curated news excerpts & citations
Dispatch: Trump Can’t Fix the Deficit by Attacking the Federal Reserve
The president claims lower interest rates would save us $1 trillion annually. He’s wrong.
President Trump has declared war on the prized independence of the Federal Reserve in an attempt to essentially run monetary policy out of the White House. He has attempted—illegally and on dubious grounds— to fire Fed Gov. Lisa Cook, threatened to fire Chairman Jerome Powell, and installed a top White House economist into a key Federal Reserve position. This White House pressure surely drove the Fed’s decision to reduce rates by 0.25 points on September 17.
Going to war against the Federal Reserve seems baseless when current interest rates—while above the anomalous 2010s levels—are not high by historical standards. Moreover, rates are not holding back the current economy, and they may even be too low to combat the recent inflation uptick. However, President Trump has offered an additional argument: Lower interest rates would reduce Washington’s interest on the national debt, “saving us $1 Trillion per year” in reduced budget deficits. This sacrificing of Federal Reserve independence to help the Treasury sell cheaper debt is known to economists as “fiscal dominance.”
Setting aside legitimate concerns over central bank independence and the illegal firing of Fed officials, would fiscal dominance really provide substantial budget deficit savings? The clear answer is no.
(Dispatch more…)
-
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 23, 2025
In New York City this morning, the United Nations opened its General Assembly, marking the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations itself. …
Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres opened the debate, reminding the audience that leaders who had lived through the horrors of World War II had created the organization to prevent another such conflagration by establishing “cooperation over chaos, law over lawlessness, peace over conflict.” It was, he said, “a practical strategy for the survival of humanity.”
…“I learned early to persevere. To speak out. To refuse to surrender, no matter the challenge, no matter the obstacle, no matter the hour. We must—and we will—overcome.”
President Donald J. Trump also addressed the gathered world leaders, guests of the United States.
He began by complaining that the teleprompter wasn’t working, and also mentioned that an escalator on which he and First Lady Melania Trump had been riding had stopped shortly after they stepped onto it.
Trump’s speech went on to depict a fantasy world in which he had single-handedly saved the world. …
…
The speech was a dark fantasy of narcissism and Christian nationalism that struck at the heart of the very concept of the United Nations. In its wake, some journalists demolished Trump’s wild claims, while others bemoaned his destruction of diplomacy by berating our friends and allies while they were guests in our country. But it was foreign affairs journalist Ishaan Tharoor who captured the larger story of Trump’s speech.“A senior foreign diplomat posted at the U.N. texts me,” Tharoor wrote, “‘This man is stark, raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?’”
Trump loyalists turned tonight to the idea that someone had sabotaged the president by stopping the escalator and the teleprompter. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Channel personality Jesse Watters that it looked like sabotage and she would personally see to it that there would be accountability, and Trump loyalist senator Mike Lee (R-UT) called for defunding the U.N. for “orchestrating escalator and teleprompter malfunctions.”
The United Nations correspondent for the Associated Press, Farnoush Amiri, reported that “[a] UN official said the UN understands that someone from the president’s party who ran ahead of him inadvertently triggered the stop mechanism on the escalator. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the White House was operating the teleprompter for Trump.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Bill McKibben: The Stupidest Speech in UN History
Noah Berlatsky: The Trump Murder Policy
Let’s call his strikes on Venezuelan boats for what they are.
During his unhinged rant to the United Nations yesterday, Donald Trump tried to turn his lawless attacks on purported “drug boats” in the southern Caribbean into a punchline of sorts.
“There aren’t too many boats that are traveling on the seas by Venezuela. They tend not to want to travel very quickly anymore,” he said.
…The MAGA faithful duly laughed. But as journalist and historian Garrett M. Graff pointed out, the “joke” here is essentially “we based our air strikes on such sketchy intel that we can’t figure out who is a fisherman and who is a drug smuggler.”
Trump and Vance don’t really care if they kill drug smugglers. In fact, Trump’s justifications for the strikes are inconsistent, to say the least. The murders of Venezuelans are as chaotic as they are vicious — and it’s not an accident that Vance is as enthusiastic about the chaos as about the violence.
The goal seems to be to use the military almost at random — not to advance a goal or deter a threat, but simply to exercise power and terror.
(Noah Berlatsky more…)Egberto Willies: Trump Humiliates America at UN by Calling Climate Change a Hoax and Green Energy a Scam
-
James Eagle: Is inflation really still transitory?
I remember after the pandemic filling my car and thinking there must be a mistake. I opened my heating bill and froze. The food shop felt as if it had doubled. Savings from the pandemic vanished in months. This was not a gentle rise in prices. It was a punch in the gut.
Inflation has eased since then, but you can still feel it. …
This chart shows how US inflation has changed over the past decade. In the early 2010s energy swings were the main driver. Oil price collapses dragged inflation below zero at times, while rebounds pushed it higher. Food costs and goods played smaller roles.
That pattern flipped during the pandemic. From 2020 to 2022 shocks in energy, food and goods combined to create the sharpest spike in decades. Shipping costs surged, supply chains broke and energy prices roared back from their lows. The result was a broad based inflation shock that peaked at more than 9%.
What stands out today is what remains. Energy and goods inflation have eased, even turning negative at points, yet inflation has not gone away. The red bars, which represent core services, dominate the picture. Housing, healthcare, insurance and other service costs are proving sticky. This is why the Fed is uneasy. Even if supply chains heal and oil prices stabilise, services inflation is hard to shift quickly.
In other words, the inflation story has moved from temporary shocks to structural persistence. That is the issue we face today. Yikes.
(James Eagle more…)
-
Jack Hopkins: Trump’s Terror Tactic: The Real Math Behind the Antifa Label
Why Trump’s Antifa Label Has Nothing to Do With Safety…and Everything to Do With Power
-
Above the Law: Donald Trump Desperately Wants To Prosecute His ‘Enemies’
Donald Trump’s not content just being president. He wants to be a prosecutor in every district where he has an enemy, so that he can make the decisions.
— Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, in comments made during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” where he discussed the fallout from President Donald Trump’s demands that Attorney General Pam Bondi prosecute his perceived enemies, including former FBI Director James Coney, Senator Adam Schiff, and New York Attorney General Letitia James. “People believe those decisions are now being made for personal reasons, not legal ones. And that creates a slippery slope in our justice system,” Christie said. “Now, we will have a very difficult time coming back from [it].”
-
engadget: The Secret Service seized a network capable of shutting down New York City’s cell service
It included over 300 SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards.
(engadget more…)Wired: ‘SIM Farms’ Are a Spam Plague. A Giant One in New York Threatened US Infrastructure, Feds Say
-
Jay Kuo: Is the Tide Turning?
On multiple fronts, Trump has been pushed back or forced to dig in and defend.
-
NY Times: Democrats Open Inquiries Into Handling of Homan Investigation
President Trump’s border czar was investigated for potential bribery after accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash, but the case was closed after Mr. Trump took office.
House and Senate Democrats have opened separate investigations into the Trump administration’s decision to close a criminal F.B.I. inquiry into Tom Homan, Mr. Trump’s border czar, that began after he was recorded last year accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash.Mr. Homan’s encounter with undercover F.B.I. agents in September 2024 was recorded on audiotape and led him to be investigated for potential bribery and other crimes. On the tape, he agreed to help the agents, who were posing as businessmen, get government contracts related to border security, according to people familiar with the case.
(NY Times more…)
-
Democracy Docket: Texas Officially Walks Back Justification For Redistricting, Throws DOJ Under Bus
(Democracy Docket more…)
-
Decoding Fox News: The Charlie Kirk Memorial on Fox News
-
Jason Easley: Jimmy Kimmel Shows America What It Looks Like To Not Bend The Knee To Trump
Jimmy Kimmel returned to the air and went straight after Trump and those who illegally tried to get him taken off the air in violation of the First Amendment.
Jason Easley
…I do want to make something clear because it’s important to me as a human that you understand it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man. I don’t think there’s anything funny about it. … Nor was my intent to blame any specific group for the actions of what was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make, but i understand that to some it felt ill-timed or unclear or maybe both. For those who think I did point a finger, I get why you’re upset — if the situation was reversed, theres a good chance I’d feel the same way.
Empathy and the ability to see things from others’ points of view are sorely lacking in this country, but that is precisely what Kimmel demonstrated.
Jimmy Kimmel thanked and named many of the conservatives who spoke on behalf of the right to free speech, even though they disagreed with him.
The late-night host talked about the real issue, which is free speech and Trump trying to illegally silence his critics.
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
Leave a Reply