Author: sauer@technologists.com

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.
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Nate Silver: What is Schumer’s shutdown endgame?

Democrats are in what chess players call zugzwang, where there aren’t necessarily any winning moves. But focusing on tariffs and inflation would be a better approach than Schumer’s plan.
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In the Times story, I argue that Democrats should tie their support for any government funding bill to tariffs — more specifically, to passage of the Trade Review Act, which would allow Congress to reassert its constitutional role in levying tariffs. I see several advantages here: it highlights an issue where Trump is behaving abnormally and violating the separation of powers, but which is still highly legible to voters and indeed perhaps the only thing that has proven to dent his popularity so far. And it could drive a wedge between the various factions of the GOP.
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Lamar Hankins: The death and life of Charlie Kirk

It should be axiomatic to any freedom-loving person that no one should be harmed for their beliefs, views, or opinions. Yet our country, the supposed citadel of freedom, has experienced assassinations, firings, and other negative actions toward those who express unpopular ideas. Upon learning of Kirk’s death, I thought of the period from 1963 to 1980, a seminal time of my life, and counted seventeen deaths, by guns, of people on the national stage who meant something to me. We are a tragically violent society.
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Before Charlie Kirk’s killing, he was barely known to me. In fact, if you had asked me whether Turning Point USA, Kirk’s organization, promoted views right, left, or center, I could not have given you an informed answer. Kirk was not on my radar. Since his death, I have learned why; he was a youth-influencer. He could not have cared less about those of us in our 80s. Maybe that was because some of us who lived through the civil rights struggles of the 1950s to 1970s could have educated him about why Martin Luther King, Jr., was not an “awful” person. King practiced non-violence, unlike the white people who killed four little girls with a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963, and the white killers of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman a year later. Did Kirk ever read King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail? Had he done so, his views about race in this country might have been changed. Regardless, those of us with 80 years of living and learning could have explained to him that the term “awful” should be reserved for people who indiscriminately kill children because of their race, who murder peaceful civil rights workers trying to help black people register to vote, and those who kill people for what they believe or say.? Had he done so, his views about race in this country might have been changed. Regardless, those of us with 80 years of living and learning could have explained to him that the term “awful” should be reserved for people who indiscriminately kill children because of their race, who murder peaceful civil rights workers trying to help black people register to vote, and those who kill people for what they believe or say.
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Farm Aid 40

MSN: US farmers issue urgent warning of ‘farmageddon’ if Trump doesn’t help with this year’s harvest — is America’s heartland on the edge of ruin?

Sentient: What Is a CAFO, and Is It Different From a Factory Farm?

Most of the meat we consume comes from animals raised on [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation] CAFOs.

curated citations to news sources

Jennifer Rubin: Undaunted

In Pennsylvania, Governor Shapiro gets it right
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With a solid record on public safety and personal experience with political violence, Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro was ideally suited to the task. Last year, when sitting at the Passover Seder table with his family, a man threw two Molotov cocktails into Shapiro’s home, igniting a fire. (Trump conveniently ignores the incident when reciting recent acts of political violence). His state was also the location of the worst mass murder of Jews in America (by a White nationalist) and of the first attempted assassination of Trump. Shapiro knows violence does not come from one ideological group.

He delivered remarks this week at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit. “I will not be deterred in my work for you, and I will not be silenced,” he declared. He then explained why violence is antithetical to democracy: “It tears at the fabric of American society, and the fundamental principles this nation was founded upon… A nation where civil disagreement should be welcome, because that discourse can lead to progress.”

He also rejected selective outrage. “Unfortunately, some—from the dark corners of the internet all the way to the Oval Office—want to cherry pick which instances of political violence they want to condemn,” he said, pointing out that such crass opportunism makes healing impossible.

Shapiro then made the critical point: “Censorship—using the long arm of government to silence people, businesses, and nonprofits and restrict their right to free speech—will not solve this problem.” He declared, “Prosecuting constitutionally protected speech will only erode our freedoms and deepen mistrust. That is un-American.”
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Yale School of Public Health: Ukraine’s Stolen Children: Inside Russia’s Network of Re-education and Militarization

…Russia is operating a potentially unprecedented system of large-scale re-education, military training, and dormitory facilities capable of holding tens of thousands of children from Ukraine for long periods of time. While this study does not answer the question of how many children from Ukraine are currently in Russia’s custody, it does reveal the logistical and operational capacity committed to Russifying children taken from their home communities in Ukraine. This is the first detailed effort to study the number, types, and roles of locations utilized by Russia’s federal government, particularly regarding re-education and militarization, in efforts to Russify Ukraine’s children.

Read the Full Report
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Oliver Darcy: Canceling Kimmel

Inside ABC, emergency meetings were convened after the FCC chair’s Jimmy Kimmel threat, with the late-night host ready to respond on-air—but Disney brass ultimately decided to bench the marquee talent instead.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 17, 2025

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Benny Johnson, the podcaster on whose show Carr threatened Kimmel, was one of the influencers Russian state media funded to spread propaganda before the 2024 election. After Kimmel’s suspension, Johnson posted on social media: “We did it for you, Charlie. And we’re just getting started.”
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JON KARL: What do you make of Pam Bondi saying she’s gonna go after hate speech? A lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech

TRUMP: We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they’ll have to go after you.

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Dispatch: The Coming Tripolar World Order

A new defense strategy could squander America’s post-World War II advantage.

In words and actions, key foreign policy decision-makers within the Trump administration seem to be signaling a shift away from the United States’ global leadership role. If borne out, these changes are likely to usher in a new tripolar international system in which the United States, Communist China, and revanchist Russia divvy up spheres of influence. The result? A more dangerous world for Americans everywhere.
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We will woefully miss the day when the U.S., through maintenance and vigilance, enjoyed an order that upheld free trade and fostered the continued expansion of human liberty. If we wish to remain a superpower, we should choose to act like one.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 14, 2025

At 10:22 on the morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, a bomb ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It was Youth Day in the historic brick church, and five young girls dressed in their Sunday best were in the ladies’ lounge getting ready for their part in the Sunday service that was about to start. As Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins were chatting and adjusting their dresses, a charge of dynamite stashed under the steps that led to the church sanctuary blasted into the ladies’ lounge. It killed the four girls instantly. Standing at the sink in the back of the room, Addie’s sister Sarah survived with serious injuries.
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For white supremacists in Birmingham, the children and the 16th Street Baptist Church where they had organized were the symbols of the movement that had beaten them.
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