Ann's Mega Dub

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Look beyond the Supreme Court and you can find some real justice

I told Betty I'd cover some good court verdicts tonight. She covers The Supreme Court that has morphed into The Crooked Court as it exists solely to insist that Chump's breaking the law is fine and dandy. As she often notes, however, our federal and state courts are doing their job and then some.

Joe Walsh (CBS News) reports:

A judge ruled Tuesday that the top federal prosecutor in Nevada is not serving legally in the role — marking the second time that a judge has partially sidelined one of the Trump administration's prosecutors.

Sigal Chattah was named interim U.S. attorney for the district of Nevada in March, a temporary appointment that's legally limited to 120 days. But in July, shortly before that time limit ran out, the Justice Department shifted Chattah to a different job that would allow her to serve as acting U.S. attorney — a separate role that would still let Chattah lead the office.

A group of four criminal defendants argued that this maneuver resulted in Chattah serving as acting U.S. attorney for Nevada illegally. In a ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David Campbell sided with the defendants and barred Chattah from supervising their cases. He declined to dismiss their indictments altogether.

Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, if the position of U.S. attorney — a Senate-confirmed post that oversees prosecutions in a court district — becomes vacant, it is supposed to be filled automatically by the first assistant U.S. attorney, who is typically a top career prosecutor. Campbell ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department wasn't legally allowed to shift Chattah to the role of first assistant U.S. attorney in order to have her take on the acting job.

"The Court cannot accept the government's assertion that the Attorney General has power to designate anyone she chooses as first assistant and have that person become the acting U.S. Attorney," the judge wrote in a 32-page ruling. "The [Federal Vacancies Reform Act] was enacted to put an end to precisely such Executive actions."

Campbell also ruled that the Justice Department can't delegate the responsibility of overseeing criminal cases to Chattah even if she doesn't officially hold the job: "The Court cannot conclude that Ms. Chattah's role is anything less than Acting U.S. Attorney, a position she cannot hold."

AP adds, "It was the second setback in recent weeks for the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. A judge reached the same conclusion as Campbell in August in ruling acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Alina Habba, was in the job illegally." So applause and thanks for Judge David Campbell. Another judge standing by the law is reported on by Ja'han Jones (MSNBC):

Death, taxes and Kari Lake being rebuked in court.

The latter of life’s certainties played out in a Washington courtroom on Monday as a federal judge temporarily blocked Lake — in her capacity as acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media — from eliminating the jobs of more than 500 employees from the taxpayer-funded Voice of America news organization.

Lake, a former local news anchor-turned-failed political candidate in Arizona, has effectively tried to gut USAGM since Donald Trump selected her to run the agency this year. Lake and the Trump administration had been moving forward with plans to lay off the VOA employees — in defiance of a court-ordered demand that the agency comply with established processes to carry out the cuts.

In light of that, U.S. District Judge Royce Lambert found himself in a scenario similar to that of the judges who oversaw Lake’s dubious election-related lawsuits as a candidate: having to take her to task. The Reagan appointee’s ruling blocked the firings for now and described Lake’s actions as potential contempt of court:

The Court must offer an observation on the concerning disrespect the defendants have shown toward the Court’s orders since the entry of the preliminary injunction. It is the Court’s view that the defendants’ disregard for its earlier orders to produce information would more than support a trial on civil contempt.

Lambert said Lake’s agency was resistant when it was asked to provide information about its plans to fire the employees. He also said that after he handed down his injunction, officials falsely claimed to the court they hadn’t made any decisions on job cuts when evidence showed they were already moving forward.

She really thought she could blow off the court. She thought she was above the law. Good for Judge Royce Lambert for saying uh-uh, you aren't above the law. Our third case is reported on by Newsweek's Robert Alexander:

A federal judge in Rhode Island on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from cutting $233 million in counterterrorism and emergency preparedness grants from a group of Democratic-led states.

The order came one day after those states sued the administration, alleging the funding shift was politically motivated and legally unsupported.

[. . .]

At stake is far more than a budget dispute. The fight tests how much power a presidential administration has to reshape long-standing emergency preparedness funding and whether it can pressure states over unrelated policy disputes, such as immigration enforcement.

Billions in FEMA grants underpin critical counterterrorism and disaster response programs—from bomb squads in New York to statewide intelligence networks in Illinois—and abrupt, unexplained cuts could disrupt years of planning.

The outcome will help define the limits of executive discretion over funds Congress intended to be risk-based and politically neutral, with broad implications for federal-state relations and public safety.

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"

Wednesday, October 1, 2025. The government is in shutdown, AOC and Senators Patty Murray, Ed Markey and Adam Schiff explain why that is (they're protecting the American people), Chump remains haunted by the Esptein-Maxwell crimes, turns out a Republican senator voted last month not to release the Epstein files without informing people of her long relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell and Maxwell's current husband, Chump and Miss Pete conducted a beauty seminar for the military brass yesterday, and much more.

There is a lot to cover. We're going to start with Epstein and Maxwell. Epstein was a sex trafficker and pedophile. He got convicted and took his own life. Ghislaine Maxwell was his accomplice who also molested young girls and also engaged in sex trafficking. She got convicted and was in appropriate prison in Florida. Enter Donald Chump. Friends of both and roll dog of Jeffries in their hunt for females for at least 15 years, he ran promising to release The Epstein Files. And Attorney General Pam Bondi went on FOX "NEWS" to tell the world that the client list was sitting on her desk awaiting her review. Months go by and no release of the client list or any real files not already available to the public. That's due to the fact that she meets with Chump in the spring and tells him how many times he's mentioned in the files. At the start of July, Americans are suddenly told there is no client list.

Nothing to see here.

Then, as the month of July winds down, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche rushes to Florida and meets with Maxwell on the 24th and 25th. The deal for the meet up was "quid pro quo" per Ghislaine's own attorney. She talks -- nd possibly agrees not to implicate Chump -- and she gets a transfer to a lighter prison. Despite the fact that being convicted sex offender should not allow her to move to "Camp Fed" in Bryan, Texas the crook convicted to 20 years is moved to the lighter security. After Blanche tells Chump that Maxwell said nothing to incriminate him. The move is not announced. After the fact, when it's discovered by the press and the public, Chump denies any involvement or knowledge. For someone who never stops lying you'd think he'd get better at it.

He keeps thinking he can make tis go away. They honestly thought they'd killed the topic July 4th weekend. It has not gone away and it is not going away. The only thing killed was the trust some MAGA put in him, they really thought -- based on a lot of whispered rumors throughout his first term as president and immediately after -- that he cared about holding sex offenders accountable.

To try to bury the topic, Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson shut down the House of Representatives at one point. Tuesday of last week, Adelita Grijalva became the newest member of the House. Yet Speaker of the Closet Johnson refuses to sit her. She is expected to provide a signature to the House call to release the files and force the issue.

Jim Jordan is a member of Congress. He is also accused by several men of looking the other way when he was a coach and the team doctor was molesting them and raping them. He's accused of joking about it. Of covering it up. And in one instance, of grabbing the junk of a player complaining to him and saying, "Like this! He grabbed you like this!"

This is ongoing but somehow he got to lead a Committee hearing recently and dismiss the survivors of Epstein and Maxwell.

That's because corruption runs deep.

But we don't always know how deep. In the US Senate, a measure in support of the survivors were killed via votes from Repulicans. That includes one Republican who apparently shouldn't have been voting. Lisa Murkowski is a US senator from the state of Alaska and new information emerging states that she is a lifelong friend of Ghislaine Maxwell's current husband -- a detail that should have been made public and should have prevented her from voting.

This new information was covered yesterday on THE TARA PALMERI SHOW.

In addition, Tara and Abi Baker reported on it here:

Part one of the series zeroes in on Epstein survivor and Alaskan Marijke Chartouni, who has turned her attention to Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the deciding vote on September 10 to block the release of the Epstein files. Chartouni uncovered Murkowski’s longstanding ties to Ghislaine Maxwell’s husband, Scott Borgerson, and the many occasions Murkowski appeared on stage with Maxwell at ocean-advocacy conferences. They were appearances that, intentionally or not, helped launder Maxwell’s name even as she was publicly linked to Epstein.

Chartouni’s foray into opposition research came after a crushing moment: she was misled by Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) at Reagan National Airport into believing that she had voted for the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, co-sponsored by Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, which needed only two more votes at the time. Chartouni burst into tears of joy. But it was a lie. Hageman had only backed Speaker Mike Johnson’s countermeasure, which was a move designed to bury the issue in the sham investigation run by the House Oversight Committee.

Chartouni was devastated but she quickly learned the vocabulary of Washington: spin, obfuscate, deceit. She and her fellow survivors refuse to fold. If anything, Hageman’s duplicity made them more determined. “We’re sharing info and lobbying,” Chartouni texted me. They’re now playing D.C. at its own game, using one of its sharpest tools: opposition research.

So when Murkowski cast that fateful vote on the Epstein files, Chartouni took it personally.

“She needs to be shamed!” the usually soft-spoken survivor told me. “I’m from Alaska. It’s personal.”

And she didn’t stop there. She started digging. Why would Murkowski, who has occasionally broken with Trump and previously suggested the files should be released, suddenly reverse course?

What she uncovered was a tangle of connections between Murkowski, Maxwell, her husband Borgerson, and Anchorage Daily News publisher and political donor Alice Rogoff. Through the Arctic Circle conference circuit, Murkowski repeatedly overlapped with Borgerson, and once with Maxwell herself—a well-known convicted sex offender’s right hand and later a convicted trafficker. For Murkowski, the release of those files isn’t just about Epstein. It’s about reminders of who she chose to share a stage with, and what that signified.

What else is Lisa Murkowski hiding? Tight with pedophiles, the question needs to be asked: What else is she hiding?

Epstein and Maxwell got sweet heart deals and were protected by many people. Don't take my word for it, Chump declared that over and over in public. Was Lisa one of the helpers? She's certainly a helper now. Did it go beyond that? I don't know. But if she and or her husband were also clients of Epstein and Maxwell would it be surprising now that we know she lied to the public, she hid her friendship and she voted against the release of the files?

Powerful people protected Epstein and Maawell. Powerful people continue to protect. Lisa Murkowski needs to hold a press conference and answer questions including what their relationship was and why she thought it was appropriate to vote "no" on the release of files that her own name could be in.

Last night on Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC show, Lawrence spoke with US House Rep Ro Khanna about the release of these files, how October 7th should see the newly elected Democrat to the House finally seated and how Alan Dershowitz trashed these survivors repeatedly.

BLOOMBERG NEWS has done outstanding work on the issue. That includes last month's "Epstein's Inbox" -- their exclusive report by Jason Leopold, Ava Benny-Morrison, Jeff Kao, Dhruy Mehrotra, Suray Mattu, Harry Wilson and Max Abelson. And here's a video report that they did on that.

Stupidity must run in the Chump family. How else to explain Don Junior's failure to grasp what he witnessed. "They tried to impeach my father two times!" Michael Luciano (MEDIAITE) quotes Junior whining that on one of the lesser known right-wing stations. Congress did not try to impeach him. They impeached him. Two times. Twice your loser father was impeached. He wasn't removed from office. But he was impeached. Twice. What an idiot.

"It's a bad look," Miss Pete said sashaying across the stage yesterday at Quantico as he lectured the military brass that no-one-loves-a-fatty and beards are not on his list of personal list of turn-ons. He was the opening act for the Convicted Felon.

Donald Chump was slurring his words yesterday. Was he drunk that early in the morning or it was more of his ongoing dementia? He was speaking at Quantico with his man crush Pete Looselips Hegseth. Maybe Chump was drunk, speaking to a military audience had to be intimidating for the nothing who lied to avoid the Vietnam War. People were being drafted. I have no problem with war resisters who protested the war. But that wasn't Chump. He was part of the wealthy White kids who got away without serving by paying off a doctor to lie for them. Bone spurs. What a joke. So he may have been intimidated or guilty and that might have led him to get blotto before taking the stage. From the moment he entered the hall, he underwhelmed the assembled. Dan Gooding (NEWSWEEK) notes, "Hegseth told senior military leaders that Trump had their backs as he introduced the president, who was met with near silence from the hundreds of gathered personnel" and quotes Chump stating, "I’ve never walked into a room so silent before." It only got worse for Chumps. Josh Wingrove, Natalia Drozdiak and Courtney McBride (BLOOMBERG NEWS) report:

President Donald Trump told top military brass that the US is fighting an “invasion from within,” as he used a highly unusual gathering of officers stationed around the world to deliver a largely political speech that highlighted border security and rooting out “woke” culture.

“After spending trillions of dollars defending the borders of foreign countries, with your help, we’re defending the borders of our country,” Trump said on Tuesday at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.

“It’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” he added.

Sounding more and more like he was drunk -- dementia can mimic the appearance of being intoxicated. Either would explain this statement from Chump, "We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military." No. No, we shouldn't. We're not supposed to carry out war games amidst civilian populations. It's amazing what COWARD Chump wants to force the military to do. Too much of a coward to serve himself he thinks the US military is his own personal set of toys.

This issue is established and established long, long ago.

At The Brennen Center for Justice, Joseph Nunn explains:

What does the term “posse comitatus” mean?

In British and American law, a posse comitatus is a group of people who are mobilized by the sheriff to suppress lawlessness in the county. In any classic Western film, when a lawman gathers a “posse” to pursue the outlaws, they are forming a posse comitatus. The Posse Comitatus Act is so named because one of the things it prohibits is using soldiers rather than civilians as a posse comitatus.

What are the origins of the Posse Comitatus Act?

The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878, after the end of Reconstruction and the return of white supremacists to political power in both southern states and Congress. Through the law, Congress sought to ensure that the federal military would not be used to intervene in the establishment of Jim Crow in the former Confederacy.

Despite the ignominious origins of the law itself, the broader principle that the military should not be allowed to interfere in the affairs of civilian government is a core American value. It finds expression in the Constitution’s division of power over the military between Congress and the president, and in the guarantees of the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, which were in part reactions to abuses committed by the British army against American colonists.

Today, the Posse Comitatus Act operates as an extension of these constitutional safeguards. Moreover, there are statutory exceptions to the law that allow the president to use the military to suppress genuine rebellions and to enforce federal civil rights laws.

What does the Posse Comitatus Act say?

The Posse Comitatus Act consists of just one sentence: “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

In practice, this means that members of the military who are subject to the law may not participate in civilian law enforcement unless doing so is expressly authorized by a statute or the Constitution.

On using the military in cities, Chump also felt the need to state:

And I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military -- National Guard, but military -- because we’re going into Chicago very soon. That’s a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor. Stupid. They threw him out of his family business. He was so stupid. I know the family. He becomes governor. He’s got money. Not money that he made. But he ran for governor. He won.

Excuse me?

I know JB. Chump's describing himself. He's incompetent. He's stupid. He's never made money but he lost a ton. JB was an orphan with both parents dying before he was 18. Do people not know that? Do they hear Chump's lies and nod along? Are people really that stupid? JB's never declared bankruptcy. He and his siblings donating to charity big time -- unlike cheap Chump. He met MK at the end of the 80s and they married in 1993 and are still together. By contrast, during that same period of time, Donald Trump abandoned first wife Ivana, he married and divorced Marla Maples, married Melanie and still found time to spend 15 or so years with roll dog and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Also, JB's a billionaire. Chump's not. Even with all his grifting thus far, he's not. Don't shoot back some estimates. Most of us knew he overinflated his wealth for years and we're aware that he still does. Add in that if he ever gets around to paying E Jean Carroll, he'll be even further from a billionaire.

The point is that both men came from well off families -- you could use rich for JB. Chump stumbled around and was a slumlord -- does no one remember Barbara Ehrenreich on the Chump casinos? -- who declared bankruptcy multiple times. JB went to law school. He made something of himself. He and MK also made a happy marriage and family.

That's got to really hurt Chump.

No doubt JB's statements on MSNBC hurt Chump as well.

When not attempting to destroy our democracy on the eve of the tricentennial, Chump just muttered useless nonsense. Maria Villarroel (IRISH STAR) report is headlined "Senile Donald Trump says an event 76 years ago was the 'first sign of wokeness'" and that really does sum it up. Zachary Leeman (MEDIAITE) sums up a portion of the speech with this, "Trump ran through a large variety of topics during his talk, at one point expressing frustration at the potential of him not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize -- while also insisting he doesn’t desire the prize." Chump used 191 words to whine about the Nobel Peace Prize, how he deserved it but they wouldn't give it to him, and he didn't even want it, not himself, it was the country deserved it and --

He thinks he's the Susan Lucci of world leaders. Reality, Susan eventually won a Daytime Emmy. Chump's not ever going to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Not happening. For more on that, see Elaine's "No, Chump does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize."

Waddling around the stage, standing in all of his grotesque obesity, he blustered, "If you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future, but you just feel nice and loose, ok?"

He found time in his mealy mouthed speech to repeatedly praise War Criminal Vladimir Putin by name while repeatedly trashing former US President Joe Biden.

He attacked CNN and AP. He attacked Democrats -- terming them "vicious."

Hegseth swished around with a severe case of JPS. If someone in the hall had a Q-tip, they could have helped him out. Instead, video shows him anxious and presenting throughout the event. Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali (REUTERS) note, "U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assailed what he called 'decades of decay' caused by policies promoting diversity and inclusion in the U.S. military at an unprecedented gathering of military leaders near Washington on Tuesday." The heavily made up girls -- Chump and Pete -- explained that, immediately after WWII ended, the DoD went into decay. Take that WWII veterans, you so-called Greatest Generation. That's when you ascended into leadership. Take that those of you who fought in the Korean War and those of you who fought in the Vietnam War and fought all the way up to the Iraq War. You bunch of woke fancy nancys.

That is what Never Served Chump and Boobalicious Hegseth were saying. In fact, if Pete gets any more breasty, they're going to need put him in a bra. Maybe even milk him. Even so, Hegseth insisted, "It's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon." Pete likes his men in uniform like he likes them in bed -- mean and lean.

Could someone ask Senator Joni Ernst how she feels about the claim of new physical standards for the military ("male benchmarks only")? Or about Pete abolishing the 74-year-old panel entitled the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS)? Twenty-three years of military service and Joni abandoned women to support Pete for Secretary of Defense (that remains his title). What a backstabber, what a bitch. He harassed women and he had to pay off a woman he is said to have assaulted. But to Joni Ernst, Pete was irresistible.

Remember, Joni, we're all going to die. But we're not all going to be missed. And your actions have ensured that you will never be missed.

What else to note? Pete's new 'fresh look' facial make up -- make up that now may his teeth look discolored and Chump always looks like an idiot when they use a curling iron on his head. We should all grasp that we are now on the hook for millions because Miss Pete wanted to do his fitness and grooming salon face-to-face instead of via ZOOM. Ahead of the meeting Senators Mazie Hirano and Tammy Duckworth:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ahead of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s abrupt, needless, and wasteful speech to much of our nation’s top military leadership tomorrow, September 30, U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI) and Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), members of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), pressed the Secretary on the serious risks that such a gathering poses to security—on top of the monstrous cost to American taxpayers as Republicans march us toward a government shutdown.

Emphasizing the impacts this meeting could have on security, the Senators wrote, “If reports are accurate, this gathering would represent an unprecedented concentration of senior military leadership in one location simply to hear you speak about standards and ethos at significant cost and with potentially serious security implications. This includes both the personal security of all individuals assembling—and creating a rich target for any malign actor—and national security, given that our adversaries will know that many of our most senior commanders from around the world are tied up together with some portion of the highest level of the civilian chain of command.”

In their letter, the senators requested a briefing or detailed written answers to over a dozen questions, including what these additional flights, hotel rooms, and other expenses will cost taxpayers, as well as what impacts this meeting will have on operations around the globe in the absence of senior leadership, and more.

The Senators continued: “For an administration obsessed with rooting out waste, this abrupt, time and resource-intensive meeting of our military’s top commanders, all of whom have earned their positions through superior performance over decades of service, to reportedly hear you, the least qualified Secretary of Defense in living memory, lecture about military standards and warfighting is absurd.”

The full text of the letter is available here and below.

Secretary Hegseth:

Recent reporting that you intend to convene commanders in grade O7 through O10 and their senior enlisted advisors from around the world for an in-person meeting at Marine Corps Base Quantico next week—on short notice, supposedly to hear you make a speech about the “warrior ethos”—raises profound concerns about security, cost and operational impacts. It comes amid a pattern of deeply troubling decisions under your tenure, including continued abuse of the military in American cities for political purposes; the abrupt removal of highly qualified senior leaders without justification, sometimes at the behest of a far-right social media influencer and conspiracy theorist; and your own humiliating mishandling of classified operational information in unclassified, unsecured group chats with your wife, brother and, stunningly, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic.

If reports are accurate, this gathering would represent an unprecedented concentration of senior military leadership in one location simply to hear you speak about standards and ethos at significant cost and with potentially serious security implications. This includes both the personal security of all individuals assembling—and creating a rich target for any malign actor—and national security, given that our adversaries will know that many of our most senior commanders from around the world are tied up together with some portion of the highest level of the civilian chain of command.

Very few commanders at the specified grades are stationed in the National Capital Region, meaning that this order could potentially require over 1,000 uniformed servicemembers, between commanders, their senior enlisted advisors and support staff, to travel at the taxpayer’s expense, interrupting their planned duties in their areas of responsibility. For an administration obsessed with rooting out waste, this abrupt, time and resource-intensive meeting of our military’s top commanders, all of whom have earned their positions through superior performance over decades of service, to reportedly hear you, the least qualified Secretary of Defense in living memory, lecture about military standards and warfighting is absurd.

To our knowledge, no Secretary of Defense in modern history has convened an in-person gathering of this scale, involving general and flag officer commanders worldwide, without a publicly stated agenda or declared crisis. Even during periods of acute national emergency, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Gulf War or the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, senior military leaders were summoned only in smaller, mission-specific groups, and always with a clear operational or strategic purpose. Regularly scheduled events such as the Unified Commanders Conference involve far fewer participants, are planned well in advance and are conducted with a defined, operational purpose and full transparency. The reported Quantico meeting departs dramatically from these precedents.

Given the exceedingly costly nature of this meeting and our lack of confidence in your judgement when it comes to operational security on account of your well-publicized failures in this regard, we require detailed responses to the following questions:

What is the estimated total cost of this gathering, including:

Estimated number of flight hours required for military aircraft, fixed wing and rotary wing, and the cost per flight hour;

Estimated number of commercial roundtrip airline tickets required for commanders, senior enlisted advisors and support staff and the estimated total cost of commercial airfare;

Estimated number of hotel rooms required and estimated total lodging costs for all travelers, including commanders, senior enlisted advisors and support staff;

Estimated total per diem for all travelers, including commanders, senior enlisted advisors and support staff;

Estimated total cost of ground transportation, to include rental and contract vehicles, fuel and mileage reimbursements;

Estimated total cost of extra security measures required at Marine Corps Base Quantico and throughout the wider National Capital Region.

What accounts are being used to fund these costs?
If there is a lapse in annual appropriations starting at midnight the night of this meeting, how will it impact meeting participants’ ability to return to their duty stations?
Was a cost-benefit analysis conducted prior to deciding on an in-person format?
Why was a secure virtual alternative not considered sufficient?
Is public reporting that the purpose of this meeting is to deliver a speech accurate? Are there any other objectives planned for this meeting?
What force protection measures are being implemented at Marine Corps Base Quantico during the meeting?
Has the Department conducted a risk assessment of concentrating much of the operational chain of command in one location?
What contingency plans are in place in the event of a security breach during the meeting?
Has the Department coordinated with the intelligence community to assess risks to the senior leadership gathering or broader national security?
What is the impact on command and control in each combatant command during the absence of its senior leadership?
Are there any ongoing or anticipated operations that could be affected by this absence?
What are the anticipated impacts to personnel and operations at Marine Corps Base Quantico in preparation for this meeting, on the day of this meeting and following the conclusion of the meeting?

What installation resources are being used in support of this meeting?

How many installation personnel are being detailed to support this meeting?

How many personnel are being directed to not report to their duty station on the day of the meeting?

What restrictions are being placed on families or individuals living on base and how are base services impacted?

What are the anticipated impacts to personnel and operations at other installations in the National Capital Region in preparation for this meeting, on the day of this meeting and following the conclusion of the meeting? For each impacted installation, detail:

What installation resources are being used in support of this meeting?
How many installation personnel are being detailed to support this meeting?

Has this gathering disrupted any other scheduled operations, training or interagency coordination?
Why has the Department not publicly disclosed the purpose of this meeting?
Has the President directed this gathering? If not, was the President briefed on or otherwise aware of the gathering before it was reported?
Has any previous Secretary of Defense convened a similar gathering under comparable circumstances?
How does the Department justify the urgency of this meeting in the absence of a declared crisis?

Secretary Hegseth, we write with particular concern on account of your consistent prioritization of political theater and distraction over warfighting and blatant disregard for operational security. Given the reported scale and sensitivity of this reported gathering, we require a briefing or written response to answer these questions no later than Monday September 29, 2025. If any of the information requested is classified, we are prepared to receive a briefing in an appropriate setting.

Sincerely,

###

CNN's Daniel Dale does a fact check on the many lies told by Chump.

Here's some video coverage of Chump and Pete's massive waste of tax payer money.

As we wind down, remember that the Republicans control the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Yet we are now in a government shut down. Negotiations apparently don't exist in THE ART OF THE DEAL despite the fact that no deal takes place without negotiatons.

Senator Adam Schiff notes what's going on in the video below.

And let me note the conclusion to Rebecca's "general hospital and beyond the gates:"

and, if you missed it, we are now in a government shut down.

let me note1of my senators - ben goodman and hanna guidry report:

We caught up with Senator Ed Markey Tuesday to hear his thoughts on this possible shutdown. He said that besides this negatively affecting the labor market, a potential shutdown puts the healthcare of hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents at risk: “325,000 Massachusetts residents are going to lose their health insurance. 337,000 Massachusetts residents are going to see their premiums or healthcare dramatically skyrocket. So, we are looking at 660,000 people in Massachusetts either losing their healthcare or seeing it be dramatically increased in cost.”

democrats are standing up. they are refusing to let donald chump rob us of healthcare. we need to be sure that our reps know we are with them in this fight.

Very well said by Rebecca. Don't let the liars rewrite what's going down or why it's going down. Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

Murray: “People are about to get completely priced out of their coverage and Republicans are sitting on their hands. Worse than that, they are reveling in this shutdown.”

***ICYMI: New Kaiser Family Foundation analysis finds premiums on the ACA marketplaces will, on average, more than double next year if Republicans refuse to act***

***WATCH AND DOWNLOAD: Senator Murray’s remarks after Senate rejects funding bills***

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke alongside Senate Democratic leadership after two votes failed on: Republicans’ partisan continuing resolution and Democrats’ bill to fund the government, address the health care crisis, and protect Congress’ power of the purse.

Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:

“We have been calling for Republicans to work with us to keep the government funded, to address the health care crisis they created, and to stop people’s premiums from skyrocketing. Republicans haven’t just stuck their heads in the sand, they’ve outright refused to get serious about a solution.

“Well, health care rates for next year are being finalized right now. Rate hikes will be in the mail any day. Open enrollment is weeks away.

“And still, Republicans have refused to lift a finger to prevent millions of families from being hit with massive costs.

“Well, Republicans may be forcing the government to shut down before they so much as talk about health care, but they will not shut down the debate. And they will not shut out the voices of families who want action before their monthly health care payments more than double.

“One family in Washington state is about to see their monthly premium jump from $278 a month, to $1,800 dollars a month, because of Republicans’ inaction. That is what’s at stake. That is the problem Republicans refuse to solve. And that is what they have to answer for.

“This has been a problem for months. Why hasn’t Republican Leadership joined us at the table? We’ve been here all year!

“Why do Republicans prefer to shut down the government over talking about how we save families from astronomical health care price hikes?

“I mean, do Republicans care about farmers? They tell us they do! Because a quarter of our farmers are enrolled in those health care exchanges.

“Republicans say they care about small business owners and employees. Do they care about people who are self-employed? Because nearly half of them get their health care on the exchanges.

“Do Republicans care if their constituents lose their health care? Because some of the areas that most rely on the health care tax credits to afford coverage are represented by Republicans.

“Don’t tell us to wait. Don’t tell us to wait—families have already been waiting, and we’ve been at the table ready to solve this for months. Don’t tell us you want to fix this later—later is too late. The health care clock has all but run out.

“If Republicans refuse to act, families are going to pay the price. It will cost millions of people hundreds—if not thousands—of dollars a month. In some cases, it will cost them their health care insurance entirely. People are about to get completely priced out of their coverage and Republicans are sitting on their hands.

“And worse than that, they are reveling in this shutdown.

“Trump just said, ‘a lot of good can come down from shutdowns.’ He said ‘you can get rid of a lot of things we didn’t want. They’d be Democrat things.’

“Trump doesn’t want to lift a finger to stop health care premiums from more than doubling, but he is raring to go when it comes to firing whoever he wants to, or slashing whatever he wants to, or prosecuting whoever he wants to, or telling his military his opponents are ‘enemies within,’ and tweeting AI nonsense and lying about whatever he wants to.

“Trump doesn’t care about how this shutdown is going to hurt real, average Americans across this country. He doesn’t care about the Republican health care crisis. He clearly thinks this is all a game.

“Democrats know better. The stakes for American families are real.

“When people get priced out of their health care, they put off their basic care, they skimp on their prescriptions, they miss out on lifesaving treatments.

“We are not going to let Republicans dodge this subject. And we’re not going to let them delay this action on an empty promise or a pig in a poke.

“We’re going to keep calling on them to sit down, work with us to keep the government open, and solve this health care crisis.”

###

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "What Chief Justice John Roberts Has Wrought" went up last night. The following sites updated:

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

They're not serving the American people

That's Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "What Chief Justice John Roberts Has Wrought" from a few hours ago. and good for Isaiah for calling out crooked John Roberts.

Chump's a crook too but notice how Republicans rush to lie for him. Will Neal (The Daily Beast) reports:

A top-ranking Republican senator compared Donald Trump to a playful “little boy” as he tried to defend a crude AI video posted by the president in a shutdown standoff with Democrats.

“Couldn’t the president just say, ‘These demands are ridiculous,’ and not post a video with Hakeem Jeffries wearing a sombrero, and you know, putting that voice over Senator Schumer talking about people of color and immigrants?” CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins put it to Sen. Roger Marshall on Monday evening.

Trump had posted the clip to Truth Social following an unproductive White House sit-down with Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who lead the Democratic minorities in the House and Senate. The clip featured Jeffries sporting a traditional Mexican hat and moustache as mariachi music plays in the background, while an AI dub of Schumer boasts about handing “illegal aliens free health care.”

Roger Marshall is a 65 y.o. man. Reminder, Chump is 79. He is not a little boy. He's the president of the United States. Shame on con artist Roger Marshall for excusing it. He has no decency. He's a piece of s**t. And if he doesn't like being called that, he shouldn't excuse away a video where Chump called every Democrat a piece of s**t.

They'll tell any lie. They are no better than Chump. They have decided to stop serving the American people in order to lick the boots of Donald Chump.

This is C.I.'s "The Snapshot:"

Tuesday, September 30, 2025. The shutdown the White House has wanted since February looms, Chump's dementia becomes more obvious to the country, Senator Chris Murphy is among the strong voices explaining why this isn't a go-along to get-along moment, and much more.

Let's start with Ben and MEIDASTOUCH NEWS.

The jack-booted thugs -- Governor JB Pritzker is correct -- shots at US citizens. If a police officer did that, they'd be facing charges. They shove a US citizen to the ground. There is no oversight here and these goons aren't even trained. Kristi and Chump have given them free reign to terrorize people.

On JB, Malcolm Ferguson (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:

Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker once again used his bully pulpit to rebuke President Trump after federal agents marched through downtown Chicago, kidnapped people, shot a pepper ball (essentially a paintball full of pepper spray) at a journalist’s vehicle, and fired tear gas at peaceful protesters.

“In any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists and protesters, when unprovoked, what would we call it? If federal agents marched down busy streets, harassing civilians and demanding their papers, what would we say? I don’t think we’d have any trouble calling it what it is: authoritarianism,” Pritzker said at a press conference Monday afternoon. “So let’s not pretend it’s something else when it happens in our American cities.”

This weekend, there was a surge in federal immigration enforcement in Chicago as armed agents patrolled the city. Pritzker on Monday said that Trump is also planning to deploy 100 military troops to Illinois.

Let's turn to the public e-mail account (common_ills@yahoo.com). "You never held Joe accountable for anything! And you let him get away with defending Hunter when he was president!" So whines an e-mail from a deranged man. I have held every occupant of the Oval Office accountable in the time this site has been up. When Barack Obama opened his mouth and shouldn't -- stating Chelsea Manning was guilty when he was president earned a reprimand, it earned one for Joe when he would say something about his son and it also earned two reprimands for Jill Biden -- my goal here was to never have to mention Jill. I like Jill and have known her for years. During the eight years she was Second Lady, I broke that rule only once -- a snapshot where I noted a column she and Michelle co-wrote on veterans and, in the same column, noted that veterans who met with Jill were impressed with her. When she was First Lady, I called her out twice for speaking of Hunter's guilt or innocence. I stated she was his mother (step-mother but Hunted really was raised by her) and she could talk about her love for him or other things but she should stay away from guilt or innocence due to being married to the president (who needed to stay away from guilt or innocence because he was the president). I actually, despite the e-mailers belief otherwise, haven't weighed in on Chump's remarks re: Comey. He's noted in the Friday snapshot and he's noted in a Sunday post. That's really all I have written about James Comey being indicted.

But Chump should have kept his mouth shut. He didn't. And now he could pay for that. Devan Cole (CNN) has an article on this -- how Chump's words could help Comey. He doesn't think it will be successful and explains why. I disagree. I think it could be very successful. I think Cole's thinking of lower level officials. The office of the President of the United States is the highest office in the land. Therefore, actions and words from whomever's holding that office matter more in terms of court proceedings. When it's the words of the president, which jurisdiction do you move to?

That's not a huge issue to me -- and Cole may be correct in his take. What's more of an issue to me is thinking about when I've sued someone. And I always win because I understand what it takes to win. But lose or win, it takes time. And that's my huge issue. When Paula Jones brought a lawsuit against Bill Clinton, before it was allowed to proceed, we had hearings regarding whether it could be brought immediately while Bill was a sitting president. Did we all forget that?

They pondered it and said sure.

That was one case.

If five Paula Joneses had wanted to sue, would the verdict be the same?

What I'm getting at is that Chump is doing an awful job and is elderly and staying up to all hours due to his late night urination cycle and social media posting. Who's signing off on these personal law suits? When he's suing CBS or NYT or whomever, shouldn't he have to go before a court -- the same as Paula Jones -- to argue that he should be allowed to sue while he's a sitting president?

How does he have time to sue as a sitting president. And to be so litigious with so many lawsuits?

He doesn't. That's why so many things are falling apart because he won't do the job he was elected to.

And if we worry -- and I do -- about a president's ability to influence judicial outcomes -- the whole reason behind the statement "I'm not going to comment on an ongoing investigation" -- why are we not concerned about juries being influenced by a sitting president bringing the law suit?

As soon as possible, Congress needs to pass a law regarding lawsuits during a presidency. Chump has spent far too much time suing and threatening to sue. There might need to be a moratorium on lawsuits brought by a sitting president when the president is the plaintiff.

So that's something I think we need to do as Democrats. How about you?

The reason I ask is that John Gallagher (LGBTQ NATION) reports on how hugely unpopular Donald Chump is. He also notes that the Democrats aren't all that popular as a body either.

I've shared before my belief that some of that is frustration over Dems not having control of the White House or either house in Congress. But note this from Gallagher:

Democrats are also faltering on issues because they have been choosing to avoid topics instead of trying to reshape the debate around them. Nowhere is that truer than when it comes to trans rights issues. Polls show that a significant number of voters think that the party is too focused on trans issues at the expense of economic issues. That’s because the party failed to push back hard enough on Republican attacks on trans people. How hard is it to say that the GOP is attacking parental rights by going after trans kids? Apparently, it’s very hard for Democrats.

Instead, you have Democrats who want to abandon principles because that’s easier than coming up with a new approach to issues. Would-be presidential candidate Gavin Newsom happily threw trans people under the bus in an interview with, of all people, Charlie Kirk. New York Times columnist Ezra Klein floated the idea that Democrats should run anti-abortion candidates in red states, even though pro-abortion initiatives have won on the ballot in red states.

Rebuilding a party isn’t easy. Rethinking how to keep your principles while navigating a changing electorate is incredibly hard. But thinking that you can win elections simply because the other guy is doing a bad job isn’t going to work for the Democrats.

Right now, the electorate is unhappy with both parties. Relying on them to be unhappier with your opponent is a lousy strategy.

The polls are telling Democrats they need to be something other than what they were. Unless the party can rise to the challenge, Trump will maintain the advantage of incumbency and all the power it grants him, plus the power that he seizes.

Dems are not in control of one house of Congress at present -- let alone both. But what if we were?

As a party, we can certainly talk about what we would do. Right now, we can talk about that. I want a strong series of reforms -- such as took place after Watergate -- that will protect the democracy so that it can never be threatened by another madman the way it is today. I want more than that as well. To build a better world, we need to see a better world. And maybe if we could put some time into that and see what idea we could agree on, we could stop feeling are leaders are powerless. We do have power. -- even now we do.

If we didn't have power, Jimmy Kimmel wouldn't be back on ABC. You forced that. You made that happen. And I don't think you get how big it is. Possibly because too many 'informed voices' weren't informed at all. This has never happened before. A show that a large number of affiliates were not going to broadcast got brought back. Never, ever has that happened. Don't give me HILL STREET BLUES, CAGNEY AND LACEY, et al saved by a letter writing campaign. Those were low rated shows at one point. They were not shows that the affiliates refused to air. There are about 238 stations across the US broadcasting ABC content (some put the figure at 250 -- we're going with the lower number because that's the number that broadcasts all ABC content). 72 stations were saying that they wouldn't broadcast Jimmy's show (that's the number of SINCLAIR and NEXSTAR affiliates that broadcast ABC content). You made that happen and it has never happened before.

We have more power than we know and more power than we ever attempt to utilize.

Alexander Bolton (THE HILL) reported yesterday:

Democratic senators increasingly see shutting down the government to send a message to President Trump as a political necessity, Democratic aides and strategists say.

These frustrated Democrats think they need to do something drastic to push back on the Trump administration and buck up their own demoralized voters — and the looming Sept. 30 government funding deadline may be one of their best remaining chances.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) thinks the hard-line Democratic strategy is starting to pay off after Trump agreed to meet with Democratic leaders at the White House on Monday, something the president had previously refused to do.

“We’ve been resolute that we need a meeting, that we need a real negotiation, that you don’t do this by one party putting together a completely partisan bill and saying, ‘Take it or leave it.’ So, they felt the heat,” Schumer told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview Sunday.

He warned that if Trump uses the meeting to score political points, Democrats would again defeat a House-passed government funding bill that needs to pass by Tuesday to avoid a shutdown.

"Shut out? Shut down!" That should be the motto. It happened because Dems -- and the citizens they represent -- were shut out of the process.

There are 214 elected Dems to the Republicans 219. That's a lot of members being shut out and that's a lot of Americans who they represent that aren't getting a voice in the so-called people's house. Let's not forget that the number is technically 213. Why? Because Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson refuses to seat Adelita Grijalva. She was elected on Tuesday of last week. He won't seat her. He's afraid she'd become the last needed signature on the Epstein petition. Steve Benen (MADDOW BLOG, MSNBC) notes:

Democrat Adelita Grijalva cruised to a landslide victory last week, winning her congressional special election by roughly 40 points. Once sworn in, she’ll be Arizona’s first-ever Latina congresswoman, succeeding her father, the late Rep. Raúl Grijalva, and she’ll narrow the GOP majority in the U.S. House: Republicans will hold 219 seats to the Democrats’ 214, with two vacancies remaining.

What’s more, upon arriving on Capitol Hill, she’s also said she intends to sign a pending discharge petition to force disclosure of the Jeffrey Epstein files, currently being held back by Donald Trump’s Justice Department. Proponents of the effort are currently one member short of 218 signatures, but Grijalva’s support would trigger a process House Speaker Mike Johnson would be largely powerless to stop.

All the Arizonan has to do is wait for the chamber to return from its current break, at which point she can take the oath of office. With that outcome hanging in the balance, The Arizona Republic reported:

Democrat Adelita Grijalva has for months been on a glide path to become Arizona’s next member of Congress. But now that she’s been elected, as the U.S. House stares down a government funding standoff and a bombshell measure related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a political fight is brewing around when exactly Grijalva will be sworn in.

At the heart of the matter is a question about how best to deal with routine electoral bureaucracy.

In theory, Grijalva could be sworn in as Congress’ newest member on Oct. 7, the day members get back to work. This would be consistent with standard practice, including recent developments with Democratic Rep. James Walkinshaw of Virginia, who was declared the unofficial winner of his special election and was sworn days later.

But there are growing concerns that Republican leaders in the chamber will try to delay Grijalva’s swearing in until officials in Arizona certify the special election results — which, again, were not close — weeks later.

He needs to seat her. She needs to be sworn in. He is spitting on the US citizens living in her district. Failure to do so is taxation without representation -- the rally cry of the Revolutionary War.

Last night on his MSNBC show, Lawrence O'Donnell spoke with the House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Lawrence rightly notes Chump's continued cognitive decline. This gets worse with every day. And during all of this, the Crooked Supreme Court keeps tearing down the separation of powers that the Founding Fathers valued so much to give this dementia plagued person more and more powers. The Supreme Court has betrayed the country, the Constitution and our democratic system. They have the same eyes and ears the rest of us do -- those six crooks sitting on the Court and repeatedly trashing the law -- trashing established law -- to hand more and more powers to Chump.

Imagine being federal judge trying to uphold the Constitution and watching the Crooked Supreme Court overturn you over and over and over?

And what the Supreme Court's not trying to destroy, Republicans in the US Congress are. Let's note this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke on the Senate floor ahead of a vote Senate Republicans teed up on a bill introduced by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) that would indefinitely extend an automatic 14-day continuing resolution (CR) in the event of a lapse in appropriations.

Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:

“This bill has a nice-sounding name, but that’s about the only good thing you can say about it, because what it really does is hand over Congress’ power of the purse to Donald Trump and Russ Vought.

“If this bill passes, it won’t just be Democrats’ voice in funding that gets squashed; Republicans will be cutting themselves out of funding decisions.

“Because this bill extends government funding indefinitely, so Donald Trump and Russ Vought never have to worry about Congress again.

“If this bill were to pass, Trump could quite literally refuse to sign any funding bill, even a bipartisan bill, unless it met all of his demands, and Congress would then have to override his veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers if we ever wanted to get off the forever CR that this bill would put in place. No way.

“There’s a very simple way to avert a shutdown. It starts with Republicans working with Democrats to hammer out a solution. It’s time to do that.

“I urge a no vote.”

###

Back to the shutdown, David Dayen, Whitney Curry Wimbish (THE AMERICAN PROSPECT) remind that Chump and the administration were planning for shut down on September 30th all the way back in February:

Talks at the White House on Monday aimed at preventing a government shutdown left both sides far apart on a deal. Earlier in the day, reports emerged that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would consider a ten-day extension of government funding if Trump agreed to negotiate on enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year.

Reaction to this was swift. “You don’t pick a fight and then run away,” said Emma Lydon, managing director of P Street, the government relations arm of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Within a couple of hours, Schumer told reporters that he would not back a short-term funding agreement under any circumstances. But one bigger problem with the conversation around government funding, with less than 24 hours to the deadline, is the nature of the fight being picked.

The negotiations and debates are operating under the premise that appropriations to federal agencies are flowing today and will stop flowing tomorrow, and that this is something political leaders want to avoid. It’s hard to uncover any evidence that this is truly the case.

The Supreme Court’s latest ruling definitively allows the Trump administration to cancel whatever funding they disfavor within 45 days of the end of the appropriation, without any approval from Congress. The administration now has power, formalized by the Court in a sleight-of-hand move by claiming nobody has standing to sue, to cut whatever they want out of the budget, at a time when they are pressuring Congress to send them a budget.

That Supreme Court ruling involved $4 billion in foreign aid funding that the administration semi-formally tried to rescind; it doesn’t include the $410 billion that the White House has simply withheld from programs across the country. That represents close to half of all outlays in the fiscal year 2025 nondefense discretionary budget, which have simply vanished, perhaps permanently after the last day of the fiscal year, which is today. The Office of Management and Budget, as Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) has explained, has offered no explanation of how money is being spent or where withheld spending is going.

About 12 percent of the federal workforce has been terminated. Last week, we heard threats from OMB director Russ Vought that a shutdown will really allow the Office of Management and Budget to fire workers. A shutdown provides no actual legal authority to fire federal employees, but then again there was no legal authority to rescind or withhold appropriated spending without congressional approval, or put workers on extended administrative leave, as they did with the unauthorized buyout back in January.

As Daniel Schuman points out, Vought presented guidance to agencies in February that they should prepare for mass layoffs by today, September 30. Any allegedly shutdown-induced “mass layoff” should be seen as the continuation of an existing plan that has been public for seven months.

They've planned it and they own it. But they lie about Democrats and try to blame them. Democrats are fighting for We The People on this. No one's made that more clear than Senator Chris Murphy:

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Monday took to the floor of the U.S. Senate ahead of Tuesday’s government funding deadline, arguing that amidst President Trump’s authoritarian use of the federal government to suppress political speech, prosecute political enemies, and send in the military to Democrat-run cities, any budget agreement must include safeguards for our democracy and guarantees that President Trump won’t lawlessly ignore budget provisions he doesn’t like. Murphy also called for a postponement of health care premium increases that will substantially raise costs for millions of working families.

Murphy emphasized the Senate should not support a budget which will fund President Trump’s increasingly aggressive assault on American democracy: “To me this is simple. We should not willingly pay the bills for the most serious assault on political freedom since the Civil War - an assault that may collapse American democracy as we know it… The majority party has an obligation to honor and fight for a basic set of protections for our democracy. And when it doesn’t, it really stops being a good faith negotiating partner.”

He continued: “If we are going to keep the government open, why can’t we all agree that it should only be a government that respects our democracy, that is not corrupt, that doesn’t treat people and places that oppose President Trump as enemies, deserving of indictment or military deployment? That also seems like a pretty minimalist ask.”

Murphy demanded Trump stop weaponizing the federal government against his political enemies and illegally impounding duly appropriated funds: “Stop the deployment to our cities. Stop the witch hunt of Comey and Soros and Senator Schiff. Stop using the FCC to censor speech. Stop unconstitutionally ignoring the budget and spending only money that the President wants to spend.”

Murphy called out his Republican colleagues for enabling President Trump’s lawlessness: “My Republican colleagues know why Comey and Senator Schiff and Soros are being targeted. They know that the President just picked the people that give him the hardest time and told his folks to come up with charges. My Republican colleagues know the impact that this has on people who want to politically and peacefully oppose the President, but now won’t do that because they fear for their freedom. Republicans know this. They should not defend it… And Republicans know that using the FCC to crack down on speech that the President doesn’t agree with is wrong. They know, as Senator Cruz pointed out, that that’s a slippery slope that we may never get off.”

Murphy blamed Republicans for the coming shutdown, highlighting their inaction and refusal to negotiate with Democrats: “The Republican House of Representatives isn’t here. And they aren’t coming back until the government has been shut down, reportedly for days. That tells you all you need to know about who is responsible for a potential shutdown of the government... President Trump doesn’t care either. He boycotted even meeting with Democrats until 24 hours before the shutdown was to begin. He was watching golf or posting on social media - basically anything except trying to negotiate, to do the job of government.”

Murphy concluded: “It’s decision time. Is this Senate going to fund the destruction of our democracy? Or are we going to do what’s necessary to stand up for basic American values?”

A transcript of Murphy’s full remarks is available below.

The House of Representatives is not coming back into session reportedly until next week. The government is shutting down tomorrow night and the Republican House of Representatives isn’t here. And they aren’t coming back until the government has been shut down, reportedly for days.

That tells you all you need to know about who is responsible for a potential shutdown of the government. Republicans care so little about funding the government that they aren’t even showing up.

President Trump doesn’t care either. He boycotted even meeting with Democrats until 24 hours before the shutdown was to begin. He was watching golf or posting on social media - basically anything except trying to negotiate, to do the job of government.

I wish Republicans were trying to keep the government open, instead of trying to shut it down.

But what I really want is for Republicans to open their eyes and see what is happening at an increasing pace to our democracy. What I want - what I think is necessary at this moment - is for any budget that we write to put the health of our democracy first.

In fact, as I’ve watched the events of the past few weeks play out - with political enemies being systematically hunted by this administration - I think that we all have a moral obligation to only support a budget that at the very least puts the brakes on the President’s lawlessness.

Right now, our democracy is in grave peril. And there is no better example of this than the events that played out last week over the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. The President has made it clear that he wants to put his political enemies in jail as retribution for the charges brought against him. He does not care about whether there are grounds for these charges. He just wants charges.

And so he instructed Erik Siebert, the U.S. Attorney in Virginia, a Republican, to bring charges against James Comey. But Siebert refused for a simple reason. There was no evidence that James Comey had done anything illegal. So Trump fired Siebert. He appointed his personal lawyer - who has never set foot in a courtroom - as the new U.S. Attorney, simply because he knew she would follow orders.

Every career prosecutor in the office recommended she refuse to bring the charges - again, because there were no charges to be brought. But she did it anyways, as instructed. Not a single other lawyer in the office would sign the indictment - virtually unprecedented in a case like this.

Trump cheered the indictment, and then he warned that there would be more charges brought against others that had vocally opposed his policies.

And that’s not all that happened in the last two weeks. Trump ordered the FCC to issue threats to TV stations that did not remove one of his primary late night critics, Jimmy Kimmel, from the airwaves. He announced new military deployments to additional cities. He began a process to harass and arrest leaders of prominent political groups that oppose his presidency, threatening at least one funder of groups that oppose his policies, George Soros, with arrest, simply for supporting opposition to Trump.

Much of this - though not of all it - has happened in the wake of the brutal, horrific murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. His assasistation was abhorrent. And it was, and still is, a moment for all of us to consider what we can do to stamp out political violence and violence of all kinds.

But his murder does not justify the dizzying campaign of political repression that has been carried out often in his name since. To exploit his murder to crush dissent or to censor speech is unacceptable.

And this brings me back to the debate over the expiring budget.

I join with my colleagues in wanting this new budget to, at the very least, postpone the health care insurance increases that are coming for millions of Americans, that are going to ruin people’s lives in this country. 75 percent increases for people that are going to make this awful decision about whether they should continue to pay their premiums, whether they should put food on the table for their kids, or whether they should risk going without insurance. I think that’s a pretty reasonable ask - just don’t increase costs on families when it comes to health care, at a time when the cost of everything else is going up because of President Trump’s insane economic policies.

But let me ask you this as well:

Why would we not also simply say that any budget we pass should stop the worst of the lawlessness? Stop the deployment to our cities. Stop the witch hunt of Comey and Soros and Senator Schiff. Stop using the FCC to censor speech. Stop unconstitutionally ignoring the budget, and spending only money that the President wants to spend.

To me this is simple. We should not willingly pay the bills for the most serious assault on political freedom since the Civil War - an assault that may collapse American democracy as we know it.

I know my Republican friends think that this is hyperbole. That our fear for democracy is just fear mongering, just politics.

I swear it is not. My Republican colleagues know why Comey and Senator Schiff and Soros are being targeted. They know that the President just picked the people that give him the hardest time, and told his folks to come up with charges. My Republican colleagues know the impact that this has on people who want to politically and peacefully oppose the President, but now won’t do that because they fear for their freedom. Republicans know this. They should not defend it.

Republicans know that it’s wrong to sit down and agree to a budget and then cheer the President when he refuses to spend the money in blue states or on the priorities that got Democrats to sit down at the table to begin with. Republicans know that that’s not fair play. They shouldn’t defend it.

And Republicans know that using the FCC to crack down on speech that the President doesn’t agree with is wrong. They know, as Senator Cruz pointed out, that that’s a slippery slope that we may never get off.

I want to find agreement with Republicans on stopping these premiums from going up. I do. I think that’s really important for people in this country.

And I think it’s okay to admit that this is an odd arrangement that we have in American government today, where the minority party in the Senate, so long as it has 40 members, is kind of in a coalition government with the majority party, because the budget can’t pass without bipartisan agreement.

But the majority party has an obligation to honor and fight for a basic set of protections for our democracy. And when it doesn’t, it really stops being a good faith negotiating partner.

How do Republicans expect us to vote for a budget that funds a government that is lawlessly pursuing Democrats, that is arresting and harassing our members and our allies? That’s deploying the army and masked officers to our cities?

We are at a moment of decision for this country. Right now, Republicans aren’t even trying to keep the government open. They’re not even here. They’re rooting for a shut down.

But if we are going to keep the government open, why can’t we all agree that it should only be a government that respects our democracy, that is not corrupt, that doesn’t treat people and places that oppose President Trump as enemies, deserving of indictment or military deployment? That also seems like a pretty minimalist ask.

So, it’s decision time. Is this Senate going to fund the destruction of our democracy? Or are we going to do what is necessary to stand up for basic American values?

Jacob Bogage and Riley Beggin (WASHINGTON POST) break down what a shutdown would entail.

Last night Lawrence also tackled Chump on social media with a post beneath the office of the president, a vile post that goes to just how much the dementia has set in.

Of the meeting at the White House yesterday and what followed, Tyler Pager, Catie Edmondson and Michael Gold (NEW YORK TIMES) notes:

Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Schumer; Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader; Speaker Mike Johnson; and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, came less than 32 hours before the government was slated to shut down, at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. It marked the first time Mr. Trump hosted the Democratic leaders at the White House in his second term.

Democratic leaders characterized the private meeting at the White House as candid and frank, but said they left without being any closer to a breakthrough.

On Monday evening, Mr. Trump seemed to make that possibility more remote. He shared an A.I.-generated video on Truth Social, mocking Mr. Schumer, Mr. Jeffries and the Democratic Party by fabricating Mr. Schumer’s voice at a news conference on Monday afternoon. The video falsely accuses Democrats of trying to give free health care to undocumented immigrants to gain their support. In the video, Mr. Jeffries, who is Black, is pictured with a fake mustache and wearing a sombrero.

Kit Maher (CNN) notes the reactions of Chuck and Hakeem to Chump's garbage:

Shortly after Trump posted the video, Jeffries wrote on X, “Bigotry will get you nowhere. Cancel the Cuts. Lower the Cost. Save Healthcare. We are NOT backing down.”

Schumer followed moments later, commenting on X, “If you think your shutdown is a joke, it just proves what we all know: You can’t negotiate. You can only throw tantrums.”

The following sites updated: