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SMALL DICTATOR ENERGY
Democrats warn Trump’s incendiary calls for violence against lawmakers could get “someone killed.” The White House is doubling down.
Just how pissed off is President Donald Trump about being forced to sign that law about releasing the Epstein files? Let’s just say he woke up in a particularly foul and vengeful mood this morning, even by his own abysmal standards. He fired up his Truth Social account and shot off a series of posts suggesting Democratic lawmakers should literally be executed [ [link removed] ] — for urging service members to follow the law, even if that means refusing illegal orders from Trump officials.
“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Trump wrote. “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand - We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET.” He also reposted 16 comments, including one that called for the members to be hanged.
Trump’s rage was focused on a video recorded [ [link removed] ] by several Democratic veterans in the Senate and House with a simple message to service members: You’re allowed to refuse orders you believe break the law. It’s a critical message right now, as the Trump administration deploys troops into American cities and sinks boats with missile strikes in Latin America.
Democrats demanded [ [link removed] ] Trump delete the posts “before he gets someone killed.” In an interview this afternoon, Rep. Jason Crow, one of the lawmakers targeted by Trump, told What A Day: “I will not be deterred. I don’t do intimidation well.”
The White House claimed Trump doesn’t actually want to execute Democrats — and tried to twist the basic facts about what happened.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt accused Democrats of saying exactly the opposite of what they really said. Trump doesn’t really want to execute those Democrats, she insisted, while claiming that the Democratic veterans (wait for it) had actually encouraged service members “not to follow lawful orders.”
“This is double speak,” Crow said. Trump “encourages and incites violence against individuals, against the Democratic Party, and then his spokespeople come out and say he didn’t actually say that and mean that,” he added, noting that he was in the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection. “One thing we have learned is that when the president of the United States says something, people listen.”
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have accused each other of ratcheting up violent rhetoric in the aftermath of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassination. After Trump’s threats, Crow’s security was “significantly increased,” he said, adding that he’ll have a security detail “for the foreseeable future.”
As for the Trump administration’s authoritarian actions in the U.S. and abroad: “None of this is normal. None of this is acceptable in the United States of America,” Crow said. “I will never, ever stop speaking out against it.”
BIG (OH) BROTHER
Do you drive a car? You might wanna keep an eye out for Border Patrol.
Border Patrol agents are quietly surveilling drivers across the United States, detaining people deemed to have “suspicious” travel patterns, according to the Associated Press [ [link removed] ]. The agency uses an algorithm embedded in a network of cameras to scan millions of license plates and where they came from, the outlet reports.
“Suddenly, drivers find themselves pulled over — often for reasons cited such as speeding, failure to signal, the wrong window tint or even a dangling air freshener blocking the view,” the AP writes. “They are then aggressively questioned and searched, with no inkling that the roads they drove put them on law enforcement’s radar.”
The program, which started years ago to police border areas, has reportedly expanded into the country’s interior over the past five years. The Trump administration is poised to provide Border Patrol with an additional $2.7 billion to build out the mass surveillance network.
“They are collecting mass amounts of information about who people are, where they go, what they do, and who they know,” Nicole Ozer, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco, told the AP. “These surveillance systems do not make communities safer.”
WHAT ELSE?
Donald Trump officially signed the bill [ [link removed] ] to release the Epstein files — but it’s worth remembering this bill contains some serious loopholes. For example: Trump’s Department of Justice now has one month to release the files… EXCEPT those related to ongoing investigations. Remember how the DOJ opened up a brand new criminal investigation focused exclusively on Epstein’s connections to Democrats? Yeah. Watch that space.
The Coast Guard will stop classifying swastikas [ [link removed] ] and nooses as hate symbols, downgrading them to be merely “potentially divisive,” the Washington Post reported, citing internal documents. Officials who spoke to the paper said they disagreed with its reporting on this subject, although their objections were vague, and it doesn’t seem the paper actually misreported the new policy. Still, the Department of Homeland Security later tweeted: “Y’all are just making things up now. 💀”
The CDC changed its website to claim that vaccines [ [link removed] ] may cause autism, a conspiracy theory without scientific backing. This is a stark example of anti-vaxxer HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s influence: During a hearing in February, Kennedy promised Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) that he would “not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism” if confirmed for the job. Could we just go back to talking about RFK Jr.’s weird love life, please [ [link removed] ]?
The unemployment rate reached its highest level [ [link removed] ] in four years in September, according to delayed Labor Department statistics. That reflects a “low-hire environment where it has been difficult for those workers who are laid off to find work again,” the Wall Street Journal writes. However, some 119,000 were hired that month, beating expectations.
The Trump administration announced new plans to drill for oil [ [link removed] ] off the California and Florida coasts, the first such projects in decades.
Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-PA) reportedly sold up to $130,000 [ [link removed] ] worth of stock in multiple Medicaid providers before voting for seismic cuts to the program. While Bresnahan says he never told his financial advisers what to buy or sell, the revelation comes at a bad time for stock traders on Capitol Hill: Lawmakers are considering whether the practice should be allowed for members of Congress. “This body has been enriching itself on the taxpayers’ dime for too daggum long, and it’s got to stop. This place is as crooked as a dog’s leg,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told reporters. A lot of folks think that’s daggum right.
Political leaders gathered for former [ [link removed] ] Vice President Dick Cheney’s funeral today, which Trump and Vice President JD Vance were reportedly not invited to. “If anybody needed more evidence of how politics have changed in America: Rachel Maddow is at Dick Cheney’s funeral,” the New York Times’s Peter Baker tweeted [ [link removed] ].
Electric car sales surged to $32 billion last quarter [ [link removed] ], [ [link removed] ] a 32 percent jump from the previous quarter. Why? Federal tax credits to buy electric vehicles, implemented during the Biden administration, expired at the end of September — prompting buyers to rush in.
A former GOP congressional aide allegedly [ [link removed] ] staged her own violent attack in July, according to federal prosecutors. The details are bizarre: Natalie Greene, who worked for Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) allegedly paid a scarification artist $500 to cut her, scrawling “TRUMP WHORE” and “Van Drew is a racist” into her skin. She was found zip-tied in the woods by police, who allegedly found security footage of her buying the zip-ties. She also allegedly claimed attackers had threatened to shoot her. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her and hope she’s getting the care she needs,” Van Drew’s office said in a statement.
LIGHT AT THE END OF THE EMAIL…
Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops [ [link removed] ] to Washington, D.C. was illegal, a federal judge ruled today. As a D.C. resident, you can trust me when I say: No one wants to be out of this city more than those troops. They are so bored and doing absolutely nothing.
Trump’s case against former FBI Director [ [link removed] ] James Comey “is dead,” former Trump White House lawyer Ty Cobb predicted to NBC News. His sober analysis comes after the Department of Justice admitted that interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan didn’t show the full grand jury Comey’s indictment. “Both Halligan and [Attorney General Pam] Bondi should be disbarred,” he added.
This [ [link removed] ]Washington Post [ [link removed] ] headline caught my eye today: [ [link removed] ] “I love your sweater. Is it made from gay sheep wool?” Um, what? Apparently, Grindr, the LGBTQ dating app, teamed up with Rainbow Wool to host a fashion show only using, you guessed it, wool from gay rams. The show’s title: “I Wool Survive.”
Raccoons that live near humans are following [ [link removed] ] a similar domestication pattern to cats and dogs, according to recent studies. Basically, they’re becoming cuter by developing shorter snouts, floppier ears, and smaller heads. So when can I adopt my own personal trash panda?
Miniature dogs are participating in strength competitions [ [link removed] ], in which the pooches tug carts weighing as much as 1,900 pounds. One example: A Chihuahua named Lemon took part in the 10-pound and under competition. She pulled a 260-pound cart on wheels — which is roughly equivalent to a man pulling a forklift. It turns out that even tiny dogs got that dog [ [link removed] ] in them.
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