Trump Cut Maga Food Stamps & They'll Be Skinny Enough For Hegseth's Military

#halloween2025 #halloween #spookyseason #govtshutdown2025 #governmentshutdown #govtshutdown #governmentshutdown2025 #politics #politicalmeme #politicsmeme

GOP Screws Their Voters Exhibit 948383639

#gop #maga #argentinabailout #governmentshutdown #governmentshutdown2025

Breaking news on the ongoing federal government shutdown entering day 20 with Senate deadlock over healthcare subsidies and funding October 2025

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Lazy Caturday Reads: No Kings!

It’s No Kings Day!

There will be thousands of protests in cities and towns around the country today. Here’s what’s happening.

The Guardian: Millions expected across all 50 US states to march in No Kings protests against Trump.

Americans across all 50 states will march in protests against the Trump administration on Saturday, aligning behind a message that the country is sliding into authoritarianism and there should be no kings in the US.

Millions are expected to turn out for the No Kings protests, the second iteration of a coalition that marched in June in one of the largest days of protest in US history. Events are scheduled for more than 2,700 locations, from small towns to large cities.

Donald Trump has cracked down on US cities, attempting to send in federal troops and adding more immigration agents. He is seeking to criminalize dissent, going after left-leaning organizations that he claims are supporting terrorism or political violence. Cities have largely fought back, suing to prevent national guard infusions, and residents have taken to the streets to speak out against the militarization of their communities.

Trump’s allies have sought to cast the No Kings protests as anti-American and led by antifa, the decentralized anti-fascist movement, while also claiming that the protests are prolonging the government shutdown. Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, has said he will send the state’s national guard to Austin, the state’s capital, in advance of the protests….

“What’s most important as a message for people to carry is that the president wants us to be scared, but we will not be bullied into fear and silence,” said Lisa Gilbert, the co-president of Public Citizen, one of the protest organizers. “And it’s incredibly important for people to remain peaceful, to stand proud and to say what they care about, and not to be cowed by that fear.”

The simple framing of the protests is that the US has no kings, a dig at Trump’s increasing authoritarianism. Among the themes the organizers have pointed to: Trump is using taxpayer money for power grabs, sending in federal forces to take over US cities; Trump has said he wants a third term and “is already acting like a monarch”; the Trump administration has taken its agenda too far, defying the courts and slashing services while deporting people without due process.

I expect that some Republicans will try to spark violence at these protest rallies. I hope people will remain peaceful no matter what.

CNN is posting live updates of the events, with photos: Protesters rally against the Trump administration at ‘No Kings’ events across the country.

Politico: Round 2 of ‘No Kings’ draws Republican attacks.

The nationwide “No Kings” protest movement is back for round two — and after avoiding Washington during the summer, protesters are expected to descend on the nation’s capital Saturday amid an 18-day government shutdown that has no end in sight.

The demonstrations are part of the second national day of action, organized by dozens of liberal advocacy groups to protest what they call “authoritarian power grabs” on the part of President Donald Trump.

Organizers said they expect the more than 2,600 events across all 50 states to surpass the more than 5 million people who attended the first wave of “No Kings” rallies in June. The marches come amid heightened criticism from Republicans about this weekend’s rallies.

“They might try to paint this weekend’s events as something dangerous to our society, but the reality is there is nothing unlawful or unsafe about organizing and attending peaceful protests,” said Deirdre Schifeling of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s the most patriotic and American thing you can do, and we have a 250-year-old history of disagreeing in public.”

Amid the heightened tensions of the shutdown, Republicans have repeatedly sought to vilify the planned protests. House Speaker Mike Johnson and other leading Republicans have referred to the protests as a “hate America rally” and sought to tie it to Hamas and antifa. And Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also announced Thursday that he would be sending members of the state’s National Guard — as well as state troopers, Texas Rangers and Department of Public Safety personnel — to Austin on Saturday in response to the planned demonstrations.

In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, Trump said “some people say [Democrats] want to delay” ending the government shutdown because of the rallies.

“They’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” Trump said in the interview.

Then stop acting like one!

A related and troubling story from The New York Times: Military Plans to Fire Artillery Over California Freeway on Saturday.

The Marines plan to fire 155-millimeter artillery shells over a major freeway in Southern California on Saturday as part of a demonstration at Camp Pendleton to celebrate the Marine Corps’ 250th anniversary.

The plans to fire over the freeway triggered outrage by Gov. Gavin Newsom late Friday night after his office had been informed days earlier that the celebration would not involve firing munitions across Interstate 5, a heavily traveled corridor between Los Angeles and San Diego.

Early Saturday, Mr. Newsom said the state would shut a 17-mile section of the freeway from noon to 3 p.m. Pacific time because of potential hazards posed by the military’s plans.

“This is a profoundly absurd show of force that could put Californians directly in harm’s way,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement to The New York Times.

He criticized President Trump and said the lack of coordination among state, federal and local officials was creating a dangerous situation. The artillery demonstration, to be attended by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and military officials, will take place on the same day that anti-Trump activists plan to hold “No Kings” protests across the country, including in Southern California.

“Using our military to intimidate people you disagree with isn’t strength — it’s reckless, it’s disrespectful, and it’s beneath the office the president holds,” Mr. Newsom said.

I hope no one gets hurt. As I said earlier, I would not be at all surprised to see efforts by right wingers to spark violence at the demonstrations.

In Ukraine war news, Trump met with Ukraine president Vladimir Zelensky yesterday, and he refused Zelensky’s request for Tomahawk cruise missiles, seemingly based on a phone conversation with Vladimir Putin.

The Washington Post (gift link): With a phone call, Putin appears to change Trump’s mind on Ukraine. Again.

Russian President Vladimir Putin put his relationship with President Donald Trump back on track with a phone call just ahead of Trump’s crucial Friday meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that was meant to include discussions of providing Ukraine with powerful new long range weapons.

Up until the Thursday phone call, Trump had seemed ready to boost Ukraine’s arsenal and negotiating position with Tomahawk cruise missiles. But in its wake and after the subsequent meeting with Zelensky, Trump played down all talk of the missiles and instead focused on yet another summit with Putin.

It was the latest swing in Trump’s back and forth positions on the Russia-Ukraine war that often change following contact with Putin, who has shown a great deal of skill in persuading the U.S. president to his view of the conflict.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over with without thinking about Tomahawks. I think we’re fairly close to that,” Trump said to journalists as he began his meeting with Zelensky. “We don’t want to be giving away things that we need to protect our country.”

Instead of new support for Ukraine or sanctions on Russia, Trump announced a new summit with Putin — a bonus for the Russian leader — “to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.” There was no talk of Russia curtailing its ongoing bombardment of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure ahead of winter.

So far, Russia has succeeded in deterring Trump from imposing further sanctions — or sending more powerful weapons to Ukraine — by continually dangling hopes of a peace deal, while it ramps up attacks.

Use the gift link to read the rest.

NPR: After Zelenskyy meeting, Trump calls on Ukraine and Russia to ‘stop where they are’ and end the war.

President Donald Trump on Friday called on Kyiv and Moscow to “stop where they are” and end their brutal war following a lengthy White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Trump’s frustration with the conflict has surfaced repeatedly in the nine months since he returned to office, but with his latest comments he edged back in the direction of pressing Ukraine to give up on retaking land it has lost to Russia.

“Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts,” Trump said in a Truth Social post not long after hosting Zelenskyy and his team for more than two hours of talks. “They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!”

Later, soon after arriving in Florida, where he’s spending the weekend, Trump urged both sides to “stop the war immediately” and implied that Moscow keep territory it’s taken from Kyiv.

“You go by the battle line wherever it is — otherwise it’s too complicated,” Trump told reporters. “You stop at the battle line and both sides should go home, go to their families, stop the killing, and that should be it.”

So Trump is hanging out at Mar-a-Lago as the government shutdown continues.

Luke Broadwater at The New York Times (gift link): The Shutdown Is Stretching On. Trump Doesn’t Seem to Mind.

President Trump has repurposed money to fund military salaries during the government shutdown. He has pledged to find ways to make sure many in law enforcement get paid. He has used the fiscal impasse to halt funding to Democratic jurisdictions, and is trying to lay off thousands of federal workers.

Government shutdowns are usually resolved only after the pain they inflict on everyday Americans forces elected officials in Washington to come to an agreement. But as the shutdown nears a fourth week, Mr. Trump’s actions have instead reduced the pressure for an immediate resolution and pushed his political opponents to further dig in.

“We’re not going to bend,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, said on Friday, the 17th day of the shutdown. “We’re not going to break.” He added: “All of these efforts to try to intimidate Democratic members of the House and the Senate are not going to work.”

Unlike past presidents, Mr. Trump appears to feel little urgency to strike a deal to reopen the government. Instead, he has used the shutdown, which began Oct. 1, as an opportunity to further remake the federal bureaucracy and jettison programs he does not like, seizing on unorthodox budgetary maneuvers that some have called illegal.

Administration officials appear undaunted by the criticism, even after a federal judge temporarily blocked their efforts to conduct mass firings. On Friday, some agencies indicated in court filings that they might proceed with layoffs that officials suggested were not covered by the order.

Russell T. Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and the architect of the effort to remake the government, has pledged to “stay on offense” throughout the shutdown.

“He now has this cover for doing what at least Russ Vought and that coalition has wanted to do all along,” Sarah Binder, a political science professor at George Washington University, said of Mr. Trump.

Trump claims to be working on making health care more affordable.

Asked in the Oval Office this week whether he would use his deal-making skills to bring the shutdown to an end, Mr. Trump said that he was instead working to lower health care costs without the help of Congress, by negotiating agreements directly with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription costs.

“We have to take care of our health care,” he said.

White House officials say that the administration’s moves are meant to send the message that it is Mr. Trump, not congressional Democrats, who is helping Americans when government funding has lapsed.

“Any negative impacts felt by the American people have purely been caused by the Democrats,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.

Use the gift link to read more if you’re interested. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump lets the shutdown go on until next year and beyond. We’ll see if the Republicans fight back after hearing from their constituents.

Tom Latchem at The Daily Beast: Public Health Professor Warns Trump’s ‘Eugenics’ Policy Echoes Nazism.

An eminent ER doctor and health policy expert has warned that President Donald Trump’s government shutdown talk about “deserving” patients mirrors a “eugenics” policy adopted by the Nazis.

The shutdown is about to enter its fourth week after Congress failed to pass full-year funding. The White House and Speaker Mike Johnson are demanding spending cuts and immigration concessions, while Senate Democrats insist on extending ACA subsidies and undoing the summer healthcare cuts before reopening agencies.

Dr. Craig Spencer, who lectures on the history of health and eugenics at Brown University and is one of the country’s most influential clinician voices on emergency care, said the administration’s framing echoes America’s 1920s policy of sorting people by “worthiness… cloaked in what’s ‘acceptable’ by the state.

Spencer warns that President Donald Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are pursuing eugenics with their health policies.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

“It’s not a stretch to say this administration is touting a eugenics agenda, which was perfected by the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s and later adopted by the Nazis. People don’t want to call it that because it feels unsayable. But it’s real,” Spencer told the Daily Beast.

In 1920s America, eugenics was a mainstream policy movement that used bogus “race science” to justify restrictive immigration laws and state-mandated sterilization of people labeled “unfit.”

The language of Trump’s government, Spencer said, is “almost the same on immigration, access to healthcare, and who deserves the fruits of government,” and its “logical conclusion—while they won’t say it out loud—is letting certain people die.”

“I’ve been reluctant to compare what’s happening now to the eugenics movement 100 years ago, but as every new day goes by I’m less reluctant,” he added.]

There’s more at the link.

Meanwhile, some people will soon learn what their health insurance is going to cost them next year and what will happen to their food stamp benefits.

The New York Times: Higher Obamacare Prices Become Public in a Dozen States.

Health insurance prices for next year under the Affordable Care Act are now available in about a dozen states, giving Americans their first look at the sharp increases many will pay for coverage if Congress does not extend subsidies that have made some plans more affordable.

The annual enrollment period for Obamacare is expected to begin Nov. 1, but the costs for some Americans are becoming publicly available piecemeal through some state marketplaces. The federal website healthcare.gov, which includes 28 other state marketplaces, is slated to post prices before the end of October.

People shopping for coverage can now preview the costs they face from potentially expiring subsidies and sharply rising premiums in many markets, including California, New York, Nevada, Maryland and Idaho. Some consumers also found out that they would have fewer choices because their insurers dropped out of some markets for 2026.

Based on the newly posted information, a family of four making $130,000 in Maine would face an increase of $16,100 in annual premiums next year because they would no longer qualify for more generous subsidies, said Gideon Lukens, a health policy researcher for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which supports extending the subsidies.

Older people will also see sharp increases, according to his calculations. In Kentucky, a 60-year-old couple making $85,000 per year could face an increase of $23,700 in annual premiums. In Nevada, a similar couple could pay an additional $18,100 in annual premiums, while in Minnesota, the cost might be $15,500 more and, in Maryland, an additional $13,700.

The government shutdown has already amplified the potential for higher health insurance costs for millions of Americans if the subsidies are not continued. Democrats have demanded that Republicans extend the more generous subsidies in any deal to reopen the federal government, which has been closed for 17 days over a spending impasse.

The New York Times: Food Stamp Benefits May Run Out in November, Officials Warn.

If the government shutdown continues into November, about 42 million low-income people could face severe disruptions to their food stamp benefits, the Agriculture Department warned in a letter to state agencies last week, saying that the federal government would have “insufficient funds.”

More than a dozen states have since warned that food stamp recipients may experience significant delays in obtaining benefits next month, see their aid reduced or not receive assistance at all.

The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, said that the Agriculture Department’s Food and Nutrition Service, which operates the food stamp program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was exploring contingency plans. But it directed state agencies to pause sending vendors the electronic files typically used to load the benefits for November.

“We’re going to run out of money in two weeks,” Brooke L. Rollins, the agriculture secretary, told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “So you’re talking about millions and millions of vulnerable families, of hungry families that are not going to have access to these programs because of this shutdown.”

In a statement, a White House official said that Democrats “chose to shut down the government knowing that programs like SNAP would soon run out of funds.”

Such a disruption would be the first in recent decades. Benefits have remained available through every shutdown in the last 20 years, said Carolyn Vega, the associate director of policy analysis for Share Our Strength, a nonprofit that supports antipoverty programs.

“We are in uncharted territory,” she said.

I’ll end with this enraging story, again from The New York Times: Coast Guard Buys Two Private Jets for Noem, Costing $172 Million.

The Department of Homeland Security has purchased two Gulfstream private jets for Kristi Noem, the secretary, and other top department officials at a cost of $172 million, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The jets, which a department official said were needed for safety, are the latest expenditures on behalf of Ms. Noem to draw scrutiny from Democrats and other critics who have noted her lavish spending on living and other expenses during her time in public life.

The Coast Guard put in its budget earlier this year a request to purchase a new long-range Gulfstream V jet, estimated to cost $50 million, to replace an aging one used by Ms. Noem.

“The avionics are increasingly obsolete, the communications are increasingly unreliable and it’s in need of recapitalization, like much of the rest of the fleet,” Kevin Lunday, the acting commandant of the Coast Guard, told members of Congress at a hearing in May.

He said a new aircraft was necessary to provide agency leaders with “secure, reliable, on-demand communications and movement to go forward, visit our operating forces, conducting the missions and then come back here to Washington and make sure we can work together to get them what they need.”

Documents that were posted to a public government procurement website and reviewed by The Times show that the department has since signed a contract with Gulfstream to buy not one but two “used” G700 jets, touted by the company as having the “most spacious cabin in the industry.” The total contract value is listed as a little over $172 million.

It was not immediately clear where the funding for the jets came from.

Only the best for the puppy killer.

#DonaldTrump #foodStamps #governmentShutdown2025 #healthCareCosts #KristyNoem #NoKingsDayProtests #ObamacarePrices #privatePlanes #TomahawkCruiseMissiles #TrumpSEugenicsPolicy #UkraineWar #VladimirPutin #VladimirZelensky

Senator #ElizabethWarren on #DonaldTrump's #ArgentinaBailout on the #SenateBankingHousingAndUrbanAffairsCommittee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNAVtJ5PDAM

https://piped.video/watch?v=BNAVtJ5PDAM

https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=BNAVtJ5PDAM

#uspol #politics #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpAdministration2025 #SecondTrumpAdministration #JavierMilei #GovernmentShutdown #GovernmentShutdown2025 #Project2025 #MAGA #TrumpTariffs #TradeWar2025 #TACOTrump #FarmingCrisis2025

"paid protesters"—well, #MAGA Republicans/ #TrumpAdministration, at least one side is paid

#uspol #politics #NoKings #NoKingsProtest #Project2025 #TrumpAdministration2025 #SecondTrumpAdministration #GovernmentShutdown #GovernmentShutdown2025 #ACA #AffordableCareAct #Medicare #Medicaid #ObamaCare #BBB #TBBB #OBBB #TOBBB #BigBeautifulBill #BigBeautifulBillAct #OneBigBeautifulBill #OneBigBeautifulBillAct #TheBigBeautifulBill #TheOneBigBeautifulBill #TheOneBigBeautifulBillAct #WeAreAllGoingToDieAct

Happy #NoKingsDay! 💪🏻

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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