Two days ago, Gloria Steinem died at age 92. How can we quantify the massive legacy this brilliant woman left us? For those of us women who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, she was a gigantic figure. She helped to change our lives forever. Today those massive changes are threatened by truly evil forces. So I want to pause and take note of her life’s work.
Gloria Steinem, the feminist crusader who galvanized the modern women’s movement, helping millions of women develop a sense of self-worth and gain a measure of equality at home, at work and in society at large, died on Wednesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 92….
Calling herself “an entrepreneur of social change,” Ms. Steinem helped usher in sweeping cultural transformations across virtually every facet of American life, from the boardroom to the courtroom to the bedroom.
For more than half a century, she personified the women’s movement and became its most enduring symbol; her tinted aviator glasses and curtain of streaked-blond hair parted in the center made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.
She was an unlikely revolutionary. Growing up a transient in the Midwest, she was 10 when her parents divorced and she was left to mother her mentally anguished mother — a formative experience that reverberated throughout her life. She had scant formal education until sixth grade; her big dream, as a budding tap dancer, was to become a Rockette.
But she read voraciously, graduated from college with honors and believed fiercely that women should be able to live whatever life they chose.
Her own feminist awakening didn’t come until her mid-30s, when, as a journalist in 1969, she attended a “speak out” of women discussing their illegal abortions. Charismatic, articulate, media savvy, deeply empathetic and a workaholic, she evolved into a political and cultural force.
She led protests and consciousness-raising sessions, wrote essays and delivered speeches, delved into political organizing, helped establish rape crisis centers and shelters for battered women, founded numerous groups that promoted women and had the Midas touch when it came to raising money for their causes.
And she and a cadre of feminists had the audacity to start a publication that flew in the face of traditional women’s magazines, examining topics like abortion, domestic violence and equal pay for equal work. The first glossy national periodical to be created, owned and run entirely by women, Ms. magazine, founded in 1971, sought to capture and channel a rising sense of female empowerment and eradicate the sexist assumptions that permeated the culture.
The magazine served as the movement’s manifesto, an incubator for social transformation and a blueprint for action. As such, it helped embolden women as they fought blatant discrimination and harassment in the workplace and unspoken oppression, and sometimes outright abuse, at home.
“When we started, there was not even a term for sexual harassment,” Ms. Steinem often said. “It was just called life.”
Decades after the movement dissipated and progressive women faced renewed setbacks, Ms. Steinem continued to push for their rights and equality. Indefatigable, she wrote essays and lectured into her 90s, and the news media never stopped seeking her opinion. She was the author of nearly a dozen major nonfiction books; her latest, “An Unexpected Life,” is scheduled for publication in late September.
Use the gift link to read the rest. You can also read an excerpt from Steinem’s memoir at The Atlantic (gift link): ‘Everything We Do Matters.’ Gloria Steinem on what older people can teach America.
To preteen girls of my 1970s junior high, there was no other way to be. Hiphuggers, short skirts, aviators, long swingy hair. A lot of sass. And for many of us, the first post “Women’s Lib” generation, the expectation of an adventure-filled, self-reliant future with marriage and motherhood as options not imminent requirements.
To her peers in the adult public square at the time, she had threaded the needle of sexy and smart in a way that made male detractors look like idiots. The record of their blustering scorn and contumely and the open ridicule heaped on her, and the women she led, is part of history.
Feminazi. Furry Legged fanatic. C-word. B-word. And the perennial favorite: Man-hater.
They couldn’t take it. Her wit and panache drew out their scorn the way certain salves drain boils. The casual insolence and open diminishment toward her and her peers was part of the cultural wallpaper of the era. Among the men engaged in it, the psychological temperature ranged from lightly snide to psychotic.
Reporting on the creation of Ms. Magazine, ABC news anchor Harry Reasoner said on national television, “I give it six months before they run out of things to say.”
By the 1980s, the Viagran Centurions of the media had mobilized. The shock jocks – Limbaugh, Imus Stern – can’t you take a joke? – and their spiritual grandsons the fight club rape propagandist Tate bros and their herd of manosphere sheep. The disappointed entitled, the preternaturally insecure, the incels, and their insidious cousins, the fascist tiki-torch carrying “You Will Not Replace Us” troops.
Gay Talese, revered chronicler of the famously misogyinistic Italian Mafia, sharing a taxi with Steinem and another great 20th Century phallocrat the author Saul Bellow – once famously said: “You know how every year there’s a pretty girl who comes to New York and pretends to be a writer? Well, Gloria is this year’s pretty girl.”
To her face.
Can’t you take a joke?
Charles Manson, weighing in from prison in a 1970 interview uttered a phrase that decades later is close to an actual slogan dripped from the mouths of men from JD Vance to the Tate brothers:“Gloria Steinem and all those girls’ libbers, they’re taking the manliness out of the man. They want to be the men, but they don’t want to carry the weight.”
Replacement was always the underlying fear.
Millions of men now share the views of a psychotic mass murdering cult leader.: Taking the manliness out of the man.
Steinem saw this coming back in 1972: “Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” In later speeches she would add to that: “But too few men are becoming the women they wanted to marry.”
She could name the core issues like no one else. Cut to the chase. “Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That’s their natural and first weapon.”
Robin Morgan, a former editor-in-chief of Ms. Magazine who co-founded the Women’s Media Center with Ms. co-founder Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda, died today, September 5, just several days after the passing of her friend and colleague Steinem. Morgan was 85.
Her death was announced by her son Blake Morgan and Julie Burton, president and CEO of the Women’s Media Center. A cause of death was not disclosed, but her son noted that she died peacefully in her sleep. Robin Morgan was in her second decade of living with Parkinson’s Disease.
Girl with a cat (2020) by Olga Gordienok
In a statement, Fonda said, “Robin Morgan was an artist, a poet, an activist, and in my eyes, a living legend — a woman whose anthology series, Sisterhood is Powerful, Sisterhood is Global, and Sisterhood is Forever provided the evidence needed to launch a feminist revolution, and it was part of my feminist education that led to the movie, 9 To 5.”
“I have learned so much from Robin over the years,” Fonda added. “I love her and all that she has brought to the world, the women’s movement, and to me on the most personal levels. I already miss her and my heart is broken.”
The editor-in-chief of Ms. Magazine from 1989 to 1994, Morgan, over the last decade, hosted, wrote, and produced the award-winning WMC podcast Women’s Media Center Live with Robin Morgan. The podcast recently produced its 500th episode.
Morgan, Fonda and Steinem co-founded the Women’s Media Center 21 years ago with a mission to give voice to and strengthen democracy for women in media and beyond. “Our job is to make women visible and powerful in the media,” Morgan once told Fox 5 Good Day New York. “And we do that through lots of programs — through training women in media skills, through SheSource, which is the go-to place for experts, through many programs and our radio program [now podcast], Women’s Media Center Live with Robin Morgan.”
And now, sadly, back to the reality of Trump world.
Yesterday, during one of his oval office bull
sessions with the media, Trump revealed his true feelings toward the men and women he has sent to fight and die in his Iran war.
President Donald Trump has dismissed his war in Iran, in which 18 U.S. service members have been killed, as “small potatoes for us.”
The president, 80, was taking questions in the Oval Office on Friday when he was asked how he would describe the conflict with Iran.
The question came after Vice President JD Vance insisted on Thursday it wasn’t a war despite the U.S. carrying out new strikes this week.
“Can you explain to the American people, if this is not a war, what exactly is it?” ABC News’ Rachel Scott asked Trump.
“Well, I’ll tell you what, a lot of people don’t call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it’s, it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing,” Trump said. “We did Venezuela, and we did this.”
But the president did not stop there. He went on to compare war casualties to back up his claim that the conflict in Iran was “small potatoes.”
“In Venezuela, we lost nobody, and this, we lost 18 people,” Trump said. “In Vietnam you lost 100,000 people, and in other conflicts, you lost tens of thousands of people.”
Trump, who himself received five military draft deferments during the Vietnam War, went on to say that he would call the conflict with Iran “intermittent strikes” and agreed with Vance that it was not a war.
“We’re not fighting right now. There’s no fighting,” Trump rambled.
Trump obviously couldn’t care less about the men and women who have died and been injured in his war. And actually, there is fighting.
The U.S. military said Saturday it hit three Iranian oil tankers, including one near Kharg Island, the country’s main oil terminal, after Iran launched missiles toward two U.S. Navy warships.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the region, said in a statement that its strikes disabled an oil carrier off the coast of Kharg Island and another off Jask, and it destroyed a third one in the Gulf of Oman.
Blaise, Saint-Louis (1956 – 1995) Haitian artist
“Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,” said Adm. Brad Cooper, Centcom commander, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “We will not hesitate to defend American forces, and if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet.”
Iranian state media earlier in the day reported that an oil tanker was hit by U.S. missiles near Kharg Island.
Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kharg Island, about 15 miles from the Iranian mainland in the Persian Gulf, is the centerpiece of Iran’s oil-based economy, with about 90 percent of the country’s oil exports moving through there.
Since the U.S. and Israel launched the first airstrikes against Iran six months ago, President Donald Trump has been mired in an unpopular war with no end in sight.
No end in sight. And it’s a war.
Meanwhile, back home in the Pentagon, Paranoid Whiskey Pete is hunting for leakers.
U.S. government investigators have taken the extraordinary step of subjecting roughly 50 members of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff to polygraph tests over leaks to journalists, including about how the Iran war has created a shortage of crucial munitions, according to officials briefed on the move.
The investigators asked military officers and civilian employees on the Joint Staff if they disclosed classified information to members of the press, and about whether they provided information about diminished U.S. munitions stocks.
The polygraph tests were conducted in August after a flurry of news reports detailed diminished stocks of crucial munitions, including of long-range missiles and Patriot interceptors. The show of force appeared aimed at not just ferreting out anyone who may have shared information, but intimidating others who might do so in the future, according to people with knowledge of the effort.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 officers and officials work for the Joint Staff, which coordinates operations, policy and war plans with combatant commanders around the world….
The scope of the investigation is without parallel. Mass polygraph tests have never been administered to the top ranks of the U.S. military in modern history.
Woman with cat, Tracy Porter
“I’ve never seen polygraphs employed this broadly or at this seniority level,” said Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter, a retired top judge advocate general for the Navy from 2000 to 2002. “In my experience, it’s unprecedented.”
The move comes as multiple news organizations have revealed details about how the war with Iran has drained munition stockpiles and reported on concerns inside the administration about the strategic direction of the conflict.
President Trump has pressured administration officials to aggressively hunt for those leaking information. But the president has gone further than merely trying to stop the flow of unauthorized information; he has labeled “treasonous” the media coverage that is critical of the U.S. handling of the war in Iran and the shortages of munitions.
The leaks have intensified an atmosphere of deep distrust and paranoia inside the Pentagon, one that current and former officials say has been fostered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Surrounded by a tight inner circle of loyalists, Mr. Hegseth has pushed out or blocked the promotions of at least 80 generals, admirals and other officials during his tenure. Since early last year, the Pentagon has been conducting a number of leak investigations in response to news coverage about his leadership, even as he faced criticism for sharing sensitive details about strikes in Yemen in a Signal group last year.
The only thing Trump really seems to really care about is building his ballroom and putting his name on everything he can think of. The latest announcement from the administration is that they are going break ground for Trump’s “triumphal” Nazi arch.
The Trump administration plans to break ground on its proposed 250-foot arch near Washington, D.C.’s National Mall in the coming days, without key approvals and despite an ongoing lawsuit.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wrote on social media Thursday that “we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck.”
But the arch is still awaiting final approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, as well as federally mandated reviews regarding aviation safety and historic preservation.
Historic preservation experts have long criticized the Trump administration for seeming to rush the arch approval process, including by moving to weaken protections for historic sites altogether. This latest development raises concerns that the White House seeks to sidestep the process, which it denies.
Cecilia Beaux, Man with the cat
“Work will begin that does not require approval, but rather helps in the process,” the White House told NPR in a statement on Friday. “We will of course continue on our path of seeking final approval from all applicable entities.”
The White House, Department of the Interior and National Park Service did not respond to NPR’s questions about the timeline and extent of the excavations or the addition of the word “military” to the structure’s title.
President Trump told journalists last year that the arch is for “me.” But since then, the administration has said the arch is intended to honor the nation’s 250th anniversary.
“This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World,” Burgum posted this week, alongside renderings of the white-and-gold structure, topped with three large gilded statues.
The administration told the judge something different.
The Trump administration told a federal judge that it was not preparing to start construction on the president’s planned triumphal arch in Washington, a day after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced that excavation work for the project would begin within the next two weeks.
The work the government plans to do, the Department of Justice said in a court filing on Friday, consists of archaeological excavation of the site necessary for the required historic review of the project. And it stated, despite President Trump’s frequent promotion of the project, that no final decision had been made to begin building the arch, which would stand near Arlington National Cemetery.
That starkly different message follows a pattern across other cases in which the administration has made one pronouncement in public and another in court.
Responding to the conflicting messages, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered the administration late Friday night to give her at least 48 hours’ notice if it proceeds with anything other than the limited archaeological work. And she reminded the administration that it is under an existing order to give the court 14 days notice before beginning construction on the arch.
The flurry of filings on Friday followed Mr. Burgum’s surprise announcement that excavation work for the arch would begin, even before it receives final approvals.
The Language of Care, by Kateryna Kolesnykova
“We are pleased to announce that after a very long wait (over 125 years!), we are preparing to start, over the next two-week period, the excavation work necessary for the Great Triumphal Arch,” Mr. Burgum wrote on social media.
The Department of Justice put things differently, after a group of veterans suing to block the arch sought a temporary restraining order on Friday. “This activity is not construction, or demolition in preparation for construction, of an arch,” the department said.
Judge Chutkan appeared to tread a middle path, allowing the limited work the government said in court it was pursuing, while warning it against going any further at this point.
My guess is that Trump will go ahead with the construction regardless of what the judge says. Remember, he has immunity for anything he does as president.
President Donald Trump has made a stunning admission while revealing why he’s obsessed with remodeling Washington.
Trump, 80, has candidly told New York magazine that he is building monuments for himself and slapping his name everywhere because he knows that nobody else will do so when he is gone.
Reporter Ben Terris shared with Trump an attack line from Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, who says that Trump’s obsession with vanity projects stems from knowing he is the only person willing to memorialize him.
“That’s true,” Trump responded. “Nobody will do it once I’m gone. When I leave here, nobody will.”
That is just pathetic.
That’s it for me today. Have a great long weekend, Sky Dancers!
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Yesterday was the Massachusetts primary and, as expected, 80-year-old Ed Markey defeated 47-year-old Seth Moulton in the contest for U.S. Senator nomination. I voted for Moulton, even though I agree more with Markey’s politics; because I really believe we need to get younger people into Congress. I knew Markey would win anyway. Our other Senator, Elizabeth Warren, is 77. Her term will not be up until 2031. Stephen Lynch, 71, also defeated a younger opponent for his House seat. I don’t have as much of a problem with that. His term is only 2 years. But we really need new blood in Congress–not to mention the White House!
Massachusetts, as it turns out, is a good state in which to be a very old Democratic incumbent.
Three Democrats who have been in office since long before the iPhone was in stores all won renomination Tuesday. Senator Ed Markey, 80, and Representatives Richard Neal, 77, and Stephen F. Lynch, 71, are all likely to return for additional terms.
Ed Markey
Each faced challengers who had called for a new generation of leadership. Mr. Markey coasted past Representative Seth Moulton, 47, who ran to the middle, while Mr. Neal and Mr. Lynch both fought off progressive challengers.
Mr. Markey has been in office for 50 years. Mr. Neal has represented western Massachusetts since 1989. Mr. Lynch first won election from South Boston in 2001. The state’s Democrats do not seem inclined to reject their incumbents….
The party still scarred by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s public meltdown during the 2024 campaign was not convinced that an octogenarian senator should not serve another six years.
Seth Moulton
Perhaps if Mr. Markey, 80, had faced a younger challenger with better political relationships than Mr. Moulton, he would have been in trouble in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. But Mr. Moulton has spent his career challenging his party’s orthodoxy and its leaders.
That record left Mr. Markey the political space he needed to paint himself as the progressive in the race, campaigning on the ideas of the future — even though he has been in Congress for 50 years.
In the waning days of the Massachusetts primary, several Democrats described Mr. Moulton as having the generational change message the party needed but being the wrong messenger to deliver it.
Mr. Markey said throughout the campaign that he would resign his seat if his advanced age left him unable to properly fulfill his Senate duties. He is now favored to win in November, which would have him serve in the Senate until he is 86 years old.
Moulton also hurt himself with his remarks about trans athletes.
…from the moment Mr. Moulton entered the race last October, Mr. Markey used his remarks questioning transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports as a battering ram against him. Not only did it galvanize the L.G.B.T.Q. vote for Mr. Markey, it also helped frame him as the progressive candidate.
It was the same formula that powered Mr. Markey’s last primary triumph in 2020 against another younger, more moderate Democrat, Joe Kennedy III.
Mr. Moulton eventually offered a qualified apology for his remarks, which came the day after President Trump won a second term in the 2024 election. But by then the state’s progressive voters had heard for months from Mr. Markey and his supporters that Mr. Moulton, during tough times, was willing to toss trans people aside.
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Rep. Stephen Lynch and Rep. Richard Neal also defeated younger opponents.
Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch has defeated a younger, more progressive primary challenger, NBC News projects, in the highest-profile test remaining for House incumbents after a turbulent primary season.
Stephen Lynch in 2025
Lynch, 71, won renomination over Patrick Roath, a 39-year-old former aide to former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. With his win, Lynch staved off an attempt to add him to the list of Democratic officeholders dethroned by rivals pushing for generational change.
Elsewhere in the state, fellow veteran Democratic Rep. Richard Neal also secured renomination, defeating teacher Jeromie Whalen in another Democratic primary.
On the other side of Massachusetts, Roath outraised Lynch, outspent him significantly on the airwaves and scored The Boston Globe editorial board’s endorsement to go with backing from Patrick, progressive activist David Hogg’s group, Leaders We Deserve, and key teachers unions.
That support helped Roath press Lynch for months in one of the toughest fights of his political career. He highlighted Lynch’s various breaks with his party in the past, including votes against the Affordable Care Act and, more recently, for the Laken Riley Act. Roath also called for progressive measures like “Medicare for All,” abolishing ICE and restricting military aid to Israel.
But Lynch persevered, trumpeting work that he says held the Trump administration accountable and leaning on his decades of experience, including deep relationships with unions and other fixtures in the district….
Richard Neal
Neal also avoided defeat in another primary marked by arguments over generational change and progressive policy proposals. Whalen, 39, a high school teacher, ran a campaign decrying the “old-school political entanglements that got us into this mess” and called to abolish ICE and cut off U.S. military aid to Israel.
Neal spent more than $1 million on campaign ads, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, about 10 times what Whalen spent.
The United States and Iran exchanged a barrage of strikes overnight, an outburst of violence that killed both military personnel and civilians in Iran, including four people at a wedding, according to Iranian news media and officials.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees the military’s operations in the Middle East, said that it had struck Iranian military targets in retaliation for attacks on ships and American forces in the region.
Four members of the aerospace division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were killed in a U.S. strike in the western city of Kermanshah, according to a Guards statement published on Wednesday by Tasnim, an Iranian news agency. At least 12 people were killed in strikes across Iran’s southern region, the Iranian state outlet Press TV reported on Wednesday.
A still from a video provided by the Iranian Red Crescent rescue service showed damage in Kuhestak, southern Iran, on Wednesday.Credit…Iranian Red Crescent Society, via Reuters
In response to the latest attacks, the Revolutionary Guards said in statements Wednesday morning that they had launched missiles overnight at an American military base in Jordan, at U.S. military equipment warehouses in Iraq and at an air base in Kuwait hosting American forces.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operations, said Wednesday all American service members were accounted for but declined to share any damage assessments.
The deadly back-and-forth overnight was a demonstration of the stalemate between Washington and Tehran, more than six months after President Trump launched strikes on Iran, saying that he expected a quick resolution.
Among the locations hit by the U.S. military was a wedding in a residential area in the small port town of Kuhestak in the Hormozgan province of southern Iran, according to Iranian officials. Four people, including a child, were killed in the attack, with around 50 others wounded and hospitalized, Iranian state media reported.
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Iran fired on U.S. allies in the Gulf early Wednesday following a night of American bombardment that Iranian officials say included a deadly strike on a wedding party.
The latest violence came after a monthlong lull in fighting. The six-month war has led to a spike in oil prices, roiled the global economy and posed increasing political problems for U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party ahead of November midterm elections.
Fighting has escalated since the American military hit Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, saying Iran was planning to use them to shoot mines into the waterway. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at American bases in Jordan that were intercepted.
American military resources are stretched and political pressure in Washington is mounting, while Iran’s economy falters. Iran’s currency hit another record low on Wednesday, with traders in Tehran exchanging 2.20 million rials for one U.S. dollar, a 10% hike from last week’s record.
Neither side can continue indefinitely between full-scale war and a truce, said Hamidreza Azizi, senior Iran analyst at the Crisis Group, an international think tank.
“At some point, one of the sides may see a need to escalate in order to break this cycle,” he cautioned. “So that could bring the two sides to a point that they have been trying to avoid until now, which is a full-scale war.”
Trump made a bunch of insane threats on Truth Social, including that he would completely destroy Iran’s civilization. Then he suddenly switched gears and announced another cease fire.
President Donald Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran on Tuesday night — hours after he’d threatened “a whole civilization will die tonight” and about 90 minutes before a deadline he set for Tehran to reach an agreement with the United States.
“Based on conversations with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir, of Pakistan, and wherein they requested that I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran, and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz, I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Earlier in the day, Trump had warned on social media that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if there was no deal between the two warring countries.
That threat, Trump’s most extreme public rhetoric in the conflict to date, had included a vow to launch attacks on Iran’s infrastructure over its continued disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The two-week ceasefire, Trump said, is contingent upon Iran reopening the strait. For its part, Iran proposed a 10-point plan to end the war, which includes “controlled passage” through the strait, coordinated by Iran’s armed forces.
Iran’s plan also calls for compensation for damages and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from “all bases and positions in the region.” On social media, Trump called the plan “workable.” [….]
After he extended the deadline multiple times for Iran to reopen the vital shipping route, which about a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas usually passes through, Trump announced 8 p.m. ET Tuesday as the final deadline for Iran to come to a deal.
In a post Sunday, Trump threatened Iran’s power plants and bridges if it did not reopen the strait by the Tuesday deadline, using expletives and invoking Islam.
It was the latest in a series of escalating threats by Trump against Tehran, including threatening to bomb the country into “the Stone Ages” and calling the Iranian government “crazy bastards” while demanding that it open up the key shipping route.
Trump’s threat Tuesday morning sparked a wave of fierce and immediate condemnations from Democrats, who said such strikes on infrastructure would constitute war crimes.
Trump is psychotic and should be removed from office. He’s a danger to the U.S. and the world. He has completely out of touch with reality.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday floated renaming the Strait of Hormuz — the central point of contention in the ongoing war against Iran that the U.S. and Israel started — after himself.
The proposal via a Truth Social post came less than a week after Trump, who is locked in an intensifying feud with Canada, signed an executive order to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”
“Now that we have it under U.S.A. control, should we change the name Hormuz Strait to TRUMP STRAIT???” Trump wrote in the post Wednesday morning.
“Like America itself, it would be ‘hotter’ than ever before! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he wrote.
It was not immediately clear how the president would attempt to implement a name change in the strait, which is not near the U.S. The order renaming Lake Ontario directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and his department to update the Geographic Names Information System with the new name. Canada rejected the change, though Google and Apple have recently updated their maps. Early in his second presidential term, Trump also declared he was renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, a change also rejected by Mexico and other international counterparts. The U.S. borders Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico, both of which have had their names for centuries….
The Strait of Hormuz yestereday
Trump and his administration have repeatedly insisted that Iran has lost control over the strait, which carried one-fifth of the world’s oil trade before the war began in late February.
But transits through the waterway remain far below prewar levels, and ship-trackers say they have dropped further in recent days, as military strikes in the region have resumed following a weekslong hiatus.
Again, Trump lives in an alternate reality. He is insane and should be removed from office immediately.
Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth is destroying the Department of Defense.
In the aftermath of the resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, multiple sources told CNN they believe Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is damaging the Army’s efforts to adapt to the modern battlefield as he focuses on culture wars and prioritizing his own image of the “American warfighter,” and pushes out leaders who don’t align with his vision.
In submitting his resignation, a source familiar said Driscoll brought up “concerns with the administration surrounding Army transformation and readiness and Hegseth’s blocking those efforts specifically by firing the generals who were responsible.”
Driscoll announced Tuesday evening that Wednesday would be his “last full day in the role.”
Multiple sources agreed with the concerns Driscoll raised: that Hegseth is damaging the Army’s efforts to modernize and adapt to the 21st century battlefield environment – where drone warfare is becoming increasingly important – by firing or pushing out leaders who were spearheading those efforts.
“It’s critical that you have key leaders that understand technology and have the temperament to deal with industry and turn that into the formation,” a former senior Army official said. “When you fire these guys for arbitrary reasons, it creates confusion and a void … the Army is enduring turbulence right now.”
Senior US military officials have privately acknowledged they have come under what could be characterized as political pressure during Hegseth’s tenure — particularly when he has prioritized culture war issues — and voiced concerns about the secretary’s recent efforts to fire or push out uniformed and civilian leaders.
A defense official in Europe told CNN that even though Hegseth has spoken about technology reform and even previously released guidance on unmanned systems, in practice they see a secretary and Pentagon leadership more focused on cultural issues than modernization.
“It’s conflicting because yeah he put out a memo saying this is important, but … he’s talking about muscles, dudes in dresses, testosterone,” the official said. “We don’t see a change at that level.”
Pete Hegseth is accused of setting the military up for potential disaster as the fallout of his ego-driven overhaul of top leadership spills into public view.
The 46-year-old former Fox News host has masterminded a massive purge within the Defense Department that saw Army Secretary Dan Driscoll walk out on Monday, raising fears about a lack of experienced leadership at the top of the military.
It comes as the Pentagon burns through resources—both material and human—in its fight with Iran, which has now dragged on for over six months despite President Trump initially projecting it to last four to five weeks.
Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll submitted his resignation to President Trump.Credit…Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
The fight is thought to be exacting a heavy toll on the nation’s weapons and munitions stockpiles, which the Center for Strategic and International Studies says will last for the war in Iran, but which pose a threat to the U.S.’s ability to fight future wars. The Associated Press, however, reports that the war has used around 65 percent of Patriot interceptor missiles.
Driscoll said he feared that Hegseth’s leadership of the Defense Department could cause “generational damage,” a person familiar with the close JD Vance ally told the Financial Times.
He “had tried so many different ways and so many different times, but it was just clear that… Hegseth wasn’t willing to listen to the facts or the truth, or the reason, or any of that, because of his personal animosity,” they said.
Reflecting on his exit, Brookings Institution senior fellow Tom Wright told the FT that it was a “revelatory moment, and I think it illustrates that the Pentagon is in disarray.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired or blocked the promotions of more than 80 generals and admirals, a purge that has hit about 10 percent of the military’s top officers and shows no signs of slowing.
In recent days, Mr. Hegseth targeted seven Army officers who had been selected for two-star general rank by a board made up of senior Army leaders, according to current and former military officials, who discussed sensitive personnel matters on the condition of anonymity.
The moves come at a time when the military is badly strained by the Iran war, which has gone on far longer than administration officials anticipated.
Pete Hegseth
The military, especially the Army, is also racing to keep up with the proliferation of sophisticated drones and precision missiles that have exposed the vulnerability of its overseas bases and weapons systems.
The firings and Mr. Hegseth’s refusal to explain the logic behind them are dividing the Pentagon and alienating many in Congress, the officials said. The latest to register his disapproval was Army Secretary Daniel P. Driscoll, who recently submitted his resignation to Mr. Trump.
In a meeting with the president, Mr. Driscoll complained that Mr. Hegseth had fired some of the Army’s most combat-tested leaders, imperiling its efforts to modernize the force, military officials said.
He also warned Mr. Trump that the firings and blocked promotions have damaged morale, causing some in the military to question the fairness of a promotion system that is supposed to be apolitical and merit-based, senior officials said.
Mr. Hegseth’s purge does not appear to be driven by job performance, but rather is part of a broader effort by the defense secretary to fashion a force, particularly at senior levels, that is aligned with his political and ideological views, according to military officials.
Also his preference for white males.
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman, defended Mr. Hegseth’s decisions as normal Pentagon business. “The idea that these lists cannot be altered is ridiculous; every single secretary has exercised this exact prerogative,” he said.
But senior officials and members of Congress have said that Mr. Hegseth’s moves are without precedent. In the past, the defense secretary and service secretaries have removed officers for moral or ethical breaches. But officials said that these officers have behaved in accordance with Pentagon policy.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has called Mr. Hegseth’s removals “illegal.”
More than half of the officers affected by Mr. Hegseth’s dismissals are Black or female in a force whose senior ranks are dominated by white male officers. Of the seven officers Mr. Hegseth removed from the Army two-star promotion list, two are Black and two are female.
Use the gift link to read more if you wish.
Those are my recommended reads for today. Thoughts? What other stories are you following?
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Russian artist Alexander Sokht, Between books and cats
Today’s top stories:
Trump’s war on Canada escalated yesterday as he ordered 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called his bluff, and the tariffs have taken effect for now.
Trump’s war on the free press also escalated Friday, after Whiskey Pete Hegseth fired the editor and publisher of Stars and Stripes because of their coverage of the dire conditions on the carrier S.S. Lincoln and their criticism of the Pentagon’s interference in their coverage.
Trump is threatening Iran with economic sanctions and Iran is threatening a “devastating response.” Iran also responded to Trump’s claim that the Strait of Hormuz is a “U.S. territory.”
ICE is getting a new weapon to use against immigrants and citizens who get in the way of their fascist attacks: shock gloves.
The disaster in Indiana is still going on after massive storms, flooding, and power outages.
The Trump administration’s latest round of tariffs against billions of dollars worth of Canadian goods took effect just after midnight Saturday, after the two countries failed to seal a last-minute trade deal that satisfied both sides.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Ottawa would retaliate “dollar for dollar” after the White House delivered on its threat to impose crushing 50 per cent tariffs on a wide range of products. The two governments’ trade representatives said they had come close to finalizing an agreement in recent days, but Carney said Ottawa ultimately couldn’t accept the terms on the table.
“I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the U.S. and have directed Canada’s negotiators to return to Ottawa,” the prime minister said in a statement.
“They have worked hard, in good faith, to defend the interests of Canadians throughout these negotiations up until the very last minute. However, last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.” [….]
In his own statement, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said talks crumbled because Canada didn’t accept the agreement the administration had offered.
“Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week, despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days,” Greer said in a statement.
“In addition, Canada is continuing to maintain its prolonged retaliation against the United States, including, among other things, flat out prohibitions on certain American goods and services.”
Now we wait for Trump to TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), likely right before the stock market opens on Monday.
Crucial trade talks between the United States and Canada to stave off punishing new tariffs by the Trump administration on Canadian goods collapsed late Friday, with Canada saying it would retaliate “dollar for dollar.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said he had decided to suspend the talks because the American side had introduced last-minute terms that were “unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”
By Merle Keller
He added that the talks, which had been going on for weeks and had intensified in the past few days, had marked important progress but had ultimately “not been enough to meet our objectives for Canadians.”
United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters that Canada had walked away from the negotiating table, minutes before a deadline ushering in new 50 percent tariffs by the Trump administration on a broad range of Canadian goods.
“Tonight, Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week, despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market,” Mr. Greer said on a virtual briefing with the press.
“New demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days,” Mr. Greer added.
Shortly before Mr. Greer’s statement to the press, U.S. Customs and Border Protection sent out guidance for importers saying that the Canadian products that the president had identified would face tariffs after 12:01 a.m.
Use the gift link to read more if you’re interested. I still expect Trump to TACO.
Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon on Friday fired the publisher and editor of the independent military news outlet Stars and Stripes for “insubordination.”
Long-time publisher Max Lederer and Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin were given “separation notices” that allow five days to appeal the decision, CBS News reports. Reporter Lara Korte announced on social media that she had also been fired.
Korte and Slavin traced the decision back to interviews they did that aired on CBS Sunday Morning in July.
“According to the notice, I am being fired for stating in a CBS interview that censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line. The Pentagon’s public affairs office has charged me with insubordination,” Slavin told CBS.
“I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department’s own policies.” [….]
Portrait of Kolya with a Cat, by Arkady Plastov
“It’s a shame for the institution and service members, who swore to defend the Constitution and deserve the right to a free and independent press,” Korte wrote in a series of posts about her firing.
Although the newspaper operates within the Department of Defense, it is legally mandated by Congress to remain editorially independent.
Lederer had announced on Wednesday his intention to step down from the post he’s held since 2007, since his opinions on how to run the media organization differed in “fundamental ways” to the Pentagon’s plans for Stars and Stripes, the newspaper reported.
“I think the right step is for me to step down, get out of the way, and let different leadership step in and continue to make this, the great organization that it is, even better,” he said.
Lederer was slated to finish up his tenure on Sept. 30, but now both he and his editor-in-chief have been turfed out.
The move comes after President Donald Trump, Hegseth, and other military leaders downplayed reporting on dire conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln reported by families of service members.
The Pentagon on Friday fired the editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes and a top reporter for insubordination after they spoke publicly against any interference by the Defense Department in the military news outlet that has a long history of editorial independence. It was the latest move by an administration that has grown increasingly aggressive toward the news media.
Erik Slavin, editor-in-chief of the military newspaper that is partly funded by the Pentagon, told The Associated Press he was dismissed for insubordination after an interview he gave that objected to potential censorship by the U.S. military. He received a notice of separation, as did publisher Max Lederer — who had just announced his upcoming retirement — and Middle East reporter Lara Korte, Slavin said.
Slavin said he was being fired “for stating in a CBS interview that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line.” Korte participated in the same interview.
“I stand by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the department’s own policies,” Slavin said.
Grocery shelves have been empty for days. Children who had just started school haven’t seen their classrooms in more than a week. Insulin has spoiled in warm refrigerators, and people who depend on oxygen cannot pump it from their tanks.
Electricity has been out for 10 days throughout much of Gary, Ind., since deadly storms ripped through, knocking down trees and power lines. On Friday, residents said they were growing increasingly desperate, even as another round of rain was on the way.
Lecture en fauteuil rouge, by French artist Flora Merleau
“Every day I’m crying,” Renita Theus, 41, said outside her darkened apartment, where her car remained trapped under a fallen tree. “It’s hot in the house. I toss and turn and can’t sleep. I walked to the dollar store and they’re all out of candles and batteries.”
Storms on Aug. 11 caused flooding and havoc throughout the Chicago area and neighboring northern Indiana, hitting Gary, where one-third of residents live in poverty, especially hard. More than a week later, the regional power company said its crews were working tirelessly to restore electricity but were overwhelmed by unprecedented levels of damage.
The utility, Northern Indiana Public Service Co., said on Friday that 43,400 of its customers remain without power in the region, down from more than 300,000 in the storm’s immediate aftermath. Service is expected to be restored to Gary by Tuesday, the company said, calling it a “monumental undertaking.”
On Friday, Gov. Mike Braun said that he had requested an expedited major disaster declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that would allow more assistance to pour into the state. Last week, President Trump granted an emergency declaration for Indiana counties affected by the disaster, and a state relief fund is providing emergency aid grants of as much as $5,000.
“I will do everything in my power to ensure Hoosiers have the resources needed to recover,” said Mr. Braun, a Republican.
Local officials warned that cleanup would likely take months.
“It’s just widespread devastation throughout the city of Gary,” said Larry E. Tillman, the chief of the fire department.
Use the gift link to read more if you’re interested. So far, Trump has said nothing publicly about this disaster. I guess he’s too busy with his building projects.
That’s all I have for today. Take care everyone!
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I’m going to follow up on two important stories that Dakinikat wrote about yesterday: Trump’s order for the Navy to redesign its warships to resemble those used in WWII, and his uncaring attitude toward sailors who are serving in horrible conditions on the USS Lincoln and other warships because of Trump’s Iran war. Then I’ll move on to other news.
The U.S. Navy is considering a major redesign of its new aircraft carriers to better match President Donald Trump’s preferred aesthetic for the warships, according to seven current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The service isevaluating the feasibility of moving the multistory tower that acts as the carrier’s command center farther forward, toward the middle of the ship, to resemble older vessels, the officials said. The review, which has not been previously reported, is in response to Trump’s concerns about the “look” of the new Ford-class ships, where the tower is near the rear, these people said.
The timing and extent of the Navy’s evaluation is unclear, with current and former officials cautioning that the service was concerned that such a change would require significant time and money. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.
Moving that command center, known as the “island,” would be the second major design change prompted by the president, who on Thursday issued a national security memorandum directing the Navy to develop a plan to revert to older steam-powered catapults on future carriers. The systems help launch jets off the ships’ flight decks.
Trump’s preference, current and former officials said, is for the new aircraft carriers to look more like those that were in service during World War II.
The Navy also examined the issue during his first term as president, said a former senior U.S. official. A study found that moving the island could cost billions of dollars in redesign costs and significantly delay the program, this person said.
“It came back that the cost and time to do so would just be extraordinary,” the former official said.
You can read more details using the gift link above.
Cat and kittens, 19th Century American, National Gallery of Art
Trump is obsessed with appearances. These demands for changes in the warships are crazy. He spends even more time obsessing about his ballroom. It really is time for the 25th Amendment, if only we had responsible people in the cabinet.
The Iranian attack, retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli assault on Tehran, destroyed much of the base. And as it went up in smoke, so did a major logistics hub that the Navy has relied on for decades.
The Navy needed a Plan B to continue feeding the sailors working around the clock to keep warplanes flying strike missions, and later to maintain a blockade of Iran’s ports.
With the threat of Iranian attacks at other ports in the region, the Pentagon looked to a base under British command on the island of Diego Garcia as its supply hub, which is south of the Maldives and roughly 2,200 miles from where two aircraft carrier strike groups have been operating in the Gulf of Oman.
The loss of the hub in Bahrain has contributed to a host of reported problems on carriers supporting operations against Iran, as Democratic senators raise concerns about the Lincoln’s 5,000 sailors and their nearly nine-month deployment.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said in a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the reported problems included shortages of basic supplies and the deteriorating mental health of its crew members.
Again, you can read more with the gift link. Both Trump and Hegseth have dismissed the problems sailors are facing and the concerns of their families, but they actually have moved to relieve the USS Lincoln and replace it with the USS George Washington, recently stationed near Japan and currently near Indonesia.
A U.S. official told ABC News on Thursday that the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, which is homeported in Japan, will replace the Lincoln as part of a long-planned rotation of ships and has begun heading toward the Middle East.
By Daniel Merlin (French artist)
The aircraft carrier’s movements come amid reports of mental health and supply issues aboard the USS Lincoln, whose long deployment to the Middle East in support of the Iran war includes a record-setting time at sea of more than 200 days. Navy leaders, including the Navy’s acting Secretary Hung Cao, last week held a heated town hall for families of the USS Lincoln who had raised concerns about the conditions on the ship.
When a reporter on Friday said that family members of people aboard that ship are concerned about the conditions, Trump interjected to suggest that they are “not” actually worried.
“No, they’re not. That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it’s being replaced with another very similar ship,” Trump said.
When pressed by a reporter about whether the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln has gone on for too long, Trump said not that it hasn’t gone on “nearly long enough.”
“No, no, not nearly long enough,” Trump said.
Family members can’t be happy to read those quotes. We’ve known for a long time that Trump couldn’t care less about our troops, but to see it spelled out in print is still shocking.
It is among the most famous phrases in presidential history: “ The buck stops here.” Except with President Donald Trump, it almost never does.
Concerns about a weak economy and still-high inflation? His predecessor, Joe Biden, saddled him with that, he says, even though the Democrat has been out of office for 18-plus months and despite Trump once promising an immediate turnaround.
The increasingly unpopular war in Iran that has kept oil prices high, Trump’s approval rating low and sent shock waves through the global economy? Actually, this was Trump making up for timid earlier presidents who, he argues, squandered nearly 50 years of opportunities to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Trump’s tendency to point fingers at others is increasingly in the spotlight before November’s midterm elections, when Republicans are trying to retain control of Congress. His unwillingness to accept blame sometimes leads him to deny that there are problems at all, and could leave GOP leaders in tight races with little reassurance for voters that their concerns are being addressed.
A bit more:
Accepting the 2016 presidential nomination, Trump said, “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” But as president, he has often suggested that the solution and blame rest elsewhere.
“The buck stops with everybody,” Trump said in 2019, during a lengthy government shutdown. In 2020, on the same day he declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency, he said, “I don’t take responsibility at all” for a lack of COVID-19 testing….
The president acknowledged in a recent Punchbowl interview that voters are angry, but he said they are not mad at him but at congressional Republicans.
Trump believes his party can hold its congressional majorities after November, but he was clear that if Republicans lose, it won’t be his fault — echoing his comments before the 2018 midterms that he would not accept blame if his party lost control of the House, which it did.
There’s even more at the link. I’m glad at least one journalist is writing about this.
President Donald Trump is heading to another weekend at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club as questions mount over promises he made to Americans on energy costs and his pledge to take care of the U.S. military. Trump campaigned on cutting energy and electricity prices in half within his first year in office and repeatedly promised Americans $2 gasoline.
However, energy costs have not fallen anywhere close to those levels and gasoline prices remain well above the $2 target. Many are experiencing some of the highest electricity bills they have ever seen.
At the same time, thousands of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln have reportedly endured food and water shortages, disrupted mail, long workdays, plumbing problems and deteriorating mental health after more than 250 days at sea. Against that backdrop, Trump is once again retreating to Bedminster for a weekend that is largely closed to the press.
Trump doesn’t seem to do much of anything other than sit in oval office talking to reporters and falling asleep and then playing golf at every opportunity.
In a speech last night, a delusional Trump claimed he could make the Strait of Hormuz “a territory of the United States.” Again, it’s 25th Amendment time.
President Trump claimed during remarks on Long Island, N.Y., on Friday that he will make the Strait of Hormuz a U.S. territory, despite the fact that Oman and Iran share jurisdiction of the waterway.
“Pretty soon, I will be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said during an address highlighting his administration’s efforts to combat crime in the U.S.
Trump did not elaborate on how he would make the critical shipping lane a U.S. territory, considering the U.S. does not have jurisdiction over the waterway….
Trump has said since the conflict started roughly six months ago that the U.S. has controlled the strait. He deployed a U.S. naval blockade in the strait twice, claiming U.S. supremacy over the transit of oil exports from the region.
Iran has pushed back on Trump’s claims that the U.S. controls the waterway. In a post on the social platform X on Wednesday, Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority said that whoever owns it does “not change the reality: the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran’s conditions are accepted.”
Last Wednesday, I wrote about Ohio Rep. Max Miller and his refusal to end his reelection campaign in light of the multiple accusations of violence against his ex-wife, including holding a gun to her head and throwing boiling hot water on her as well as breaking the collarbone of his 2-year-old daughter. But one of his abusive actions has really resonated with observers–his refusal to return his daughter’s beloved blue bunny.
Miller, 37, has faced domestic violence and physical abuse allegations for years, most recently from his ex-wife, the mother of his 2-year-old daughter. But no detail has broken through quite like the “little blue bunny.” Conservative colleagues who previously had avoided commenting on Miller’s personal life called this week for his resignation after his former father-in-law, another powerful Ohio Republican, accused the second-term congressman of holding his granddaughter’s stuffy “hostage” for 48 hours.
“This girl is crying at night because she can’t sleep without her little blue bunny, and his answer is, ‘I’m just not going to give it to you,’” Sen. Bernie Moreno told reporters Tuesday.
Miller, who has denied all claims of abuse, posted screenshots on X the next day that he said exonerated him. His ex-wife’s team had sent the wrong “conduit” to fetch the bunny, he said, according to the text messages between the two, which delayed the handoff by 14 hours — not 48.
She asked him to please just leave it in the mailbox, according to the exchange, which racked up 2.3 million views.
By “the wrong conduit” Miller meant that his wife had sent a family friend to pick up the bunny instead of her father. So Miller refused to return it. Back to the WaPo:
CNN’s Jake Tapper asked the question on so many minds, “Did you hold this doll hostage?”
On this, the internet agreed.
“What kind of father wouldn’t deliver the bunny himself, knowing that it helps his little girl sleep at night?” one commenter asked.
“This does not make you look better,” added a reporter for Gateway Pundit, a far-right news site.
“There are literally thousands of fathers reading those tweets and thinking: ‘When my daughter lost her favorite toy, I led a search party as if for a downed NATO nuclear warhead. And when that failed, I paid $300 for a replica on eBay,” posted David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
Suddenly, the standoff over a toy in Ohio had sparked passionate chatter nationwide.
“Everybody gets it, no matter which side of the aisle they are on,” said Jon Krosnick, director of the Political Psychology Research Group at Stanford University. The little blue bunny, he added, “communicates so powerfully to all of us.”
Psychologists call the special toys or blankets that toddlers grow attached to “transitional objects.” In our culture, child begin to sleep alone much earlier than in many others cultures. Children here use their blanket or a stuffed animal as an attachment figure. Usually, by about age 6, kids can let go of the special object, but many older children keep it nearby and some even take it when they go away to college. I still recall my “blue blankie” that I carried with me everywhere as a child.
You can read the rest of the WaPo article using the gift link above.
Ohio Representative Max Miller has denied holding a little blue bunny hostage—but a series of messages shows the alleged abuser has a pattern of stealing his two-year-old daughter’s toy.
Miller has been accused of physically abusing his ex-wife Emily Moreno, daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno, for years. Amid the many abuse allegations against Miller, the lawmaker has taken the time to refute one distressing detail about his relationship with his daughter.
Speaking to the press Monday, Senator Moreno claimed that over the weekend, Miller had refused to return his daughter’s blue bunny. “This girl is crying at night because she can’t sleep without her little blue bunny. His answer is ‘I’m just not gonna give it to you,’” Moreno said.
“This is the level of total and complete depravity,” he added.
Miller denied withholding his daughter’s beloved bunny, claiming that he’d scheduled it to be picked up from his mailbox through the family’s parental coordinator, Dr. Deborah Koricke.
However, a series of screenshotted messages obtained by Mother Jones’s Abby Vesoulis suggest that Miller has a history of keeping the blue bunny hostage.
In one email dated March 19, 2025, Emily Moreno begged Miller to return the toy. “Can [redacted] please have her bunny back? She’s had it since birth, sleeps with it every night, carries it with her around the house, and sees it as a source of comfort,” Moreno wrote.
She also urged Miller not to “punish” their daughter because he was upset with his ex-wife.
At that time, the girl would have only been 1 year old! I said on Wednesday that Miller is monster, and this proves it. This man is cold as ice.
In a text message exchange from May, Senator Moreno asked if the bunny had been left behind, and Miller replied that the family could go through the parent coordinator to retrieve it. “I have no notes or record of what you are referring to,” Miller added.
“It’s the blue bunny she sleeps with, but got it,” Moreno said.
In an email from August 3 (right after the weekend Senator Moreno mentioned), Moreno’s attorney reached out to Miller’s lawyers in an attempt to have the bunny returned. “Why must this be a controversy? This is totally ridiculous. Please have Max return the bunny forthwith,” the attorney wrote.
In another text message from an unknown date, the family’s parent coordinator claimed that Miller “adamantly refuses” to leave the toy in the mailbox for Senator Moreno to retrieve.
The Miller race could have serious repercussions for Ohio and for Republicans’ hopes of hold in the House.
The controversy around Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) is complicating the midterm landscape for Ohio Republicans as Democrats build momentum in the Buckeye State, a former battleground that’s become a red state in the Trump era.
Miller, who is running for a third term in a competitive House district, is facing calls to step down after allegations of domestic abuse toward his ex-wife, the daughter of Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio). He has forcefully denied the claims, but the controversy could make his red seat an easier pick-up opportunity for Democrats in the high-stakes fight for House control.
Ohio is also host to a highly competitive Senate race, where former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) has lodged a comeback bid against incumbent Sen. Jon Husted (R) that could bolster Democrats’ chances of taking back the upper chamber this fall — plus a neck-and-neck race for Ohio governor in the state that’s been GOP-led for more than a decade.
“In an environment where Republicans have been particularly strong in Ohio, this year’s environment is going to be much more challenging for them, and this certainly doesn’t help things,” said Robert Alexander, a political science professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, on the Miller developments.
“I think that the fact that so much of the attention is on Republicans is a good thing for Democrats,” he added. “The more it’s about Republicans, I think the better that Democrats will likely do.”
Forbes reports that a rally that Miller was to appear at had to be cancelled for “security concerns” amid “threats.” The rally was to be in support of the “SAVE American act.”
Miller has also donated $1 million to his campaign, according to the Wall Street Journal. That sounds like desperation. (Apparently Miller comes from a wealthy and prominent Ohio family.)
It so happens that Miller has a Democratic opponent, and he is beginning to draw attention.
Brian Poindexter, until recently a little-known Democratic candidate in a solidly Republican House district, lit a Marlboro cigarette and jammed a screwdriver into the latch of a shed door he had built. He ignored his phone, which had been blowing up in recent days because of a political scandal rocking Ohio.
“It’s crazy to have him running for Congress,” said the candidate’s father, Bob Poindexter, 68, who had made bolts for a living until he retired last year. He was watching his son work. “What would be really crazy is if he won.”
That prospect is rapidly becoming less crazy, as the campaign of Representative Max Miller, Republican of Ohio, has descended into turmoil over allegations that he had physically abused his wife and young daughter.
Mr. Poindexter, who turned 47 on Tuesday, is a hard hat-wearing, union card-carrying ironworker. With fresh opportunity — given Mr. Miller’s struggles — to win over voters in a Cleveland-area district that went for President Trump by double digits, he is the type of candidate some Democrats believe can claw back working-class voters who have flocked to Mr. Trump in recent years.
This week, he has set out to test that strategy in a Republican stronghold that is suddenly seen as competitive, and that could help Democrats retake the House.
Though he launched his campaign in January, Mr. Poindexter had been largely ignored by Democratic Party leadership until last week, when the fallout from an ugly custody battle between Mr. Miller and his ex-wife, the daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno, spilled into the national news. The district, which stretches from Amish country to the suburban shores of Lake Erie, has been considered comfortably Republican for a decade.
Read more using the gift link if you’re interested.
In other news, the Senate voted to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General, not that anyone is surprised.
The Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as attorney general in a vote early Saturday, cementing the command of President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer at a Department of Justice that Trump has sought to bend to his will.
The Republican-led Senate voted 50-49 to make Blanche the second confirmed attorney general since Trump returned to the White House last year with a stated desire to use the law enforcement agency to investigate his political enemies. While Blanche has already been leading the department in an acting capacity, his confirmation could free him to pursue the administration’s agenda even more aggressively.
Blanche said on social media that he was “deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me,” adding that he was “grateful” to senators for working late to confirm him.
The vote followed a tumultuous confirmation fight that exposed deep concerns — from some Republicans as well as Democrats — about installing Trump’s close ally atop a Justice Department that historically prided itself on its independence from the White House.
In the end, Blanche was confirmed by the narrowest of margins, opposed by two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — and by every Democrat.
As Daknikat wrote yesterday, retiring Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy cast the deciding vote–just as he did with RFK, Jr.
Early Saturday morning, the Senate voted to confirm Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to the official role after Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) caved and publicly backed President DonaldTrump’s former personal lawyer the day before.
Blanche was confirmed on a narrow 50-49 vote, with almostall Republicans aligning with the president. Thetwo exceptions wereSens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). In other words, Cassidy, who initially withheld his approval overconcerns aboutBlanche helping Trump prosecute political enemies, pushing the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization slush fund, and exempting the president from IRS audits, capitulated—knowing that his was the deciding vote. He did so shortly after Murkowski announcedher opposition.
In his Friday remarks on the Senate floor, Cassidy raised several reasonable points on why Blanche should not be confirmed: “approving the anti-weaponization slush fund,” “exempting the president from IRS audits,” and the aforementioned “bringing suits against political enemies.”
But the senator—who recently lost his bid for reelection after being targeted as a “disloyal disaster” by Trump—summonedperplexing arguments from his familiar playbook: “Mr. Blanche has made commitments” to be better, Cassidy noted. “I have spoken to Mr. Blanche five or six times,” he assured his colleagues, and not approving Blanche “puts at risk the progress made fighting violent crime, human and drug trafficking, and fraud.” The Trump administration’s fight on crime and human and drug trafficking has led to significant increases in militarization domestically and abroad, while attacks on so-called widespread fraud have cut essential social programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
This isn’t Cassidy’s first rodeo in backing downfrom his principled opposition to a controversial or clearly unqualified candidate. He used similar logic to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination as health secretary as the deciding vote, putting naivetrust in his “assurances on vaccines.” And the senator did so again earlier this week—although his wasnot the sole deciding vote—to confirm Erica Schwartz, the physician and attorney who wasTrump’s pick for CDC director. Schwartz repeatedly dodged questions on whether she would carry out all of Kennedy’s policies, even if she believed it contradicted scientific evidence.
What a loser.
Trump got some bad news about his precious ballroom yesterday.
A federal appeals court on Friday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to halt construction of its $400 million ballroom at the White House because the project lacks congressional approval.
Trump doesn’t have the unilateral authority to build a 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom where the White House’s East Wing stood before he ordered its demolition last fall, according to the decision by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit….
In a 2-1 decision on the ballroom, the appeals court sided with historic preservationists who sued to stop construction of the massive structure, which has begun to rise aboveground on the east side of the White House, according to the most recent aerial photos of the site. The court said it would stay its ruling for two weeks to give the administration time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help,” the court wrote.
“This holding has nothing at all to do with whether the proposed ballroom is desirable, or not, as a matter of policy. This ruling does not even necessarily mean that the Defendants may not ultimately construct the ballroom.
“What it does mean,” the court continued, “is that the Defendants may not do so during the district court’s expeditious litigation without securing Congress’s authorization, as the Constitution and laws require.”
More detail from Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein at Politico:
A federal appeals court panel has ruled against President Donald Trump’s attempt to unilaterally demolish portions of the White House to build a massive ballroom, saying the unprecedented project requires congressional approval.
“Executive actions that take control of that property out of the hands of the people’s representatives while irreparably harming the historical and visual architecture of perhaps the most prominent public building in the United States seriously intrude on the public interest,” Judges Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, and Bradley Garcia, a Biden appointee, wrote in a joint majority opinion issued Friday.
The appeals court put its ruling on hold for two weeks to allow Trump to seek relief from the Supreme Court. If the high court doesn’t act by then, above-ground construction at the site would have to halt….
Trump has claimed that security concerns necessitated tearing down the East Wing and replacing it with a ballroom and other features, such as a rooftop launching pad for drones. In his post Friday, he referred to the planned structure as a “Military Center.”
But the appeals panel’s majority rejected the notion that raising security issues meant the courts couldn’t enforce federal statutes governing funding for such projects.
“The bold assertion that the Executive can act with utter lawlessness, destroying treasured national landmarks and harming the interests of individuals, and that no court can stop it flouts our constitutional order,” Millett and Garcia wrote. “While this court accords great weight and deference to invocations of national security and the safety of the President, such arguments are not an automatic get-out-of-law-free card.”
The ruling is the latest blow to Trump’s effort to remake Washington, D.C., in his image. A federal judge blocked his bid to add his own name to the Kennedy Center, and his effort to revitalize the Reflecting Pool at the base of the Lincoln Memorial has been marred by construction failures and the failed prosecutions of alleged vandals that Trump had blamed for the defects.
Of course he has already wrecked the entire White House complex.
The Iran war still drags on, and the Iranians have issued some demands.
A top Iranian national security official delivered a sweeping set of demands on Saturday that he said the United States must meet before the Strait of Hormuz can reopen to maritime traffic, throwing the fate of the critical trade waterway into question.
Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, issued a statement carried by state media laying out multiple requirements for reopening the strait. He called for the United States to lift its naval blockade and sanctions on Iran, withdraw the U.S. military from around Iran, pay war reparations and release frozen Iranian assets, as well as end attacks on Iran’s allies in the region and threats against the country.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Iran’s demands. A previous cease-fire between Iran and the United States, agreed to in June, had said that sanctions would be fully lifted only in the event of a final deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program. And U.S. officials have said in the past that Iran could only access its frozen funds if it committed to giving up its highly enriched uranium first.
The statement from Mr. Zolghadr came as Iran and Oman have been negotiating an agreement on the future management of the Strait of Hormuz, which sits between the two countries. Iran effectively closed the strait in retaliation for being attacked by the United States and Israel in February.
Mr. Zolghadr’s list of demands upended expectations that a deal with Oman would soon allow commerce to flow through the strait once more and ease global energy prices. They will likely put pressure on President Trump to consider Iran’s conditions if he wants to lower consumer prices for Americans, which pose a risk for Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Even before Mr. Zolghadr’s statement, Iranian officials had hinted on Saturday that the reopening of the strait was not imminent. Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said that reopening the strait was “not contingent on the Iran-Oman negotiations.”
In comments carried by Tasnim, an Iranian news outlet affiliated with the Guards, Mr. Mohebbi said that it would depend “on the United States fully accepting Iran’s conditions.” He did not specify those conditions, other than to say that the United States must not interfere in Iran’s ongoing negotiations with Oman or other countries.
Meanwhile, top General Dan Caine is trying to find a way out of Trump’s Iran mess.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine is reportedly quietly working toward an exit from Donald Trump’s Iran war, even as the president appears to believe more air strikes could force a deal.
As the war enters its sixth month, CNN reported Friday that Caine has privately discussed the limits of further military action with other top Trump advisers, warning that continued bombing may not be enough to secure a ceasefire.
“Caine is looking for an off-ramp,” one source familiar with the matter told the outlet.
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine testifies before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on U.S. President Donald Trump’s FY2027 budget request for the Department of Defense on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 30, 2026.Ken Cedeno/Reuters
The 57-year-old general has discussed the matter with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Vice President JD Vance—all before meeting with Trump to coordinate their message and to emphasize the limitations of certain military options.
The news comes as Trump, who has long criticized articles he doesn’t like, has lashed out at reports about weapons shortages as a result of his war, which he had said would only last a few weeks.
The Washington Post reported that during a Cabinet meeting last Friday, Trump, 80, accosted Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth for being ill-informed about the shortages, which Trump thought “had been fixed.”
The shortages were primarily of long-distance guided missiles and interceptors, according to the Post. This was reportedly one reason there were fewer missile strikes over the past week.
Hegseth, 46, denied the story.
Caine’s discussions with other top officials about war prospects, one source told CNN, “is just his way of protecting the military.”
That’s all I have for today. Thoughts? What else is on your mind?
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