisions against peace,” Mr. Zelensky said. “They will bring nothing. These are dead decisions; they will never work.”
His blunt rejection risks angering Mr. Trump, who has made a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia one of his signature foreign policy goals, even if it means accepting terms that are unfavorable to Kyiv. In the past, Mr. Trump has criticized Ukraine for clinging to what he suggested were stubborn cease-fire demands and for being “not ready for peace.”
Cat in a hammock on spacecraft
What doesn’t anger Trump? Anything except blind loyalty and obedience.
A recent poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that more than three-quarters of Ukrainians are against transferring Ukrainian-controlled territory to Russia. When it comes to ceding land that includes territory already under Russian control, opposition drops slightly, with a little more than half of Ukrainians against it, “even if this makes the war last longer and threatens the preservation of independence,” the poll says.
But support for land concessions has grown since Ukraine’s failed 2023 counteroffensive, which underscored its inability to retake substantial territory. About 38 percent of the population thinks ceding land is acceptable now, according to the poll, up from only 10 percent about two years ago.
Russia has long demanded that Ukraine give up four regions in the east and south that Moscow claims to have annexed in late 2022, even though some of that territory remains under Ukrainian control. The Kremlin is particularly intent on seizing full control of the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, which it has long sought to capture with relentless assaults.
But ceding Luhansk and Donetsk, which are part of an area commonly known as the Donbas region, would create a host of issues for Ukraine. It would mean giving up a region rich in cities and industrial centers that Russia could use as a launchpad to reignite the war.
And Ukraine would have to abandon its main fortified defensive line in northern Donetsk, stretching between the cities of Sloviansk and Kostiantynivka, which has so far withstood Russian assaults.
Nick Paton Walsh at CNN: Trump-Putin summit in Alaska resembles a slow defeat for Ukraine.
Location matters, former real estate mogul US President Donald Trump said. Moments later he announced Alaska, a place sold by Russia to the United States 158 years ago for $7.2 million, would be where Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to sell his land deal of the century, getting Kyiv to hand over chunks of land he’s not yet been able to occupy.
The conditions around Friday’s summit so wildly favor Moscow, it is obvious why Putin leapt at the chance, after months of fake negotiation, and it is hard to see how a deal emerges from the bilateral that does not eviscerate Ukraine. Kyiv and its European allies have reacted with understandable horror at the early ideas of Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, that Ukraine cede the remainders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in exchange for a ceasefire.
Naturally, the Kremlin head has promoted the idea of taking ground without a fight, and found a willing recipient in the form of Witkoff, who has in the past exhibited a relaxed grasp of Ukrainian sovereignty and the complexity of asking a country, in the fourth year of its invasion, to simply walk out of towns it’s lost thousands of men defending.
Space cat in freefall
It is worth pausing and reflecting on what Witkoff’s proposal would look like. Russia is close to encircling two key Donetsk towns, Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, and may effectively put Ukrainian troops defending these two hubs under siege in the coming weeks. Ceding these two towns might be something Kyiv does anyway to conserve manpower in the months ahead.
The rest of Donetsk – principally the towns of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – is a much nastier prospect. Thousands of civilians live there now, and Moscow would delight at scenes where the towns evacuate, and Russian troops walk in without a shot fired.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s rejection of ceding land early Saturday reflects the real dilemma of a commander in chief trying to manage the anger of his military and the deep-seated distrust of the Ukrainian people towards their neighbor, who continues to bombard their cities nightly.
What could Ukraine get back in the “swapping” Trump referred to? Perhaps the tiny slivers of border areas occupied by Russia in Sumy and Kharkiv regions – part of Putin’s purported “buffer zone” – but not much else, realistically.
The main goal is a ceasefire, and that itself is a stretch. Putin has long held that the immediate ceasefire demanded by the United States, Europe and Ukraine for months, is impossible as technical work about monitoring and logistics must take place first. He is unlikely to have changed his mind now his troops are in the ascendancy across the eastern frontline.
Read more analysis at the CNN link.
RFK Jr. is doing untold damage to the health of Americans.
The New York Times: Trump Just Shrugs as Kennedy Undermines His Vaccine Legacy.
During the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, President Trump was warned by medical officials that the development of a vaccine that could turn the tide against Covid could be over a year away.
For Mr. Trump, that timeline was not good enough.
He demanded a faster program. The creation of that program, Operation Warp Speed, led to lifesaving vaccines that contained messenger RNA, or mRNA, a synthetic form of a genetic molecule that helps stimulate the immune system. Those vaccines are widely regarded in the scientific community as the quickest way to protect Americans against future threats, including viruses that could mushroom into a pandemic, or man-made menaces, like a bioweapons attack.
Time has marched on and, apparently, so has Mr. Trump in his second term.
This week, the president all but shrugged off an announcement by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary and a longtime critic of vaccines, that a research division of his department had slashed $500 million in grants and contracts for work on mRNA vaccines.
“That was now a long time ago, and we’re onto other things,” the president told reporters on Wednesday. Mr. Trump added that his administration is now “looking for other answers to other problems, to other sicknesses and diseases.” He said he was planning to meet with Mr. Kennedy on Thursday to discuss the decision, but by Friday, White House officials did not say whether that meeting took place.
Space cat is first to land on the Moon.
A bit more:
Mr. Trump’s willingness to give Mr. Kennedy the space to impose his views is notable, given that the vaccines were once seen as legacy achievement during Mr. Trump’s first term. But his laissez-faire posture also leaves room for Mr. Trump to position himself in line with the portion of his base that has grown deeply skeptical about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
In recent months, Mr. Trump has offered little to no public input as Mr. Kennedy fired a 17-member committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that makes vaccine recommendations; appointed advisers who have rescinded some flu vaccine recommendations; and suggested, contrary to evidence, that many pediatricians make money from vaccines.
Mr. Trump has also said there is nobody better than Mr. Kennedy to explore the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. Mr. Kennedy is expected to release a report airing those findings in September….
Adm. Brett Giroir, an assistant health secretary in the first Trump administration who was involved in the development of the Covid vaccines, recalled that the president had been “very pro-vaccine,” particularly on matters involving flu preparedness. In 2019, Mr. Trump signed an executive order calling for the modernization of flu vaccines, because “he knew we weren’t as well prepared as we should be.”
Now it’s different. Trump would rather sacrifice millions more American lives than confront his conspiracy-minded followers.
RFK and Trump apparently aren’t concerned about a measles epidemic either. The Wall Street Journal: The Race to Find a Measles Treatment as Infections Surge.
As a record number of people in the U.S. are sickened with measles, researchers are resurrecting the search for something long-deemed redundant: treatments for the viral disease.
After the measles vaccine was introduced in the 1960s, cases of the disease plummeted. By 2000, federal officials had declared measles eliminated from the U.S. This success led to little interest in the development of treatments. But now, as vaccination rates fall and infections rise, scientists are racing to develop drugs they say could prevent or treat the disease in vulnerable and unvaccinated people.
“In America, we don’t like being told what to do, but we like to have options for our medicine chest,” said Marc Elia, chairman of the board of Invivyd, a Massachusetts-based drugmaker that started working on a monoclonal antibody for measles this spring.
Scientists across the country including at biotechs Invivyd and Saravir Biopharma—and institutions such as Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Georgia State University—are in the early stages of measles-treatment development. The drugs are still a ways from becoming available to patients but could offer alternatives to people who are immunocompromised, don’t respond to the measles vaccine or are vaccine skeptics.
Space cat saves astronaut’s life by plugging a hole in his helmet.
Some doctors and researchers warn that measles treatments could further drive the drop in vaccination. Nationally, 92.5% of kindergartners received the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, shot in the 2024-25 school year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. In 2019-20, the vaccination rate was over 95%, which is the rate encouraged by health authorities to prevent community transmission of measles.
More than 1,300 people, most of them unvaccinated, have been diagnosed with measles this year—a 33-year high.
“One of the motivations of getting the vaccine right now is that there are no treatments,” said Dr. Joel Warsh, a pediatrician who says more research is needed into immunization safety.
Still, Invivyd is betting its measles monoclonal antibody could help curb infections and outbreaks. Unlike the MMR vaccine, which is designed to train the body to make its own antibodies—proteins that help defeat specific pathogens—monoclonal antibodies are lab-made versions that can be delivered intravenously or as an injection and boost immunity immediately.
Antibody treatments could treat someone who is sick or help prevent measles in people recently exposed to the virus. They could benefit newborns and immunocompromised people who can’t be vaccinated, as well as the minority of people who don’t respond to the vaccine or whose immunity has waned. The treatments could offer weeks or months of protection against measles, researchers said.
“Think of it like antivenom after a snake bite,” said Erica Ollmann Saphire, chief executive of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, whose lab is developing its own monoclonal antibodies for measles. “Even people unsure about vaccines, if they are already sick with measles, getting an antibody treatment could be palatable.”
There’s much more at the link. I got past the paywall by clicking the link at Memeorandum.
Jake Scott, infectious disease physician, at MSNBC: RFK Jr. is attacking the very science that saved millions.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to terminate $500 million in federal funding for mRNA vaccine development threatens to unravel one of medicine’s greatest recent achievements. His claim that these vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid and flu“ represents a fundamental misunderstanding of vaccinology that could cost lives in future pandemics.
As an infectious disease physician who cared for dozens of critically ill Covid patients in December 2020, I witnessed a remarkable shift in the months that followed. As mRNA vaccines became available in early 2021, severe cases among vaccinated individuals became extremely rare. Deaths were almost exclusively among those who declined vaccination, which was tragic given how preventable these outcomes had become.
Space cat in the moon cave
No vaccine for respiratory viruses has ever provided complete, lasting protection against all infections. Not the flu vaccine. Not RSV vaccines. That never should have been the expectation. Some vaccines, like those for measles or polio, can effectively prevent infection and transmission, but these target fundamentally different viruses that don’t constantly mutate and reinfect the respiratory tract. The purpose of respiratory virus vaccines is to prevent severe disease, hospitalization and death. By that measure, mRNA vaccines have been revolutionary.
The data confirms what I witnessed firsthand. According to research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, unvaccinated individuals had 53 times the risk of death compared to those who had been fully vaccinated during the Delta wave in 2021. A New England Journal of Medicine study analyzing over 6 million Covid cases found that protection against death remained above 90% and remarkably durable, even as protection against infection declined.
In winter 2020, my hospital’s ICU overflowed with COVID patients. Like many colleagues worldwide, I watched patient after patient die despite our best efforts. It was unlike anything any of us had ever seen. By summer 2021, after vaccines rolled out widely, the change was undeniable. Far fewer patients arrived with respiratory failure. Nursing homes saw deaths plummet.
As vaccine expert Paul Offit stated in December 2020: “All you want to do is keep people out of the hospital and keep them out of the morgue and I think this vaccine can certainly do that.” Even then, before vaccines were widely available, experts understood the real goal.
There’s more at the link.
Trump vs. higher education
AP: Trump administration seeks $1 billion settlement from UCLA, a White House official says.
The Trump administration is seeking a $1 billion settlement from the University of California, Los Angeles, a White House official said Friday, after the Department of Justice accused the school of antisemitism and other civil rights violations.
UCLA is the first public university to be targeted by a widespread funding freeze over allegations of civil rights violations related to antisemitism and affirmative action.
President Donald Trump’s administration has frozen or paused federal funding over similar allegations against elite private colleges. In recent weeks, the administration has struck deals with Brown University for $50 million and Columbia University for $221 million but has explored larger settlements, such as in its ongoing battle with Harvard University.
The White House official did not detail any additional demands the administration has made to UCLA or elaborate on the settlement amount. The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the request and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The university had drawn widespread criticism for how it handled dispersing an encampment of Israel-Hamas war protesters in 2024. One night, counterprotesters attacked the encampment, throwing traffic cones and firing pepper spray, with fighting that continued for hours, injuring more than a dozen people, before police stepped in. The next day, after hundreds defied orders to leave, more than 200 people were arrested. Later, Jewish students said demonstrators in encampments blocked them from getting to class.
Read the rest at the link.
The Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Threatens to Take Over Harvard’s Patents.
The Trump administration is warning Harvard University that it could take over its patents, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if a review finds the university hasn’t complied with federal law, an escalation of the continuing negotiations between the White House and America’s oldest university.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sent a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber on Friday, telling him the administration planned to do a thorough review of all patents held by the university.
General likes Space Cat.
“We believe that Harvard has failed to live up to its obligations to the American taxpayer and is in breach of the statutory, regulatory, and contractual requirements tied to Harvard’s federally funded research programs and intellectual property arising therefrom, including patents,” the letter says.
A Harvard spokesperson called the move “yet another retaliatory effort targeting Harvard for defending its rights and freedom.” The university’s technology and patents help save lives and redefine industries, and Harvard is committed to complying with all federal laws around the patenting of work from federally funded research, the spokesperson said.
The letter is another point of leverage for the Trump administration in its effort to punish the university for allegedly failing to stop antisemitism on campus. The administration has frozen billions of dollars in Harvard’s federal research money and cut the university off from future grants.
Lutnick told Garber that he had until Sept. 5 to respond with a list of all patents that have stemmed from federally funded research grants and to provide information showing it complied with federal regulations, including a 1980 act by Congress known as Bayh-Dole that allowed institutions to retain ownership of a patent even if the innovation used taxpayer dollars.
A bit more, because of the paywall:
Harvard has more than 5,800 patents, according to its website. In its fiscal year ended in June, the university was issued 159 patents. Startups from Harvard range from pharma and biotech companies to manufacturing.
Federal regulations under Bayh-Dole require a litany of disclosures for a patent, including how the American people benefit from an invention. If a patent holder fails to make these disclosures, the government has the right to take ownership of the invention.
Lisa Ouellette, a law professor at Stanford, said the Trump administration’s move appears to be unprecedented in the four and a half decades of the Bayh-Dole Act. “I have never seen the government step in to reclaim control of a university’s patents in any sense,” she said. The Biden administration considered using a provision of the act to try to lower pharmaceutical prices, but the proposal never came to pass, Ouellette said.
The Trump administration has been in talks with several universities, including the University of California, Los Angeles, Cornell and Northwestern, and sees striking a deal with Harvard as an essential mission. The White House has already reached a $200 million settlement with Columbia and a $50 million deal with Brown.
This is breathtaking.
That’s all I have for today. What’s on your mind?
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Posted: August 2, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: just because | Tags: authoritarianism, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bureau of Prisons, cat art, caturday, concentration camps, Dmitri Medvedev, Donald Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell, ICE, immigration, Jeffrey Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein files, nuclear submarines, Pete Hegseth, Philip Hegseth, Russia, tent cities, Use of military for immigration enforcement |
Good Day!!
Michael Cox, in the style of Amadeo Modigliani
The top stories today focus on Trump’s failing economy and his firing of Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer after she released weak job numbers yesterday. Dakinikat provided a deep dive into the economy yesterday and addressed the firing in the comments to her post, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t spend much time on economic issues, which are not my area of expertise, to put it mildly.
I’m still laser focused on the Epstein/Maxwell story. I’m currently reading Julie Brown’s book on the case, Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story, and it is fascinating and enlightening. Brown is was responsible for keeping the case alive–after Epstein received a only slap on the wrist for his crimes–with her investigative stories in the Miami Herald
I’m also concerned about the news that Trump has moved nuclear submarines closer to Russia, perhaps as a threat to Putin and as another attempt at distraction from Epstein/Maxwell news.
Another important story breaking today is about Trump’s plans to further involve the military in his deportation efforts and build more concentration camps to detain migrants.
Two economic stories of possible interest
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: The Trump Economy Stumbles.
President Trump has now imposed his new tariff regime on the world, and the triumphalism is palpable in MAGA land. But maybe hold the euphoria, as this week’s reports on jobs and the economy suggest the new golden age may take a while to appear.
Friday’s labor report arrived with a particular jolt, with a mere 73,000 net new jobs in July. Even more bearish were the downward revisions of 258,000 jobs in May and June. Job gains over the last three months are barely more than 100,000.
The details in the report provide little solace. The jobless rate ticked up only to 4.25% from 4.1%, but that was in part because the labor force continued to shrink. The labor participation rate fell again to 62.2% and is now down half a percentage point in a year.
Employers aren’t laying off workers, but they have all but stopped new hiring. Notably, most of the new jobs are in healthcare and social assistance, which rely heavily on government spending. This continues the Biden-era trend that Trumponomics was supposed to change. Not so far.
The much-advertised rebirth of U.S. manufacturing also hasn’t arrived. The economy shed 11,000 manufacturing jobs in July, following a loss of 26,000 in May and June. The ISM Manufacturing Index fell again in July to 48, the fifth straight month below 50.
A bit more:
One labor market problem may be the crackdown on migrant workers. The foreign-born workforce has fallen by about a million since Mr. Trump took office. The National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan think tank, says immigrants accounted for over half of the labor force increase in each of the last three decades. Fewer workers means fewer new jobs as employers conclude they can’t fill them.
How much of this jobs and growth slowdown owes to Mr. Trump’s tariffs? It’s hard to say for sure. But it has occurred in the wake of Mr. Trump’s April 2 tariff shock, his rapid backtrack from the highest rates, and then his willy-nilly threats and deal-making with the world. The policy uncertainty has surely affected business hiring and investment. How can you hire or invest if you don’t know what your cost of goods will be, or from which supplier you will be able to buy at a competitive price?
On that score, Mr. Trump’s latest tariff blast this week hasn’t put an end to the uncertainty. Much of the world will now pay 15%, if Mr. Trump sticks to his deals. But some of the biggest U.S. trading partners—Mexico, Canada, China and India—remain in tariff limbo. Brazil will pay 50%, though it has a trade surplus with the U.S. And what did Switzerland ever do to Mr. Trump to deserve 39%? Charge too much for a watch?
Don Moynihan at Can We Still Govern?: Trump Shoots the Messenger. Firing the BLS Commissioner moves us into banana republic territory.
One basic character of the politicization necessary to create an authoritarian regime is that public employees are reluctant to share information that displeases their political bosses. When those bosses can fire them, the incentives to suppress uncongenial information, or provide false information, become overwhelming.
Modigliani’s Cat by Eve Riser Roberts
Over time, life in these countries become bifurcated. Statistics become propaganda. There is an official reality, which many proclaim but few believe, and actual reality. And at some point actual reality catches up with the fantasy.
We have seen examples of this dynamic already play out in the Trump administration. Career civil servants have been reluctant to contradict, for example, Musk’s false claims about fraud in government, or Kennedy’s nonsensical claims about vaccines, knowing that doing so would probably cost them their jobs. In certain areas, such as environmental policy, the people that produce factual information that the administration dislikes are being fired.
Trump just took his attack on reality to a different level, by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Why? Because he did not like the job numbers her agency produced.
In related news, we just saw the last credible BLS data for the rest of the Trump administration….
Trump’s claim is that the head of the BLS is somehow “rigged” the data “to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.” “We need accurate Jobs Numbers” that reflect Trump’s opinion that “The Economy is BOOMING.”
As Trump fires an official because he does not like the job numbers, he proclaims that says that such numbers “can’t be manipulated for political purposes.” But revisions to job numbers are routine, and there is no reason to assume that an official would willingly publish false data knowing the ire that would follow from the White House.
Trump has no evidence for what he claims. He simply does not like reality, and will do what he can to deny it. And as tariffs kick in, and Trump’s layoffs of public employees becomes incorporated into jobs data, that reality will look worse and worse.
Read the rest at the Substack link.
Epstein/Maxwell News
Anna Betts at The Guardian: Epstein confidante Ghislaine Maxwell transferred to lower-security prison in Texas.
Ghislaine Maxwell, the associate of Jeffrey Epstein who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes, has been transferred from a federal prison in Florida, to a lower-security facility in Texas, the US Bureau of Prisons said on Friday.
“We can confirm, Ghislaine Maxwell is in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) at the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Bryan, Texas,” a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said in a statement.
Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, also confirmed the transfer but declined further comment. FPC Bryan is described as a “minimum security federal prison camp” that houses 635 female inmates.
According to the Bureau of Prisons’ inmate locator, the Texas facility is also home to Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced former CEO of the California-based blood-testing company Theranos, who is serving a lengthy sentence for fraud. Real Housewives of Salt Lake City TV star Jen Shah is also serving time there for fraud.
Oh good. Maybe they can all hang out.
Maxwell’s move from FCI Tallahassee, a low-security prison, to the federal prison camp in Bryan comes roughly a week after she was interviewed in Florida over two days about the Epstein case by the deputy US attorney general, Todd Blanche, who is also one of Donald Trump’s former lawyers.
Amadeo Modigliani, by Nancy Alari
Blanche had said that he wanted to speak with Maxwell – who was sentenced in 2022 for sex trafficking and other related crimes – to see if she might have “information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims”.
Details of that meeting have not been made public but Maxwell’s lawyer described it as “very productive”, adding that Maxwell answered the questions “honestly, truthfully, to the best of her ability”.
The interview took place amid growing political and public pressure on the Trump administration to release additional federal documents related to the Epstein case – a case which has, for years, been the subject of countless conspiracy theories.
Earlier in July, the justice department drew bipartisan criticism and backlash after announcing that it would not be releasing any more documents from the investigation into the late Epstein, who died in prison in New York in 2019 while awaiting federal trial. This was despite earlier pledges to release more files, by the US president and the US attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Allison Gill notes that this transfer was highly irregular:
The reason for the move is listed as a “lesser security transfer” (code 308) according to a transfer document I reviewed, which is completely inappropriate of for inmates who are in the early stages of serving their sentences, according to another source. “This is such obvious corruption. I have never seen this before,” said another person at BOP familiar with the situation.
The unit that approves waivers for sex offenders to be moved to minimum security camps is the Designation and Sentence Computation Center near Dallas. Currently, the senior deputy assistant director is Rick Stover, a career BOP employee who speaks frequently with White House officials.
I can’t help but wonder whether this is part of a deal struck between Maxwell and Blanche in exchange for her testimony.
It sure looks like it.
CNBC: Jeffrey Epstein victims and family blast Trump for Ghislaine Maxwell prison transfer.
Two sexual abuse victims of Jeffrey Epstein and the family of late Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre on Friday blasted President Donald Trump after learning that Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell had been transferred to a less restrictive prison in Texas from Florida….
“President Trump has sent a clear message today: Pedophiles deserve preferential treatment and their victims do not matter,” the statement said, noting that the two women and Giuffre’s family had not been notified of Maxwell’s transfer before media reports of it….
“It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received,” the statement said.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency,” the statement said.
“Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas,” the statement said.
“This is the justice system failing victims right before our eyes. The American public should be enraged by the preferential treatment being given to a pedophile and a criminally charged child sex offender. The Trump administration should not credit a word Maxwell says, as the government itself sought charges against Maxwell for being a serial liar,” the statement said.
“This move smacks of a cover up. The victims deserve better,” the statement said.
No kidding. And as we all know, the coverup is usually worse than the crime.
This is interesting, from Alison Detzel at MSNBC: Legal expert breaks down the ‘curious’ timeline of Ghislaine Maxwell’s DOJ meeting.
Before Maxwell’s arrival in Texas was reported, MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin was asked about the interactions between Maxwell and the Trump administration on Thursday’s “Deadline: White House,” and called the timeline “curious.”
Rubin recounted that before that late July meeting between Blanche and Maxwell, the Trump administration, through Solicitor General D. John Sauer, submitted a brief to the Supreme Court arguing Maxwell’s conviction should stand. (Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022 after being convicted of sex-trafficking-related crimes.) In that July 14 filing, Sauer shot down Maxwell’s claim that she was protected from prosecution due to Epstein’s 2007 plea agreement in Florida.
But the following day, Rubin recalled, on July 15, Trump was contacted by reporters from The Wall Street Journal about an alleged birthday card he had written to Epstein in 2003. Trump has denied the Journal’s reporting, but the president was inundated with questions about the details of his relationship with Epstein.
One week later, Blanche posted to social media that the Justice Department would reach out to Maxwell for an interview, and later that week, he met with her in Florida.
Rubin noted that the government had “two days of conversations with her, not in the federal prison where she’s serving time, but in a U.S. Attorney’s Office, so she theoretically could be more comfortable during those conversations.”
While we know that the meeting took place, Rubin stressed that many of the details are still unknown: “We still don’t know who else from the Department of Justice was there. We don’t know how that conversation was recorded, if at all. And yet, we still don’t know what the resolution is.”
So what changed? Was it just about the birthday note/drawing? Or did Trump learn something else about how he was portrayed in the FBI files?
Cat in a Hat, inspired by Amadeo Modigliani painting, by Olga Koval
One more Epstein story from Newsweek: Donald Trump’s Name in Jeffrey Epstein Files Redacted by FBI: Report.
The FBI redacted Donald Trump‘s name, along with the names of other prominent public figures, from references in the Jeffrey Epstein files, three people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg‘s Jason Leopold.
Internal directives instructed about 1,000 FBI agents to flag any mention of Trump during a March review of roughly 100,000 pages of records, people familiar with the process told Bloomberg.
The Justice Department said the review turned up no “client list” or evidence linking Trump to criminal activity, despite his name appearing in Epstein’s contact book and flight logs….
The president and senior White House officials have repeatedly said in recent weeks that there was no reason to release the remaining Epstein files, and they have sought to move on from the saga despite calls from Trump’s base to release all documents as promised.
The Bloomberg report said that earlier this year, FBI agents were directed to search for all documents associated with the Epstein case and determine which could be released, totaling tens of thousands of pages, following Attorney General Pam Bondi‘s request for them.
During the review, in March, FBI personnel were said to have identified numerous references to Trump and other high-profile people, with the names then redacted by FOIA officers because they were private citizens at the time—a common practice under FOIA case law.
Trump Moves Nuclear Submarines
Brad Lendon at CNN: Trump is moving nuclear submarines following remarks by an ex-Russian president. Here are the subs in the American fleet.
US President Donald Trump said Friday he was ordering two US Navy nuclear submarines to “appropriate regions,” in response to remarks by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and current deputy chairman of its Security Council.
In what he called an effort to be “prepared,” Trump said in a Truth Social post that he had “ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.”
The president did not specify what type of submarines were being moved or where to, and the Pentagon usually reveals little about any of its subs’ movements.
The US Navy has three types of submarines, all of which are nuclear-powered, but only one of which carries nuclear weapons.
Ballistic Missile Submarines
The US Navy has 14 Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs), often referred to as “boomers.”
SSBNs “are designed specifically for stealth and the precise delivery of nuclear warheads,” a Navy fact sheet on them says.
Each can carry 20 Trident ballistic missiles with multiple nuclear warheads. Tridents have a range of up to 4,600 miles (7,400 kilometers), meaning they wouldn’t need to move closer to Russia to hit it – in fact, they could do so from the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian or Arctic oceans….
Olga Koval, Cat is on the chair, inspired by Amadeo Modigliani painting
Guided missile submarines
In the 1990s, the Pentagon determined the Navy didn’t need as many Ohio-class SSBNs in the nuclear deterrent role, converting four of them into guided-missile submarines (SSGNs).
Retaining the same overall specs as the boomers, the SSGNs carry Tomahawk cruise missiles instead of the Trident ballistic missiles.
Each can carry 154 Tomahawks with a high-explosive warhead of up to 1,000 pounds, and a range of about 1,000 miles….
These form the bulk of the US Navy’s submarine fleet and are designed to hunt and destroy enemy subs and surface ships with torpedoes. They can also strike land-based targets with Tomahawk missiles, though they carry the Tomahawks in much smaller numbers than the SSGNs.
Read more details at CNN.
Tom Nichols at The Atlantic (gift link): Not With a Bang, but With a Truth Social Post. The president is rattling a nuclear saber as a distraction.
Donald Trump, beset by a week of bad news, has decided to rattle the most dangerous saber of all. In a post today on his Truth Social site, the president claimed that in response to recent remarks by former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, he has “ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions.” (All American submarines are nuclear-powered; Trump may mean submarines armed with ballistic nuclear weapons.) “Words are very important,” Trump added, “and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.”
And then, of course: “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Trump’s words may mean nothing. The submarines that carry America’s sea-based nuclear deterrent routinely move around the world’s oceans. Each carries up to 20 nuclear warheads, on missiles with a range of more than 4,000 miles, and so almost anywhere can be an “appropriate region.” And Trump may not even have issued such orders; normally, the Pentagon and the White House do not discuss the movements of America’s ballistic-missile submarines.
Medvedev is a man with little actual power in Russia, but he has become Russia’s top internet troll, regularly threatening America and its allies. No one takes him seriously, even in his own country. He and Trump have been trading public insults on social media for months, with Trump telling Medvedev to “watch his words” and Medvedev—nicknamed “Little Dima” in Russia due to his diminutive stature—warning Trump to remember Russia’s “Dead Hand,” a supposed doomsday system that could launch all of Russia’s nuclear weapons even if Moscow were destroyed and the Kremlin leadership killed.
The problem is not that Trump is going to spark a nuclear crisis with a post about two submarines—at least not this time. The much more worrisome issue is that the president of the United States thinks it is acceptable to use ballistic-missile submarines like toys, objects to be waved around when he wants to distract the public or deflect from bad news, or merely because some Russian official has annoyed him.
Unfortunately, Trump has never understood “nuclear,” as he calls it. In a 2015 Republican primary debate, Trump said: “We have to be extremely vigilant and extremely careful when it comes to nuclear. Nuclear changes the whole ball game.” When the moderator Hugh Hewitt pressed Trump and asked which part of the U.S. triad (land-based missiles, bombers, and submarines) would be his priority, Trump answered: “For me, nuclear, the power, the devastation, is very important to me.”
That power and devastation, however, is apparently not enough to stop the president from making irresponsible statements in response to a Kremlin troll. One would hope that after nearly five years in office—which must have included multiple briefings on nuclear weapons and how to order their use—Trump might be a bit more hesitant to throw such threats around. But he appears to have no sense of the past or the future; he lives in the now, and winning the moment is always the most important thing.
Use the gift link above to read more.
Are More Concentration Camps Like Alligator Alcatraz Coming?
Greg Sargent at The New Republic: Trump’s Domestic Use of Military Set to Get Worse, Leaked Memo Shows.
President Donald Trump has already enmeshed the United States military in domestic law enforcement operations involving immigration to an unprecedented degree. He has authorized a major military buildup at the border. He has maximized the use of military planes for deportations, complete with the White House pumping out imagery of migrants getting frog-marched onto souped-up military aircraft. He sent the National Guard into Los Angeles amid large-scale protests there—and then sent in the Marines.
But an internal memo circulated inside the Department of Homeland Security suggests that Trump’s use of the military for domestic law enforcement on immigration could soon get worse. The memo—obtained by The New Republic—provides a glimpse into the thinking of top officials as they seek to involve the Defense Department more deeply in these domestic operations, and it has unnerved experts who believe it portends a frightening escalation.
Woman red dress grey cat, by Theresa Tanner, based on a painting by Modigliani.
The memo lays out the need to persuade top Pentagon officials to get much more serious about using the military to combat illegal immigration—and not just at the border. It suggests that DHS is anticipating many more uses of the military in urban centers, noting that L.A.-style operations may be needed “for years to come.” And it likens the threat posed by transnational gangs and cartels to having “Al Qaeda or ISIS cells and fighters operating freely inside America,” hinting at a ramped-up militarized posture inside the interior.
“The memo is alarming, because it speaks to the intent to use the military within the United States at a level not seen since Japanese internment,” Carrie Lee, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told me. “The military is the most powerful, coercive tool our country has. We don’t want the military doing law enforcement. It absolutely undermines the rule of law.”
The memo was authored by Philip Hegseth—the younger brother of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—who is a senior adviser to Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and DHS liaison officer to the Defense Department. As such it also sheds light on Hegseth the Younger’s role, which has been the subject of media speculation labeling him an obscure but influential figure in his brother’s MAGA orbit.
The memo outlines the itinerary for a July 21 meeting between senior DHS and Pentagon officials, with the goal of better coordinating the agencies’ activities in “defense of the homeland.” It details goals that Philip Hegseth hopes to accomplish in the meeting and outlines points he wants DHS officials to impress on Pentagon attendees.
Participants listed comprise the very top levels of both agencies, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several of his top advisers, Joint Chiefs chairman Dan Caine, and NORTHCOM Commander Gregory Guillot. Staff include Phil Hegseth and acting ICE commissioner Todd Lyons….
Please read the rest if you have time.
Samantha Michaels at Mother Jones: ICE Plans to Build More Tent Jails for Immigrants. What Could Go Wrong?
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), now the best-funded federal lawenforcement agency in the United States, is embarking on a plan to drastically expand its detention infrastructure. But considering the $45 billion it’s been given for the job, the agency’s vision for its new facilities seems startlingly low-tech.
In July, the Wall Street Journal got its hands on internal government documents revealing that ICE wants to incarcerate more immigrants in tents, or “hardened soft-sided facilities.” The administration hopes to erect thousands of these tents “as quickly as possible to expand detention capacity…at US military bases and adjoining bricks-and-mortar ICE jails,” the Journal reported. Officials say they like this approach, at least for now, because they can quickly set up tons of beds in a few new locations rather than finding space at existing facilities here and there.
But tents raise serious humanitarian and safety issues. “There’s a reason no one wants to live in a tent,” says Eunice Cho, an attorney who challenges unconstitutional conditions in immigrant detention centers with the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “There are many, many logistical problems—with sanitation, getting food. They certainly are not weatherproof. They do not have the setup to make sure people’s medical concerns are addressed.”
Prior to 2025, ICE did not use tents for long-term detention, but soft-sided facilities are not completely new in the incarceration realm. Here are some recent examples, each highlighting problems that are almost sure to repeat themselves as the Trump administration rolls out its plan.
Michaels provides a detailed history of tent cities in the U.S. The article is well worth reading in full.
Those are my offerings for today. What do you think? What else is on your mind?
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