“We’re Coming for the Books” — And The Press
The big news today is that Trump is once again banning news organizations:
–This time it’s Politico, which he refused to allow on Air Force One today even though they were scheduled to be the designated travel pool publication. Trump has barred CNN several times, but this is the first time it’s barred Politico from the plane. (CNN, Politico, and MS NOW were all banned from the Oval Office, but they sued and got their badges reinstated. Trump says the plane is his private property–it’s not–so it doesn’t count in the judge’s ruling.
–The White House tried to enlist other news outlets to take Politico’s place on the trip, but the other outlets refused to replace Politico.
–The Washington Post is on the trip in the “secondary” print seat. It sent out updates, while emphasizing that it is not taking Politico’s place. The television press pool representative, CBS, is also sharing its pool notes with print publications. Joss Gross of CBS said, “Neither news organization is replacing Politico.”
–Trump’s spokesman Stephen Cheung says, “The judge basically ordered Trump to renew their access back to the White House, but that’s different than allowing the pool into the events in the Oval Office or on Air Force One.” (It’s not, but Trump is pushing the boundaries of the law as hard as he can.) Trump is also claiming the bans are not retaliatory, which of course they are.
–The judge is scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday over the news outlets’ request for a preliminary injunction, which would protect them until there’s a trial.
–Meanwhile, Trump is getting progressively angrier with the press, screaming “Fake news!” when they try to question him about anything–the attendance at his rallies, his numbers in the polls, the economy, etc.–and getting agitated with reporters more and more often.
–When CNN asked about Trump’s rating with Latino voters, Trump said, “You’re fake news.”
–He wrote in a Truth Social post, “The Fake News New York Times ‘reported on my Great, PACKED Rally in Ohio that ‘the place was not full.’ In actuality…the Arena was totally MAXED OUT.” (Not true. Video shows it was half full and that people started leaving halfway into his speech.
–Trump is even mad at Fox: “Who makes these decisions at Fox News?”
–Rump: “My REAL polling numbers, not those made up by the Fake News Media, are the best they’ve ever been.”
In Cornell gang rape news:
–You keep thinking this story can’t get any worse, and then it does. ABC has now obtained a recording of a phone call the victim called Michael Ingalls (one of the 7 men involved in the gang rape) made to the victim in what sure looks like an attempt to keep her quiet and which she recorded.
–The victim asked for help in piecing together what happened that night, saying she was confused. “The only way for me to heal is to know what happened. That’s why I’m trying to just piece it together, you know, like I’m just confused.” She told Ingalls “I feel like I know who some of the rats in the room were.”
–The victim asked Ingalls how many people were in the room and “how any of these guys walked in,” and he told her the fraternity house was crowded and there was nowhere else to go. (He did NOT tell her he had texted a photo of her in bed to the group chat with the caption, “Boys come whip it out.”)
–When she asks about the gang rape and how many guys were involved–she says she remembers four in the bed and more standing around the room–he tries to convince her she only imagined it. “I have racked my brain for this mystery. It’s possible that both of us, like, remember this, and it’s not true.” She responds, “No, because I remember looking up and thinking, this is too many people.”
–She says, “You already knew when I came in I was ten shots deep,” and he says, “You did tell me you were sober.” (Which is at odds with his then telling her that she was too drunk to actually identify the people in the room.) She pushed back saying, “That’s not true. I never would have said that.”
–She told Ingalls, “What y’all did would be classified as gang rape.”
–Ingalls was not the only fraternity brother who called her during the weeks following the gang rape. Apparently several of the others called her, trying to “contain” the rape allegations and “do damage control” to ensure she was not “upset” because they were beginning to worry about the damage to their reputations and/or repercussions like being expelled.
–One of the victims friends wrote, “They tried to contact (the victim) almost every day after it happened to, I guess, keep them on her good side and keep her happy and not upset about the situation.”
–Text messages between the fraternity brothers show they were worried. “Fuck,” one brother wrote. “Should I call (the victim)?” The fraternity president wrote back, “Wait a bit for me and (executive board) to figure out what we’re doing cuz there are a couple of things going on. When was the last time you spoke to (the victim)?”
–Ingalls appeared to ask one friend of the victim’s to “submit new evidence” that could exonerate him. “You could submit new evidence that could get me and (other fraternity brother) dismissed immediately.”
–All seven of the fraternity brothers deny wrongdoing.
–In the most heinous revelation from ABC, Ingalls told Cornell that he was TOO DRUNK TO CONSENT and suggests SHE WAS THE ONE WHO ASSAULTED HIM.
In AI news:
–Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton dismissed the idea that AI technology needs to be paused and/or regulation. So did Zuckerberg.
–In July, 1300 employees at frontier AI companies signed an open letter saying the companies needed to buy time, address emergency risks, develop security measures, and strengthen oversight.
–Open AI has reported six more instances where AI models (bots) demonstrated “inexplicable or concerning behavior” in the last six months. They fabricated information, participated in unsanctioned file sharing, and uploaded files to the internet on their own.
–OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “We believe that the world should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology (artificial intelligence) and people having the agency.”
–Scott Oscar: “It’s always the wealthy telling the rest of us that we should accept some bad things so they can become more wealthy. No, we don’t.”
–JK Doyle: “This sounds like the right’s reasoning about the Second Amendment. They think a few sacrifices (your child at school) are worth it to save their weapons of war.”
–Elizabeth Shelton: “What exactly are the benefits of an industry, floated by the taxpayers, that is being trained by people (even the ignorant and stupid) that can’t be controlled? All that has happened, and they lose more and more money, creating artificial value to justify eliminating humans from the workforce to make way for more profits.”
–Andrew Egger says Democrats “can be grateful to Trump for grasping a chalice so poisoned that top AI executives have now chosen to let it pass. Publicly they can show that, in this issue as in so many others, Trump is headstrong, reckless, and out of touch. They can say we need a government that’s going to listen–when even AI leaders and experts say we should slow down and get things under control. They can pledge that they will make sure AI works for all of us, not against us.”
–Ron Filipkowski: “One Republican commentator joked that Trump woke up and read that the only issue Republicans were above water was on AI regulation, so he made all his AI posts and statements in the last 24 hours to make sure he wrecked that issue for them also.”
In They’re All Perverts news:
–Former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has died. Hastert was forced to resign as speaker after he was revealed to have sexually assaulted underage high school boys when he was a wrestling coach and a teacher.
–He later pled guilty to financial crimes related to the sexual abuse of teenage boys. was later convicted of committing financial crimes. (He had manipulated transactions to hide the fact that he had paid $3.5 million dollars in hush money to conceal his abuse of underage boys.) He was never charged with sexual crimes because the statute of limitations had run out.
–The media mostly reported on those sexual crimes in their headlines announcing his death–New York Times: “Dennis Hastert, Powerful Politician Disgraced by Child Sex Scandal, Dies” and Washington Post: “Dennis Hastert, Ex-House Speaker Whose Sex Abuse Admission Upended Legacy, Died at 84.”
–The Ellison-owned CBS, however, did not mention the sexual assault at all. Instead, its headline read, “Dennis Hastert Died–House Speaker–Represented Illinois for Two Decades and Later Jailed for Violating Funding Laws.” (Another example of how CBS has gone completely to the dark side–and Ellison has now got his hands on CNN.)
In Epstein news:
–I already reported about the “suicide” of the British banker Simon Andriesz. Now his last post on Twitter has surfaced, and it makes his suicide even more suspicious.
–The post reads: “I am the British whistleblower who reported evidence concerning Howard Lutnick, his links to Jeffrey Epstein and Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC to the FBI in 2021. The personal consequences of whistleblowing, and the retaliation I say followed have been devastating for my family and me…Follow me here on X and on LinkedIn. I intend to share more of the evidence and the story behind what happened.”
–German author Olivia Janich: “He said the retaliation had already wrecked his life and that he was about to publish more. Then he was dead at 57. They called it suicide. I don’t buy it.”
–This week an independent review of Epstein’s autopsy results by a forensic expert is supposed to be released.
–In her lawsuit, Allison Gill (MuellerSheWrote) has obtained documents that show there were 9 FBI training videos in which agents were instructed to flag Trump’s name. She has requested the videos themselves, and the judge is supposed to rule on that this week.
In Cracks in the Dam news:
–Three-time Trump voter Kyle Boss, who was laid off at a truck factory in Ohio days before Trump’s rally there, says he will spend the next 3 weeks canvassing votes for Democrats. “Something has to change politics in this country. Seems like it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.”
–Daniel Kinney on Trump’s rally in Ohio: “Two years ago I would have been there…Now you couldn’t pay me to go.’
–Leslie Potter: “There is going to be a silent movement of MAGA voters that will quietly vote blue. It’s happening here in Tennessee, in my opinion.”
–Jess Piper: “Congrats to Donald Trump. He lost my mom after his blasphemous Jesus post months ago, and just yesterday I helped her find the amendment language on her Arkansas ballot, so she knows how to vote against the Republican agenda in her state…It took a decade, but the reckoning is here.”
–mynameis: “This was what turned my neighbor, too (the Trump as Jesus picture). I told her it was too bad it wasn’t the AI picture of the Obamas as monkeys. Or the pussy comment. or anything in between.”
–Russell Drew: “The red wall is cracking.”
In bizarre news:
–Natalie Harp is supposedly getting married next Saturday in Las Vegas. There’s a wedding notice up on one of the wedding sites, announcing her marriage to somebody named John Styer.
–The whole announcement is very odd, to say the least. It says they will be married in a ceremony at which only six people will be present at Red Rocks, 45 minutes outside Vegas, followed by a small reception outside the park at 8:45 in the morning. Then there will be a cake-cutting at the Zapolla at the Venetian hotel, toasts at the Chandelier Bar at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, a bouquet toss at the Bellagio Hotel, and then the first dance at a nightclub, they haven’t decided which one.
–There are no photos of the happy couple in the announcement, this is the first anybody has heard of this John Styer, and he has no internet presence at all, and people immediately asked when exactly Natalie has had time for this relationship since she is with Trump 24-7 and lives in the White House.
–The whole thing sounds like some wild goose chase for the press, but another possibility also occurred to me. When Edward VII was king of England, he had affairs with a number of women, some high profile like Lily Langtry, Churchill’s mother, and the Countess of Warwick and others with lower-class women (like the Duchess of Duke Street.) If they were not married, they were forced to marry someone who would serve as cover for any scandals–and protect the lineage of the throne. The latter is not a problem here, but they might see this as a way to deflect rumors of Trump having an affair with Natalie and convince the public–or Melania.
–At any rate, NOBODY believes this is a real romance. If they were smart, they would have slowly fed the press stories of this guy, followed by them being seen together, an engagement, etc., but maybe they didn’t have time because of Melania. Or angry Christian Trumpists. Or some scandal about to break. Stay tuned…
In promising news:
–Out of the eight living previous governors of Kansas (4 Republican and 4 Democrat) six of them have endorsed Roger Marshall’s opponent, Adam Hamilton.
–Texas GOP strategist: “This is a slow-moving car crash we’re witnessing right now.”
In other news:
–The United States military abruptly removed all bombers from a US base in the UK.
–A Haitian man, Pierre Damas Bel, who had legally immigrated to Ohio and then had had an ankle monitor placed on him prior to deportation because Trump withdrew his status, committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a truck.
–Karoline Leavitt, who supposedly left her job as Trump’s press secretary because she wanted to spend more time with her husband and children, has been hired by Fox News as an on-air contributor.
In good news:
–A slate of governors, including Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, signed an order to increase data center oversight.
–Governor Newsom ordered the state of California to accelerate AI developer regulations.
–Kentucky governor Andy Beshear is using $2.5 million dollars in state funds to erase medical debt through a partnership with Undue Medical Debt.
Today marks the start of Banned Books Week. It’s been a bad year, with a record number of books banned and a record number of places they’ve been banned. As Texas’s Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick says, “We’re coming for the books.” Those books include new books like Patricia McCormick’s SOLD, Laurie Halse Anderson’s SPARK, and Ellen Hopkins’ CRANK, and a bunch of classics, like THE HANDMAID’S TALE, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, Toni Morrison’s BELOVED, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, THE COLOR PURPLE, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, and Maya Angelou’s I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS.
Best sign of the day, outside a motel on the Maine Fall Foliage Tour: “West Bethel Motel–Clean Comfy Rooms–Release the Epstein Files.
Best satire of the day, from Saturday Night Live: You definitely need to watch Saturday night’s cold open with Marco Rubio, Hegseth, Mitch McConnell, and, of course, Trump, as Republican operatives try to make campaign ads for Republicans:
Best slogan of the day, from Blue Wave Nation: “We’ve got 30 days to make this too big to rig!” (Now 29.)
Best comment of the day, from Wakey-Wakey: “They want to decide what books you can read, what history your children can learn, what medicines youâre allowed to take, what surgeries you can have, what gender youâre permitted to be, what sports you can play, which bathroom you can use, who you can love, and who you can marry. They want to own your library, your classroom, your hospital room, your bedroom–and now your television. They want to own the page, the pill, the joke, the chant, the kiss, the very pronoun in your mouth. And then with breathtaking cynicism, theyâll look straight at you and say itâs the Democrats who are coming for your freedom…Small government? My fucking ass. This isnât small government. This is government in your bloodstream, in your dictionary, in your bed, and now in your goddamn remote control.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
