curated news excerpts & citations
Jennifer Rubin: Removing Trump is the only way to get rid of real ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’
Donald Trump and his minions endlessly rail about “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the federal government. Meanwhile, he and his regime are the most prodigious generators of “waste, fraud, and abuse” in American history.
First and foremost, no president has ever used his office to rack up anything close to the estimated $5B Trump has hauled in for himself, selling everything from tacky gold sneakers to crypto. He has mastered the art of trading on access and enticing foreigners to pony up big bucks (and even an airplane). The most pro-corruption president in history also has stopped enforcement of foreign corruption, crypto fraud and other white collar crimes.
Beyond all that, in just over nine months the MAGA regime has been more egregious in its misuse of taxpayers’ money than any administration in memory.
Flying top brass into Quantico, Va., to hear an obnoxiously partisan pep talk from Defense Secretary (and wrinkle warrior) Pete Hegseth and Trump: $6M. That qualifies as both waste and abuse (i.e., politicizing the military).
Multiple unnecessary and unconstitutional deployments of national guard around the country (which have triggered adverse court rulings, costing a fortune in taxpayer-funded legal fees): 2/3 of a billion dollars. …
(Jennifer Rubin more…)
Bulwark: Is He Lying or Crazy? Does It Matter?
Living in the world the president dreams up.
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Yesterday, we briefly mentioned Trump’s weekend Truth Social claim that the “BIDEN FBI” had “PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6.”
“What a SCAM,” the president raged. “DO SOMETHING!!!”
I regret glossing over it. Not only because it was an objectively insane thing to tweet—given it was Trump, not Biden, who was pretty famously president on January 6th—but because the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me to be a keystone text of Trump’s second term.
Start with the double standard here. Imagine that last year, during the perennial (and understandable!) news cycles around Joe Biden’s age and fitness for office, Biden himself had claimed in passing to have been president during the January 6th attack. It would have been a field day for the opposition and a multi-day story for the press. Reporters would have demanded answers for how the president could be laboring under such a delusion.
(Bulwark more…)
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Steward Beckham: The Ghost of Yesterday’s Consensus
Yesterday’s assumptions can’t make sense of today’s storm.
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In the last half century, we came close to something this country had only dreamed about: a truly multiracial democracy. Not perfect, of course, but real enough to frighten the ghosts of the old order. Civil rights cracked open the imagination of America, and with it came a double-edged energy, a politics of progress, and a politics of backlash.One party learned to ride that backlash like a wave while speaking in simpler slogans, addressing older fears, and promising a mythic past. The other tried to keep its balance, talking like accountants while the world demanded prophets. Each carried its own contradictions, its own debts to the century that made them.
The result is what we see now: one side turned into a paranoid juggernaut, haunted by its own creation. The other became an exhausted caretaker, managing decline and calling it stability. Refugees from that juggernaut now wander toward the caretaker, hoping to shape it in their image, but without facing how their own blind spots helped build the fire they’re fleeing.
(Steward Beckham more…)
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – October 14, 2025
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 …
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)
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Politico: ‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat
Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.
(Politico more…)Jay Kuo: Keystone Klansmen
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James Eagle: Russia’s drone-and-missile surge
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The near-term pattern is clear. Russia is testing air defences with mass drones and punctuating attacks with fewer but smarter ballistic shots. But as I said, aerial bombardment does not win wars. Russia has already lost. It should have captured Kviv by now.
(James Eagle more…)
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Bulwark: There’s Something Weirdly Familiar About This New GOP Argument
Republicans’ latest attempt to win the shutdown fight shows they still don’t get it on Obamacare.
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Joyce Vance: Jack Smith speaks
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Liz Dye: The 1,287,923 defects in the Comey case … so far
Welcome to the Rocket Docket, Lindsey Halligan!
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Judd Legum: Trump admits Argentina bailout will not benefit the U.S.
A remarkable statement about the $20 billion plan that will greatly benefit a well-connected hedge fund manager.
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Marisa Kabas: ICE took a 13-year-old they said had a gun. Local cops say he didn’t.
Now he’s detained 500 miles away from his Massachusetts home.
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Borowitz: Qataris Reject Trump’s Idaho Offer and Demand Airbase at Mar-a-Lago
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Sarah Jones: Mike Johnson Feels Threatened by Portland’s Emergency Naked Bike Ride
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said “(T)he most threatening thing I’ve seen yet was the naked bicyclers in Portland who were protesting ICE down there. I mean, it’s getting really ugly.”
(Sarah Jones more…)Independent: Musician playing ‘Ghostbusters’ outside ICE facility is arrested by agents: ‘Why are they targeting a clarinetist?’
‘Taking us citizens out of state to detain them without charge is a new action from the Feds and should be opposed,’ her band said
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Jonathan Katz: This isn’t peace
It’s a ceasefire, and a shaky one at that.
Today, Israeli soldiers shot and killed at least seven Palestinians atop the massive rubble field they have made of the Gaza Strip. The Israeli government is threatening the fragile ceasefire by throttling humanitarian aid shipments meant to alleviate the genocidal famine they created. …
(Jonathan Katz 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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