Dear Everybody:
The big news today is that Trump is slipping farther and farther into Nero/Caligula territory. He’s posting videos that look like they would be at home in Rome’s coliseum:
–In probably the most horrific story of the week, a young man with serious mental issues climbed into the tiger enclosure in a Yorkshire wildlife park in what people are calling “suicide by tiger” and was mauled to death. Last night Trump posted the full graphic and grisly video of the fatal attack, with the caption, “Don’t ever mess with Nature! President Donald J. Trump.”
–The family of the slain man asked people to please not post the horrible video, but Trump did anyway–and then left it up.
–Lady Emsworth: “This wasn’t a blow-up replica of a human–it was a real man whose family are still reeling from the shock, immersed in grief and horror. Can you even begin to imagine how they must feel when they hear that the President of the United States has used their loved one’s death as a–meme?”
–Then he posted a bunch of AI and real video of other lion and tiger attacks.
–Heather Cox Richardson: “This afternoon the President of the United States posted two videos of lions and tigers attacking humans. Either he has entirely lost it, or he is desperate for a distraction, or both.”
–THEN he posted an AI video with the same tiger, showing himself with the tiger, chasing it, playing with it, and hugging it. He pointed his finger at the tiger in exactly the same gesture as the one the slain man had used. The song, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” plays in the background.
–Aaron Rupar: “The President is a sick man.”
–Naughty Nigel: “The cruelty IS THE POINT. He loves to be cruel to as many people as he can…he only feels good about himself by hurting others. He is a sociopath.”
–A third video called Trump “a lion” and “the king of the jungle” and interspersed videos of his presidency with those of a lion attacking its prey and taking it down. It showed photos of Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Gavin Newsom with the voiceover calling them “jackals, hyenas, barking at him, laughing after him,” and then showed a lion pouncing as the voiceover said, “Every once in awhile the lion has to show the jackals who he is!” The caption with the video said, “Don’t ever mess with President Donald J. Trump!”
–susan engelman: “Trump’s fascination with inhumane death is not only morbid but also deeply disturbing.”
–Joe: “Jesus Christ. Every day, I think this guy has got to be removed now. He has a dangerous untreated mental illness and is a clear and present threat to everyone. Every single Republican member of Congress is culpable.”
–Richard A: “It’s a given that Trump is a sadistic psychopath, but we must also recognize that someone had to collect these horrifying clips together and create them for him. That was almost certainly Natalie Harp.”
–(Note: In good news, the tiger will not be euthanized, which is what usually happens in these cases. The wildlife park said the man intentionally climbed into the enclosure and the tiger was just doing what its instincts told it to do.)
In Ukraine/Russia war news:
–Use of Elon Musk’s Starlink has been restricted in Ukraine, and the US did not share intelligence in last night’s attacks (as Trump promised) so that Ukraine only found out about incoming missiles and drones from radar.
–Steven Beschloss: “Let me be specific: Donald Trump is an f-ing traitor. He is in cahoots with Putin and Russia to break our democratic ally, Ukraine, by cutting necessary intel and satellite communications critical on the battlefield. Putin has responded by escalating the bombing of civilians. This makes all of us less safe.”
–Ron Filipkowski: “Pretty clear that Trump/Hegseth are doing everything they can to force Ukraine to surrender to Putin by withholding all US assistance while actively helping fund the Russian war machine to kill as many civilians as possible, including kids. What a dark, evil chapter in US history!”
–Meanwhile, Ukraine blew up another port, focusing on the docks where diesel fuel is loaded onto ships.
–The French Navy intercepted a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker.
–People are having a heyday laughing about what the data center attacks destroyed, like olderthandirt1, who tweeted: “Let’s have a moment of silence for all the guys who lost their girlfriends in the Russian data center attack.” But the truth is the attacks did an enormous amount of damage both in and out of Russia.
–Ukraine’s attacks on the three data centers have caused major damage, not only shutting down the Russian bots in this and other countries and causing outages on 4chan, but causing major problems in Russia. The Russians’ internet provider is shut down, Yandex Bank users can’t access their money, and some data has been lost forever.
–Crypto banking has been badly hit, with crypto accounts completely destroyed and (since there are no safeguards with cryptocurrency) tons of money lost forever.
–Russians are also not happy with Putin and Trump’s gas and diesel deal.
–Heather Cox Richardson: “‘Russia Russia Russia’ was never a hoax. It has always been the central story of the Trump era.”
In Iran War news:
–Oil flows collapsed after a container ship sank in the Strait of Hormuz.
–Simon Rosenberg: “While Trump is thrusting his knife deeper into Ukraine he is also letting his close ally Saudi Arabia burn. In both cases the beneficiary is the illiberal Russian-Iranian-Chinese-North Korean alliance.”
–Riyadh in Saudi Arabia was under attack again today from Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen. The Riyadh Airport has been repeatedly attacked and is closed. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (the guy who killed and dismembered the American reporter Jamal Khashoggi) is reportedly in hiding, shuttling from bunker to bunker in his palaces.
–Yesterday the headquarters of the Saudi state-owned oil company, the largest in the world, was attacked.
–Saudi Arabia’s economy (which is basically oil and tourism) has suffered tremendously from the war and has contracted. Costs of the war have widened the budget deficit, and I’ve even read rumors that the country’s government might collapse, which would have global consequences.
–Trump mocked a reporter who tried to ask him a question about Iran. He made a dismissive gesture and said, “Always, always Iran.”
–Trump: “The Iran War lasted this long only because I wanted to go on. I took them out. I could have stopped them, but I wanted to go further. I took them out. I could have stopped them, but I wanted to go further.”
–Asked about whether he thought he should be called “the peace president” when he had started wars, Trump said, “By annihilating Iran, we’ve created more peace in the world.”
–When asked what was going to happen in the Iran War, Trump said, “It’s going to work out. You know why? Because it always does.”
–Trump thought he’d have an 80% approval rating as a war president if he attacked Iran. (It makes you wonder if he thinks he’d have a 100% rating if San Diego or Los Angeles were destroyed in a nuclear attack.)
–He announced last week that he was going to wait till after the midterms to attack Iran again, then changed his mind and said he was going to attack them soon, and now says, no, he won’t do it till after the midterms. Stay tuned…
In Trump’s women news–new press secretary edition:
–There are leaks from inside the White House that no vetting at all was done of Katie Zachariah. Trump picked Katie Zachariah himself, overriding Susie Wiles and other White House officials to make her the new press secretary, a choice that didn’t work out all that well.
–Bettors on Kalshi (the prediction market) predict Katie Zacharia has a 94% chance of fast firing (by November 1.)
–Not only was Katie Zachariah’s first press conference a disaster, but she got herself in trouble when she was asked where and when she passed the bar to practice law, and she said, “When I went to China.” As I reported yesterday, that can’t be true since the bar exam in China is in Chinese, only Chinese citizens can take it, and only Chinese citizens can practice law in China.
–She then changed her story to, “I practiced international transactional law, with all the appropriate credentials,” but that’s not true either because a foreigner can only practice law at a Chinese firm if they have practiced for two years in their home jurisdiction.
–Judd Legum: “The questions about Zacharia’s legal credentials and her fumbling answers resulted in a flood of national and international news coverage.”
–A complaint has been filed with the California Bar against White House press secretary Katie Zachariah, citing Popular Information’s reporting, for “the Unauthorized Practice of Law and for Holding Herself Out as Entitled to Practice Law.”
–Sharon Buchbinder, PhD: “Where’s a head of lettuce?”
In Trump’s women news–old ambassador edition:
–Both The Daily Beast and Raw Story are reporting that Guilfoyle is contemplating revenge on her MAGA enemies. The Daily Mail says she has a “burn book” full of damning information on the Trump family which she has documented–she was apparently beyond furious when Don, Jr. dumped her–and now that she has been fired, they say she is threatening to release its contents, which they have dubbed, “The Devil Wears MAGA.”
–The Daily Mail says one White House source said, “Nobody wants an angry Kimberly back home with nothing to lose,” and another said, “Keeping Kimberly happy keeps Kimberly quiet.” (Which would seem to mean another cushy job or a payoff.)
–More scandals are emerging. In addition to the $100,000 she tried to get from Eric Deters to pay off her credit card debt, she also tried to get Greek businessmen to pay off her $250,000 in loans on her Mercedes G-Wagon.
–Guilfoyle’s excuse for the damning evidence against her is that the texts were AI-generated.
–rugbymom: “The cynical view (about Guilfoyle’s firing) is that she didn’t understand that she needed to cut the boss in on his share of the loot.”
–Several people pointed out that Trump only fires women. He fired Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, and Kimberly Guilfoyle, but not Pete Hegseth, RFK, Jr., or Markwayne Mullin.
–And just this afternoon I found out that Guilfoyle has holed herself up in the embassy and is refusing to leave. Stay tuned…
In Trump’s women news–Natalie Harp edition:
–Natalie Harp traveled to Alaska with Trump, and at his rally, he once again asked her to come onstage and hand him the pardons which he then gave out, and she was all smiles.
–She was all smiles in the helicopter, too, but interestingly, the photo showed not only her there with Trump, crowded into the helicopter, but his new press secretary, Katie Zachariah–and Katie was sitting next to Trump. Uh-oh. Stay tuned…
In Cornell gang rape news:
–The President of Cornel, Michael Kotlikoff did an interview with the New York Times and managed to make things worse.
–Although he said he was “personally sorry for” what the student experienced, he showed he had no idea what was going on by saying he didn’t even know the victim had dropped out of school until she filed her lawsuit.
–He defended his handling of the case by citing a presidential task force created in February 2025 to combat sexual assault on campus and said information has come out now that he didn’t have at the time “around how the process unfolded.”
In They’re all Perverts news:
–Andrew Tate allegedly made bestiality porn with a horse and an eel. British police documents say that investigators found extreme pornography depicting sexual acts with animals on Andrew Tate’s device (computer or phone.)
–Aaron Rupar: “Is Kash (Patel) trying to hire him?”
–He also appeared in a sexualized video with a 17-year-old girl and shared it with others. The British police have evidence that Andrew Tate knew she was underage because when her parents found out she was being prostituted by him, he said he would not let her go home because “then we might have a problem legally. Ur not old enough to do so.”
–Tate also shared videos of the girl with three people in a WhatsApp group and boasted she worked in his webcam business.
–Middlerage: “Rape, pedophilia, and Bestiality! The whole package (followed by a gagging emoji.)”
In promising news:
–Daily Beast: “Republican Party members are quietly admitting that the House is already gone and that all their efforts now are stanching the bleeding so that there is not a rout.”
–A Wisconsin judge ruled that banning absentee voting in the state discriminated against disabled voters and provisional ballots.
–Dean Blundell: “He’s losing. Everywhere. All at once. And he knows it.”
–Will Saletan: “If Democrats can drive Trump’s approval into the 20s–where Bush was at his nadir–they won’t just win an election. They’ll make the Republican Party pay for the Trump experience for a generation.”
In literary news:
–Today was a really good day in literature. In 1892 Arthur Conan Doyle’s THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES was first published, and in 1926 A.A. Milne’s WINNIE THE POOH was.
–Today is also the birthday of poet e.e. cummings, whose work I love. Especially, “in just spring, when the world is mud-luscious” and “anyone lived in a pretty how town.”
–But my favorite e.e. cummings poem is this one: “Buffalo Bill’s defunct who used to ride a watersmooth-silver stallion and break onetwothreefourfive pigeons justlikethat, Jesus, he was a handsome man and what i want to know is how do you like your blue-eyed boy, Mister Death?”
–None of which kept me from laughing out loud at Bruce Willis’s great line in MOONLIGHTING, when he said, in one of his rapid-fire riffs, “E., babes, use caps.”
(Note: The most hilarious thing just happened. When I typed in the above quote into my phone to double-check that I remembered it right, the AI overview answer that came up was: “GOT IT. I WILL WRITE ALL MY RESPONSES IN CAPS FOR YOU FROM NOW ON. WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND?” Sure, let’s turn everything over to AI. Good idea. What could possibly go wrong?)
In other news:
–Inflation is up to 3.7% in the last month and is accelerating. Inflation has doubled on Trump’s watch.
–Pope Leo XIV has been diagnosed with lung cancer.
–The Bank of America was fined $1.21 billion dollars by US regulators for widespread failures to detect potential money laundering and report more than $5 billion dollars in suspicious activities.
–Trump is REALLY regretting filing a defamation suit against the BBC now that it’s demanding a deposition from him. He’s trying to get it delayed for two months, saying he’s too busy with the election to sit for it. In the meantime, they’re deposing Ivanka, Don, Jr., and Jared Kushner.
In good news:
–An appeals court ruled that Trump’s name can’t be carved into the Institute of Peace building.
–The Supreme Court rejected the appeal to overturn hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal sanctions against lawyers who made baseless claims about election fraud while representing Kari Lake.
–Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, who was born in Alberta, Canada, became a naturalized United States citizen yesterday at the age of 82. Welcome to America, Joni!
Best comment of the day, from Aaron Rupar: “Look at the shabby state and increasingly authoritarian trajectory of the country and ask yourself if we can endure two more years of a lawless Trump administration wreaking havoc with no check from Congress, then vote accordingly. This is not the time for a protest vote or purity politics.”
Keep calm and carry on,
Connie Willis
