curated news excerpts & citations
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 27, 2025
Yesterday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released items from a third batch of documents associated with the criminal investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Republicans have been slow-walking the release of those files since news broke that they mention President Donald J. Trump, a close friend of Epstein during the years of his sex trafficking. The batch of documents includes phone message logs, flight logs and manifests, and Epstein’s daily schedule.
Those documents show that billionaire Peter Thiel, who financially supported Vice President J.D. Vance’s Senate campaign, and Trump ally Steve Bannon had scheduled meetings with Epstein. And they show that Elon Musk had a pending trip to Epstein’s private island.
Trump responded hours later by ordering his administration to declassify and release all government records related to…Amelia Earhart. …
But these are not the files most Americans are seeking right now.
Since yesterday, Trump has been active on social media. He has warned pregnant women in all caps: “DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, …
Trump has demanded that Microsoft fire its global affairs president, Lisa Monaco, who as deputy attorney general in the Biden administration helped coordinate the response of the Department of Justice to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. …
Trump has claimed the FBI placed “274 FBI Agents into the Crowd just prior to, and during, the January 6th Hoax,” “probably acting as Agitators and Insurrectionists,” noting that this “is different from what Director Christopher Wray stated, over and over again!” …
In fact, a report from the Department of Justice inspector general shows that there were no undercover FBI agents at the January 6 riots. There were 26 confidential human sources who worked with the FBI during the events, but the inspector general found that none were “authorized by the FBI to enter the Capitol or a restricted area or to otherwise break the law on January 6, nor was any CHS directed by the FBI to encourage others to commit illegal acts on January 6.”
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Trump also posted: “At the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists. I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Zane Sparling, Fedor Zarkhin, and Zaeem Shaikh of The Oregonian/OregonLive compiled a timeline of protests against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland. They noted that the last arrest of protesters by Portland police was on June 19, bringing the total to 25, and the last arrest by federal officers was on July 4, bringing the total to 22.
After a Labor Day protest downtown, more than 100 people marched to the ICE building and set up a makeshift guillotine. Federal officers responded with tear gas and pepper balls. On September 4 the Fox News Channel aired a story about the Labor Day protests, but mixed in clips from 2020 showing protesters burning the base of the Thompson Elk Fountain and a federal officer pepper-spraying a protester. The next day, Trump said he was considering federal intervention. “They’ve ruined that city,” he said. “It’s like living in hell.”
On September 17, Portland officials said ICE had violated its land use agreement by holding detainees for longer than 12 hours, opening the door for the city to force ICE to move. Two days later, The Oregonian/OregonLive published a video of federal agents hitting nonviolent protesters and using chemical spray on them. …
On September 22 the president signed an executive order designating “Antifa” as “a major terrorist organization,” and three days later he called demonstrators in Portland “professional agitators and anarchists.” …
In response to Trump’s announcement that he was directing Secretary Hegeseth to send troops, authorized to use full force, to Portland, Senator Wyden—who has led the push to force the Treasury to turn over Epstein-related Treasury records of at least $1.5 billion in suspicious transactions to Senate investigators—posted a video of the ICE facility Trump claims is under siege. There were no people there at all.
“My message to Donald Trump is this,” Wyden posted: “we don’t need you here. Stay the hell out of our city.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
Dean Obeidallah: Jeffrey Epstein ran a massive international blackmail ring—that’s why the cover up continues
Raw Story: ‘That’s false’: Kash Patel stuns observers by correcting Trump on ‘outlandish’ FBI claim
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“Patel has now said in a statement to Fox News that President Trump is incorrect, stating that 274 FBI Agents were not in the crowd prior to the start of the riot, and only entered to carry out crowd control once the violence began and demonstrators attempted to force their way into the Capitol Building.”
Verge: Trump posts, then pulls bizarre AI video promoting MedBed conspiracy
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WSJ: Xi Is Chasing a Huge Concession From Trump: Opposing Taiwan Independence
The Chinese leader views the president’s eagerness for a trade deal as an opportunity to press for his top goal
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Marvin Olasky: My $50,000-per-Person Poverty Dinner
…One $50,000-payer said the welfare state cost too much. I countered that conservatives for decades had been upside down in their critique of welfare. The real problem with the welfare state was not that it wasted money. The real problem was its stinginess with what people in trouble need most: challenging personal and spiritual help.What about liberal politicians? Newt asked. Aren’t they the ones wasting money? Sure, I said: They equated compassion for the poor with government poverty-fighting expenditures. They said Vote against my spending bill and you’re hard-hearted. They stuck with that even though entitlement programs, by discouraging individual effort, often did more harm than good. But conservatives hadn’t done much good by going they they they all the time and implying that welfare programs were fine except for the expense.
In short, welfare programs were not bankrupting this affluent country. The bigger cost was multigenerational welfare dependency. The welfare state gave the needy bread and told them to be content with that alone. We needed compassion rightly understood, not as a call to fling coins like a Lady Bountiful, but as suffering with those in need. More about that next time.
(Marvin Olasky more…)
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Ken Klippenstein: Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators”
New directive targets “anti-Christian,” “anti-American,” and “anti-capitalism” opinions
With the mainstream media distracted by the made-for-TV drama of James Comey’s indictment, Trump has signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” views as indicators of radical left violence. Called National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, it’s being referred to as “NSPM-7” by administration insiders.
“This is the first time in American history that there is an all-of-government effort to dismantle left wing terrorism,” Trump’s homeland security advisor Stephen Miller said, referring to the issuance.
(Ken Klippenstein more…)
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Conversation: Why a study claiming vaccines cause chronic illness is severely flawed – a biostatistician explains the biases and unsupported conclusions
At a Senate hearing on Sept. 9, 2025, on the corruption of science, witnesses presented an unpublished study that made a big assertion.
They claimed that the study, soon to be featured in a highly publicized film called “An Inconvenient Study,” expected out in early October 2025, provides landmark evidence that vaccines raise the risk of chronic diseases in childhood.
The study was conducted in 2020 by researchers at Henry Ford Health, a health care network in Detroit and southeast Michigan. Before the Sept. 9 hearing the study was not publicly available, but it became part of the public record after the hearing and is now posted on the Senate committee website.
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I can say definitively that the study by Henry Ford Health researchers has serious design problems that keep it from revealing much about whether vaccines affect children’s long-term health. In fact, a spokesperson at Henry Ford Health told journalists seeking comment on the study that it “was not published because it did not meet the rigorous scientific standards we demand as a premier medical research institution.”
(Conversation more…)
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Dean Blundell: Trump’s MAGA Operative/US Ambassador To Canada Threatens Canadians – “Start Travelling/Buying American Again Or Lose Your Pre-Clearance”
Pete Hoekstra is as vindictive as he is dumb. Kick him out of Canada, now.
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Nice guy, huh. He even lied when he said he hadn’t said that and needed to be reminded by the moderator that indeed he had, seconds later.Canadians do understand the “business case.” We also understand a shakedown when we hear one.
Pre-clearance is not a party favour the Ambassador can snatch back. It’s a hard-won, reciprocal system that speeds up travel for both countries, keeps lines moving, and makes airports run more smoothly. Threatening it isn’t smart policy; it’s petty leverage. And when a former Canadian diplomat called it what it was — a threat — the mask slipped. This wasn’t outreach. This was coercion dressed up as a spreadsheet.
(Dean Blundell more…)
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NY Times: Daily Caller Opinion Column ‘Explicitly’ Calls for Violence
The column, by editor at large Geoffrey Ingersoll, calls for “blood in the streets” in response to violence against conservatives.
…“Is this a call for violence?” the third paragraph says. “Yes. Explicitly it is.”
WaybackMachine copy of original post, before disclaimer added: INGERSOLL: Enough Is Enough … I Choose VIOLENCE!
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Sarah Jones & Jason Easley: Trump Is Having A Full Meltdown As He Will Be Blamed For Government Shutdown
Donald Trump is frantically throwing everything at the wall to distract from the fact that the government is about to shut down and it is his fault.
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Thom Hartmann: Ludwig von Mises and the “Critical Race Theory” of neoliberalism
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Mary Geddry: Full Force in Portland: Trump’s Golf-Course Coup
…Trump’s rhetoric isn’t accidental. For weeks, ICE agents have been staging their little passion plays outside the Portland facility, throwing protesters to the ground, yanking dads out of cars with kids strapped in the back, abducting men on their way to daycare. It’s provocation dressed up as law enforcement, a series of YouTube-ready scuffles designed to produce exactly the headlines Trump wants: chaos, disorder, “domestic terrorists.” He creates the smoke and then insists on sending in the fire.
Local leaders aren’t fooled. Mayor Keith Wilson and Governor Tina Kotek, blindsided, of course, because this White House prefers Truth Social posts to actual communication, urged residents not to “take the bait.” Senator Jeff Merkley all but begged Portlanders to stay calm, calling the troop surge exactly what it is: theater. It’s difficult to “not take the bait,” though, when the Commander-in-Chief is dangling the U.S. military over your city like a toddler threatening to drop a plate just to watch it shatter.
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Rebecca Solnit: Letter from the Portland War Front (humor about something deadly serious)
(Rebecca Solnit more…)
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Borowitz: Federal Troops Arrive in Portland and Immediately Form Bands
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As the city’s sidewalks transformed into an obstacle course of harmonica-blowing buskers, one longtime Portland resident commented, “We didn’t need Federal troops, but we really didn’t need more bands.”
(Borowitz more…)
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Justin Glawe: You cannot trust the federal government
Everything they say should be assumed to be a lie.
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Whether a result of incompetence, a misunderstanding of ironic edgelord gamer culture, or purposeful lying, these contradictory statements and the haste to label the shooter as motivated by left-wing ideology make it imperative that the investigation into this event be conducted as independently as possible. But Patel’s FBI, Bondi’s DOJ, and Noem’s DHS have proven that their agencies are not capable of conducting investigations based on anything other than Trump’s political objectives.Simply put: the federal government can no longer be trusted, and the Trump administration only has itself to blame.
(Justin Glawe more…)
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
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