Chump took is Desperation Tour back to Texas, this time to San Antonio. Shawn McCreesh (THE NEW YORK TIMES) reports:
Mr. Trump was in fighting form, tossing out red meat reminders to Texans about why they voted for him in 2024. He was interrupted nearly a dozen times by protesters, several of whom were led out in handcuffs. He talked a lot about the border, and Democrats, and himself.
What he didn’t talk a lot about was Ken Paxton.
Mr. Trump called the scandal-plagued Texas attorney general one of the best in the country and brought him up onstage briefly, but that was about it. When Mr. Trump first came onstage, it wasn’t even Mr. Paxton who introduced him. It was the baseball player Roger Clemens.
In San Antonio, Mr. Trump wasn’t trying to get people excited about Ken Paxton so much as he was trying to get them excited about Donald Trump. The question animating this race, and so many of the others this season: Is that still enough for Republicans to win these days?
Chump's Desperation Tour has now spent four days in Texas. There were the two days for his TrumpIsABigLoosah convention in September, last week he was in Denton and yesterday he was in San Antonio. The state's governor, Greg Abbott skipped Chump's event yesterday.
Ben (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) notes that Chump was repeatedly heckled in San Antonio.
If Democrats make big gains in the midterm elections in four weeks, it may not only be because their most loyal voters come out in force, or because their candidates have converted Republican voters to their cause.
Instead, the Democrats’ dream blue wave could come from Republicans who sour on President Trump and stay home. It already has a name: the red undertow.
Across the country, signs are emerging of an enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans, even among those who consider themselves likely to vote. A stretch of rural southwest Michigan — long a Republican stronghold — illustrates the point, with more signs for blueberries and eggs than for political candidates. Volunteers are not showing up to door-knock. And many voters say they are tuning this election out.
“People are just more focused on everyday life,” said Lindsay Kronemeyer, 35, a conservative Christian mother of two who works in the construction industry. “I don’t hear the chatter on the Republican side of ‘Trump this, Trump that.’ He’s just not there in my head anymore.”
As Chump continues his Desperation Tour, Fernando Cervantes Jr. (USA TODAY) notes:
With less than a month until Election Day, Democrats are seeing some of their strongest signs yet that the Senate majority is within reach.
A new batch of YouGov polls released Oct. 6 shows Democratic candidates, or an independent who caucuses against Republicans, leading in six of seven closely watched Senate races. The surveys suggest several GOP-held seats in states considered Republican strongholds, including Texas, Ohio, Kansas and Nebraska, have become competitive as Republicans work to defend their 53-47 majority.
It's harder for Republicans, with midterm voting ending in 26 days, to pretend that Chump isn't a drag on the ticket and elected Republicans are moving further and further away from him in hopes of holding on to their offices. AP reports:
Republicans are increasingly anxious that the $1 billion at their disposal may not be enough to fend off sweeping midterm election losses as the party reckons with President Donald Trump’s unpopularity, persistent cost concerns and the fallout from the war in Iran. Despite their cash advantage, the spending is coming in late, forcing MAGA Inc. to pay much higher rates because of the shrinking availability of air time.
They're sinking $5 million into Darline Graham's nepo campaign in South Carolina. Mattie Hayworth, meanwhile, is doling out the stupidity in an attempt to get her father Ken Paxton into the Senate. She tells the camera that inflation is effecting us all and it's those liberal politicians. This despite the fact that inflation was caused by Chump and his tariffs and his war on Iran and his war on immigrants. Don Jr. has also taped a messy, nonsense ad. They're just wasting money all over the place.
Andrew Howard, Erin Doherty and Lisa Kashinsky (POLITICO) note that money is being cut off to some Republican candidates:
After abandoning a GOP-held Senate seat in North Carolina — a state President Donald Trump won three times — the outside groups began spending money to defend a seat in South Carolina. And they’re intensifying their advertising in Kansas, where Democrats haven't won a Senate race in nearly a century.
In the battle for control of the House, national Republicans gave up on defending a blue-leaning seat in Nebraska held for a decade by retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon.
Those dispiriting setbacks signal that the party's defensive position is weakening with a month still left in the campaign.
One national Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak freely about the party’s predicament, said the GOP could wind up facing even worse losses than in President George W. Bush’s disastrous second term.
“If the bottom continues falling out like it has been,” this operative said, “this will be worse than 2006.”
As Trump’s approval continues to sag amid soaring gas and diesel prices driven by the war with Iran, Democrats are bullish that the map will continue to grow for them. And while Republicans still maintain a big outside money advantage, the recent moves show it’s not unlimited — with more tough decisions likely before Election Day.
Wasting money on ads while blowing the money of the American voters with inflation. Mike Crisolago (MONEYWISE) observes:
American drivers are forgiven if they don’t take comfort from President Trump’s latest assertion that oil prices “will drop precipitously” at the end of the Iran war, with gas prices falling to “three dollars a gallon, but ultimately, below two dollars … it will all happen quickly.”
The prediction came via Truth Social on September 7, the same day that notched the most expensive Labor Day gas prices in history at $4.15 a gallon nationally. Prices remained at that level the next day, marking a roughly 30% year-over-year jump as the conflict in the Middle East continues. The national average cost for gas is currently at $4.36.
And Chump's attempts to intimidate voters? That's not going very well either. Adam Gabbatt (GUARDIAN) reports:
The Trump administration has been sued over its plans to deploy “a historic number” of election monitors to polling stations during next month’s midterm elections.
The bid “stands to jeopardize” the elections and could “interfere with the right of voters to participate in the election free from intimidation”, according to the NAACP, which filed a lawsuit against Harmeet Dhillon, head of the justice department’s civil rights division, who has said she hopes to send 1,000 monitors to midterm polling sites in November.
“To be clear, there is no federal statute that gives the US Department of Justice [DoJ] the right to send their so-called ‘election monitors’ to polling sites across the country, and this administration has made clear its intent to disrupt and interfere with the way elections are run in our country,” said Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel, who served in Dhillon’s role under Joe Biden.
The NAACP lawsuit seeks to force the Trump administration to release records regarding the deployment of the monitors. The NAACP said it requested such records under the Freedom of Information Act on 1 September, but said the Department of Justice had failed to comply.
A new problem has emerged for Chump.
As President Trump crisscrossed the country last week trying to help his party avoid a blowout in next month’s midterm elections, two of his top political advisers were in the Balkans helping a pro-Russian government looking to tighten its grip on power.
James Blair and Chris LaCivita, who are leading a big-money midterm advertising campaign for the Trump political operation, spent some of the past few days in a small self-governing territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina called Republika Srpska ahead of elections there on Sunday, according to four people familiar with their travels who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the Balkan work.
The engagement is the latest example of Trump advisers profiting from far-right politicians abroad who have sought favor from the U.S. president while bucking the international community.
Mr. Blair and Mr. LaCivita were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each through a Washington-based law firm that was retained by Republika Srpska’s government to provide counsel on voting issues, according to two of the people familiar with the engagement. They said the work was for the government and not the nationalist party that controls it, though they are essentially one and the same.
Chump, who this week announced on his social media that THE NEW YORK TIMES was "going to hell" for a photo they published of his Trump National Doral golf resort in Miami, responded to THE TIMES article yesterday. Steven Nelson (NEW YORK POST) reports:
President Trump threatened Wednesday to “terminate” two key advisers after they were revealed to have raked in “hundreds of thousands of dollars each” advising a pro-Russian political party in Bosnia as Republicans brace for a potential bloodbath in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
“Chris LaCivita and James Blair are outside consultants. They do not work for me, other than as outside consultants. They most likely have numerous clients, but for that, you would have to ask them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Blair formerly worked as Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs, leaving in May to lead Republican midterm efforts at the pro-Trump MAGA Inc. super PAC.
LaCivita led Trump’s 2024 campaign alongside Susie Wiles, who is now White House chief of staff, and remains an important outside ally.
LaCivita, who served as Trump’s 2024 co-campaign manager, and Blair, who until recently was Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff, were reportedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through a Washington, D.C.-based law firm retained by Republika Srpska’s government ahead of Sunday’s elections in the small self-governing territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to The New York Times.
They reportedly defended their work for the far-right government, not the nationalist party that controls it, despite being largely the same. Under that party’s control, Republika Srpska has aligned itself with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After leaving the White House earlier this year, Blair now leads the Trump-connected super PAC MAGA Inc..
LaCivita works as a senior adviser to the group.
Loser Chump has not won the Nobel Peace Prize and is not going to win it. Barack Obama did but Chump has not and will not. AFP notes:
Donald Trump's chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize are seen as minimal, but his "spectre" will cast its shadow over Friday's announcement of the winner in Oslo, experts say.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee knows it will be under close scrutiny: since his return to the White House in January 2025, the billionaire Republican has campaigned intensively for the prize and hasn't hidden his disappointment at not winning it yet.
The chances of him getting the nod are however undermined by his war against Iran, his territorial ambitions -- sometimes at the expense of allies, as in Greenland -- and his attacks on international cooperation institutions and the media.
Even though he has not been lobbying as openly for the Nobel in recent weeks, Trump remains on everyone's minds, with strong chances that the committee's pick will, regardless of who they choose, be interpreted as direct or indirect criticism of the US president.
And yet yesterday Chump began harping on the topic yet again. AP notes:
Ahead of the Nobel Peace Prize being announced, Trump said he deserved the award from the Norwegian Nobel Committee but, “They have a reputation for maybe not giving it to people like me.”
Trump, who launched a war in Iran this year, went through his accomplishments for which believed qualified him for the Nobel. He also noted that the 2025 winner, Venezuela’s María Corina Machado, gave him her award.
“Whether I get it or not, I have done far more,” Trump said. “And I think it would be a great discredit to them” if he goes unrecognized.
Whine on, Chump, whine on. John Bowden (INDEPENDENT) notes:
The 47th president said on Wednesday that he was more deserving of the prize than Obama.
“Look, Obama got it, and he didn’t do anything-- he still doesn’t know what he got it for,” said Trump. “He got it when he was elected, right? Right at the beginning.”
“Whether I get it or not, I have done far more [than anyone else],” the president said.
Ah, listen to the little whiny, cry baby. Tell us again about tariffs were paid by foreign countries. Remember that lie? Remember the lie that tariffs would fix everything? Sasha Rogelberg (FORTUNE) explains:
During President Donald Trump’s announcement of “Liberation Day” in April 2025, which would bring with it a raft of aggressive tariffs, Trump claimed the import taxes would slash the U.S.’s stubborn trade deficit, or when a country buys more goods from overseas than sells.
“They’re a national emergency that threatens our security and our very way of life,” he said at the time. “It’s a very great threat to our country.”
But 17 months later, the administration’s import taxes haven’t closed that deficit at all. In fact, the trade deficit is now the largest it’s been since Trump implemented tariffs, and economists are pouring cold water on the very idea that a widening trade gap is even a threat.
The trade deficit grew by 13.7% to $105.6 billion from July to August, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the highest it’s been since March 2025’s $140 billion. While imports increased by 4.3% to $420.8 billion, exports increased, but at a slower rate, growing 2.2% to $205.7 billion.
He's a failure. Every attempt he makes ends up failing. He's a failure.
Turning to the Iran War, Jack Brook and Julie Watson (THE INDEPENDENT) report:
The vast majority of relatives of six service members killed in the deadliest strike of the Iran war will be absent from a major White House reception hosted by President Donald Trump for Gold Star families.
Only one family member of those killed during the March 1 Iranian drone attack on Port Shuaiba in Kuwait confirmed plans to attend Tuesday's gathering with Trump and the First Lady.
Meanwhile, surviving troops from the attack have questioned why they were stationed at a location that lacked sufficient air defenses despite being identified as a likely target.
Since commencing on Feb. 28, the conflict has resulted in the deaths of 19 U.S. troops and injured more than 800 others. The annual gathering marks Gold Star Mother’s and Family’s Day, which takes place on the final weekend of September.
According to the White House, this year’s reception recognizes nearly 40 fallen troops from operations dating back to the Vietnam War. Trump was scheduled to deliver an address, followed by a candle-lighting ceremony and a musical presentation featuring a rendition of "America the Beautiful."
Many Gold Star relatives continue to express frustration regarding the lack of details released by the Pentagon concerning the strike in Kuwait.
"There are questions about what happened before the attack, what information was available, what decisions were made, and what happened in the moments leading up to six American soldiers losing their lives," Joey Amor — whose 39-year-old wife, Master Sgt. Nicole M. Amor, was among those killed — said in a public Facebook statement Monday.
"I am done asking quietly. Today, I am asking the American people to stand with these six families and demand transparency."
Injured soldiers recounted unheeded warnings raised prior to the attack and described feeling let down by the military medical system in the weeks that followed. The account of the March 1 assault relies on interviews conducted with 13 service members.
A US senator has accused Hegseth of attempting to hide the realities of the war from Congress. Namrata Sen (BENZINGA) reports:
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) says the Pentagon blocked his access to a key U.S. military installation in Qatar, alleging officials sought to limit congressional scrutiny of damage from Iranian attacks.
Murphy, also a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was denied entry to Al Udeid Air Base during a Middle East trip with a congressional delegation. He said the trip was intended to inspect potential damage at U.S. facilities and evaluate the conflict’s effect on regional partnerships.
"Something unprecedented happened during my visit to the Gulf. For the first time in 20 years in Congress, I was denied entry to U.S. military facilities and even meetings with military leaders," Murphy wrote on X.
According to Murphy, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued an order that applies to both parties in a bid to “hide the cost of the war.”
Priss Pot Hegseth is a weirdo as Amanda Marcotte (SALON) notes:
Pete Hegseth is odd. This isn’t just a personal opinion, though there’s no doubt that he gets widely mocked for his carefully cultivated public persona, which is a mix of megachurch preacher, gym rat and Robert Duvall’s napalm-huffing character in “Apocalypse Now.” The fact that the defense secretary is different is simply a statistical reality.
It’s not just that he’s a white evangelical Christian, a group that, according to PRRI, makes up only 13% of the population. Hegseth’s church, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, is extreme even for the right, with a leader who argues against women’s suffrage and teaches that slavery was the height of “mutual intimacy and harmony” between the races. Even within MAGA, those remain fringe positions, despite great efforts by some Christian nationalists to reignite “debate” on such long-resolved issues.
All this means it’s hard not to laugh when Hegseth pontificates about his hatred of “weirdos.” Although he has a war to fight in Iran, somehow he finds time to focus his attention on what he clearly sees as the greater battle: remaking the military according to the demands of his very white, very male, very right-wing vision.
“No fatties, no t******s, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals,” Hegseth said during a Sept. 30 speech at the U.S. Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. He didn’t explicitly say “no women,” but his kicker — “with testosterone testing on top” — made the implication plain. The “no beardos” demand may seem strange, but as Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times explained, it’s coded racism. Hegseth ended medical exemptions that allowed beards for people, mostly Black men, with certain skin conditions. This may explain why he has no problem when white men have beards, as seen on his church leader, Doug Wilson, or the many celebrities the defense secretary likes to take photos with. (Hegseth himself sported a beard in 2018.)
Priss Pot Hegseth couldn't handle a workout.
Turning to ICE, a September FOX "NEWS" poll finds 51% of Americans believe ICE deportations have gone too far. Alexander Bolton (THE HILL) notes some Republicans who agree with that finding:
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who’s running for reelection this year, said most Americans want Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to target migrants who have committed crimes other than crossing the border illegally.
“Most Americans are saying we are a nation of laws, but with as many people here illegally as we’ve got, let’s make darn sure that our focus is on getting those individuals that have violated our laws with regard to other things other than being here illegally,” he said.
Rounds advised the Trump administration to ease off on immigrants who “are here and that have a court determination that [says] they can be here.”
He suggested “we not go after them” and instead “refocus on those individuals that are actually causing harm within society today.”
“Most Americans will tell you that just in terms of their sense of fairness, they would prefer to go after individuals who have been violating our [criminal] laws,” he said.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he agrees with his Senate GOP colleagues that Trump’s mass deportations have gone too far.
“I would rather have 100 illegally present people go free than have that innocent person caught,” he said. “They’re right."
“If you’re going to put somebody through that, you better be damn sure you have a justified basis for doing it,” he said of immigration enforcement sweeps that have caught up citizens and green-card holders.
An investigation by ProPublica found that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents, including some Americans who have been tackled, beaten and shocked with Tasers by federal immigration enforcement officers.
Markwayne Mullins can't address that reality but he can air his conspiracy crackpot fantasies publicly. Erik De La Garza (RAW STORY) reports:
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sparked outrage Wednesday after accusing “socialists” of trying to “vandalize the demographics of America” to seize political power.
“Socialists want to vandalize the demographics of America to gain political power,” Mullin wrote on his official government account. “We will never allow amnesty, illegal alien voting, or any other scheme to disenfranchise Americans.”
The unusual phrase quickly set off alarm bells among immigration experts and historians, including Cato Institute Director of Immigration Studies David J. Bier.
“What the actual insane garbage is this? Vandalize the demographics? Gross,” Bier wrote on X. Bier argued that President Donald Trump “didn't have to ‘vandalize the demographics’ to win Republican support for his policies" — before taking aim at the MAGA administration’s agenda.
“The only demographic ‘vandals’ here are DHS officials trying to carry out ‘100 million deportations,’” he added.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, called Mullin’s language “chilling” and questioned what exactly the Trump cabinet official meant.
“‘Vandalize the demographics of America’” is either a chilling phrase suggesting that Mullin is a white nationalist or an absurdly meaningless bit of pablum which ignores 250 years of the constantly shifting demographics of a nation of immigrants,” Reichlin-Melnick posted Wednesday.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray, Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on a Government Accountability Office (GAO) decision issued today, which concludes that President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. illegally impounded fiscal year 2025 funding for health research conducted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in violation of the Impoundment Control Act (ICA):
“This decision confirms what we’ve long known: President Trump lit health research funding on fire last year, and it’s clear as day he’s just done the same again this year. In fact, President Trump announced to the world just a few days ago that he was illegally cutting nearly $30 million more, and HHS has failed to detail to the Committee exactly how it has spent down AHRQ funding for fiscal year 2026.
“This is research that has saved tens of thousands of lives and saved billions of dollars in health care costs—but President Trump and Secretary Kennedy are intent on breaking the law to cut it off, and Republicans in Congress have all but let them do it. It’s past time Congress imposes real consequences on this administration for killing lifesaving health research—I’ll keep fighting to do just that.”
In its decision today, GAO concluded:
“Congress appropriated lump-sum amounts to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to carry out various research initiatives for fiscal year 2025. .… We conclude that HHS withheld funds when it declined to obligate or expend more than $78 million of its FY 2025 appropriation before the close of the fiscal year. We further conclude that this withholding constituted an impoundment under the ICA rather than a programmatic delay. Because HHS did not submit a special message proposing to rescind AHRQ funds, HHS’s actions violated the ICA.”
GAO’s decision examines how the Trump administration illegally impounded fiscal year 2025 funding provided to AHRQ for health research after the Trump administration sabotaged the agency, pushing out 80% of all staff and cancelling grants en masse. It’s clear, however, that this administration has once again illegally withheld and misspent AHRQ funding provided by Congress for fiscal year 2026, as well. Senator Murray and Senator Tammy Baldwin, Ranking Member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee, raised alarm bells about the fate of fiscal year 2026 AHRQ funds several weeks ago. Then, just days after HHS Deputy Secretary Nominee Chris Klomp vowed to senators that virtually all of the agency’s funding would be spent—while failing to provide details to back up that assertion—President Trump moved to permanently impound nearly $30 million in AHRQ funding in his “pocket rescission.” Republicans have repeatedly blocked Democrats’ efforts to prevent presidents from attempting to use “pocket rescissions.”
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The following sites updated:
Con man Chump is withering away
6 hours ago
Chump continues his Desperation Tour
6 hours ago
Even MAHA is catching on
6 hours ago
Chicken Scampi in the Kitchen
6 hours ago
We all laugh at Chump and his diapers
6 hours ago
Do Me This Favor
9 hours ago
Day of Reflection
1 day ago
