Discursive Verses: when pulling rank goes wrong
3 hours ago
Friday, October 02, 2026
The Snapshot
Friday, October 2, 2026. 32 days away from the midterms and Chump continues to struggle, Renee Nicole Good's family seeks justice in the US courts, Priss Pot Pete Hegseth continues to fail at his job, and much more.
However, materials obtained by the Daily Beast contradict that account. A virtual flyer for the event, obtained by the Daily Beast, reads: “Paid for by Whatley for Senate and Laurie Buckhout for Congress.”
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) takes the national temperature in the country 32 days out from the midterms.
Americans are deeply frustrated with President Donald Trump’s handling of the economy and rising prices. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that only 17% of U.S. adults approve of his handling of the cost of living. Just 26% approve of his handling of the economy overall, marking a new low.
The new numbers come as Trump and Vice President JD Vance hit the campaign trail on Thursday, heading to heavily Republican areas to shore up lagging enthusiasm in their party ahead of next month’s midterm elections. Trump will go to Texas and Oklahoma while Vance stumps in Florida, areas where GOP candidates were once expected to glide to victory but are now facing tougher races.
Early voting has already started in some states and there are 32 days left until the midterms. 32 days. And Chump's hitting the road now with a message of more-of-the-same. That's all he has to offer. He screwed up the US economy so bad and he can't fix it now. His tariffs, his war on immigrants and his war on Iran have all resulted in the destruction of the US economy.
A majority, 65%, of U.S. adults now blame Trump’s policies for persistently high costs more than factors outside of his control, signaling growing weariness over his aggressive use of tariffs and continued unhappiness with the war with Iran.
The dismal numbers come just weeks before midterm elections that will determine whether Republicans maintain control of Congress and while Trump is hitting the campaign trail with an aggressive schedule of rallies. But Trump -- who has asked voters to pretend that he is on the ballot as he tries to bolster turnout -- remains deeply unpopular, with even many Republicans faulting him for failing to deliver on promised relief.
B-b-b-but Biden!
Though Chump loves to play that card, it has gotten old and the few that did believe it? Their number grows smaller and smaller. Suzanne Blake (NEWSWEEK) reports:
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, told Americans that they have lost purchasing power during President Donald Trump’s second term, effectively making them poorer under this administration than during President Joe Biden’s time in office.
“The $40 trillion deficit translates to more than $360,000 per American taxpayer. We’re adding less to the debt than we did under President Biden, but Americans’ buying power is still significantly less than what it was,” Rand wrote on X.
“In fact, if you’re making $50K/year, you’re poorer than you were a few years ago because inflation compounds over time.”
This is at odds with Trump’s repeated statements that inflation has been brought under control and Americans are experiencing an economic recovery after what the president has described as an “inflation nightmare” inherited from former President Joe Biden.
With barely a month to go before a midterm election in which the signs look increasingly dire for Republicans, President Donald Trump is busting out his old moves like an aging rocker on a comeback tour.
They do not get the love from the fans that they used to, so he is upping the audacity to 11. A new round of television spots, for instance, is drawing attention less for its message than for its eyebrow-raising notation: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
He also put himself center stage in Dallas at a first-of-its-kind Republican midterm convention in recent weeks. That effort to revive the boisterous euphoria of the 2024 gathering in Milwaukee saw only the Democrats receiving a postconvention bounce.
Katie Rogers (NEW YORK TIMES) reports on Chump's rally in Oklahoma yesterday:
Mostly, the president wanted to talk to the news cameras stationed at the back of the room. Mr. Trump again offered a cash prize of $5,000 to every American adult if his party keeps control, earning some of the loudest applause of the evening.
“Republicans can do it and Democrats can’t,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re taking in massive amounts of money through tariffs and record-setting economic success. Democrat policies won’t allow this to happen.”
In reality, the proposal for the $5,000 checks would be prohibitively costly, at more than $1.3 trillion. But Mr. Trump rarely concerns himself with details on the rally stage. He suggested that the money could come from investment revenue.
When confronting the matter of political survival, Mr. Trump has always returned to his political rallies, drinking in applause from an adoring audience like spiritual Red Bull. Mr. Trump hasn’t done these events much lately. He has been preoccupied for much of his second term with foreign conflicts and building a White House ballroom, and his advisers have said that there has been no need for him to rally, because there are no more races for him to run.
As people wake up, Chump's left to scramble trying to figure out which states to visit. There's no sign that he will help anyone by campaigning in their state -- and one Republican candidate for the US Senate says he got no lift from Chump's appearance last month -- and he might even harm them. Nolan D. McCaskill (REUTERS) notes, "The Democratic wave is crashing hardest in states Trump won by wide margins, though Republicans are also significantly underperforming in Georgia and North Carolina, where Trump won by 2 and 3 percentage points, respectively. The volume of unexpectedly competitive states could scramble the final stretch of the campaign cycle as top officials assess where to spend their war chests." Halle Troadec and Hannah Demissie (ABC NEWS) report, "Last year, Republicans had hoped to keep Democrats on their heels in Georgia and North Carolina's Senate races, and even flip the seat held by Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia. Now, just weeks away from the midterms and grappling with an expanding map of seats to defend, they face calls to divert resources from the two states won by President Donald Trump in 2024 into even redder states that have become more competitive amid Trump's low national approval ratings and the Iran war." Julia Manchester (THE HILL) explains, "This week, Trump is slated to visit Oklahoma and Alabama, in addition to making stops in Ohio and Texas. The president is also set to head to Nebraska on Monday. Republicans argue the stops are all a part of the party’s strategy to get as close as they can to replicating their 2024 presidential-year turnout. But polls show voters across the board souring on Trump’s policies, threatening Republican chances in what were once thought to be safe red states like Nebraska." Maura Barrett (SCRIPPS NEWS) notes, "Consumer confidence fell to 81.9 in September, its lowest level since 2014, according to the Conference Board. That's below the levels recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and more Americans now describe their personal finances as bad than good. The Conference Board data shows the drop in confidence cuts across party lines. Over the past year, Republican confidence fell 15 points, while confidence among independents fell 4 points and among Democrats fell 5." Ed Kilgore (INTELLIGENCER) points out, "The race isn’t over yet, but the trends are pretty strong and clear and at the moment very blue."
Of course, some candidates struggling struggle because of additional baggage. Laura Esposito (DAILY BEAST) reports on one of those:
President Donald Trump’s Senate pick denied his connection to a registered sex offender who was sentenced to prison for two convictions involving children—and was caught.
Republican Michael Whatley, who is running for an open Senate seat in North Carolina, denied through his campaign spokesperson that he played any role in organizing a recent campaign stop with Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—which opened with a prayer from registered sex offender Pastor Daimon L. King, who was convicted of rape and incest.
The event “was NOT planned nor organized by the Whatley campaign nor did the campaign invite any of the guests,” Whatley spokesman DJ Griffin told the Associated Press.
What’s more, leaked audio from the event in the small city of New Bern, North Carolina, reveals Whatley himself acknowledging the event’s beginnings.
“Now I got a good friend who was in North Carolina for just a day, wanted to stop by and say hello. He called up, and he said, ‘Hey, where’s a good place to be?’” Whatley said, referring to Oz. He continued: “Well, let me call the chair of the Craven County GOP.”
The event "opened with a prayer from registered sex offender Pastor Daimon L. King, who was convicted of rape and incest"?
Elaine just noted accused rapist Russell Brand and Dr Oz joking with one another at a MAHA event. Is everyone in Chump's circle a rapist? Chump's been found guilty of sexual assault. And he was friends with pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein for years. And his Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is still set to go to court for turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse of young boys. And his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth paid a woman accusing him of sexual assault $50,000. And Secretary of Health and Human Services Junior apologized in 2024 to Eliza Cooney for his 1998 assault on her when she was 23 years old.
Brian Slodysko (AP) explains of Daimon King:
King, 60, is the leader of New Beginnings Celebration church in New Bern, a town near the North Carolina coast where the rally was held on Aug. 28. The pastor has taken on an increasingly visible role in Republican politics in recent years. He presents himself as a pro-Trump Black conservative and has served as a precinct chairman for the Craven County GOP. He has praised Trump and decried “fake news” in sermons uploaded to YouTube, delivering what he calls the “pure, uncut word of God.”
[. . .]
Some 30 years ago, King was a marching band assistant at a high school outside Raleigh when he was charged with statutory rape and indecent liberties with a 15-year-old student, The News & Observer reported at the time. King, then 31, was convicted in 1998 and served nearly five years in prison before being paroled, according to state department of corrections records.
In 2010, he pleaded guilty to having sex with an underage female relative and served close to three years in prison, state records show.
King is required under North Carolina law to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Let's turn to Priss Pot Pete who needs to spend more time in that beauty salon he had constructed if they're ever going to do a good job covering up his psoriasis. The Secretary of Defense (Defense, not War, USA TODAY, you need to be factual and factual is he's the Secretary of Defense) spoke on Wednesday. Of all the commentaries on Hegseth's speech, Holly Baxter (INDEPENDENT) was the best and here's a taste:
So chaplains and churches and “religious support” will become a new priority. No more “political correctness and secular humanism” (perish the thought!) Instead, there will be an Office of Religious Affairs that “will report straight to the top”. (By the top, he means himself, by the way, not to God, and like all Christian groups, “it’s gonna have real teeth”.)
Hegseth then quoted Psalm 33:12, “Blessed is the nation whose god is the Lord. That line of the Bible is specifically referring to Israel, but sure.
“While we wage physical war,” he continued, “we know the real fight is spiritual.” The Book of Isaiah, he said, sees God asking Isaiah who he can send in his name, and Isaiah responding, “Send me.” Hegseth then extended this verse to suggest that Isaiah might also say: “Send me to fight the communists. Send me to fight the Islamists,” before concluding to the generals that “lethality is your calling card and victory your only acceptable end-state.”
What is actually said in the Book of Isaiah is instructive, as the biblical writer in question suggests during these verses that if people are “always hearing, but never understanding” and “ever seeing, but never perceiving,” with “hearts that are calloused,” then they will never truly “see with their eyes,” “hear with their ears,” “understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
Oof, how inconvenient for War Daddy Pete! But it doesn’t matter because, as Hegseth rounded off his speech, “We are the War Department and we never back down.” Not in the face of logic, not in the face of real quotes from the Bible, not in the face of people trying to give us college educations!
And then he stalked offstage after giving a couple of stony-faced thumbs-up, ready to lead us all into a bold future. Godspeed, brave companions! And boy oh boy, isn’t Jesus going to be ecstatic that he’s coming back to the US military just in time for the AI-powered killer bots?!
Hegseth has been dismissive of the mental health concerns involving the troops. This is a press release Senator Mark Kelly's office issued August 14th:
Last night, on MS NOW’s The Briefing with Jen Psaki, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly blasted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for his dismissal of the mental health crisis unfolding aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln—where sailors have tried to jump overboard due to deteriorating conditions—and to call out the Trump administration’s failure to keep military families informed.
Kelly also encouraged servicemembers who are struggling with their mental health to learn and use the resources available through the Brandon Act, legislation he passed that guarantees servicemembers the right to seek mental health treatment without fear of retaliation. The legislation is named in honor of United States Navy Petty Officer Third Class Brandon Caserta of Peoria, Arizona, who died by suicide after seeking mental health care and being denied.
Watch the full conversation here. See key excerpts below:
On Secretary Hegseth’s dismissive response to the mental health crisis unfolding aboard the USS Lincoln…
“I got to say, as bad as that and the conditions that these sailors have been put in, what I think is as bad, if not worse, is the Secretary of Defense’s response. Dismissing it like it’s no concern at all. I think a fundamental part of leadership is trying to improve the lives of the people you’re leading. And he doesn’t want there to be any accountability. He doesn’t want to get blamed. That’s pretty obvious. He doesn’t want this president to get blamed. I’d like to see from this administration just once, just one time, someone taking some responsibility for something that isn’t going right. And in this case, they seem to have a mental health crisis aboard that ship. It needs to be addressed, and the conditions need to be improved.”
On speaking to an Arizona grandmother whose grandson is aboard the ship…
“He’s depressed about the situation he is in. He doesn’t know when this deployment is going to end. I’d say the most disturbing thing she told me is she saw a picture of him, and she said when he got into the Navy, he was already like a skinny kid. She says it looks like he’s lost 20 to 25 pounds.
“But the thing that also bothered her the most was the dismissiveness Pete Hegseth brought to this whole situation. She saw what he said, and she said it was rather disturbing that this is the way that he represented what was going on.”
On the Trump administration’s failure to keep military families informed…
“Servicemembers, spouses and children, they’re also serving their country. And we owe them not only gratitude, but we owe them a certain amount of respect that we’re going to operate within certain rules. And one of them is to share information when you’re when your family member, your servicemember on active duty is having a problem, they have the right to know.”
On why no servicemember should fear seeking help…
“They shouldn’t be punished and they should get treatment. I was the primary sponsor in the Senate on a piece of legislation called the Brandon Act, named after Brandon Caserta, who was a Third Class Petty Officer in the Navy who took his own life. He was in a helicopter squadron. It was a tragic case of somebody who sought treatment and didn’t get it.
“So, I encourage service members out there, if they’re struggling, if they’re depressed, if they’re having ideas about taking their own lives or harming themselves, learn about the Brandon Act and know that you can go to your leadership and they have to provide you treatment.”
The Veterans Crisis Hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and can be reached by calling 988, press 1. Services also are available online at www.veteranscrisisline.net or by text, 838255.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals. Find more information about the Lifeline at suicidepreventionlifeline.org or call directly by dialing 988.
You can also text TALK to 741741 to text with a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
A 21-year-old Black Navy sailor died by suicide during an extended deployment in June, and her family is now questioning whether she received enough mental health support aboard her ship.
Jaimie Bethea, a mass communication specialist from South Carolina, died June 20, about a month before the USS Fort Lauderdale returned to Norfolk, Virginia, following an 11-month deployment.
NPR reported Tuesday (September 29) that the ship’s deployment was extended multiple times, with Bethea’s family saying the prolonged time at sea worsened her mental health struggles.
“It was constantly like getting texts like, ‘Guys, you'll never fing believe it. We just got extended again,’ and I think it happened four times,” Bethea's sister Arianna Calderon told NPR. “It's just that uncertainty and promises unfulfilled.”
Bethea’s mother died from cancer three months before the deployment. Bethea spent a month on shore with her mother before returning to the ship, where she sought mental health treatment and was prescribed antidepressants by the Navy.
Within a few months of the deployment, Bethea began experiencing nightmares about her mother, according to Calderon.
ARIANNA CALDERON: I think truly just nothing matters to me more than my sister. Nothing ever has.
WALSH: Bethea's sister, Arianna Calderon.
CALDERON: So, yeah, like, I lost my world genuinely. I lost everything, and, like, all I care about now is just, like - I don't know - getting some semblance of justice.
WALSH: USS Fort Lauderdale was in the Caribbean, part of the Trump administration's operation around Venezuela, which included the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and attacking boats in the region suspected of carrying drugs.
CALDERON: It was constantly, like, getting texts like, guys, you'll never [expletive] believe it. We just got extended again. And I think it happened four times. It's that uncertainty, and it's promises unfulfilled, you know?
WALSH: Calderon says they lost their mother three months before the ship deployed. Bethea was given shore duty for a month, and she watched her mother die of cancer in a South Carolina hospital. She sought help, and the Navy put her on antidepressants.
CALDERON: Within a few months into her deployment, she was having nightmares about her mom. I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but she was definitely experiencing symptoms of PTSD.
WALSH: The USS Fort Lauderdale was part of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group with its 4,500 sailors and Marines. The ship has a crew of about 350 sailors. Like most Navy ships, it doesn't have a dedicated mental healthcare provider. It relies instead on a doctor. Chaplains also receive some training, including on the Navy's protocol for suicide prevention.
TIANA COOK: I met Jaimie when I was in high school sophomore year. We were in the marching band together.
WALSH: Bethea's longtime friend Tiana Cook (ph) says she communicated with her nearly every day while she was on the USS Fort Lauderdale. She told Cook that supplies were tight and she couldn't get her medication consistently during the deployment.
COOK: There's, like, a text that I read. She would tell me a lot about, like, days where she would, like, just cry when she woke up. She would take a lot of naps from just being, like, exhausted and sad.
WALSH: According to a string of texts to friends and family reviewed by NPR, Bethea said that she had been having a panic attack that lasted hours and sought medical help on board. In another text, she told friends and family that she was surprised how easy it was to walk away from the ship's hospital.
COOK: The last text she sent was around 12:30. She said, I love you guys. I need you to know that. That was it. That was the last I heard from her.
WALSH: Cook says after her death in June, one of her friends on the ship said that Bethea had previously attempted suicide three months into the deployment. Bethea's sister, Arianna Calderon, says the Navy should have done more.
CALDERON: There just needed to be some sort of intervention. There should have been. They should have removed her from the ship.
WALSH: The Navy has now responded to a list of questions about Bethea's death. Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao recently announced a new suicide prevention task force. Separately, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle has also emphasized the need for access to care while conceding the length of deployments is expected to rise as the conflict with Iran continues.
Jaimie Bethea took her own life. And she sought help on the USS FORT LAUDERDALE. And it didn't come. Why is that? A suicide on a US battleship. Hegseth should have launched a n inquiry into Jamie's death and the other service members on the USS FORT LAUDERDALE and the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN who have had suicidal thoughts during their deployments. Priss Pot Pete failes the military by refusing to provide true oversight.
James Ball (THE i PAPER) notes, "Some wonder if Hegseth, unable to see that the chaos and dysfunction around him are his own fault, is purging those competent enough to give good advice – which involves telling him things he doesn’t like to hear. Others suggest that a hopelessly out-of-his-depth Hegseth is focusing on issues like shaving, physique, workouts, and wokery because he can, at least, understand those." He's never understood the job. He had no experience for it, no background in it. He did not attempt to educate himself once in office. He has been a non-stop failure. Finya Swai (THE HILL) reports:
Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner blasted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his latest cuts to the military’s senior ranks, accusing the Pentagon chief of “playing Russian roulette” with U.S. national security.
“This is just unbelievable,” Manner said during a Wednesday appearance on CNN’s “The Lead.”
“It’s sophomoric,” he added.
Hegseth announced plans to cut 20 percent of positions reserved for generals and admirals across the Army, Navy and Air Force — doubling an earlier 10 percent reduction.
Manner said that while he supports reducing the number of senior officers, he argued Hegseth’s approach was done recklessly amid a war with Iran and would cost the military experienced leaders.
“The concept of reducing the number of admirals and generals is a good one,” Manner said. “The problem is that the secretary of Defense has already proven that he’s trying to purge the military.”
And while Chump may stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Priss Pot Pete publicly, in private it's not always cordial. Ewan Palmer (DAILY BEAST) notes:
Donald Trump launched into a foul-mouthed tirade against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the Iran war just weeks into the conflict, it has been revealed.
Hegseth and several other top military officials were called into the Oval Office in April as Trump demanded an update on the war, which the president had assured the American public would be over by then.
During the tense showdown, Trump handed Hegseth a printout of a New York Times article saying the U.S. was rapidly draining its munitions stockpiles, including more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles that cost more than $4 million each, in the first few weeks of the conflict alone.
“What the f--- is this?” Trump said to Hegseth as he handed him the printout, sources told TIME.
Hegseth tried to dismiss the report—which also claimed that the U.S. had been forced to obtain military supplies in Asia and Europe, exposing commands to potential risks from Russia and China—as “fake news” that exaggerated the numbers to make the U.S. look bad.
However, the figures reported by the Times, including that the military used more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles in the Iran war—roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year—were based on internal Defense Department estimates.
Priss Pot Pete doesn't know what he's doing. He should never have been confirmed by the Senate.
He's not the only Cabinet member struggling. Markwayne Mullin has only been Secretary of Homeland Security since March but he's already failing. Matthew Chapman (RAW STORY) notes:
President Donald Trump reportedly erupted at Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin after an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership call leaked suggesting the agency was quietly scaling back arrests to focus only on immigrants with criminal records, according to CNN sources familiar with the fallout.
Trump moved fast to shut down any perception of a policy shift, calling a well-known Fox News host directly to insist ICE's approach hadn't changed and agents would continue picking up anyone living in the country without legal status, criminal record or not. But privately, sources say he directed real fury at Mullin, even as DHS officially denies any such directive was ever issued.
The confusion traced back to a weekend call where agency leadership gave ICE agents spoken instructions that seemed to de-emphasize so-called "collateral arrests," meaning people detained simply for being near an actual target, in favor of concentrating on people with criminal histories. According to three people with knowledge of the call, the ambiguous phrasing left agents unsure how to actually apply it in the field.
Sources told CNN that Mullin has publicly maintained that anyone here illegally remains a candidate for removal, while privately favoring a pullback from the collateral-arrest approach. One source didn't mince words about the growing rift.
"Mullin is definitely out of step with President Trump and the base on immigration," the source said.
And Mullin's department is facing a new lawsuit. Ernesto Londono (NEW YORK TIMES) reports:
Relatives of Renee Good, the woman killed by an ICE agent early this year during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, filed two federal lawsuits on Thursday, including one against the officer who shot her and several top Trump administration officials.
The lawsuits, filed in Minnesota federal court, accused the ICE agent, Jonathan Ross, of having placed himself at risk by standing in front of Ms. Good’s car during a tense confrontation on Jan. 7 and unjustifiably using deadly force.
In addition to Mr. Ross, one lawsuit also names as defendants Kristi Noem, the former secretary of homeland security; Stephen Miller, the top White House official overseeing immigration policy; Thomas D. Homan, the White House border czar; Todd Lyons, the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Gregory Bovino, a former senior Border Patrol official; and Corey Lewandowski, a former aide to Ms. Noem.
That suit says Ms. Good’s death was the result of an immigration operation in Minnesota that was driven by unconstitutional racial animus against Somali and Hispanic people.
“She was killed on a public street, while doing what thousands of her neighbors were doing that winter: watching masked, armed men terrorizing her community and refusing to look away,” the lawsuit says.
The second lawsuit, which lists the U.S. government as a defendant, is filed under a 1964 law that allows plaintiffs to seek redress for deaths caused by negligence.
“They took a mother away from their children,” Becca Good, Ms. Good’s partner, said at a news conference on Thursday in downtown Minneapolis, where she appeared alongside other relatives and their legal team.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Penalties for Propaganda Act cuts OMB’s budget by $20 million each instance taxpayer dollars are used for propaganda
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and top Senate appropriators introduced the Penalties for Propaganda Act, a bill to impose penalties on the Trump administration for breaking federal law and using taxpayer dollars to air government propaganda.
“Not a cent of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars should ever be used to run political ads glorifying the president. Clearly, this administration couldn’t care less about what the law says or about wasting Americans’ tax dollars on obscene ads. Congress cannot sit on its hands. If the president is going to defy federal law to run propaganda celebrating himself—and his budget director is going to allow it—there must be consequences,” said Senator Patty Murray. “This fair-minded bill hits White House Budget Director Vought’s operating budget each time this administration willfully violates our laws to spend federal funding on North Korea-style propaganda. It is not too much to expect the White House Budget Office to respect the law and the basic principle that tax dollars should not fund political ads. Democrats and Republicans alike have made clear that tax dollars shouldn’t be funding these ads, and I hope every one of my colleagues who agrees will support this bill and work with me to get it signed into law.”
In recent days, the Trump administration has spent at least $2.9 million in taxpayer funds airing several political ads celebrating Trump, according to AdImpact. Federal law prohibits taxpayer funding of political propaganda, including Section 718 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2026, which states that: “No part of any appropriation contained in the act or any other Act shall be used directly or indirectly, including through a private contractor, for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by Congress.”
The Penalties for Propaganda Act imposes a new penalty for violating the anti-propaganda provision contained in federal law. The bill cuts the budget of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), headed by Director Russ Vought, by $20 million each time any part of the administration violates the law.
In addition to Senator Murray, original cosponsors of the legislation include: Senator Jack Reed, Ranking Member of the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee; Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Ranking Member of the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee; Senator Jeff Merkley, Ranking Member of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee; Senator Chris Coons, Ranking Member of the Defense Subcommittee; Senator Tammy Baldwin, Ranking Member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittee; Senator Chris Van Hollen, Ranking Member of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee; Senator Martin Heinrich, Ranking Member of the Legislative Branch Subcommittee; Senator Gary Peters, member of the Committee and Ranking Member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Ranking Member of the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.
When the government-funded Trump ads first aired, Vice Chair Murray and Ranking Member Reed wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles demanding the ads come off the air and reminding the White House of federal law. When the Committee became aware the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is bankrolling the ads, Vice Chair Murray and Senator Chris Murphy, Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, wrote to Secretary Markwayne Mullin to demand DHS stop airing the ads and provide the Committee with all relevant information about the spending and contracts. DHS has so far failed to share this information.
Text of the legislation is available HERE.
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Thursday, October 01, 2026
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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:
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Whether any federal agency or office authorized and paid for the advertisement and if so, which one;
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Where the advertisement was written and developed—specifically whether any part of the advertisement was produced on government property or with government resources;
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The specific appropriation and statutory authority used to fund and justify the advertisement;
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What person or persons individually authorized and approved the advertisement’s development and content; and
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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.”
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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."
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.
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.
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.”
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Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Linda's New Super Computer" and the following sites updated:
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Idiot of the Week6 hours ago
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Chump struggles to walk6 hours ago
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Chump gets a new wig -- a fall, in fact6 hours ago
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The War in Iraq Is Finally Over15 hours ago
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