Trump reliably sides with rapists, being one himself. The only rapists he wants punished are black and Hispanic. He once took out a full-page ad in New York’s Newsday, demanding the death penalty for five alleged (but later exonerated) black and Hispanic men accused of rape.

Excerpt: The extraordinary move — holding back about one-fifth of the N.S.F.’s primary research budget — is the latest sign of how the Trump administration is finding creative ways to work around Congress.

Me again: That’s odd phrasing. Did Willie Sutton find “creative ways” to bypass bank withdrawals?

Hospitalized, execution victim is in “critical condition, receiving life-saving care”

A perfect snapshot of Trump-era insanity and cruelty.

There is no legitimate Pentagon function that has diddlysquat to do with worship of a particular god.

Excerpt: Hegseth has infused his evangelical Christianity into his leadership of the Pentagon, hosting Christian worship services for employees and often speaking of the United States as a Christian nation.

It’s a pretty short list: LSU, Liberty University, Tuskegee University, Mississippi State University, and Hillsdale College.

Anyone have a notion what he’s on about here? Is there a myth that Hispanics fall like cats, landing harmlessly on their feet?

Sociologist Nicole Bedera was interviewed by USA Today reporters for an article on the Cornell gang rapes, and then, after that article was published, the newspaper shared her interview with other reporters. Quotes from Bedera have appeared in articles written by reporters she’d never met, including one report claiming the Cornell victim’s account was unreliable.

Apparently, every USA Today interview is made available to any journalist employed by the same company? That’s a level of anti-ethics far beyond my already-pessimistic expectations for mainstream journalism.

This is good news, but it’s something of a self-own that the article’s headline and hook is an $80 hotel room — like that’s quaint and cute?

Ordinary folks stay in hotels where a room might cost $80 a night, or preferably less. It’s not startling, not news, not quaint, not cute. It’s just life if you’re not rich, but the New York Times knows nothing about that.

This makes an odd sort of sense. Everything TSA does is mere theater, and actors sit down for the table readings, but usually stand up for the actual performance.

Excerpt: “‘Just how many people do you want information on?’ asked Kathleen. The ICE Innovators went back and forth between themselves before agreeing that the number was 7-million. They wanted the current addresses of 7-million undocumented workers who had paid their taxes. The most law-abiding, it turned out, might be the easiest to catch.

The lone security guard who resisted DOGE

Until everyone who worked at DOGE is arrested, there’s no justice in this shithole country. And everyone who worked at DOGE won’t be arrested. Nobody will.

Dunno why this rather minor scandal has grabbed the media’s attention, instead of all the other scandals — Trump making a war from nothing, murdering fishermen, dismantling public health, etc etc etc.

It feels like dozens of previous This Time the Good Guys Will Win stories, and the good guys are still winless. Fingers crossed, though. Anything that might remove the living fart from office has my absolute support.

FCC’s Carr brushes off concerns about Trump’s taxpayer-paid election ads

Carr threatens ABC and Jimmy Kimmel for being funny, but he’s OK with taxpayer-paid propaganda on broadcast TV.

Excerpt: “A detainee who is shackled, transported to a former C.I.A. black site, and intentionally kept ignorant of both his right to remain silent and the inadmissibility of his prior coerced confessions, cannot be said to be making an ‘essentially free and unconstrained choice,’” he wrote.

Me again: Fuck all the lies about truth, justice, and the American way. Fuck GW Bush, who started this disaster, and fuck Barack Obama and Joe Biden who let it continue. And fuck Trump, of course, but that goes without saying.

These poor schmoes at Guantanamo will spend the rest of the lives there, and die there, and we’ll never know whether they’re guilty or innocent. But we’ll always know America’s guilty.

Excerpt: Permanently dismissing the case protects Hearn from prosecutors electing to revive the case under political pressure from Trump, the judge said.

“Although the prosecutors assigned to this case have deemed it meritless, the President of the United States has repeatedly disparaged them and pressured them to change course,” Edelman wrote.

Gregory Feathers. The killer’s name is Gregory Feathers.

Excerpt: “You gotta wonder — what really motivates a man who spends so much time talking about 11-year-old drag queens?”

Me again: Talarico has never said anything about 11-year-old drag queens, but Vance has delivered this line at least twice. So yeah, you gotta wonder…

Excerpt: Led by a former aide to Senator Harry Reid, the Searchlight Institute is hoping to persuade Democrats to play down causes like climate change and L.G.B.T.Q. rights to appeal to more voters

Me again: How will we tell the difference between this Democratic think tank and every other Democratic think tank?

Mamdani has made some mistakes and will continue to do so, but in my lifetime he’s the first socialist to hold a major elected executive position — in charge of something, not merely one vote among many in Congress or on a City Council.

And he’s clearly successful so far, making life better for New Yorkers. The city isn’t in ruins, which proves that actually giving a damn about ordinary people is popular with ordinary people. Surprise! Who could’ve seen that coming?

All the lies about him and socialism in general, recounted at the beginning of that clip, are more and more obvious bullshit, so the next socialist candidate will have an easier time because of Mamdani. That’s the best news on this page, and extremely important for the future of sanity in America.

Curtis Silwa holds Mayor Mamdani’s hand to get vaxxed

With no credible reports of increasing violence or danger, this smells like Trumpshit. It’s intended, mere days before Brazil’s presidential election, to generate bad press for the challenger Lula and help Trump’s beloved right-wing bloodsucker Bolsonaro.

Every issue everywhere comes down to, “How can we help Trump and his cronies?”

Excerpt: One of his favorite tall tales involves Americans having been healthier when his uncle, John F. Kennedy, was president. “I was raised in a time where we did not have a chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy testified during his confirmation hearing, suggesting that since his uncle’s presidency, the percentage of children with chronic illnesses had surged from 2% to 66%. At times he’s given different figures, but the message stays the same.

His claims are nonsense. A 1960 National Health Survey, released during the Kennedy presidency, reported that 41% of the country had one or more chronic conditions.

More of this, please. Much, much more of this, please.

More of this, please. Much, much more of this, please.

Sweet idea, but the minimum age is 75?

Give people better trains running more frequently, and they’ll want to ride.

Excerpt: The state’s anti-“nudification” law, which took ⁠effect on August 1, prohibits website operators, software developers and others from allowing users ​to create realistic images depicting an intimate body part that is not shown in ​an original photo of an identifiable individual.

xAI alleges the measure restricts free speech protected by the US Constitution.

Me again: Does Elon Musk have a Constitutional right to sell software allowing any customer to easily tweak photos or videos to make anyone of any age appear realistically naked?

To me, this is not a complicated legal question. The answer is NO, preferably accompanied by a kick to Mr Musk’s nuts.

Excerpt: If a bridge collapses, we don’t ever ask, “Was the bridge uncontrollable? Was the bridge unethical?” And really, AI is no different than that. When we describe these systems and artifacts like they have their own agency, we’re at the very same time helping the companies market themselves. But more importantly, what we’re doing is we’re also helping them sidestep accountability.

TLS‘s policy on AI is not vague. Is it too hardass to hope this is the end of Anchit Sathi’s career as a writer?

That number is a preposterous undercount.

If the endless news nightmare is too much, please go for a walk. Today is 64° and sunny, a lovely day in Seattle, because climate change has made autumn an extension of summer…