Dear Everybody:
Today is the high holy day of Yom Kippur. “G’mar hatimah tova” to anyone who is observing the holiday.
The big news today is that the press is fighting back against Trump’s White House ban on CNN, Politico, and MS NOW:
–The White House pool, which consists of the big networks–ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox– is refusing to cover Trump in solidarity with the banned outlets. That means they will not be covering Trump’s speech at the UN today (or his whining about how the teleprompter and/or the escalator didn’t work.)
–Stephanie Ruhle of MS NOW: “There will be no TV coverage of President Trump’s trip to New York.”
–darthstar: “(Trump’s) going to lose his shit when he doesn’t see some of his favorite reporters sitting there waiting to smother him with attention.”
–Not only that, but when Trump held his big helipad opening event today, there was no audio at all and not a single reporter there, which had to infuriate him.
–Real America’s Voice will be the only video camera recording at the UN.
–The three outlets that were banned are also suing Trump for banning them, but that takes time. The pool ban will be immediately effective.
–The judge assigned to the case is Judge Kelly, a Trump appointee who previously presided over Jim Acosta’s press pass case. He ruled against Trump and got Acosta reinstated.
–The case is going to be a real problem for Trump because he has said repeatedly that he banned the news outlets because he didn’t like their coverage.
–JD Vance tried to cover for him, saying “He’s not banning media outlets,” but Trump immediately blew it, saying, “I am banning media outlets.”
–The Wall Street Journal reported that the precise moment Trump’s frustrations “reached a fever pitch” came after Natalie Harp showed him videos of MS NOW hosts criticizing his administration.
–Jim Acosta: “My concern is he’s kind of laying the groundwork to put the country through yet another constitutional crisis. And he is trying to soften up the press to what may be a challenge to the election results.”
–Right-wing podcaster Mark Levin is supporting Trump in the ban, saying, “President Trump was right to ban Politico from the White House.” Why? Because his son, David Milstein, a senior advisor to Mike Huckabee, US Ambassador to Israel, solicited illegal monetary wedding gifts from Israelis “in US dollars or Israel shekels,” and Politico dared to report on it.
–Best meme: “If you can’t control the war, control the news.”
Regimes which have restricted press freedom:
–Nazi Germany
–Soviet Russia under Stalin
–North Korea
–Franco’s Spain
–Mussolini’s Fascist Italy
–Pinochet’s Chile
–Communist Cuba
–Putin’s Russia
–The Trump Reich
The other big news today was that ICE is at it again (not that they ever stopped):
–An ICE agent shot and injured 28-year-old Wilber Rafael Garces Perez on Sunday in Austin. Perez suffered a wound to his torso and was taken to the hospital. He was later released into ICE custody.
–He was a DoorDash driver making a delivery when a vehicle pulled along side him and tried to hit his car. The vehicle did not activate emergency lights or otherwise identify itself before sideswiping his car.
–He said they then put on their emergency lights and that he tried to pull over to the side, but instead they struck his car again and officers shot him multiple times (this is according to witnesses.) Officers removed him from the vehicle after he was shot and handcuffed him even though he was injured. He told officers he was in severe pain and then passed out.
–The Mayor called for an independent investigation into the incident.
In Trump’s Arch news:
–I think Trump thought his announcement that the Arch would have snipers and drones and be an ammo storage facility would make it more likely that it would be approved, but it seems to be backfiring.
–People are pointing out that if it is a military installation, it would have to be protected and guarded 24 hours a day by armed guard, which would make it impossible for it to be a tourist attraction, too. (He has said tourists will be able to go up to the top to see the view.)
–Trump is now saying that “the Arch has been planned since the Civil War.”?????
–The National Park Service admitted the arch will harm other historic sites (like the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery) but that the “proposed location at Monument Circle is central to the undertaking,” so it should be built there anyway.
–Chuck Todd: “if this is actually something being considered, seems weird to broadcast to the world where they can find a stash of weapons to target in DC. This is obviously some bizarre effort to wrap this arch idea into national defense.”
–The Atlantic: “The president fantasized about a capital city full of monuments to himself…Perhaps the president is looking ahead to the day he is no longer the most powerful man in the world, and it pains him to think that he would be reviled–or worse, forgotten. If so, he seems determined to leave his mark on America’s capital even if it requires scarring it with militarized obscenities.”
–The Geogre: “This is about January 2029. He’ll be in his bunker and his Praetorian Guard will be killing the protesters from atop his arch.”
–Public Notice has a piece on how Trump is imitating Hitler with his arch: “Trump share’s Hitler’s fixation with classicism…his fixation with airbrushing not just his own image but the image of an idealized country.”
In Other Trump Monuments news:
–Trump is now really pushing to have his face put on Mt. Rushmore.
–He told South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden: “Well, I’m being very nice to him because maybe he’ll get my face on that beautiful wall that I’ve been looking at. Come on, Larry, come on, let’s get going. You got to get going.”
–Trump’s Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum says there’s room for another face.
–A Twitter user: “Placing Trump on Mount Rushmore would be as embarrassing to America as it would be embarrassing for the New York Knicks to sign me to an NBA contract. Neither should ever happen.”
–(Note: Trump has been told repeatedly that the mountain is fragile, and that the blasting from any more attempts to put his face up there would cause the whole mountain to come crashing down. He is apparently not listening.)
In Where’s Mitch? news:
–Mitch McConnell arrived at the Capitol and was wheeled into the Senate chamber, where he took one important vote, but not the other two he was supposed to. He left after the first one. Reporters asked his office to explain why he didn’t take part in the other votes and where he went after being driven off in an SUV, but they did not respond.
–It took two calls and aides urging him to vote before he lifted a finger and said “aye” in a raspy voice. Video showed him staring blankly with a frozen smile as other senators spoke around him.
–Public Notice: “To avoid surrendering McConnell’s seat, his staff and Thune’s Senate majority office are engaged in an ongoing, elaborate cover-up.”
–GOP Senator Tim Scott claims he had a conversation with McConnell, but no one else is saying anything, including Fox’s Scott Jennings, who claimed he’d had long conversations with Mitch while he was missing and has now gone silent.
–No one has heard him speak AT ALL since his reappearance.
–sarhab1111: “This man couldn’t sign a legal document. How the fuck is he allowed to vote in Congress? Outrageous.”
–Alicia: “As a nursing home MSW, I’m sickened by the elder exploitation and abuse. As a sane, angry American, I am outraged by this man’s role in the destruction of our democracy and the torture/deaths of millions around the world.”
In Promising Signs news:
–(Note: In spite of all the current threats Trump and his thugs are making against the elections and after what happened in 2024, I am very, VERY cautious about predicting our success in the midterms. But there sure are a lot of promising signs out there.)
–South Dakota’s outgoing Republican Secretary of State (and election denier) just endorsed the Democrat running for Secretary of State, Terrence Davis.
–GOP candidate Roger Marshall was booed at the Kansas State Fair debate.
–GOP candidate Ashley Hinson didn’t show up to an event where JD Vance was campaigning for her.
–A Republican super PAC abruptly cut $6.5 million dollars in planned advertising for GOP candidate Michael Whatley in the North Carolina Senate race because Democrat Roy Cooper is polling so far ahead.
–MAGA is being forced to spend in places they thought were safe, like Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, and Montana.
–GOP strategist Terry Holt: “It points out the obvious that Republicans are in pretty bad shape going into the midterms and that they’re looking at historic losses.”
–Republican firms have been flooding the airwaves with fake polls to try to up the Republicans’ poll averages, which are terrible.
–The headlines are terrible for Republicans, too.
–Detroit News: “Some Michigan Republicans See a ‘Huge Struggle’ Ahead in Fall Election.”
–Wall Street Journal: “Even in Reliably Red Kansas, Republican enthusiasm is fading. If you’re having to spend resources in Kansas, that tells you what the national environment is like.”
–CNN: “Latino voters, data centers, and Republican problems are giving Texas Democrats their highest hopes in years.”
–According to the non-partisan Cook Report, in 37 Trump-won battleground districts, Democrats now lead.
To take advantage of all these hopeful signs, Hopium Chronicles had some helpful advice this morning:
–Vote the minute you can. If you vote in person, vote the first day you’re allowed to. If you vote by mail, vote as soon as your ballot arrives and then return it in person to a drop box to avoid post office delays (intentional or otherwise.)
–After you vote, check online to make sure your vote was received and has been recorded. If it hasn’t, contact the Secretary of State’s office and find out what happened and how to fix it.
–There are three reasons to vote early. 1) Because the parties check the voting lists every day and cross off people who have voted. That means they can concentrate on the low-propensity voters (and save money and time by not concentrating on you.) 2) It makes it more difficult for Trump and his thugs to cheat and/or interfere with your vote. 3) It runs up the score, making it harder for Republicans to swamp the polls on the actual election day. And 4) The news that Democrats are outnumbering the Republicans in voting causes Republicans to give up and/or despair and maybe decide not to vote and Democrats to get enthusiastic and decide to vote. (It’s called the bandwagon effect.)
–(Note: Early voting has already begun in Virginia, Vermont, and Montana, and people on various sites that I follow are reporting in that they’ve already voted.)
In Not Everybody is a Jerk news:
–A First Nation in Alberta, Canada, the Saddle Lee Cree Nation, has declared itself a safe haven for gender-affirming medical care amid the province’s crackdown on providing such care to trans kids under 16.
ln other news:
–Trump claimed that he had done a “massive” deal with Belarus’s dictator for potash, to replace the potash we are no longer getting from Canada due to Trump’s trade war, but Belarus shot it down, saying there was no deal at all. “Even if we wanted to supply to other, Western markets, we simply do not have those volumes–everything is contracted.”
–GOP candidate Max Miller (remember him? he’s the one who scalded his wife and held his toddler’s bunny hostage?) sent a cease-and-desist letter to a TV station which ran an ad for his Democratic opponent mentioning the domestic abuse allegations against him, calling them “false, malicious, and defamatory statements.” The Democrat tore up the cease-and-desist letter and said “the facts are three women have accused Miller of domestic abuse.”
–The FAA had to call a ground stop for all Northeast airports today because of an equipment outage at a traffic control facility in Philadelphia.
In good news:
–Trump is approaching the Nixon line–the approval rating Nixon was at when he was forced to resign. A new Interactive poll just released has Trump’s approval rating at 29% and his disapproval rating at 68%.
–Fox investors are suing over how Fox is constantly embroiled in expensive scandals, and now a federal judge has ordered Fox to turn over documents involving the Dominion voting machines defamation payout, the family of Seth Rich defamation payout, and their phone-hacking scandal back in the UK, documents which could REALLY hurt Fox.
–Monarch butterflies, after being on the endangered species list for several years, are on the rebound and are about to be moved back to the threatened species list.
Besides being Yom Kippur, today is one of those special days which has its own song:
–The song is Earth, Wind and Fire’s “September.” (A great song.)
–Here are the pertinent lyrics: “Do you remember the twenty-first night of September? Love was changin’ the minds of pretenders while chasin’ the clouds away. Our hearts were ringin’ in the key that our souls were singin’ as we danced in the night, remember…”
–And you can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIYk
Best satire of the day, from the Borowitz Report: “Fox Glad White House Ban Only Applies to News Networks.”
Best cartoon of the day: Prostitute to guy in car: “For $50 I’ll do anything you want.” Guy in car: “How good are you at siphoning gas?”
Best comment of the day, from Simon Rosenberg of Hopium Chronicles: “Trump is unraveling. Their battlefield is deteriorating. A wave is coming, my friends.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
