Tuesday, October 14, 2025

The Snapshot

Tuesday, October 14, 2025.  Protests this Saturday across the country, CBS gets into bed with Bari Weiss let's hope they deloused her first, Barack Obama points to warning signs, and much more.




Millions of people will take to the streets again this Saturday to protest the autocratic regime of President Donald Trump, his government shutdown, and his demolition of Medicare, Medicaid, and other public programs in service of tax cuts for billionaires. The protests, under the brand No Kings, have the potential to be the largest ever in the United States.

As of last Friday, 2,500 events were planned across every state, Europe, and Canada, No Kings organizers said. They expect that number to grow. Multiple cities will host anchor events, including Bozeman, Montana, a college town that rarely makes national news. Other No Kings anchor protests will be in Atlanta, Boston, Kansas City, New Orleans, San Francisco, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The latter two have been burdened by a persistent federal law enforcement presence over the past several weeks. 

“If you are cynical, you might not understand the utility of simply standing together and showing the massive agreement in this moment around our disdain for a president who believes he is a king,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the nonprofit Public Citizen and one of the rally’s organizers.


At THE NEW REPUBLIC, Greg Sargent uses his DAILY BLAST podcast to explain how the attacks by Donald Chump and Chump's love slaves did not work out the way that they had hoped.  Excerpt:

Greg Sargent: This is the Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

It has become very clear that President Donald Trump is really, really worried about the No Kings protests that are scheduled for October 18. Suddenly, multiple Republicans are all using the same disgusting talking point about the protests, referring to them as agitators and terrorists. It sure looks coordinated. They’re all using the same vile language. This really displays extraordinary contempt for our whole political system. Yet we think it’ll backfire. It’ll only prompt the protests to get larger, and there’s nothing Trump hates more than seeing big crowds arrayed against him. Today we’re talking about all this with writer Jill Lawrence, who has a new piece for The Bulwark on Trump’s hatred of our system and of democratic voters. Jill, thanks for coming on.

Jill Lawrence: Thanks for having me, Greg.

Sargent: So the No Kings protests are set for next Saturday. Let’s listen to what House speaker Mike Johnson had to say about this.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (voiceover): This Hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18th. The Antifa crowd and the Pro-Hamas crowd and the Marxist, they’re all gonna gather on the mall. We got some House Democrats selling t-shirts for this event. It is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes.

Sargent: So there you heard Johnson talk about Antifa, pro-Hamas, Marxists, Jill. These are American citizens, millions of them exercising their right to peacefully protest. Your response to what you heard there from Johnson?

Lawrence: Well, I’m not surprised. And this is traditional, this is constitutional, this is a right, and they’re trying to turn it into something really evil. But that’s because they’re scared of it, and they know that it turns public opinion.

The problem here is that people like Johnson and the Republicans in Congress aren’t doing their jobs. They’re not putting any checks and balances on the president, and they’re not upholding American values or even American constitutional rights.

So this is where we are. The people have to protest, and I don’t really see this working out the way they hope.

Sargent: Well, they clearly hope for some sort of violence, which either will allow them to respond with violence of their own—state violence—or to demonize the protests as terrorism and extremism. You know, the funny thing about this is, as you alluded to, the more people show up, the more other people feel supported, and it really is a sort of snowballing effect that can take place in these situations. And I think that’s what really worries them.

Lawrence: I think they should be worried, because nothing they’re doing is popular. And people who may support them generally on issues like crime and immigration are seeing how they carry out these policies. And he’s down on his best issues in polls, and the midterms—if they go ahead fairly and freely—will put a check on Trump, at least through the House. So that’s the problem. And the more momentum they gather, and the more peaceful they are, and the more it’s obvious that there are troops hanging around with nothing to do except maybe provoke people, then, you know, the worse it’s gonna get for them. 



Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow explained that a huge turnout is expected at the protests.
 
 


The protests matter.  They put us on record that we do not consent to the destruction of democracy, we do not join Chump in his efforts to burn the Constitution, we say the US stands for something and we will not let Chump degrade and destroy our country.

Speaking with Marc Maron, former President Barack Obama about the state of dismay.  

 




Former President Barack Obama has weighed in on President Donald Trump’s latest escalation — sharply condemning the president’s call to jail Chicago’s mayor and Illinois’ governor for opposing his deployment of National Guard troops to the city.

Speaking on Marc Maron’s “WTF” podcast released Monday, Obama accused Trump of “politicizing the military” and warned that the deployment of troops to U.S. cities is “inherently corrupting” when used against civilians.




He called Trump’s federalization of National Guard troops “a deliberate end run around” of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prevents the use of the nation’s military for domestic law enforcement.

The law says “don’t use our military on domestic soil unless there is an extraordinary emergency of some sort,” Obama said. “When you see an administration suggest that ordinary street crime is an insurrection, or—”

“A terrorist act,” Maron added.

“A terrorist act,” Obama replied. “That is a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy.”

He suggested that if he had sent troops to Republican strongholds,

“Man, it’s almost too easy of a thought experiment,” Obama said. “If I had just sent the National Guard into Texas, and just said, You know what? Lot of problems in Dallas. Lot of crime there. I don’t care what [Governor Greg Abbott] thinks. I’m gonna kind of take over law enforcement

“It is mind boggling to me how Fox News would have responded,” he said.




Obama said that instead of caving to the administration, universities should say, “This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for. Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”

Firms should also take a stand against the administration’s pressure campaign to turn away from hiring minorities and women, Obama said.

“We think it’s important, because of what this country is, to hire people from different backgrounds,” Obama said of what businesses should stand for during the second Trump administration. 

Universities, law firms and other businesses have all reached agreements with the White House and changed policies to end investigations or avoid being targeted.



As I noted last week, people like Chump can't learn.  They can't alter course.  It's the ego and the stupidity combined.  Republicans try to help him out and he blows them off because he's not a Republican.  That is reality.  He's distorted what that party was about.  His cult gets smaller each day and, in about a decade, you'll find that the Republican Party tries to foist him off on us, tries to say he was a Democrat.  And he was a member of the Democratic Party once upon a time.  But he's no Democrat.  He's nothing but a fascist.  I'll be glad when Republicans wipe their hands of him but not so glad that I'll let them lie that, while in office, he was a Democrat.  Karl Rove becomes the latest GOP insider to try to offer him advice that we all know Chump will blow off. Frank Yemi (INQUISITR) reports:

Karl Rove has a warning for President Donald Trump, troops on American streets may juice a few tough-on-crime headlines, but it is likely to backfire where it counts, with voters. On Fox News’ Journal Editorial Report, the GOP strategist walked through fresh polling and concluded that President Donald Trump’s push to deploy National Guard units into Democratic-led cities, even over governors’ objections, is “going to end up being a loser.”
A new Reuters/Ipsos survey finds 58 percent of U.S. adults say the president should deploy troops only in response to external threats, not to police domestic unrest. That posture commands 72 percent support among Democrats and a narrow majority among Republicans, 51 percent. Just 37 percent of respondents say presidents should be able to send troops into a state “even if its governor objects,” a view driven largely by Republicans, while independents lean against it. In other words, the bigger the standoff with blue-state leaders, the worse the politics get with the middle.

“If a governor objects, though, the partisanship starts to be felt,” Rove said, noting that independents tend to side with Democrats on the question. He allowed that some crime-concerned voters might credit Trump for “taking action,” but still judged the overall play as negative. “This ultimately, I think, will tend to be a loser,” he said, sketching out the same risk Republicans faced in 2020 when federal force became the story rather than the solution.
Judges in multiple jurisdictions have slowed or stalled deployments, and in the Chicago area, the legal fight collided with optics when several Texas Guardsmen were quietly sent home and replaced after a viral backlash over fitness standards. The administration insists the Guard is there to protect federal facilities and Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, but the courtroom calendar, not the cable-chyrons, now dictates the tempo.

Axios’ roundup of public surveys mirrors the Reuters/Ipsos findings, with broad discomfort over domestic military missions and a strong consensus that the armed forces should remain politically neutral. Task & Purpose, summarizing the same poll, underscores that sentiment, noting overwhelming support, 83 percent, for keeping the military out of politics. That neutral-ground instinct is exactly what Rove is tapping, the idea that voters may tolerate a “surge” for a true emergency, but will punish a president who makes troop deployments feel routine.


Rove is standing in the middle of the road, waiving his hands desperately at Chump who is blindly barreling down the road ignoring all the signs alerting everyone to the construction up ahead.  Chump doesn't know how to hit the brakes, how to save himself. 



Rove's warning about how conservatives will see the fascistic move Chump is making comes as James Bickerton (NEWSWEEK) notes four quicksand traps for Chump in the latest polling, "On immigration, Trump has a net rating of -4.7 percentage points, for the economy it was -15.3, for trade it was -16 and -27.7 was recorded for inflation."  People are tired of it -- all of it.  They're especially tired of inflation and Chump's non-stop lies about inflation.  Christopher Rugaber (LOS ANGELES TIMES) explains:


Inflation has risen in three of the last four months and is slightly higher than it was a year ago, when it helped sink then-Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign. Yet you wouldn't know it from listening to President Donald Trump or even some of the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve.
Trump told the United Nations General Assembly late last month: “Grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated.”

And at a high-profile speech in August, just before the Fed cut its key interest rate for the first time this year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said: “Inflation, though still somewhat elevated, has come down a great deal from its post-pandemic highs. Upside risks to inflation have diminished.”

Yet dismissing or even downplaying inflation while it is still above the Fed's target of 2% poses big risks for the White House and the Federal Reserve. For the Trump administration, it could find itself on the wrong side of a potent issue: Surveys show that many Americans still see high prices as a major burden on their finances.


As you read through Rugaber's report you see bad news over and over -- one example?  Artificial trees are expected to rise in cost by 10% since Christmas season last year.  And it doesn't help Chump's image that the "American-Firster" actually puts America last over and over.  Steve H. Hanke (FORBES) reports:


The world’s biggest deadbeat has passed the begging bowl again. This time, Argentina is asking for $20 billion. That’s the size of the swap line that U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has promised to pony up in order to bail out Argentina and its floundering president, Javier Milei.
Where will that kind of money come from? Secretary Bessent will dip into the seldom-used Exchange Stabilization Fund at the U.S. Treasury. He will do so without Congressional approval. Why? Because President Trump has bet on President Milei. Trump sees Milei as Uncle Sam’s man in Latin America—the man who will lead the charge against the “pink tide” of leftist Latin American governments and counter the commercial and geopolitical inroads made by China in the region.

But maybe President Trump has bet on a dead horse. After all, Argentina has never been a good bet. Since independence, it has faced one economic crisis after another. In the last two generations alone, there have been one hyperinflation (1989–90); six banking crises (1980, 1982, 1995, 2001, 2008, and 2019); five balance-of-payments crises (1958, 1962, 1981–82, 1989, and 2018–19); four external debt defaults (1982, 1989, 2001, and 2020); three local public debt defaults (1989, 2007–09, and 2019); numerous currency devaluations; and a near-constant, punishing inflation.



He's got money for Argentia (our tax dollars) but Special Ed in this country is now at risk?  Zachary Schermele (USA TODAY) reports:

Families and educators across the country were plunged into a state of uncertainty over the weekend after the federal Education Department laid off practically every staffer in the government's special education division.

Nearly the entire Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, including the Office of Special Education Programs, was let go, according to agency workers and their union.

Employees in the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, many of whom work to protect students with disabilities from discrimination, were also laid off, the union said. The impacted divisions included offices in the District of Columbia, Seattle and Atlanta.


 

 


He's got serious problems, problems of his own making.  No one to blame but himself.  Did someone say Epstein and Maxwell?  Yes, the two pedophiles continue to cause problems for their former pal Chump -- even with Jeffrey Epstein dead and gone and even with Ghislaine Maxwell locked away in prison, they continue to cause problems for Chump. 




The decision to move disgraced socialite Ghislaine Maxwell to a minimum-security female prison has been irritating her fellow inmates - who are angry at the move.

Reports from the US said the prisoners were even once placed on lockdown so her visitors could be properly accommodated. Maxwell, 63, was transferred to the Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas in August after three and a half years in a federal prison after her conviction for aiding Jeffrey Epstein in his abuse of under-age girls.
[. . .]
According to The Wall Street Journal, inmates were confined to their dormitories after breakfast on one occasion in August as Maxwell held meetings in the camp's chapel.

Some prisoners claimed they had been told the lockdown had been necessary because of the importance of her visitors.


Covering the same story, Isabel Keane (INDEPENDENT) notes:

It was not known whom Maxwell met with in the chapel that day, though some of her fellow inmates heard rumors that the lockdown was meant to accommodate important visitors, according to the report.

Later that day, one inmate said they saw Maxwell return to her dormitory with a smile on her face. When asked about her mysterious meeting, Maxwell said it went well, but didn’t share any other information, according to the report.

Meanwhile, less than a week later, the Department of Justice released a transcript of an interview Maxwell had had with senior official Todd Blanche weeks earlier in July.

During the interview with Blanche, Maxwell said she had never seen President Donald Trump doing anything inappropriate or illegal with Epstein when they were friends. Soon after, she was transferred to Federal Prison Camp Bryan.


 

 

 

Nothing is rotting more today than Chump's skin except for craven and collapsing media.  We addressed the freak show possibly joining CBS at the start of last month with "As ugly as she is stupid," "Barely Bari can't wait to destroy CBS NEWS," "An idiot named Bari Weiss," "Crazy Karens named Bari Weiss," "What Bari Weiss wants to (mis)teach the world" and "THIS JUST IN! BARI WEISS GROWLS NEXT TO HER FOOD BOWL!"


FUGLY CRACKPOT FREAK BARI WEISS IS SAID TO BE TRYING TO SQUEEZE INTO THE ROLE OF OMBUDSPERSON AT CBS NEWS -- IF SHE CAN LOSE FORTY OR FIFTY POUNDS AND SOMEONE CAN CUT THE POOP OUT OF HER ASS HAIR.  THE WALKING DISASTER HAS NEVER PLAYED WELL WITH OTHERS AND IS KNOWN TO BITE ANY CANINE  WHO COMES NEAR HER BOWL OF PURINA PRO PLAN SENIOR DOG FOOD.  

BUT WHEN THESE REPORTERS MET WITH HER FOR A SCHEDULED Q.&A., WEISS WAS SURPRSINGLY CHIPPER HAVING JUST TAKEN A DUMP ON A NEWSPAPER BESIDE HER DESK.

Q: DONALD CHUMP BASICALLY CREATED THIS JOB FOR YOU -- DOES THAT MEAN YOU'RE ON WELFARE?

BW: I'M A HAPPY CAMPER BECAUSE, DESPITE MY FACE, I MAY GET ON TV.  I'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO TV BUT NEVER HAD ENOUGH MONEY FOR PLASTIC SURGERY.  THE RISE OF CHUMP MEANS ALL THE UGLY PEOPLE FINALLY GET A SHOT AT HIGH PROFILE MEDIOCRITY.  

Q: AND WHAT WILL YOU BRING TO CBS?

BW: DIVERSITY.  DIVERSITY'S REALLY IMPORTANT.

Q: BUT CHUMP GOT CBS TO AGREE TO KILL ALL DIVERSITY INITIATIVES.

BW: NO, NO AND NO.  WHAT WE DON'T WANT IS EQUALITY.  DIVERSITY -- AS WE DEFINE IT -- MEANS DIVERSITY OF OPINION.  FOR TOO LONG, MAINSTREAM MEDIA HAS STRESSED CONFORMITY WITH NO REAL DIVERSITY.  THANKS TO ME, CBS WILL NOW BE ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE TRUE DIVERSITY.  FOR EXAMPLE, THERE ARE A LOT OF MURDERS IN THIS COUNTRY.  MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERAGE ALWAYS TREATS THIS AS A BAD THING.  DIVERSITY OF OPINION MEANS I CAN GO ON TV AND TALK ABOUT THE MANY GOOD PARTS OF MURDER.  OR ELDERLY ABUSE!  I WON'T BE PART OF THE ECHO CHAMBER CONDEMING IT.  I'LL POINT OUT THAT SOME ELDERLY PEOPLE DON'T HAVE MUCH TO DO AND ELDERLY ABUSE ACTUALLY BRINGS SOME EXCITEMENT INTO THEIR LIVES.  IT'S ABOUT PRETENDING YOU HAVE A BRAIN AND PRETENDING YOU'RE USING IT.  I'VE DONE THAT FOR MANY YEARS NOW.  LIKE WHO SAYS RACISM IS WRONG?  I NEVER HAVE!  DIVERSITY OF OPINION IS SO VERY IMPORTANT TO ME.  UNLESS WE'RE TALKING HIRING PEOPLE OF COLOR.  THEN YOU CAN FORGET ABOUT DIVERSITY.  DIVERSITY IS MY RIGHT TO ARGUE THAT THE EARTH IS FLAT WITHOUT BEING CANCELLED!  YES, I KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE CANCELLED!  YES, I DO!


IN OTHER NEWS, OLD YELLOW TEETH RONNIE JACKSON HAS HAD HIS 2022 DEMOTION OVERTURNED.  REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS, JACKSON RESPONDED, "CAN'T TALK NOW, I'M OFF TO CVS FOR CREST WHITE STRIPS!"



In an early taste of CBS News’s editorial direction under its newly anointed editor in chief, the anti-woke pundit Bari Weiss, the storied outlet elevated a hit piece on Zohran Mamdani, the progressive New York City Democratic mayoral nominee.

CBS News on Friday published a segment featuring Olivia Reingold—a reporter for the Weiss-founded Free Press, which is now owned by the same parent company as CBS. Reingold, whose previous work for Weiss includes a much-criticized August story that attempted to downplay the Israel-induced famine in Gaza, shared her reporting on Mamdani on a CBS morning program.

“Some NYPD officers worry about Mamdani becoming the NYC mayor, The Free Press reports,” reads the title of the segment posted on CBSNews.com. (Until Monday, “Mamdani” had been misspelled “Mandani.”)

Reingold reported that officers in the New York Police Department are worried about Mamdani, with some “considering retiring.” The evidence? In total, her Free Press article contains quotes from four of the at least 33,000 uniformed officers serving in the NYPD. None of them are named.

 

 Shoddy reporting which is no surprise.  Weiss is not a reporter.  She was a (bad) opinion writer as John Oliver explained on Sunday.  

 

 
 
 

Let's wind down with Lawrence O'Donnell last night on MSNBC analyzing how Miss Sassy JD Vance lied over and over on Sunday trying to pretend Tom Homan didn't take a $50,000 bribe.


 

 


The following sites updated:






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