Wednesday Reads: A Mixed Bag of News

Good Morning!!

It seems there’s no end in sight for the government shutdown. The House is on a long paid vacation, and the Senate keeps voting again and again on the House Republican plan.

Heather Cox Richardson wrote yesterday at Letters from an American:

The government shutdown, which started on October 1, is entering its third week. As Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) explained this morning, the Senate is in session, and it keeps voting on two bills to reopen the government. Majority leader John Thune (R-SD) keeps having the Senate vote on the measure passed by Republicans in the House. That measure funds the government until November 21. It has failed repeatedly to get past the 60 votes necessary to avoid a filibuster. The Democrats have offered an alternative measure, which extends the healthcare premium tax credit—without which health insurance costs on the Affordable Care Act market will skyrocket—and restores nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid. That measure, too, has repeatedly failed to pass.

Murphy notes that normally the two sides would negotiate. But, he says, President Donald J. Trump is telling Republican senators to “BOYCOTT NEGOTIATING,” and they are “following orders.”

The House of Representatives is even more dysfunctional. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pushed the continuing resolution through the chamber on September 19, the Friday before leaving town for a week. Then Johnson canceled the House sessions on Monday and Tuesday, September 29 and 30, both to jam the Senate into having to accept the House measure and to avoid swearing in Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ), who was elected on September 23. Grijalva will provide the 218th signature on a discharge petition to force a vote on the release of the files collected during the federal investigation into the crimes of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump and his officials promised to release those files, but have tried to avoid doing so since news broke that Trump, who was a close friend of Epstein, is named in them.

I really think the Epstein issue is the reason for the Republican resistance to compromise. Trump really really doesn’t want the Epstein files to be released. There must be some terrible stuff about him in those records.

Emily Brooks of The Hill notes that jamming the Senate as Johnson tried to do was a tactic employed by the far-right Freedom Caucus, and they are cheering him on. But Democratic senators refused to vote in favor of the House measure, standing firm on extending the premium tax credits before their loss decimates the healthcare markets. Now, although Democrats are in Washington, D.C., ready to negotiate, Johnson says he will not call House members back to work until the Senate passes the House measure.

Brooks notes that not all Republicans are keen on the optics of staying out of session during a shutdown. Mike Lillis of The Hill reported on Sunday that the cancellation of all House votes since late September has some Republicans warning that the tactic will backfire. In addition to the question of healthcare premiums, there is the issue of military pay stalled by the shutdown, and the fact that, by law, Congress was supposed to deliver its 2026 budget by September 30.

Over the weekend, the administration tried to ratchet up the pressure on Democratic senators to cave when it announced it would fire about 4,200 federal employees. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo notes that the threat seemed at least in part to be designed to follow through on a threat Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought had made to pressure Democrats before the shutdown. When those layoffs didn’t happen, the administration then suggested it would not pay furloughed workers after the shutdown ends. After backlash, they walked that threat back. The new announcement seemed in part an attempt to prove they would do something.

I’m glad the Democrats are standing firm on their insistence that the cuts to health care be restored. Read more from Richardson at the substack link.

Today the Supreme Court is going to hear a case that could allow John Roberts to achieve his lifelong goal of completely destroy the Voting Rights Act.

Lawrence Hurley at NBC News: Supreme Court weighs whether to gut key provision of landmark Voting Rights Act.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider whether to eviscerate a key provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act in a congressional redistricting case from Louisiana.

The justices, who expanded the scope of the case over the summer, will hear oral arguments on whether states can ever consider race in drawing new districts while seeking to comply with Section 2 of the 1965 law, which was enacted against a backdrop of historic racial discrimination to protect minority voters.

The long-running dispute concerns the congressional map that Louisiana was required to redraw last year after being sued under the Voting Rights Act to ensure that there were two majority-Black districts. The original map only had one such district in a state where a third of the population is Black.

The Supreme Court originally heard the case earlier this year on a narrower set of legal issues but, in a rare move, it asked in June for the parties to reargue it. The court then raised the stakes by asking the lawyers to focus on a larger constitutional issue.

Now, the justices will be deciding whether drawing a map to ensure there are majority-Black districts violates the Constitution’s 14th and 15th amendments, which were both enacted after the Civil War to ensure equal rights for former slaves, including the right to vote.

This is interesting:

Conservatives argue that both constitutional amendments prohibit consideration of race at any time. The Supreme Court has previously embraced this “colorblind” interpretation of the Constitution, most notably in its 2023 ruling that ended the consideration of race in college admissions.

Louisiana, which initially defended its new map, has switched sides and joined a group of self-identified “non-African-American” voters who sued to block it on constitutional grounds. The Trump administration also backs the state’s new position.

The map is being defended by civil rights groups that challenged the original map.

Read more analysis at the NBC News link.

More on the case from Hansi Lo Wang at NPR: A Supreme Court ruling on voting rights could boost Republicans’ redistricting efforts.

A major redistricting case returning to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday could not only determine the fate of the federal Voting Rights Act, but also unlock a path for Republicans to pick up a slew of additional congressional seats.

If the high court overturns the act’s Section 2 — a provision that bans racial discrimination in voting — GOP-controlled states could redraw at least 19 more voting districts for the House of Representatives in favor of Republicans, according to a recent report by the voting rights advocacy groups Black Voters Matter Fund and Fair Fight Action.

And depending on when the court rules in the case, known as Louisiana v. Callais, some number of the seats could be redistricted prior to next year’s midterm election.

The analysis comes as President Trump continues to lead a GOP push for new maps in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and other states that could help Republicans preserve their slim House majority after the 2026 election.

The GOP effort could be bolstered by a Supreme Court ruling that eliminates longstanding Section 2 protections against the dilution of the collective power of racial minority voters.

Many of the landmark law’s supporters fear such an outcome after the conservative-majority court didn’t rule last term on the Louisiana case, and instead scheduled a rare second round of oral arguments, which is expected to focus on the constitutionality of Section 2’s redistricting requirements.

A ruling gutting Section 2 could have a cascading effect on congressional maps in mostly Southern states where Republicans either control both legislative chambers and the governor’s office or have a veto-proof majority in the legislature — and where voting is racially polarized, with Black voters tending to vote Democratic and white voters tending to vote Republican.

On Monday, Dakinikat posted a story about a 13-year-old Massachusetts boy who was arrested and then taken by ICE to a facility in Virginia. After many people reacted in shock, ICE claimed the boy had a knife and a gun when he was arrested. The local police say he had a knife but no gun.

The Boston Globe: DHS claimed an Everett 13-year-old had a gun when he was arrested. The city’s mayor says he didn’t.

A vigil was held outside City Hall Tuesday night for a 13-year-old boy who is being held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Virginia after police arrested the armed teen at a bus stop last week while following up on a credible tip about a violent threat against another student.

Officers recovered a 6- to 7-inch, double-sided knife, Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria said at a news conference earlier Tuesday. He said, however, that the teenager did not have a gun, contradicting a report by a Department of Homeland Security official.

In response to questions about how the teenager was handed over to ICE, the mayor also said the Everett Police Department did not contact ICE about the juvenile’s arrest.

“Everett police does not make arrests based on immigration status,” DeMaria said.

Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, posted on social media Monday that the juvenile posed a “public safety threat” and was in possession of a firearm and a large knife when arrested. Everett Police Chief Paul Strong said Tuesday that no firearm was recovered….

The juvenile was booked at the police station on Thursday and then was detained by ICE at the station. He is now being held at the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Va., according to his family.

This is from Maria Kabas at The Handbasket: ICE took a 13-year-old they said had a gun. Local cops say he didn’t.

A 13-year-old Massachusetts boy is in ICE custody hundreds of miles from home, and trying to figure out how this was allowed to happen has been challenging. A local news story about the ordeal went viral on Sunday, prompting more questions than answers about the conduct of local police, their relationship to federal immigration enforcement and whether the boy’s family even knew he was being taken out of state. While we have some new information, the cloud of confusion remains.

A 13-year-old boy was arrested by ICE in Everett and sent to a juvenile detention facility in Virginia. (Photo from The Boston Globe)

Here’s what we know at this point: Last Thursday, police in Everett, Massachusetts say the boy made a credible threat of violence against another student in the school district. When officers picked him up at a bus stop outside his school, they allegedly found a knife in his possession. Once the boy was fingerprinted, ICE became aware of the case. According to the Boston Globe, the boy’s mother was called to pick him up after he was arrested, waited for about an hour and a half, and was then told her son was taken by ICE. He was held overnight in a Massachusetts ICE facility and then taken Friday to one in Virginia. We know he came to the US from Brazil and, along with his family, has a pending asylum case.

“I’ve never done a bond or a habeas for a kid this young, ever,” US District Judge Richard G. Stearns said during an emergency habeas corpus hearing Friday filed by a lawyer on behalf of the boy. “This is the youngest.”

Everett is a city of nearly 50,000 people that borders Boston directly to the north. According to the 2010 Census, 33% of residents were born outside of the US. Per the 2020 Census, the city is a little more than 50% white, with a big Hispanic and Latino community, as well as large Italian and Brazilian populations. As people at a city council meeting testified Tuesday night, ICE has had a bombastic presence in the community since the start of the second Trump administration.

Here’s what Kabas was told by a DHS spokesperson:

After I reached out to ICE spokesperson Casey Latimer on Monday regarding the boy taken from Everett, I received a reply from a different spokesperson named James Covington. He wrote “Please see the below from DHS on the 13-year-old alien. Please feel free to direct any questions to them.”

The “below” Covington was referring to was—and bear with me here—a screenshot of an X post from DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin who had quote posted Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council. Reichlin-Melnick had posted about the story, writing “This makes NO SENSE. A 13-year-old was arrested by local police for unknown reasons, and then turned over to ICE, which is detaining him far away from his mother — who is going through immigration court, has an asylum application on file, and is legally authorized to work.”

Latimer went on to accuse the boy of “an extensive rap sheet” and possessing a gun,” which the local authorities say is not true. So maybe this is a troubled kid, but the local police should be dealing with that, not DHS, especially since his family has an active asylum case.

The Young Republicans are in the news and not in a good way.

Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo at Politico: ‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat.

Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n–ga” and “n–guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.

“Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued.

Read more horrible comments at the Politico link.

A follow-up story at Politico by Emily Ngo and Jason Beeferman: ‘It’s revolting’: More Young Republican chat members out of jobs as condemnation intensifies.

Two more members of a Young Republican group chat strewn with racist epithets and hateful jokes stepped down from their jobs Tuesday after POLITICO published an exclusive report on the Telegram exchanges.

Bobby Walker and other young Republicans who took part in an epithet-filled Telegram chat are out of jobs after POLITICO began asking questions about their statements.

Peter Giunta’s time working with New York Assemblymember Mike Reilly “has ended,” the Republican lawmaker said. Giunta served as chair of the New York State Young Republicans when the chat took place. Joseph Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for that group, is no longer an employee of the New York State Unified Court System, a courts spokesperson confirmed.

Another chat member, Vermont state Senator Sam Douglass, faced mounting calls for his resignation as well, including from the state’s Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, and Douglass’ fellow Republican lawmakers, who called his statements “deeply disturbing.”

POLITICO’s in-depth look into how one group of Young Republicans spoke privately was met Tuesday with widespread condemnation in New York, Washington and beyond. The members of the chat — 2,900 pages of which were leaked and reviewed by POLITICO — called Black people monkeys, repeatedly used slurs for gay, Black, Latino and Asian people, and jokingly celebrated Adolf Hitler.

In a bipartisan outcry, members of Congress and other political leaders from around the country said they were appalled by the contents of the group chat. The board of directors of the National Young Republicans said every member of the chat “must immediately resign” their state organization.

Trump is destroying the White House. The mess in the oval office can be fixed by a new president and the giant flagpoles could be removed, but what about the huge ballroom he’s building and the proposed Nazi-style victory arch? What about the ruined rose garden? He’s turning the people’s house into Mar-a-Lago north.

Marc Caputo at Axios: Don the Builder: Inside Trump’s White House makeover.

Donald Trump is obsessing over remodeling the White House like no other president.

—  He has gilded the Oval Office, replaced trees, paved the Rose Garden lawn, hung art and mirrors all over, erected flagpoles and begun work on a $250 million ballroom.

—  He’s not done: Trump has had models and dioramas built for other projects he’s considering, and even directed how and where new marble-tiled floors are laid….

Long after Trump has exited the presidency, his imprint will be on the executive mansion in an unprecedented scope and scale — even if a successor removes the Oval Office gold leaf.

What’s next: The president’s wandering architectural eye is now gazing southwest from the White House to land around the Memorial Bridge. He wants to erect a giant arch as a grand entrance into Washington from Arlington National Cemetery.

—  “Let’s build something like the Arc de Triomphe in that space, it would be beautiful when you drive or fly in,” Trump told a White House visitor a few weeks ago.

—  Trump has three differently sized models of the “Arc de Trump” that he’s been positioning on a map of D.C. to determine the right scale.

—  On Saturday, Trump posted on Truth Social a rendition of the arch by Washington architect Nicolas Leo Charbonneau.

The models for the arch were 3D printed on Trump’s orders by the architects involved in designing the new ballroom. He says it’d be privately funded, along with some of the other projects. The total cost is unclear.

There’s much more horrifying stuff to read at Axios, if you stomach it.

Look inside the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom at Mar-a-Lago in 2005 (from The Palm Beach Post)

Rachel Cohen at New Jersey.com: Eric Trump reveals distinct similarities between the White House and Mar-a-Lago.

Eric Trump is sharing how renovations to the White House are a nod to Mar-a-Lago.

Trump gave a tour to Fox News anchor Steve Doocy of his family’s Florida golf club as he promotes his new book, “Under Siege,” which is out Tuesday. It offers an unfiltered look into the Trump world and criticism against his father, according to the memoir’s synopsis.

Moving throughout the patio and home of the Palm Beach estate, Doocy later admired the “fantastic view” of the beach, while pointing to how the resort displays the same umbrellas from the new Rose Garden.

“Exact same umbrellas as the Rose Garden,” Trump responded on “Fox & Friends.”

He added: “And by the way, that beautiful flag pole right there — the exact same flag pole that we have at the White House. I got a call from my father. He goes, “Honey, I need two great flag poles. I want to donate them to the White House.”

Trump went on to say that “we’re very happy to have the same Mar-a-Lago flagpole on the south and north grounds now.”

Barf.

A few more stories to check out today:

The New York Times: U.S. Military Kills Another 6 People in 5th Caribbean Strike, Trump Says.

Newsweek: JB Pritzker Looking at Prosecuting ICE Agents in Chicago.

Chicago Sun-Times: Feds ram SUV after chase down residential street in Chicago, then tear-gas crowd.

The Washington Post: Media including Fox News overwhelmingly reject Pentagon press policy.

The Washington Post (gift link): Trump says U.S. won’t benefit from $20 billion bailout for Argentina.

The Guardian: Trump threatens to cut US aid to Argentina if Milei loses election.

That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?

#13YearOldMABoyTakenByICE #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #EricTrump #governmentShutdown2025 #ICEKidnappings #MarALago #SupremeCourt #TrumpWhiteHouseChanges #VotingRightsAct #YoungRepublicans