A bad thing is unfolding at NIH this week: It looks like the Trump administration is trying to replace key civil servant scientific leaders, the Institute Directors, with political hires. These directors control the NIH budget, tens of billions.

A bit of a video explainer here: 1/ 🧪

And there it is…..

Announcement is made that the U.S. House will be out of session AGAIN next week

Two full months since their most recent vote

DHS's position is now that if they, the government, take too long to process your work permit renewal application and you have to stop working and lose your job, well, deal with it, that's just the price of security.

Federal Register notice here: public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-19702.pdf

Another shutdown consequence: Democrats can’t visit ICE detention facilities Democratic lawmakers had been suing the Trump administration over their previous attempts to visit ICE facilities.

NEW: ICE says it no longer has to provide Congress access to detention facilities — thanks to the shutdown.

That requirement was part of the appropriations law that expired last month — and now operations are funded by Trump’s megabill.

w/ @myahward.bsky.social

www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

YouTube video by PoliticsGirl Want to HEAR something ANNOYING?

Are you kidding me? They want to pay him how much??
act.link/gi-teslm

youtube.com/shorts/CS6mU...

In a coordinated move, multiple federal agencies joined BlueSky yesterday and turned to trolling the opposition. Our Assessment on Democratic Decline warns of this autocratic practice: attacking the free press and narrowing the space in which factual reporting can safely operate without retaliation.

Trump Administration Authorizes Covert C.I.A. Action in Venezuela

BREAKING

“The Trump administration has secretly authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela, according to U.S. officials, stepping up a campaign against Nicolás Maduro, the country’s authoritarian leader.”

Gift link:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

Vought: "We're gonna keep those RIFs rolling throughout this shutdown ... think the Minority Business Development Agency that divvies up business grants on basis of race. Think Environment Justice at EPA ... "

2028: Trump wins all 50 states and wins big in California.

Um, ICE just coldly shot an unarmed PRIEST in the head w a pepper ball when he (and everyone around him) clearly posed no threat.

For the crime of … complaining about government policy.

Core 1A speech.

With cameras rolling, they’re sniping priests for sport.

This evening, President Trump is ordering 400 members of the Texas National Guard for deployments to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations within the United States. No officials from the federal government called me directly to discuss or coordinate.

Miller’s apparent elevation to shadow president and his seeming intent to declare an end to the constitutional order would, in any other administration, be treated as a executive branch meltdown that was immensely embarrassing for the president and requiring Miller’s immediate removal

Google is blocking AI searches for Trump and dementia With Biden, AI Mode will provide a summarized answer.

"Google appears to have blocked AI search results for the query 'does trump show signs of dementia' as well as other questions about his mental acuity, even though it will show AI results for similar searches about other presidents."

www.theverge.com/news/789152/...

Disney has backed down, but there's no evidence that Sinclair or Nexstar have learned their lesson.

If you haven't already done so, check the links in the thread below for stations in your area. Find the advertisers and let them know you're boycotting them until they remove ads from these stations.

There is no world in which it is normal for the president to publicly call upon his attorney general to hurry up and prosecute his political foes. It’s like the Watergate tapes but posted on social media. Let’s get a grip on what’s happening here.

Pause your doomscrolling and listen to this story.

Now Sinclair wants a Kirk tribute during the Kimmel time slot on ABC, and is calling on Kimmel to donate to turning point USA

These are not normal times

Fox News is just forging ahead tonight as though a card-carrying Democrat gunned down Charlie Kirk. The narrative is impervious to facts.

To do this, they used data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which CANNOT, under ANY circumstances, be used to ascertain that a vaccine *caused* an adverse event.

VAERS is a passive reporting system whereby anyone can submit a report of an adverse event after a vaccine.

Postal traffic to U.S. drops over 80% after trade exemption rule ends, U.N. agency says The de minimis rule that allowed small packages worth less than $800 to be exempt from tariffs ended on Aug. 29.

Postal traffic to U.S. drops over 80% after trade exemption rule ends, U.N. agency says

Now they will try and privatize the post office due to their issue they created.

Under Trump administration, ICE scraps paperwork officers once had to do before immigration arrests For years, officers were required to fill out "homework” before operations. But, one source noted, “it’s hard to fill out a worksheet that just says, ‘Meet in the Home Depot parking lot.’”

This isn’t at all surprising, given that it’s essentially been publicly reported that Stephen Miller ordered ICE to arrest first and ask questions later, but it’s still worth noting. www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

They are not even pretending that they know anything about someone before arrest.

Epstein Survivors Press Conference
Sept 3rd, 10:30 a.m. ET
Tune in to support them.

ICE Gives No-Bid SUV Contract to Republican Donor with a History of Fraud The $2.25M award for ICE recruitment vehicles seemed to go around normal contracting procedures.

"ICE Gives No-Bid SUV Contract to Republican Donor with a History of Fraud"

The $2.25M award for ICE recruitment vehicles seemed to go around normal contracting procedures.

Read Jason Paladino's latest scoop for Zeteo:

note how Trump on a daily basis is trying to normalize the idea that he's a dictator

A TJRS Deep Dive: Texas' EVEN MORE RACIST maps Just when you thought it couldn't get grimier, Texas Republicans lower the bar

TJRS Update: If you thought the FIRST Texas Republican racist gerrymander maps were bad… wait til you see the new ones! www.joyannreid.com/p/a-tjrs-dee...

XHDC TEXAS HOUSE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUG 14, 2025 CHICAGO - Texas House Democrats announced today that they will only return to Texas once two critical conditions are met: the Legislature's adjournment sine die on Friday; and the introduction of California's redistricting maps that would neutralize the Trump-Abbott voter suppression effort. Under the advice of legal counsel, Democrats must return to Texas to build a strong public legislative record for the upcoming legal battle against a map that violates both the current Voting Rights Act and the Constitution. "Trump thought he could easily get his way in Texas with compliant Republicans, but Democrats fought back ferociously and took the fight to Trump across America. We will return to the House floor and to the courthouse with a clear message: the fight to protect voting rights has only just begun.

Texas House Democrats signal they could return to the state soon, provided that “two critical conditions are met”

🚨 Trump's new BLS nominee E.J. Antoni suggests pausing the monthly jobs report: Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data

Read more: www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

BREAKING: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announces that he’s taking action to hold former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) in contempt for continuing to support quorum-breaking Democrats, declaring “it’s time to lock [Beto] up.”

Pentagon plan would create military ‘reaction force’ for civil unrest Documents reviewed by The Post detail a prospective National Guard mission that, if adopted, would require hundreds of troops to be ready around-the-clock.

The proposal...represents another potential expansion of President Donald Trump’s willingness to employ the armed forces on American soil. It relies on a section of U.S. Code that allows the commander in chief to circumvent limitations on the military’s use within the United States.