Ann's Mega Dub

Thursday, October 1, 2026

Musk is back in Chump's administration

Remember when Musk and Chump had their lovers spat? I miss those days. The two are now entangled in embraces that God will never see (Carly Simon, "The Three of Us In The Dark"). And Musk is back in the US government. Anthony Orrico (Huffington Post) notes:

Fear, mockery and confusion were among the reactions to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to install Elon Musk as the co-leader of a project to study the future of warfare.

“Project Meridian” will be led by the owner of X as well as Anduril Industries co-founder Palmer Luckey and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). Pentagon technology chief Emil Michael will oversee them.

According to Hegseth, the project will focus on “discovering, developing and fielding” the weapons systems of the future that U.S. troops may need on battlefields ranging “from under the Earth to beyond the moon.” These men will spend the next 120 days looking at ways the U.S. military can maintain a technological edge decades into the future.

While the purported project drew little online criticism, Musk’s inclusion in another unofficial Trump administration role did. Musk infamously oversaw the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which conducted the largest peacetime reduction of the federal workforce on record, even as government spending continued to rise.

Alien Musk? He's never served in any military -- not in any of the three countries he holds citizenship in.

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

Thursday, October 1, 2026. Chump's failures remain evident as the midterms loom, an unneeded war on Iran claims another US service members' life, the war of choice also continues to destroy the US economy, Pete Hegseth makes a fool of himself in a new speech, the courts are not being intimidated by Toad Blanche's hissy fits, and much more.

Early voting has already started in some states but it is now 33 days until the midterms. 33 days. Martha McHardy (DAILY BEAST) reports:

Donald Trump has been dealt another brutal polling blow as Americans turn their backs on the president.

The president has received the highest disapproval rating of his second term, at 61 percent, weeks before the crucial November midterms.

The September 19-25 Angus Reid USA survey of 1,205 American adults found just 34 percent approve of the president’s governance, and that his support remains heavily concentrated among his core MAGA base.

A total of 94 percent of self-identified MAGA Republicans approve of his performance. But the picture is considerably weaker among other Republicans. While 59 percent of that cohort approves of Trump, 38 percent disapprove.

Independents are far more critical, with a sizable 72 percent saying they disapprove of Trump’s performance.

The results are a bad omen for the GOP ahead of the Nov. 3 polls, which are largely seen as a referendum on Trump’s leadership.

Andrew Stanton (NEWSWEEK) reports on a different poll but its results aren't any more encouraging for Chump:

President Donald Trump’s net approval rating fell to its lowest point of his second term in a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday.

Trump’s net approval rating fell to -27 points, his worst showing yet in any of the pollster’s surveys. He received positive marks from 34 percent of respondents, while 61 percent disapproved of him.

It marks a shift from a Quinnipiac poll released September 10, when his net approval rating was -26 points, with 59 percent disapproving and 33 percent approving of the president.

Trump’s approval rating holds major implications for the midterm elections, and Election Day is now only five weeks away.

Amanda Marcotte (SALON) notes another poll -- this one questioning your faith in whether or not he'd keep his promise to give every adult American $5,000 if the Republicans kept control of both houses of Congress:

Worse for him, only 13% of Americans, according to an analysis by G. Elliott Morris, are willing to tell a pollster they buy the president’s $5,000 check lie, showing that even people who claim to approve of him can’t be bothered to trust him any longer.

People could be learning from experience. As Catherine Rampell of the Bulwark detailed, the $5,000 check promise is only the latest in a long list of false second-term promises that Americans would be receiving fat checks from the government. Her “partial list” includes these examples:

$5,000 stimulus checks via a “DOGE dividend” (February 2025)

$2,000 stimulus checks via a “rebate” or tariff “dividend” (July 2025, August 2025, November 2025, December 2025, February 2026)

Checks of indeterminate value that would redirect money that would have been spent on Affordable Care Act subsidies (November 2025)

$500 Obamacare “rebate” checks (September 2026)

$5,000 “dividend” if Republicans win the midterms (yesterday)

Thankfully, there now appears to be a limit to the number of times a fraudster can promise the check is in mail before even some MAGA voters start to wonder if they’re being had. Most clung to two big reasons to justify their vote in 2024: the president’s promises to lower prices and end foreign wars. Trump broke both in a dramatic fashion, starting a war with Iran and a trade war with, well, much of the world, both of which have escalated inflation, particularly of fuel prices. Even his most ardent followers are reminded of his lies every time they buy groceries or gas. Running ads that repeat his failed promises only serve to remind people of the broken trust.

Thomas Kent (MONEYWISE) reports:

President Donald Trump raised eyebrows on June 10 when he declared, “I love the inflation,” while discussing the latest inflation report and the ongoing conflict involving Iran (1). At the time, the May Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed prices had jumped 4.2% from a year earlier — the biggest annual increase since April 2023.

Trump was still feeling pretty good about inflation the following month. On July 17, after the June CPI showed consumer prices had fallen 0.4% from the previous month, he called the numbers “such great news,” pointing to what he described as the biggest monthly drop in more than six years (2).

But the latest numbers tell a somewhat less rosy story. The July CPI, released Aug. 12, showed prices were up 3.4% from a year earlier (3). Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, rose 3.7% over the same period (4). Both are still well above the Fed’s 2% target.

Chump did make an effort on beef prices. It wasn't a good effort and it didn't really help but at least, for a moment or two, it had his attention. Eric Levitz (VOX) reports:

On most fronts, President Donald Trump has shown little concern for reducing Americans’ cost of living ahead of November’s midterms.

Trump has refused to accept Iran’s ceasefire proposals, even as the conflict pushes fuel costs to new heights. And he’s declined to abandon his trade wars — with US adversaries and allies alike — even as tariffs nudge up Americans’ expenses.

Yet there is one area where Trump has recently tried to lower consumer prices in an economically coherent way, and it’s been a political disaster.

In late August, the president lowered tariffs on up to 661 million pounds of imported lean beef trimmings, a key ingredient in hamburger meat.

This policy directly addressed a genuine problem facing US consumers: Ground beef prices were roughly 8 percent higher last month than they had been one year earlier. And unlike many of the White House’s other ideas for increasing affordability, the meat imports proposal comported with conventional economic logic: If you reduce input costs for meat processors, they’ll be able to sell beef at lower prices.

By endorsing this reasoning, the Trump administration was implicitly rebuking its own theory of trade economics (which holds that tariffs increase costs for foreign companies, not American consumers). In doing so, Trump also put voters’ material interests — and economists’ conventional wisdom — above his ideological hangups.

And he’s paying dearly for it.

Instead of appeasing cash-strapped shoppers, the beef imports policy has mostly just aggravated (already aggrieved) agricultural firms. All across the farm belt, cattle ranchers are incensed by Trump aiding their foreign competition — after the president had already depressed their sales through tariffs and increased their costs via his Iran war and immigration policies.

Cowpokes aren’t alone in resenting the White House’s affronts to agricultural interests. In dark red states like Kansas and Iowa, Democratic candidates have become highly competitive, while Republicans are racing to distance themselves from the president, in part by going after his beef plan directly.

Which raises the question: How and why did Trump’s plan for cheaper hamburgers go so wrong?

Turning to the judiciary, Tierney Sneed and Hannah Rabinowitz (CNN) report:

The Justice Department filed a judicial misconduct complaint against nearly all the federal judges in Minnesota, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on Wednesday, escalating tensions between the Trump administration and the judicial branch.

The administration’s demand that the judges be disqualified from immigration-related cases was prompted by a recent New York Times article in which six federal judges described the Justice Department’s failure to comply with court orders during an immigration-enforcement surge as a grave threat to the rule of law.

In their comments, judges focused on how DOJ staffing shortages appeared to inhibit the administration in its ability to comply with their orders – similar to comments they have previously made in legal settings. But Blanche on Wednesday said the comments were “overtly political” in violation of judicial rules and that they reflected an “an obvious bias” against the Department of Homeland Security.

While the ethics complaint is pending at the federal appeals court that the oversees Minnesota’s federal bench, Blanche is calling on the district court judges to recuse from DHS-related cases.

The laughable Toad Blanche.

Bennito L. Kelty (RAW STORY) covers the topic and notes:

Lawyer and journalist Katie Phang cheered a Minnesota federal judge's swift reply to Attorney General Todd Blanche's judicial misconduct complaint.

Phang broke down the filing in a video Wednesday on the Katie Phang News Channel. The Justice Department lodged the complaint with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals against U.S. District Judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim, along with unnamed colleagues on Minnesota's federal bench. It targets comments they made to The New York Times for a September 17 article on the Trump administration's immigration enforcement surge in the state.

The complaint, signed by DOJ officials Stanley Woodward and Trent McCotter, accuses the judges of "unethical and partisan commentary" and asks that they be recused from cases involving the Department of Homeland Security. It also seeks an investigation into judges who it says "covet publicity."

In the Times piece, Schiltz, who served as the court's chief judge last winter, called the Trump administration's actions "a grave threat to the rule of law" and said Immigration and Customs Enforcement had violated nearly 100 court orders in January alone. Phang noted that Judge Nancy Brasel, a Trump appointee, was among the seven judges who spoke to the paper.

Phang then read Schiltz's response, as reported by Politico's Kyle Cheney.

"As legal ethics experts have confirmed, I was acting well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges in speaking to the New York Times," Schiltz said. "Indeed, in February of this year, the Committee on Codes of Conduct issued an advisory opinion to emphasize that federal judges may speak and write on core judiciary matters such as advocacy for the rule of law and judicial independence. That is exactly what I did."

In other legal news, Chump has used US tax payer monies to air campaign ads featuring him in the last week. Kathryn Rubino (ABOVE THE LAW) notes:

Donald Trump has found a new way to spend your money on himself. This weekend, the White House rolled out its latest government-paid “public service announcement,” and this one doesn’t bother pretending to be something other than a campaign ad, because, well, it is one. The spot is a near-exact copy of a 2024 Trump campaign ad — Trump striding down a hallway, calling on viewers to join his fight to “expel the warmongers from our government” (the irony is on overload with the man who started a war with Iran) with the old campaign logo trimmed off the end and “Paid for by the U.S. government” slapped on instead. It aired during college football, NFL games, and “Fox News Sunday,” a few weeks before the midterms.

Richard Painter, George W. Bush’s chief White House ethics lawyer, so not a guy who arrived at the resistance by birth, did not mince words, writing on X, “this could be an impeachable offense. @POTUS has no right to use taxpayer money for campaign ads. Congress has expressly prohibited government sponsored political propaganda, which is dangerous for democracy.”

Painter is not alone in his assessment. “The president and his administration have gone from breaking the law to trampling it,” Norm Eisen, who did the ethics job in Barack Obama’s White House and has sued the Trump administration several times, told the New York Times. “The prior ad was bad enough, but this one openly repurposes prior political conduct.” Margaret Dylus-Yukins, senior legal counsel for ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, was just as blunt, “A divisive campaign commercial paid for by the U.S. government defies the Hatch Act’s very purpose.”

So what does the White House have to say for itself? On Friday, it published a defense with the extremely confident title “Presidential Public Service Announcements Are Nothing New.” The argument goes like this: these can’t be campaign ads because Trump isn’t on the ballot and there’s no call to action, and anyway, Bush did it, Obama did it, Biden did it, and so did Woodrow Wilson and FDR.

Let’s take those in order. Trump isn’t on the ballot, except that he’s told voters to “pretend” he is. There’s no call to action, except that the new ad asks viewers to join his fight. And Wilson and FDR were selling world wars, which is a different vibe from a midterm cycle.

To use the technical term, the defense is weak-ass s[**]t.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee issued the following statement on Chump's use of tax payer monies for his own campaigning:

Washington, D.C. — Today, Rep. Robert Garcia, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Joe Morelle, Ranking Member of the Committee on House Administration, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Ranking Member of the Committee on Appropriations, sent a letter to President Donald Trump demanding information about the production of a new television advertisement with the disclaimer: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

While Americans are struggling to pay rent, feed their families, and afford a trip to the doctor, Donald Trump and Republicans have done nothing to address the crushing cost of living crisis. Instead, they have prioritized vanity projects like this advertisement and flagrantly abused hardworking taxpayer dollars while escalating the conflict abroad in Iran, leading to the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Recession.

“This advertisement indicates a potential significant misuse of taxpayer funds and federal government resources for what appears to be political advertising. Given the proximity to the November midterm elections, this advertisement—and the circumstances surrounding its development and production—warrants an immediate investigation,” the Members wrote.

The Ranking Members demanded the Trump administration immediately cease airing the advertisement. They also outlined that Americans have a right to know:

Whether any federal agency or office authorized and paid for the advertisement and if so, which one;
Where the advertisement was written and developed—specifically whether any part of the advertisement was produced on government property or with government resources;
The specific appropriation and statutory authority used to fund and justify the advertisement;
What person or persons individually authorized and approved the advertisement’s development and content; and
What, if any, legal review of relevant federal statutes was conducted before it was broadcast

The Members continued, “the President of the United States already has broad latitude to speak publicly and advocate for his or her policies. Neither you nor your unnamed ideological apparatchiks, however, have the power to funnel taxpayer-funded government resources toward a political advertisement. Such behavior deepens the American people’s preexisting fury at your Administration’s rampant corruption and injures the civic health of our nation. While federal law already limits the ability of the White House to produce advertisements of this nature, it may be that Congress must consider what further legislation is needed to strengthen these guardrails to ensure that no future president—no matter how personally insecure—is able to abuse taxpayer resources as you have.”

###

Turning to Chump's stooge Pete Hegseth. When your confirmation hearing results in a tie -- 50 for you, 50 against -- that JD Vance has to break, you might enter the office with humility and a desire to prove to everyone that you can do the job. Hegseth's only desire has been for booze. Joe Sommerlad (INDEPENDENT) reported ysterday:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will use his State of the Force address Wednesday to announce he is cutting 20 percent of senior military positions in his latest purge at the Pentagon, according to a report.

The secretary’s speech – coming a year on from his first table-setting lecture to top brass at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia – is expected to lay out his priorities for the next 12 months and include his reduction plans for the Army, Navy and Air Force, a September memo seen by Fox News indicates.

The memo directs Pentagon officials to identify which among the roughly 800 general and flag officer positions can be downgraded as part of an emphasis on creating a culture of “less generals, more GIs.”

Hegseth’s new target doubles the 10 percent reduction in senior roles he ordered last year and is expected to be implemented by January 1, 2027.

In addition, Todd Wallack (WASHINGTON POST) reports:

The Defense Department on Tuesday announced plans to stop hiring civilians for tenured faculty positions at U.S. military service academies, a move that would make it easier to fire some professors in the future.

In a memo, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the change was needed to ensure the academies are focused on their “warfighting mission” of training military leaders.

“Tenure often leads to academic stagnation, faculty complacency and institutional inability to adapt to emerging needs,” Hegseth said in the memo. “Additionally, it contributes to curriculum that drifts from the mission of educating our warfighters to the research priorities of the tenured academics.”

The move appears to be the latest by the Trump administration to make it easier to fire government workers for any reason. In June, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reclassify about 8,000 senior federal workers, despite complaints that the move would politicize the civil service.

It’s also the latest effort by the Trump administration to exert more control over professors at military service academies.

Last year, a tenured civilian professor sued West Point after the academy barred faculty members from publishing papers, speaking at conferences or appearing on podcasts without first seeking approval from higher-ups. Tim Bakken, the professor, was featured in a Washington Post story in July.

Remember the Pentagon has been hacked. Andy Edser (PC GAMER) notes:

After the FBI data breach we reported on last week, in which a hacking group claimed it had stolen data on "all FBI employees", a US defence official has confirmed that the Pentagon also fell victim to a cybersecurity breach. Except this one appears to be much larger, lasted for longer, and is potentially very worrying for many civilian US government employees and serving military personnel alike.

According to ABC News, the official said that the "Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) information system experienced unauthorized access of personally identifiable information by a small number of unauthorized users between October 2025 and July 2026."

The DMDC is one of the Pentagon's main data repositories for personnel records, including info on active-duty and reserve troops, alongside civilian employees, contractors, and military veterans. All told, the breach is said to affect 2.76 million living people, and around 294,000 who are deceased.

Once the unauthorized access was discovered, the DMDC "immediately remediated the vulnerability." The data is said to have included Social Security numbers and details about military and civilian job positions, but defence officials say they've found no evidence so far that the exposed information was misused.

All of this goes into how unpopular Priss Pot Pete is in Congress. US House Rep Thomas Massie forced Speaker of the Closet Mike Johnson to send the House home early when Massie introduced his articles of impeachment against Hegseth. Massie's not the only Republican in Congress who has had it with Hegseth. Jason Miciak (RAW STORY) notes:

You can hear it in their voices, the words they use, the issues brought up, the frustration evolving into tinged anger, and the conviction — no more, you're pushing it, really pushing it.

Republican senators have been talking about Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth a lot more lately, and that's bad news at a particularly bad time for him, as he already faces eight articles of impeachment once the House returns (assuming it ever returns).

But it is even worse news for Donald Trump.

Because for all the talk about Hegseth's recklessness in firing officers, bumbling the war, running through money, self-aggrandizement, and self-satisfaction, it's all but impossible for these Republicans to keep Hegseth's name straight in these sentences. It is amazing they don't realize that it's not obvious that everything they say applies equally to Trump, if not more to Trump, and that this is a coded message: "If we come after your guy, the one you still strongly support, and we are coming, there's only one last hill to climb between him and you."

The cynics will laugh this away, and to a degree they are right. We cycle through this. But as has been said here too many times, we've never cycled like this when the American people are hurting and watching a new war unfold in front of us. And it really, really matters when the cycling includes Hegseth stumbles that hurt Congressional candidates in the midterms. That's a sick mix.

An unnamed Senate source was quoted as saying: "There are a lot of people that are really upset with the war in Iran and how it's being played out. We feel it's hurting our chances in the elections in the fall, and it seems rather haphazard."

Seems?

It "seems" to the American people like we had a one-week plan for a two-year war. Of course, the war might have gone better had Hegseth not emptied the cupboard of "strong, experienced senior officers," who just happen to be women, Black, or insufficiently nimble in their Trump support.

Greg Jaffe (NEW YORK TIMES) adds:

By many measures, though, Mr. Hegseth has never been weaker. He is leading the military through an unpopular war. Republicans in Congress complain privately — and increasingly in public — that he and his staff are dismissive of their questions and frequently unprepared for briefings.

If Democrats win a majority in the House, Mr. Hegseth will likely face new calls for his impeachment.

Mr. Hegseth’s firing and sidelining of senior military officers, often with no explanation, has fed mistrust and led many in the top ranks to question his leadership.

How Mr. Hegseth manages the contradiction between his tough guy image and his growing vulnerabilities in Washington and around the world could determine whether Mr. Trump — the person Mr. Hegseth must ultimately please — keeps him in the job.

Mr. Hegseth’s most immediate problems are in Iran, where the U.S. war shows no signs of ending, and on Capitol Hill. In the aftermath of the midterm elections, Mr. Hegseth will have to persuade a skeptical Congress to pass a $1.5 trillion defense budget and confirm nominees for key Pentagon posts. Several of his choices are being blocked by Republicans in the Senate.

He will also have to convince Congress to keep paying for the war, which the American people broadly oppose.

The war that Hegseth and Chump are pursuing with Iran -- a war or choice -- has left many US service members injured (a minimum of 861) and this week the 19th death of a US service member in the Iran War was announced. Maya Boddie (BLACK INFORMATION NETWORK) notes:

A 37-year-old Black Army officer from Norfolk, Virginia, has died while supporting U.S. military operations in the Middle East, bringing the Pentagon’s publicly reported death toll amid the Iran war to 19.

Capt. Bianca C. Wilkerson died September 18 following a non-combat-related incident while deployed to Doha, Qatar, Military Times reported. The Army has since posthumously promoted her to major.

A defense official told Task & Purpose that Wilkerson experienced a medical emergency while aboard a military flight traveling to Saudi Arabia. The Army is investigating her death. Her cause of death remains undetermined.

Wilkerson joined the Army Reserve in 2013 as a transportation officer and served in several logistics and transportation positions, according to Military Times. She later commanded a forward-support company with the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division and was assigned to U.S. Army Central and Third Army at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina in 2025.

THE GRIO adds:

Wilkerson’s death has resonated especially in Hampton Roads, a region with deep military roots and one of the nation’s largest concentrations of active-duty service members and veterans. WAVY noted that she was a Norfolk native whose service reflected the area’s long-standing connection to the armed forces. While the circumstances surrounding Wilkerson’s death remain unclear, the Army has said the investigation is ongoing.

Her passing comes as public attention continues to focus on the human cost of the conflict, with lawmakers and military officials facing renewed questions about transparency surrounding casualties and the growing number of troops injured during operations connected to the war.

Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

***WATCH: Senator Murray’s remarks***

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, in seeking unanimous consent to pass a commonsense bill to stop President Trump from robbing the American people through illegal “pocket rescissions.”

But Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blocked the bill, which would (1) nullify the illegal “pocket rescission” that President Trump announced on Friday and (2) prevent the president from attempting to use a “pocket rescission” again by forbidding any president from submitting rescissions requests under the Impoundment Control Act with fewer than 90 days before the funds expire. This ensures Congress can act on the request and presidents cannot try to simply run out the clock.

Democrats have repeatedly sought to bar the Trump administration from so much as attempting this illegal maneuver—when marking up draft Senate spending bills, in votes on the floor, and in negotiations over spending packages, including negotiations over the continuing resolution that was recently signed into law. But Republicans have rejected every Democratic attempt over the last 18 months to enact new protections against pocket rescissions.

Senator Murray’s remarks ahead of the attempt to pass the bill, as delivered, are below:

“Thank you to my colleague from Oregon for setting out what is going on here because, as he said, on Friday night, President Trump announced that he was stealing more money from the American people. Trump and his budget director Russ Vought call it a ‘pocket rescission.’ Well, whatever you call it, it’s illegal.

“Trump is taking the bipartisan funding that we passed—funding that Democrats and Republicans agreed on, that he signed into law—and he is now ripping out the pages he doesn’t like. Forget about ideas like Congress and the law.

“Look, this is theft from the American people—plain and simple. In this case, Trump is tearing away funding to help Americans buy a home, he’s cutting off funds for health care research which would prevent things like dangerous hospital infections that are dangerous or saving taxpayers literally billions of dollars.

“But you know what, Trump could not care less. While he blows your tax dollars on an illegal war, Trump is illegally cutting off funding for health research, housing, and more.

“And I guess that’s no surprise given how this President is constantly out-of-touch with American families, saying ‘tariffs’ is his favorite word, ore saying he loves inflation, or saying he wants housing costs to go up—he said that.

“But where are my Republican colleagues who helped pass these funds that Trump is now stealing? Because this didn’t come out of left field. No one can pretend to be surprised by what is happening now.

“When Russ Vought was nominated as Trump’s budget chief, he was pretty darn transparent about the fact that he planned to break the law, he planned to tear up our bills, and he dared us to stop him. But that didn’t stop every Republican Senator from voting for him—and when his deputy was nominated and told us this summer that pocket rescissions were very much still on the table, what happened? Once again, every Senate Republican voted to confirm him too.

“Anyone watching could see this coming from a mile away—Trump used this scheme to unlawfully impound $5 billion last summer, for heaven’s sake. That’s why Democrats have fought again, and again, and again, to prevent the president from being able to use this illegal tactic, including in recent negotiations over the CR that’s now law.

“But Republicans have refused to work with us to prevent Trump and Russ Vought from stealing from the American people. Time, after time, after time, they have shot down our attempts to stop this administration from defying Congress and robbing our constituents.

“Let’s talk more about this ‘pocket rescission’ scheme for a minute and what’s at stake. President Trump and Russ Vought are saying: ‘Hey, we can ignore the law, we can ignore bipartisan deals, and just make our own decisions, as long as we do it last minute.’

“Everyone knows that is ridiculous and illegal. Congress would never have created a system that gave any President the ability to decide to just ignore or bypass a law.

“It makes no sense. And in fact, GAO has looked at what this President has done and has said it’s clearly illegal—twice. Now, my Republican colleagues know some of this, some of them have even said so. But whenever they have had the chance, they have not joined us to put an end to this. Democrats had language Republicans could have let us put in the last CR, or the CR before it.

“We’ve taken vote after vote on versions of this language—on the floor, and in committee—and, of course, we had the vote where Republicans confirmed the un-abashed architect of Trump’s illegal scheme as Budget Director.

“Well now they are getting one more chance. Senator Merkley and I and others have a bill to help Congress re-assert its authority—our authority—and head off Trump’s completely illegal pocket rescission scheme.

“We should be clear: Trump isn’t just illegally robbing our constituents through this pocket rescission. There are a whole lot of other funds that he is refusing to get out the door: more health research funding, grants to prevent teen pregnancy, funding to protect Americans from global health threats, and even a quarter of a billion dollars to help families in rural areas get the financing they need to finally achieve their dream of owning a home.

“Hundreds of families in rural America will be denied the shot to buy a home as Trump lights this money on fire tonight.

“So, it’s not just the pocket rescission—it’s all the rest of the money this administration is holding up or misspending. And Republicans have been pretty quiet about it.

“Russ Vought has always made his message to Congress painfully clear: he thinks the votes that we all take here don’t count. He thinks the laws we pass are optional.

“Now is the time for our Republican colleagues who said they would never let this happen to help us pass a bill that makes our message to Russ Vought equally clear: stop stealing from our constituents and start following our laws.”

###

Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Linda's New Super Computer" and the following sites updated:

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Paxton bites the hand that feeds him and talks truth on Chump

That's Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Linda's New Super Computer"

The grifter Ken Paxton? Chump is trying to rescue him. He's planning to visit Texas again to plug his endorsed candidate. However . . . Edith Olmsted (The New Republic) reprots:

In a leaked audio recording, Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton privately admitted that President Donald Trump’s disastrous midterm convention in Dallas hurt Republican candidates.

At a private fundraiser in Washington last Thursday, Paxton spoke candidly about the event, according to a recording shared with The New York Times.

In the recording, Paxton is asked: “Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” It is not immediately clear to whom the speaker is referring.

“So to be honest with you, the numbers—when we did that convention—it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good,” Paxton said.

Three other people confirmed Paxton’s attendance at the fundraiser to the Times. Two recalled that Paxton was asked this question, and one recalled his negative response. The person who recorded the audio opposes Paxton’s Senate campaign.

Paxton’s comments are obviously a humiliating gaffe for Trump, who backed the attorney general against Senator John Cornyn in a shocking political maneuver.

Oops. Paxton told the truth. And to Chump, the truth is always an attack. Grifter vs. grifter. This could get ugly. And I hope it does.

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

Wednesday, September 30, 2026. Senate Republicans embarrass themselves with their own stupidity, is the stock market going to tank under Chump, Ka$h Patel rigs the numbers, Markwayne Mullin has a loud explosion, Epstein's back in the news, and much more.

Devlin Barrett and Charlie Savage (NEW YORK TIMES) report:

It was meant to be a dramatic confrontation, a public accusation of perjury against Jack Smith, the special counsel who investigated Donald J. Trump. Instead, Senator Eric Schmitt’s amateur sleuthing into basketball led him to the wrong game, league and state.

During a four-hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mr. Schmitt, a Republican from Missouri, struck a conspiratorial tone and asked Mr. Smith if he had attended an Atlanta Hawks home game in February 2024.

Mr. Schmitt focused on the basketball game in the hopes that he could show Mr. Smith had perjured himself and was involved in a conspiracy with local Atlanta prosecutors to ensnare Mr. Trump. In a hearing where Republicans repeatedly accused Mr. Smith of lying, what Mr. Schmitt first presented as smoking-gun evidence against Mr. Smith turned out to be a misfire.

During his testimony, Mr. Smith appeared deeply confused by Mr. Schmitt’s question. “I definitely did not go to a Hawks game,” he said. “I’m sure of that.”

Mr. Schmitt seemed confident he had just caught Mr. Smith in a lie. It was part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump’s Republican allies to characterize Mr. Smith as politically partisan, a man with an ax to grind not just against a former president, but also the Republican establishment. Mr. Smith has already defended his work before Congress, and Republicans have claimed that his past testimony included perjury.

On Tuesday, Mr. Schmitt argued that Mr. Smith had lied again, this time about a basketball game. If the prosecutor was in Atlanta, Mr. Schmitt suggested, he might have met with the local district attorney, Fani Willis, who also pursued a criminal case against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Schmitt’s Republican colleague from Louisiana, John Kennedy, stood next to him helping hold up a poster board showing text messages among members of Mr. Smith’s special counsel team from Feb. 3, 2024, discussing seats at a basketball game.

“I don’t think you know we have this stuff, so I’ll give you a second to process it so you don’t perjure yourself,” Mr. Schmitt said, even as the poster board was swiftly taken down, too quickly for most in the room to read it.

When the former special counsel insisted he had not gone to see the Atlanta Hawks play in that time period, Mr. Schmitt declared, “I think you’ve already perjured yourself,” and called Mr. Smith a “dirtbag.”

The accusation appeared to unravel almost immediately.

Invited to respond by Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, Mr. Smith said he had, in fact, attended a basketball game on that day, but it was to see the Iowa Hawkeyes at the University of Maryland. That night, Caitlin Clark, the star point guard who now plays in the W.N.B.A., scored 38 points and had 12 assists.

Ms. Klobuchar suggested that Mr. Schmitt’s accusation was rooted in the senator’s confusion between the “Hawks” of Atlanta and the “Hawkeyes” of Iowa.

The dirt bags were the Republicans on the Committee who were trying hard to attack the investigations of Convicted Felon Chump.

It was nonsense and meant to get MAGA charged up. But it didn't put food on the table and it didn't bring down gas prices or food prices. Yet again, the GOP in Congress wasted a day playing with themselves instead of addressing the concerns of the American people.

Will Ebiefung (THE MOTLEY FOOL) ponders whether or not Chump will crash the stock market noting, "Despite his frequent attempts to talk down inflation, Trump's actual policies have increased it. Aggressive tariffs raise the cost of imported finished goods and components, while the war in Iran has triggered bottlenecks in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, which are key to the global oil and gas trade. The result is that Brent crude is up 70% since the start of the year, and the Federal Reserve has been forced to raise its benchmark interest rate to 3.75% to 4.00% to try to keep prices under control." This comes as Jing Pan (MONEYWISE) speaks with economist Peter Schiff who has concerns about the stock market:

But Schiff argues the rally is being built on shaky ground. “In the long run, the fundamentals are going to ultimately bring the market back down,” he said.

And he isn’t warning about a garden-variety correction.

“Even if everything was good, the U.S. market is expensive,” Schiff said. “But it’s not — it’s a ticking time bomb.”

In his view, investors are looking past too many warning signs. “The markets, I think, are really looking past a lot of problems and pricing stocks based on hope and not reality,” he said.

This as Diccon Hyatt (INVESTOPEDIA) notes:

The last time Americans felt this bad about the economy and their own finances, Donald Trump was best known as the host of The Apprentice.

The index of Consumer Confidence fell for a third month to its lowest since 2014 in September, the Conference Board, an economics think tank, said Tuesday.

Back in 2014, the index, which is based on a survey of U.S. adults about financial topics, was on an upward trajectory as the economy healed from the Great Recession.

These days, it’s moving in the opposite direction amid high fuel prices due to the Iran war and overall pessimism about the job market. And for the first time since 2022, more people in the survey said their own family’s financial situation was “bad” than “good.” The confidence index reading of 81.9 was lower than its August level of 88.6 and below the 89 that forecasters had expected, according to a survey of economists by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

From the markets to the courts, Lawrence Hurley (NBC NEWS) reports:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday, for a second time, removed obstacles to the Trump administration deporting certain immigrants to “third countries” to which they have no previous connection.

The justices, with the court’s three liberals dissenting, granted an emergency request filed by the government seeking to block an appeals court ruling that said the current process is unlawful because the affected people are not given a proper chance to raise concerns about safety risks in violation of federal immigration law.

In the brief unsigned order, the court also said it would hear oral arguments in December and issue a definitive ruling on the legal questions raised in the litigation.

And this apparently includes countries that will knowingly be hostile to those being sent.

Chump's not worried about LGBTQ+ people at all. You can be an idiot like Caitlyn Jenner and be in it for your own good but most LGBTQ+ people are aware that Chump is a danger to them. John Fritze (CNN) reports:

President Donald Trump’s administration urged the Supreme Court on Monday to allow federal prison officials to deny certain types of medical care for transgender inmates, such as surgeries – putting another culture war issue on the high court’s burgeoning fast-track docket.

The Bureau of Prisons policy that began early in Trump’s second term – and that was modified after an early round of court battles – permits psychotherapy and psychiatry services for inmates with gender dysphoria, but not hormone therapies, surgeries or “social accommodations.”

The appeal reached the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court at a time when LGBTQ Americans have faced a series of legal setbacks, including back-to-back decisions in recent years that have allowed states to ban transgender care for minors and permitted states to prohibit transgender athletes from playing on girls’ sports teams in school.

Ariana Baio (GUARDIAN) notes Chump issued an "executive order from January 2025 that directed the Bureau of Prisons to 'ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex'. The order prohibited trans inmates from receiving certain gender transition medical care and ordered trans women inmates to be housed in men’s facilities. Trans inmates sued the administration over the policy and, so far, two lower courts have blocked officials from implementing the order as the larger lawsuit over the executive order continues." Joe Fisher (UPI) adds:

Attorneys representing the inmates said in a statement on Monday that they will continue to fight against the Trump administration policy.

"The lower courts have consistently found the administration's policy is a direct threat to the well-being of transgender people in federal custody and an open violation of their fundamental rights," the statement reads. "The withholding of medically necessary health care, including gender-affirming health care, from people in prison violates their Constitutional right to serve their sentence free of cruel and unusual punishment. We will continue to defend the rights of our clients and all incarcerated people."

The Kennedy Center? Created as a memorial to our slain president John F. Kennedy. And yet Chump continues to demand his name be put on the center. As Chump tries to destroy it, some are fighting to preserve it, some are working to destroy it. Add Utah's Mike Lee to the list of cry babies trying to destroy it. Joseph Gedeon (GUARDIAN) reports:

A Republican senator has blocked a bipartisan bill that would have prevented Donald Trump from demolishing the Kennedy Center without the approval of Congress.

Mike Lee, of Utah, objected on Monday night when the Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley asked the Senate to pass the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act by unanimous consent. The bill, co-written with the Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, would have banned the demolition of any presidential memorial designated by Congress, including the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, unless lawmakers explicitly approved it.

[. . .]

Lee has been closely aligned with Trump since 2020, and supported his efforts to overturn that year’s election result. More recently, he has repeatedly brought the Trump-backed Save act, which would impose voter ID and citizenship-proof requirements, to the Senate floor, and in April urged Trump to force lawmakers back to Washington to end a partial shutdown and pass it.

Oh, well, at least it took Grifter Lee away from his role raising money to impeach a judge -- something that he cannot do since he's not in the House.

Bart Jansen (USA TODAY) reports:

President Donald Trump’s administration told a federal appeals court that barring him from adding his name to the Kennedy Center would be an "existential" threat to the building because only he has the expertise and fundraising potential to save the venue.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the façade in May because the congressionally-approved statute that created the memorial designated it the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in recognition of the slain president.

But Trump has argued the building will fall into disrepair and could eventually be demolished unless he oversees the renovation and raises hundreds of millions of dollars to endow it. Congress has approved $257 million for the project.

The building will be just fine without Chump's name on it. And certainly not having his name on it doesn't mean Chump can't try to fundraise. As for his expertise? Putting plastic buckets in the hallways of his 'resorts' to catch rain water did not demonstrate expertise.

Turning to Homeland Security and starting with the former head of it Kristi Noem. Yelena Mandenberg (THE MIRROR) reports:

Former DHS secretary, known as "ICE Barbie," Kristi Noem officially filed for divorce from her husband, Bryon Noem, months after he admitted to his "bimbofication" fetish.

Rumors that Noem was preparing to divorce her husband, Bryon, began in July, but recent reports show she has moved forward with the process. South Dakota court records accessed by Newsweek show, she has filed the paperwork for divorce.

Brooke Migdon and Joseph Konig (PEOPLE) report on the divorce filing and they remind:

In March, during a tense House hearing during which lawmakers questioned her ability to lead the department and its aggressive immigration enforcement actions, Kristi was asked outright about a long-rumored affair between her and Trump ally Corey Lewandowski, whom she had made an unpaid adviser at DHS.

Both she and Lewandowski, who is also married with children, have denied reports of an extramarital romantic relationship.

But Kristi is in the news for much more serious topics as well. Alia Shoaib (NEWSWEEK) reports, "A federal appeals court is set to consider on Tuesday whether a criminal contempt inquiry into the Trump administration can proceed over the deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is at the center of the dispute, after the government identified her as the official responsible for the decision to allow Venezuelan detainees to be transferred to El Salvador’s CECOT prison in March 2025, despite a judge’s order blocking their removal."

Since March, Markwayne Mullin has been the Secretary of Homeland Security. Alexander Willis (RAW STORY) reports:

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin's “temperament” came under scrutiny Monday after The Oklahoman published audio of his “shouting match” with a former mayor — an exchange one Democratic operative described as a “meltdown.”

“The Oklahoman obtained audio of meltdown Markwayne,” wrote Danny Dabbs, a Democratic operative with American Bridge 21st Century PAC.

Speaking at an Edmond Chamber of Commerce meeting Monday, Mullin was asked by former Edmond Mayor Randel Shadid how he reconciled his Christian faith with mass deportations and the alleged physical abuse of migrants by agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to The Oklahoman.

Mullin responded by shouting.

“You're not going to throw out Christian scripture to me and sit there and say that Jesus didn't say we should obey the nation's laws,” Mullin shouted.

Meanwhile, Billal Rahman (NEWSWEEK) reports:

A Minneapolis special education assistant has filed a federal claim against the U.S. government, alleging that Border Patrol agents assaulted and wrongfully detained him outside his school before the Trump administration publicly accused him of attacking federal officers in a criminal case that was later dismissed.

Quentin Williams, who works at Roosevelt High School, alleges that federal agents shoved him, pulled his hair, tackled him to the ground and pressed on his neck and back during an immigration enforcement operation outside the Minneapolis school on January 7, 2026. Williams says he did not threaten, attack or resist the officers.

The allegations are detailed in a Federal Tort Claims Act claim, a filing used to seek compensation from the federal government. The document represents Williams’ account of what happened and does not constitute a court finding that his allegations are true.

“My life completely changed when federal agents invaded my school community, attacked and falsely arrested me,” Williams told Newsweek. “Every day, I look forward to going to school to be with my kids at Roosevelt. Some days are harder than others, but I am trying my hardest to heal.”

In addition, Zach Leggio (TEXAS TRIBUNE) reports:

Federal prosecutors have charged the Austin man an ICE agent shot earlier this month with a single count of resisting and assaulting a federal officer, according to court documents.

Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, a Venezuelan national, was shot by an ICE officer in Austin on Sept. 20. He was taken to Dell Seton Medical Center, where he was released and taken into ICE custody three hours later with the bullet remaining in his back. He has since remained at a detention center in Pearsall.

They shoot someone and then they claim that they were assaulted. That has been the playbook and it's not worked in court. The country has turned against the gestapos. Mateo Moreno (LATIN TIMES) reports:

Amnesty International is calling on the United States to shut down Immigration and Customs Enforcement, arguing that abuses documented during city-wide enforcement surges point to a flawed institution rather than a handful of rogue officers. The group laid out its case in "We Had Whistles, They Had Guns," a 168-page report released on Thursday, Sept. 24.

Amy Fischer, who leads Amnesty's refugee and migrant rights work, said the organization has never before pressed for any country's government agency to be dissolved, MPR News reported. She described the violence and discrimination in the findings as built into how ICE operates, not flaws that better training or revised policies could repair.

Nadia Daar, who heads Amnesty International USA, made the same point in the group's public messaging: "Piecemeal reform is not the way forward."

Markwayne's not the only embarrassment in this administration. There's also Ka$h Patel and Pete Hegseth dealing with hacking. Sean Lyngaas and Evan Perez (CNN) report:

A week after a cybercriminal group claimed to steal sensitive personal data on thousands of current and former FBI employees, the bureau is still assessing the extent of the damage while facing internal criticism about the agency’s handling of the incident.

It’s one of the most serious breaches of agency data in years, but some FBI employees have felt left in the dark about whether they’re affected and underwhelmed by the security resources being offered to victims, according to current and former officials.

“Management is lost,” one ex-FBI agent in touch with their former colleagues told CNN. “They’re not providing any clear advice to agents.”

The issue began a week ago, when hackers broke into an online portal hosting information on FBI job applicants. Social Security numbers, emergency contact information and personal addresses were in the stolen data.

This is such an embarrassment for Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Ka$h Patel. And it comes as Ka$h's inability to be a leader and/or get along with others is being noted. Steve Benen (MS NOW) notes:

Under normal circumstances, the FBI has a director and a deputy director, with the latter helping to oversee day-to-day operations at the bureau. The Trump administration, however, isn’t normal at all, which helps explain why, last summer, the FBI decided it needed two deputy directors: Dan Bongino, a right-wing provocateur and podcast personality, and Andrew Bailey, who had served as state attorney general in Missouri. Neither had any experience at the FBI.

The experiment failed. Late last year, Bongino resigned and soon after returned to Fox News. And barely a year into his tenure, Bailey is exiting too. MS NOW reported:

FBI Co-Deputy Director and former Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is leaving his post to spend more time with his family.

According to two people familiar with his departure, Bailey … was frustrated at not being named FBI director, a proposal once floated to him after Kash Patel had made numerous missteps and generated headlines that were unfavorable to the administration.

A related New York Times report added, “Mr. Patel and Mr. Bailey did not get along, and often went long stretches without speaking to each other, according to multiple people familiar with their interactions who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”

Also Ka$h has been caught fudging numbers. Edith Olmsted (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:

Kash Patel’s FBI has been fudging the numbers to boost the agency’s success rate on apprehending fugitives from its Top 10 Most Wanted List.

Patel announced the addition of a new name to the agency’s Top 10 Most Wanted List on Tuesday, and bragged about the agency’s rate of successful captures under his leadership.

“This FBI has had historic success manhunting Ten Most Wanted fugitives—since the start of the Trump administration, we’ve captured TEN of the Top Ten Most Wanted, 2.5 times the number of TMW fugitives captured during the previous four years combined,” Patel wrote on X.

However, Patel’s FBI has imposed new policies that manipulate that data, by adding the names of fugitives who are expected to be imminently captured, according to MS NOW.

Read on to find out how Patel is claiming "FBI arrests" for Homeland Security arrests and local and state police arrests and any arrest at all. Remember that as we note Mike Corder's report for THE INDEPENDENT:

Dutch police have arrested a suspected member of the ShinyHunters hacker group and accused the man of trying to arrange two murders.

[. . .]

ShinyHunters claimed last week to have breached the FBI’s jobs website. The hacker group said it had stolen “very sensitive data” belonging to thousands of agents and applicants and that it had compromised the bureau’s jobs website.

FBI Director Kash Patel took to X to highlight the arrest in the Netherlands.

“This morning @FBI and our partners the Dutch National Police are announcing the arrest of one of the alleged leaders of ShinyHunters - a global cybercrime and threat actor group linked to cyberattacks in the United States, the Netherlands, and around the world,” he said.

“In coordination with FBI investigators the Dutch High-Tech Crime Unit arrested the suspect under Dutch law,” he added. "As we speak FBI teams are actively working with partners to obtain and execute more leads in the ongoing investigation based on this arrest.”

The Dutch police statement announcing the arrest did not mention the FBI hack or coordination with American law enforcement.

It didn't? Looks like Ka$h is again grabbing credit he didn't earn.

Jeffrey Epstein? Dead since 2019. But prior to that, he was Chump's roll dog for decades. Decades. Plural. Chump hung with the pedophile and sex trafficker. Ryan Mancini (THE HILL) reports:

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) said Monday the government's files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein should be one of the "highest priorities" for Democrats if they retake control of Congress after the November midterm elections.

"This is not about politics," Khanna told CNN's Kasie Hunt on "The Arena." "This is about survivors who have been denied justice for decades. And this is about a group of wealthy and powerful men who either raped or trafficked or abused young girls and have not paid the price, have not had any consequence."

Khanna said he and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), with whom he authored and led the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act last November before President Trump signed it into law, "have an Epstein 2.0 bill" that they expect will get passed.

"We already have 218 signatures, and we need to empower the attorney generals to be able to prosecute," the California Democrat told Hunt. "And we need to demand the Department of Justice begin prosecutions."

Henry Giardina (QUEERTY) reports on Khana speaking during another interview:

Speaking with Jennifer Welch of “I’ve Had It” podcast, Khanna stressed the importance of getting the rest of the files to the public.

“What do you have to say about Todd Blanche running cover for this,” Welch asked Khanna, “and the fact that the sitting President of the United States has claims of a 14-year-old girl against him?”

“We still don’t have those documents,” Khanna says. “We’ve had millions of files released, but those documents need to be released under the Epstein Transparency Act Massie and I passed.”

The bigger bombshell here is that Blanche apparently isn’t running cover for Tr*mp anymore. Over the weekend, Blanche quietly handed over those infamous handwritten FBI notes at the center of journalist Katie Phang’s lawsuit against the DOJ. These are the notes detailing the 14-year-old victim’s abuse at the hands of the president. The best part? Blanche allegedly did not tell Tr*mp about this piece of cooperation.

Now, these notes are in the hands of Judge Sullivan, who will “review both redacted and unredacted versions and determine whether the Trump regime’s proposed redactions are justified before the records are released publicly.”

We don’t know what the outcome will be, but we can venture a guess. From the very start, citizens and congresspeople have called BS on the heavily-redacted form in which the files came to us. These redactions have been proven by Phang’s suit to be not in the interest of protecting victims, but in the interest of keeping the names of powerful men protected.

That era may just have come to an end, and it’s a heartening sign for a country on the verge of one of the most meaningful elections before the next regime change. For queer people, victims of sexual abuse, and other marginalized people, the Epstein files have come to represent something bigger than a cover-up. They’re a blatant reminder of how easy it is for abuse and oppression to thrive unchecked in politics, business, and finance without a shred of justice for the women and girls subjected to this all too common form of violence.

And lastly on Epstein, Bennito L. Kelty (RAW STORY) reports:

Jeffrey Epstein refused to release his photos of President Donald Trump with young women at his home because he feared for his own life, an author claims.

Trump biographer Michael Wolff made the claim on Tuesday's episode of "Inside Trump's Head," where he and co-host Joanna Coles went back over a column Wolff recently wrote on Substack about Epstein's fears.

Coles read aloud a passage in which Wolff recounted pressing Epstein to go public about his "great friend."

Wolff wrote, "I tried to encourage and then to push Epstein to talk publicly about Trump, including to release photographs he had of Trump with the young women in constant attendance at Epstein's house."

Epstein's answer was blunt.

"I may be a pedophile, but I don't have a death wish," Epstein said, according to the column, which described him as "cavalier about his situation and yet seemingly also clear-eyed."

Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:

ICYMI: Murray Slams Trump for Illegal Impoundment

***WATCH: Senator Murray’s full remarks***

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks at the Senate Democratic leadership press conference, calling out Republican inaction to prevent President Trump’s illegal attempt to cut funding for lifesaving health research, education programs, and more through a “pocket rescission.”

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

“If Republicans are ready to grow a spine and help us rein in Trump on pocket rescissions—great, it’s way past time. I am not holding my breath.

“Even though I’ve heard what some Republicans said recently about opposing Trump’s move to steal taxpayer dollars, I’ve also seen what they did about this threat over the past two years, which is nothing.

“When Russ Vought made it plain-as-day he would try illegal pocket recissions, every Senate Republican voted to confirm him. When his nominee for deputy director said pocket rescissions were still on the table—many months after Trump issued one—every Senate Republican voted to confirm him.

“And when Democrats fought for language time and again to stop this exact thing—including in the recent CR negotiations, weeks ago—Republicans said no.

“First, Republicans voted to confirm the arsonist—a man openly hostile to Congress and our power of the purse. Then, they refused to take away his matches. And now, they are surprised the house is burning? You know what? You don’t get to be surprised when the arsonist you confirmed to run America’s budget starts fires.

“Especially when we keep seeing this kind of push from Trump to give him more power and rip up our bipartisan agreements with partisan rescissions. It seems like every time Trump says ‘stoop,’ the only response most Republicans can muster is: ‘How low?’

“Trump uses tariffs to slap one of the largest tax increases on Americans ever—and Republicans do nothing. Trump calls for the largest health care cuts in our history—and Republicans move heaven and earth to get it done. Trump nominates an anti-vaxxer to lead the health department—and even Republican lawmakers who are doctors are afraid to step out of line to stop him. Trump starts a war with Iran—something he literally campaigned against—and Republicans champion his one-and-a-half trillion-dollar war budget.

“Maybe Republicans are confused—but when we talk about checks and balances, it is not about blank checks for Trump’s wars, it is not about balancing his tax cuts for billionaires with health care cuts on families. It is about stopping a president who is out-of-control—and sorely out-of-touch with the American people.

“And I really can’t drive that part home enough, because Trump proves just how out-of-touch he is every time he opens his mouth.

“Trump says groceries are ‘old fashioned,’ and affordability is a ‘scam.’ Trump says his favorite word is ‘tariffs,’ and that he loves inflation. Trump says families can spend less on dolls, and more on gas. Trump says we can’t afford child care, but wars can be fought forever. He says he doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation at all.

“Well, yeah. No kidding. Now if you are Trump’s family—or one of his billionaire buddies who are cashing in on the corruption—Trump’s economy is probably working great.

“But working families are hurting today, and they are sick of waiting for Republicans to take their heads out of the sand and notice.

“So let me ask, how does Trump stealing taxpayer dollars for life-saving health care, research, or housing, help make life more affordable? It does not.”

###

The following sites updated: