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 Washington Post:
How Charlie Kirk's social media machine rewired a generation's politics — The 31-year-old activist and provocateur build a modern political organization for the social media age, through the arts of online discourse and discord. — Last month, as social media buzzed with news that Taylor Swift …
2025-09-13 23:25:01 UTC
Washington Post
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Washington, DC – President Donald Trump has made his appointments to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), so Unicorn Riot started looking into their backgrounds. The list is a who’s who of troublesome and generally bigoted individuals, not unlike Trump’s cabinet. A failed political candidate who founded Bikers for Trump, a venture capitalist who promotes racist and fascist ideas, and a sheriff who denies systemic racism exists are just a few of those sitting on the newly minted council.
Representatives from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the cop brotherhood with a long history of racism, didn’t make the cut for Trump’s HSAC like they did under Biden.
The council, which advises Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, is already problematic: it meets periodically, makes recommendations, and provides advice to the Secretary of Homeland Security, but is made worse by the people who have been part of it. These appointed members of police unions with histories of promoting racist ideas, alongside corporate CEOs with similar views, provide likely biased suggestions at the cabinet level, and thus directly into the White House:
“The Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) leverages the experience, expertise, and national and global connections of the HSAC membership to provide the Secretary real-time, real-world, and independent advice to support decision-making across the spectrum of homeland security operations.”
HSAC website
While some names put on Trump’s HSAC aren’t so out of the ordinary, such as South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster (R) to serve as chair, and Florida State Senator Joseph Gruters (R-FL22) to serve as vice-chair, other names raise eyebrows. Let’s take a look!
Marc Andreessen is the co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, an agency heavily invested in various tech companies and cryptocurrency exchanges, with about $42 billion in assets under management. Andreessen has backed various “freedom cities” or “startup cities” effectively controlled or owned and operated by private corporate entities, and is part of a coalition to bring similar undemocratic city-states to the states.
One only has to look at Starbase, Elon Musk’s city in Texas, to see how Republican leaders are willing to allow the corporate takeover of municipal governments. With Trump talking about liberating “Democrat-run cities,” it behooves voters to pay attention to the largely overlooked statements Trump has made about these proposed cities. Andreessen, Peter Thiel, and others are clamoring to advance this agenda. The conservative Project 2025 plan angles to dismantle the administrative state and impose right-wing control on cities, while former Project 2025 head Paul Dans claims freedom cities are the “construction” that follows Trump’s program of “demolition.”
Meanwhile, Andreessen has made comments suggesting that decolonizing India from British rule has been detrimental to the nation of nearly 1.5 billion people, saying, “Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now?”
Andreesen hosts group chats with tech executives and racist political influencers. The group chats included white supremacist Richard Hanania, right-wing commentator Chris Rufo, Tyler Winklevoss, Tucker Carlson, and many more. (Winklevoss’ cryptocurrency firm Gemini settled a lawsuit alleging it deceived derivatives regulators for $5 million in January.)
Andreessen also called Curtis Yarvin a friend three weeks after Yarvin said, “Everything rots when it has no owner—human beings included.” Yarvin went by the moniker ‘Mencius Moldbug’ online and has often been described as a neoreactionary and techno-fascist. Other statements by Yarvin include “If you think ‘racial equality’ is a good idea, you are not paying attention to reality” and “It is very difficult to argue that [the Civil War] made anyone’s life more pleasant, including that of freed slaves.” Andreessen named Filippo Marinetti, a Mussolini-era Italian fascist, as an inspiration in his 2023 “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.”
The Revolving Door Project warned of Andreessen’s attempts to popularize himself among liberals and Democrats, saying that the venture capitalist’s “longstanding commitment to extreme right-wing ideology makes it clear that any attempts to ingratiate himself with liberals are just a means of obtaining crypto-friendly legislation.” Andreessen and his firm are key funders for the pro-crypto Fairshake (PAC).
“Andreessen is a leading figure in both Silicon Valley’s persecution complex and its embrace of both neo-fascistic and monarchical thinking … Andreessen is quick to bemoan his supposed mistreatment at the hands of mean liberals and eager to proclaim that supposed `moderates’ like him were driven into the Republican Party’s awaiting arms. But this is simply not the case … Andreessen has long been a staunch reactionary who embraces authoritarian viewpoints.”
The Revolving Door Project
Christopher “Chris” Cox, Bikers for Trump Founder
Chris Cox founded Bikers for Trump in 2016. A chainsaw artist from South Carolina with no law enforcement or policy experience, he failed in his attempted 2020 run for political office in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District. Bikers for Trump was allegedly created in response to 2016 protests against Trump’s first presidential campaign, leading to the cancellation of a rally in Chicago.
The group gained considerable attention during the 2016 election, when Trump at one point suggested that they were among the “tough people” who would support him if Democrats went too far in their investigations of his alleged crimes. In 2019, Bikers for Trump transitioned from a grassroots movement to a political action committee, allowing it to engage directly in political activities and fundraising.
“We’re not out there looking for a fight, but we’re certainly not gonna back down from one either.”
Chris Cox during Trump’s 2020 campaign launch
Cox also referred to COVID as the “plandemic,” citing a discredited yet popular conspiracy theory that argued the pandemic was planned and orchestrated by global elites for the typical “globalist” purposes, a term sometimes used as an antisemitic dogwhistle in hard-right discourse.
Mark Dannels, Cochise County Sheriff, Arizona
Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, who sat on Trump’s HSAC during his last term, was removed from the council after Biden’s DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas terminated the existing membership of Trump’s HSAC in March 2021. Daniels is known for participating in an anti-immigrant border rally sponsored by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group that is part of the Tanton Network.
Dannels is no stranger to racially charged anti-immigrant rhetoric, calling immigrants a threat to public safety. He has inflated the number of migrants crossing the border to fuel panic, and called the U.S.-Mexico border the “largest crime scene in the country” during a House Judiciary hearing in 2023.
At the height of attacks against the Black Lives Matter movement in 2021, while serving as leader of the Arizona Sheriffs Association, Dannels joined the fray to denounce the movement when he attacked the idea that bias in policing exists, saying that “isolated bad acts provide evidence of a systemic problem is maliciously unsupportable and patently false.”
“Those who, through prejudice, stereotyping, bias, and discrimination, indict all of law enforcement officers as being systemic racists now use those assertions as a platform to mandate law-enforcement reform. Some even tacitly or directly encourage violence against law enforcement. They do so based upon the zealous false assertion that law enforcement is systemically racist. This assertion does not move us forward. Rather, it divides us. It detracts from any real and meaningful law-enforcement reform.”
Mark Dannels
Dannels is only interested in police reform involving people with law enforcement experience, suggesting he’s not interested in community involvement or community-centered policies, as stated in his 2021 open letter when he bemoaned “political leaders with no law enforcement experience” seeking to “direct law enforcement reform”:
“The issue of law enforcement reform is now infected by politics. Political leaders with no law enforcement experience now seek to direct law enforcement reform. They do this with political agendas or to gain favor with some political constituencies.”
Dannels is currently the chair of the National Sheriffs Association Border Security Committee.
A former cop and private investigator, some of Bo Dietl’s newsworthy work over the last decade has been geared towards protecting the far-right media sphere. Dietl was hired by Fox News to investigate and attempt to discredit women who accused former executives Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes of sexual harassment. Dietl worked with Steve Bannon to investigate Bannon’s ex-wife and chatted on the radio with Don Imus to intimidate a colleague over a disagreement.
Ford Motor Company accused Dietl’s private investigations firm, Beau Dietl & Associates, of barging into people’s homes while the co-founder of Arizona Iced Tea accused him of intimidation.
Dietl has also made various racist comments. In 2017, he compared a Black female judge to former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s former wife, Chirlane McCray, who is Black. Dietl, a staunch Republican, was running for mayor at the time, and Judge Debra James barred him from also running in the Democratic primary. Dietl has also made comments suggesting racial profiling was necessary when people “act like a terrorist.”
Dietl now advises Trump and Noem on Homeland Security policy.
Mark Levin, Broadcast News Analyst, The Mark Levin Show
Prolific conservative commentator Mark Levin has been known to spread wild conspiracy theories on his Fox News TV show “Life, Liberty, & Levin” and on the radio via the Mark Levin Show. His talk radio show generally ranks in the national top 10.
He took part in the “Deep State” conspiracy theories about former president Barack Obama wiretapping Donald Trump’s offices during the 2016 election, claiming that Obama loyalists were waging a “silent coup” against Trump.
During the 2020 election, as media outlets were reporting that Joe Biden had won, Levin told his radio audience that Biden was “stealing the election,” and insisted to his followers on social media that “there’s lots of evidence of voter fraud and election screw-ups.” He posted that Republican state legislatures should assert “final say” over presidential electors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Levin asserted that the flu killed more people and downplayed the threat of the coronavirus.
Levin also has strong ties to the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity network.
Corey Lewandowski, Chief Advisor to the Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
Corey Lewandowski is best known for his assault on a reporter at a Trump rally in 2016 while he was Trump’s campaign manager, but he has also faced allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. After taking a plea deal to avoid a misdemeanor battery charge from a woman who said he groped and harassed her in Las Vegas in 2022, he was promptly fired from running Trump’s Super PAC and from his consulting position for Noem and other Republican politicians.
Lewandowski has also suggested that “you have to respect” white nationalists and was once accused of having an affair with Noem, then-Governor of South Dakota. He has also stepped in to defend Trump against accusations of racism on many occasions. Lewandowski is also known for mocking a young girl with Down Syndrome in 2018. He has refused to apologize for anything.
Lewandowski is the “de facto chief of staff” under Noem at the Department of Homeland Security with “almost singular authority to fire people,” according to a source for CNN (archive).
Georgette Mosbacher, Co-Chair, Three Seas Programming, Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, Former Ambassador to Poland
U.S. Ambassador to Poland from 2018 to 2021, Georgette Mosbacher once criticized a Polish law which banned blaming Poland for Nazi Germany’s actions during the Holocaust, saying it was responsible for a rise in antisemitism in Europe. She received backlash from the Polish government, which deemed her comments unacceptable. She was also critical of the European Union’s relationship with Poland.
Omar Qudrat, CEO, Maden, Founder, Muslim Coalition for America, Major, U.S. Army Reserve
Omar Qudrat is an attorney and former U.S. Department of Defense official. In his national security career, Omar spent 18 months in Afghanistan during the surge as the coalition’s Deputy Chief of Rule of Law and Political Advisor to the NATO Ambassador. A military prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay for an unknown number of years, Qudrat has worked with pro-Israel groups through his Muslim Coalition for America. An op-ed justifying why he supports Trump, and comments suggesting the U.S. could “learn from countries like Israel” about building a border wall, likely explain his position in an advisory role for the Trump administration.
“Harris tells us we will never be equals, and Trump tells us we are already cherished. Harris is telling us to vote for her because of the color of our skin, and Trump is telling us to vote for him because he represents our best interests.”
Omar Qudrat, 2024 op-ed in Newsweek
Qudrat started his career at the Carlyle Group Entrepreneurship Program, where he worked on the acquisition of technologies and identifying emerging markets. While the Carlyle Group itself does not have direct defense contracts, the companies it owns or controls have done billions of dollars’ worth of business with the Pentagon.
Rudy Giuliani, Former NYC Mayor and Disbarred Prosecutor
Rounding out the list of problematic people on a council that advises the White House on homeland security is former New York City Mayor and Trump acolyte Rudolph W. Giuliani, a major drop in status from his post-9/11 glory days, when the mass media christened him “America’s Mayor.” Before 9/11, Giuliani was infamous for defending NYPD police killings of unarmed Black people, pushing racist “broken windows” policing and causing long-term damage to NYC’s queer community by cracking down on LGBTQ nightclubs.
A former federal prosecutor, Giuliani was disbarred in New York and the District of Columbia in 2024 for his actions as an attorney while trying to overturn the 2020 election.
Others on the HSAC
In addition to Giuliani, the roster represents many corporate leaders and former Trump officials.
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Stephen Sloan, Global Head of Secondaries at Future Standard (formerly Portfolio Advisors). Co-Founder, Cogent Partners.
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James “Jim” Pallotta, Managing Partner and Founder, The Raptor Group. Highly networked billionaire, often listed as one of the top 20 hedge fund managers in the nation.
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Edward T. McMullen Jr, Senior Policy Advisor, Adams and Reese LLP. Former Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein during the first Trump term.
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George M. Lund, CEO and Chairman, Torch Hill Investment Partners. Treasurer and Executive Council member at the Atlantic Council.
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Nicholas Luna, Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Implementation, The White House. Luna previously worked for Vice President JD Vance and in the first Trump Administration as a personal aide “who travels most frequently with the president,” according to CBS News.
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David Chesnoff, Attorney, Chesnoff and Schonfeld, is prominent in Las Vegas criminal defense. Chesnoff represented fellow HSAC member Lewandowski on a misdemeanor battery charge settled in 2022.
- Matthew J. Flynn, Attorney, Steptoe, former Deputy Assistant to the President, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats. A GOP policy aide and advisor, including on the Trump-Vance transitional team. (Not to be confused with a Wisconsin Democrat of the same name.)
- Harvey C. Jewett IV, Executive at Performance Capital Partners, retired President of Super 8 Motels Inc., retired President and Chief Operating Officer, Rivett Group LLC., President, Great Plains Education Foundation, Inc.
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Steve T. Kirby, Founding Partner, Bluestem Capital Company.
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Robert “Bob” Smith, Former U.S. Senator, New Hampshire.
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Alexei Woltornist, Co-Founder and President, ATHOS PR firm. Former Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Homeland Security. Melkite Catholic priest, Project 2025 training video contributor.
Cover image and other compositions by Dan Feidt. “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” directed by Stanley Kubrick (Columbia Pictures, 1964). Mark Levin and Rudy Giuliani source photos by Gage Skidmore. Marc Andreessen source photo Kevin Maloney/Fortune Brainstorm Tech. Bo Dietl, Chris Cox, Bob Smith and group photos via the Department of Homeland Security on Flickr.
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 The post Chuds on Parade 2: Trump’s Homeland Security Advisory Council appeared first on UNICORN RIOT.
2025-09-13 22:57:51 UTC
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The Guardian:
Bottles thrown at police as 100 officers clash with ‘unite the kingdom’ marchers - UK politics live — Met police estimate 110,000 people attended rally, with smaller number of counter-protesters ‘penned in’ — Home secretary condemns protesters Counter-protesters penned in
2025-09-13 22:35:02 UTC
The Guardian
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Peter Nicholas / NBC News:
Trump says he wants national healing — while blaming the ‘radical left’ as a barrier — In an interview with NBC News, Trump talked about the Charlie Kirk assassination, criticized “a radical left group of lunatics” and called for Democratic donor George Soros to be jailed.
2025-09-13 22:25:00 UTC
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Brooke Singman / Fox News:
Trump praises FBI Director Kash Patel for speedy capture of Charlie Kirk assassin — In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump said he was ‘very proud’ of the FBI — EXCLUSIVE: President Trump on Saturday praised FBI Director Kash Patel for the remarkable speed …
2025-09-13 21:35:00 UTC
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Lisa Lerer / New York Times:
Van Hollen Criticizes Democratic Leaders for Delay in Endorsing Mamdani — At an annual fund-raiser in Iowa, the Maryland Democrat said he supported Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York City and said people were sick of “spineless politics.” — Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland …
2025-09-13 21:20:00 UTC
New York Times
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Berkeley Lovelace Jr / NBC News:
Families on Obamacare brace for higher health care premiums next year — Tax credits made ACA plans affordable for middle-class families. They're set to expire at the end of this year. — Leighanne Safford and her husband, Lorry, pay just $278 a month for health insurance.
2025-09-13 19:45:01 UTC
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Noah Smith / Noahpinion:
The Bluesky-ization of the American left — Progressives discovered a seemingly invincible weapon. One day it stopped working. — I remember walking through a bookstore in college and seeing an issue of Foreign Affairs with the headline “The Palestinian H-bomb”.
2025-09-13 19:30:04 UTC
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Josh Boswell / Daily Mail:
Tyler Robinson's roommate who tipped off FBI is identified as family refuse to deny transgender motive for Charlie Kirk assassination — A 22-year-old wannabe professional gamer who lived with Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin gave cops incriminating text messages leading to his arrest.
2025-09-13 19:15:00 UTC
Daily Mail
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Five Years Ago
This week in 2020, we learned about how the White House supposedly blocked Walmart from buying TikTok, and we asked why amidst all the fear around the site, nobody was equally worried about advertising tech and location data sales. GOP Senators released the latest stupid attempt to reform Section 230, the FISA court decided to loosen the restrictions on searching 702 collections, and Ajit Pai’s FCC was ignoring falsely inflated broadband numbers to pat itself on the back and killing rules that would have brought competition to cable boxes. We also took a look at the historic Zeran v. AOL case and what it could teach us about more recent cases.
Ten Years Ago
This week in 2015, Getty Images did some copyright trolling around the “socially awkward penguin” meme, while one of its subsidiaries was going even further with a totally baseless copyright claim. Some anonymous plaintiffs filed a misguided lawsuit against Amazon and GoDaddy over the Ashley Madison hack, while security researcher Brian Krebs received a legal threat from a former Ashley Madison executive over allegations that they did some hacking themselves. Meanwhile, Ajit Pai was desperately trying to pretend he was right about net neutrality killing broadband investment, and we looked at a great example of the USTR’s “transparency” in taking three months to reveal the names of the chapters in the TPP.
Fifteen Years Ago
This week in 2010, Righthaven’s mass lawsuit scheme found its way to a Senate candidate, and the company was demanding the domain names of sites it sued, while we responded to a ridiculous love letter to Intellectual Ventures. There were raids across Europe targeting file sharing websites, just as the Swiss Supreme Court ruled that tracking online file sharers was a violation of privacy laws, and the EU Parliament rejected ACTA. There was some rising awareness that censoring Craigslist only helps bad actors, while we wrote about the appeal of a ruling in which the court said Craigslist lost its Section 230 protections. And the ACLU took a somewhat new tack in suing Homeland Security over laptop searches at the border.
2025-09-13 19:00:00 UTC
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The Atlantic:
One of Utah's Own — Before the president of the United States announced on this morning's broadcast of Fox & Friends that the man who'd assassinated Charlie Kirk was finally in custody—"I think, with a high degree of certainty, we have him"—he had already told the American people who was to blame.
2025-09-13 18:35:05 UTC
The Atlantic
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FBI Director Kash Patel speaks alongside Utah officials during a press conference about the killing of Charlie Kirk. Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images This past week truly and tragically underscored the dark moment the US is currently facing – not only because of the horrific and inexcusable killing of Trump ally and right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, but also because of the response to it. Instead of bringing the nation together in the face of escalating political violence, Donald Trump, as president, chose to further divide the country, immediately blaming everyone on the left (despite knowing nothing about the shooter). What Trump and his allies conveniently failed to mention is that Democrats have been the victims of a spike in political violence themselves, perpetrated by pro-Trump individuals on the right. The Kirk news dominated the news cycle, as it will likely do for days to come, but in the background, Trump and his allies continued to take a number of actions that harm democracy, undermine the Constitution, and hurt free societies worldwide. From Trump’s strange denial of what clearly looks like his signature on a birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein, to his border czar spreading disinformation about people protesting against the administration’s policies, to the Supreme Court allowing ICE to continue practices that effectively amount to racial profiling, here’s ‘This Week in Democracy – Week 34’: Saturday, September 6
On Truth Social, Trump shared a meme that depicted him as an officer in the 1979 film ‘Apocalypse Now,’ with the title “Chipocalypse Now.” The caption read, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning…,” and continued, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.” In response, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker tweeted that Trump, whom he called a “wannabe dictator,” is “threatening to go to war with an American city,” and added, “This is not a joke. This is not normal.” -
Thousands of people protested in Washington, DC, to demand the Trump administration end its federal law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital, with signs that read “Trump must go now,” “Free DC,” and “Resist Tyranny.”
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Sunday, September 7On Truth Social, Trump said that Israel has accepted his terms for an agreement to free the hostages and end its war on Gaza and added that it’s “time for Hamas to accept as well.” He went on to say that he “warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting,” and noted, “This is my last warning, there will not be another one!” Drop Site News later reported that a senior Hamas official said the 100-word proposal “looks like it was written by the Israelis.”
In an interview on ‘60 Minutes Australia,’ comedian Rosie O’Donnell responded to Trump’s repeated threats to revoke her US citizenship, saying that while it would violate the Constitution, “he has pawns in the Supreme Court and you never know what he’d be able to do.” O’Donnell also noted that she’s being advised on “what would be right and healthy and what would be safe for myself and my family” when it comes to visiting the US from her new home in Ireland. On Fox, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said without evidence that those who are protesting the administration’s immigration crackdown are “absolutely” being paid to do so, and that those who are behind the funding “will be prosecuted too.” Asked by NBC News reporter Yamiche Alcindor whether Trump is trying to go to war with Chicago based on his Saturday post on Truth Social, the president berated her, called her “darling,” and told her to “be quiet,” adding, “You never listen. That’s why you’re second-rate.” Monday, September 8
The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal asking the Supreme Court to authorize the freezing of billions of dollars in foreign aid after a lower court ruled it must spend the funds before they begin to expire at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Politico reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to punch Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte “in the fucking face” during a private dinner last week, which was attended by dozens of Trump’s administration officials and advisers. While speaking at the Museum of the Bible, Trump downplayed the seriousness of domestic violence, saying, “Things that take place in the home, they call crime … If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘This was a crime.’” Trump also said that the Department of Education will be introducing new guidelines “protecting the right to prayer in our public schools,” while claiming that there are “grave threats to religious liberty in American schools.” A federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit by a coalition of 19 states and DC, finding that they had no legal standing to sue the Trump administration over its mass firings of thousands of federal probationary employees. A federal appeals court upheld the $83 million judgment against Trump in a defamation case against writer E. Jean Carroll and rejected his claims that he should’ve been shielded from liability because of presidential immunity. The panel, which found that the jury’s damages awards were “fair and reasonable,” wrote that the hundreds of death threats Caroll faced due to Trump’s social media attacks and public statements against her supported the judge’s “determination that ‘the degree of reprehensibility’ of Mr. Trump’s conduct was remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented.” -
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 unexplained decision, paused a lower court ruling preventing federal immigration officials from stopping suspects in Los Angeles based solely on factors like their race, their occupation, having an accent, or speaking Spanish. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “That decision is yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.”
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Meanwhile, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts allowed Trump to move forward with the firing of a Biden-appointed member of the Federal Trade Commission, directly contravening a 1935 Supreme Court ruling that upheld a federal law meant to restrict the White House’s ability to control the agency, while litigation around her termination continues. The House Oversight Committee released records from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, including a note signed by Trump that was part of the sex trafficker’s 50th birthday “book,” which featured text framed around the outline of a naked woman. The text read, in part, “We have certain things in common, Jeffrey,” along with, “Happy birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.” The records also included another entry in the book from a long-time Mar-a-Lago member, which featured a photo of Epstein holding an oversized novelty check with the caption, “Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women! Sells ‘fully depreciated’ [woman’s name] to Donald Trump for $22,500.” The Department of Homeland Security announced it launched “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, in an effort to “target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets.” In response, Pritzker tweeted that the operation “isn’t about fighting crime,” but “scaring Illinoisians.” House Speaker Mike Johnson walked back the claim he made last week that Trump was an “FBI informant” against Epstein, saying he didn’t know if he used the “right terminology,” but that it’s “much ado about nothing.” On Truth Social, Trump posted a video that promoted the long-discredited and debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. The video featured vaccine skeptic David Geier, who was hired to work as a senior data analyst in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a study on links between vaccines and autism. Asked on CNN about why Ghislaine Maxwell was moved to a lower-security prison, her former lawyer seemingly admitted that it was likely part of a deal with the Trump administration in exchange for her interview with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, saying, “when anybody who’s represented by a lawyer who knows what they’re doing goes in and meets with the government, there’s always a quid pro quo.” Trump politicized the killing of a Ukrainian refugee on a North Carolina train to rail against cashless bail, saying “her blood is on the hands of the Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail,” and calling on Republicans to vote for former RNC Chair Michael Whatley for US Senate. Tuesday, September 9
NBC News reported that a more than 15-year-old ICE policy requiring officers in its Enforcement and Removal Operations division to fill out a form with details, including the name, known addresses, and criminal history of targeted immigrants before conducting any operations to arrest them, has ended under the Trump administration. A Michigan state judge dismissed charges against a group of fake electors who signed certificates that falsely stated Trump won the state in the 2020 presidential election, ruling that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove their intent to commit fraud. Calling the dismissal a “very wrong decision,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said it marked “the most dangerous slippery slope for American democracy, when courts decide that violations of election laws shouldn’t even be heard by a jury.” Nessel added, “I am terrified for the 2026 elections … If they can get away with this, what can’t they get away with next?” Israel launched a deadly attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, two days after Trump said his proposal for a ceasefire agreement was “last warning.” A Qatari security official was also killed. The illegal bombing of a sovereign country took place in a residential neighborhood and was condemned worldwide. Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’ political leadership in part at the request of the US, has been a key mediator in negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage deal. “I think that what [Benjamin] Netanyahu has done yesterday, he just killed any hope for those hostages,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration was notified of the action by the US military, but CBS News reported that Israel told the US, which has a military base in Qatar, about the strike just before it happened. On Truth Social, Trump said the operation was “not a decision made by me” but called the elimination of Hamas a “worthy goal.” He also said that he directed Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to inform Qatar of the impending strike, “which he did, however, unfortunately, too late to stop the attack.” Asked about Trump’s Monday comments downplaying domestic violence during a White House press briefing, Leavitt baselessly claimed that women are falsely reporting cases of domestic violence as a crime “to undermine the great work” Trump’s task force is doing in DC. -
The Supreme Court said it would take up Trump’s emergency appeal related to the legality of his global tariffs, with oral arguments expected in November. In the meantime, the tariffs will remain in place.
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The New York Times reported that Tulsi Gabbard ordered the retraction of an intelligence report on Venezuela and Richard Grenell, who serves as an envoy to the country and has called for negotiations with its government. The report, which was recalled several months ago while Grenell was negotiating the return of undocumented immigrants to Venezuela, focused on his conversations and negotiations with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Missouri state House voted to approve a new gerrymandered congressional map that would likely result in Republicans gaining another US House seat in the 2026 midterm elections. The map now moves to the state Senate, which is expected to pass it this month. Speaking to reporters, Trump denied that he signed the letter included in Epstein’s 50th birthday book, saying, “It’s not my signature and it’s not the way I speak, and anybody that’s covered me for a long time know that’s not my language.” A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, finding that the president’s decision to terminate her over accusations of mortgage fraud that allegedly occurred before her tenure is outside the bounds of the “for cause” provision, which is limited to her behavior in office. The New York Times reported that Trump’s Justice Department is quietly building the largest national voting database in the agency’s history, which includes data from more than 30 states. Experts say efforts to collect information about individual voters, including their names and addresses, may be against the law, and have raised concerns about the data being used to revive debunked claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen, or to discredit the results of future elections. The Supreme Court temporarily authorized the Trump administration to freeze approximately $4 billion in foreign aid set to expire at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, which includes funding for global health and HIV/AIDS programs. Wednesday, September 10
Trump ally and MAGA pundit Charlie Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University. His killing was immediately condemned by politicians and pundits across the political spectrum. While top Democrats, including Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom, denounced Kirk’s killing, some far-right commentators immediately attempted to blame the left for the shooting. Elon Musk tweeted that “The Left is the party of murder,” while conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer called on the Trump administration to “shut down, defund & prosecute every single Leftist organization.” Meanwhile, Trump issued a video message from the Oval Office, in which he said, “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals … My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.” Trump’s warning came despite the fact that the shooter hadn’t yet been identified in Kirk’s killing, and their motive remained unclear. AP reported that the Trump administration is reviewing material at national parks and historic sites related to slavery, the destruction of Native American culture and language, the climate crisis, and other information that could be “disparaging” to the US. Additionally, the National Park Service had until July 18 to flag “inappropriate” signs, exhibits, and other material. A federal appeals court reinstated the copyright chief of the Library of Congress while she continues to challenge Trump’s effort to fire her in court. -
ProPublica reported that the Education Department cut funding for programs in eight states that help students who have hearing and vision loss, with a spokesperson for the department citing concerns about “divisive concepts” and “fairness” in relation to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The funding, which will stop at the end of September, was expected to continue through September 2028.
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Three former senior FBI officials, including former acting director Brian Driscoll, sued Kash Patel for their firings, arguing they were unlawful and politically motivated. The lawsuit claims that Patel “deliberately chose to prioritize politicizing the FBI over protecting the American people. The suit also details an interview Driscoll undertook before he was appointed as acting director, which appeared to be a loyalty test. The interview included questions about whether he voted for a Democrat in the last five elections and if FBI agents who raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022 “should be held accountable.” The Trump administration announced it would withhold $350 million in grants to hundreds of colleges serving students of color, reallocating the funds away from eight discretionary grant programs that support Black, Native, Hispanic, and Asian American students. The Trump administration walked back its claims that hundreds of Guatemalan children it tried to deport back to their home country last month had been requested to return by their parents after a Justice Department attorney acknowledged that the claims had no factual basis and had been contradicted by a Guatemalan government review, which concluded that most of the parents couldn’t be located and the majority who were had wanted their children to remain in the US. Trump’s 30-day emergency order involving the federal takeover of law enforcement in DC officially expired, though National Guard troops and ICE agents will remain in the area. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that National Guard documents concluded that public sentiment about Trump’s takeover has been perceived as “leveraging fear,” driving a “wedge between citizens and the military,” and promoting a sense of “shame” among some troops and veterans. The New York Times reported that the Venezuelan boat destroyed by the US military in the Caribbean last week, which killed 11 civilians, had altered its course and appeared to have turned around before the strike began after people on board saw a military aircraft following them. The new details about the strike, which experts say may have violated international law, further undermine the Trump administration’s claim that it was legally justified as self-defense. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from subpoenaing the medical records of trans patients who received gender-affirming care at a children’s hospital in Boston, calling the move improper and “motivated only by bad faith.” A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from restricting access to services for undocumented immigrants, including the federal preschool program Head Start, as well as health clinics and adult education. -
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested to Axios that the Trump administration may begin targeting a share of funds generated by patents developed at major universities that receive federal funding, saying, “I think if we fund it and they invent a patent, the United States of America taxpayer should get half the benefit.”
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Thursday, September 11
Speaking to reporters, Trump escalated his dangerous rhetoric following Kirk’s killing, saying, “We have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.” House Democrats sent a letter to the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency requesting a review of director Bill Pulte’s mortgage fraud allegations against Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. In the letter, the lawmakers asked the IG to “review all the circumstances and activities” related to the agency’s acquisition and review of Cook’s mortgage application, along with “any announcements, statements, and release of documents related to this matter in order to determine whether any statutory, regulatory, or agency policies may have been violated.” Trump asked a federal appeals court to immediately pause a lower court ruling that blocked his firing of Lisa Cook, and requested a ruling by Monday, which is one day before the Fed’s board starts meeting to vote on whether to lower interest rates. Cook will be able to attend the meeting if the block on her firing remains in place. Bloomberg reported on a trove of Epstein emails from his personal Yahoo account that hadn’t been made public until now, which largely shed light on his partnership with Maxwell. In one email from Sept. 2006, two months after Epstein was charged in Florida with solicitation of prostitution, Maxwell sent Epstein a list of 51 people, including politicians, business executives, and Wall Street powerbrokers, writing, “Pls review list and add or remove peeps.” Epstein responded, “Remove trump.” A White House spokesperson called the article “more stupid, fake news playing into the hands of the Democrat Hox trying to link” Trump and Epstein. A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting dozens of Guatemalan and Honduran children who came to the US alone, extending her order until at least Sept. 26. The judge also raised concerns about whether the government made arrangements for the children’s parents or legal guardians to take custody of them. On Twitter, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau announced that the State Department will “undertake appropriate action” against immigrants who are “praising, rationalizing, or making light” of Charlie Kirk’s killing on social media, saying they “are not welcome visitors to our country.” He also called on Twitter users to report immigrants who have made such comments. -
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to over 27 years in prison after the country’s Supreme Court found him guilty of plotting a coup d’état following his loss in the 2022 election. Trump, who has called Bolsonaro’s prosecution a “witch hunt,” compared the former president to himself, telling reporters, “It’s very much like they tried to do with me, but they didn’t get away with it.”
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The Trump administration told the New York Times it had ordered the destruction of nearly $10 million worth of birth control pills and other contraceptives meant to go to individuals in low-income countries, even though several international organizations offered to buy them or accept them as donations. The estimated cost to destroy the products was $167,000. Authorities in Belgium, where the products were being held, later told the Times that the stockpile hadn’t been destroyed yet. Utah Governor Spencer Cox warned about a “tremendous amount” of disinformation circulating on social media in relation to Charlie Kirk’s killing. Senate Republicans broke precedent by changing a rule to lower the existing 60-vote threshold for considering a group of presidential nominees to a simple majority, further eroding the filibuster in the process and making it more difficult for individual senators to block specific nominees. Several historically Black colleges and universities in the South were put on lockdown and had classes canceled after receiving “potential threats to campus safety.” Meanwhile, Capitol Police responded to a “potential security concern” at the Democratic National Committee headquarters, which turned out to be a non-credible bomb threat. A federal appeals court cleared the way for the Trump administration to move forward with blocking Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood as part of the president’s tax and spending bill passed in July. Friday, September 12
During a one-hour interview on Fox, Trump announced that a 22-year-old suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk had been taken into custody, and once again called for “quick trials,” saying that suspects who are caught on tape “should have a trial the following day.” The suspect was later named as Tyler Robinson. Also during the interview, Trump falsely said he could “change the mayor” of DC if he wants, claimed Chicago is “worse than Afghanistan,” and ludicrously said that “California doesn’t have ballot boxes.” Additionally, he accused, without evidence, the Jan. 6 Select Committee of “burn[ing] all the information because we were right on everything.” He claimed that “radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem.” He also said his administration is going to “look into” Jewish billionaire and Democratic Party donor George Soros, adding he believes “it’s a RICO case against him and other people.” -
Trump announced that Memphis, Tennessee, will be his administration’s next target of a National Guard deployment to fight crime, saying, “We’re going to fix that just like we did Washington.” He added, “I would’ve preferred going to Chicago … we’ll bring in the military too if we need it.”
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Reuters reported that the Trump administration is planning to propose significant restrictions on the right to asylum at the United Nations later this month. The proposed framework would require asylum seekers to claim protection in the first country they enter, rather than a country of their choosing. Additionally, asylum would be temporary, and the country providing asylum would be able to determine whether conditions in home countries have improved enough for their return. The Washington Post reported that Trump health officials are planning to link COVID-19 vaccines to the deaths of 25 children based on information submitted to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which contains unverified reports of side effects from vaccines that can be submitted by anyone. The move comes as the Trump administration considers limiting who can get the COVID-19 vaccine. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s policy that directed immigration judges to dismiss deportation cases, a move that has resulted in ICE arresting immigrants in and around courthouses. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would move to end a 15-year-old program that requires thousands of polluters to report the amount of greenhouse gases they emit, with EPA administrator Lee Zeldin saying in a statement that the program “is nothing more than bureaucratic red tape.” CBS News reported that the US Secret Service put an agent on leave after writing a Facebook post about Charlie Kirk’s killing, noting he “spewed hate and racism on his show.” In a memo, the Secret Service director said that members “must be focused on being the solution, not adding to the problem.” Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor who Trump tried to fire over allegations of mortgage fraud, listed the Atlanta property at the center of those allegations as a “vacation home,” according to a document reviewed by Reuters. The 2021 document, says Reuters, “appears to counter other documentation that Cook’s critics have cited in support of their claims that she committed mortgage fraud.” Did you miss previous weeks? Catch up here.
Subscribe to Zeteo to make sure you get ‘This Week in Democracy’ in your inbox every week. If you are already a Zeteo subscriber but would like to increase your support for our accountability journalism in this era of Trump and authoritarianism, please do consider a donation, too.
2025-09-13 18:00:38 UTC
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Raphael Satter / Reuters:
Charlie Kirk's allies warn Americans: Mourn him properly or else — Republicans warn against mocking Kirk's death, threaten dire consequences — At least 13 people fired or suspended for allegedly disrespecting Kirk's memory — Online campaigns directed by Republicans continue to target Kirk's critics online
2025-09-13 16:55:00 UTC
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Megan Messerly / Politico:
Trump is selling a strong economy. Voters aren't buying it. … “That's a thing that I know the White House political team is nervous about because there's a reality and there's a perception. And the reality is the economy is doing fine and the perception is people are still worried …
2025-09-13 16:40:00 UTC
Politico
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Washington Post:
Pentagon plan envisions 1,000 troops for Louisiana policing mission — Documents reviewed by The Washington Post illustrate the Trump administration's evolving strategy for sending the military into cities with Democratic majorities. — Just now — The Trump administration has drafted …
2025-09-13 16:40:00 UTC
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Andrew Dyer / KPBS Public Media:
San Diego Navy doctor fired after right-wing activists find pronouns on social media — A San Diego Navy doctor was removed from command last week after right wing activists began sharing screenshots of her LinkedIn account on X. — Cmdr. Janelle Marra is a Navy physician with 21 years of service.
2025-09-13 16:30:01 UTC
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Wall Street Journal:
These Charts Show How Putin Is Defying Trump by Escalating Airstrikes on Ukraine — Russia has significantly stepped up its drone and missile strikes this year — KYIV, Ukraine—Russia has significantly escalated strikes on Ukraine since President Trump took office, data show …
2025-09-13 16:20:01 UTC
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Jamelle Bouie / New York Times:
Charlie Kirk Didn't Shy Away From Who He Was. We Shouldn't Either. — Virtually every person of note in American politics has, rightfully, condemned the horrific killing of Charlie Kirk and expressed their deep concerns about the growing incidence of political violence in the United States.
2025-09-13 16:15:01 UTC
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Wall Street Journal:
Deportation Blowback in South Korea — More foreign investment will require more U.S. temporary visas, as there aren't enough American workers. — Still think mass deportation has no economic or political consequences? The fallout from last week's blunderbuss raid on a Hyundai plant …
2025-09-13 15:45:04 UTC
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Thomas Chatterton Williams / The Atlantic:
The Right Is Changing the Rules of the Culture War — For conservatives, cancel culture is in. — Christopher rufo took six months to contradict his own advice. In February, the conservative activist wrote that social-media posts “should no longer be grounds for automatic social and professional annihilation.”
2025-09-13 14:30:03 UTC
The Atlantic
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David Ingram / NBC News:
Toxic rhetoric, including calls for ‘civil war’ and retribution from the right, proliferates after Charlie Kirk killing — Kirk was known for sharing extreme and provocative positions online and in frequent on-campus appearances. His killing has sparked messages threatening violence.
2025-09-13 14:15:00 UTC
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Emily Peck / Axios:
Why foreign travelers are avoiding the U.S. — Like a lot of Canadians, Jorge Aranda stopped coming to the United States this year. “I don't want to pretend that everything's OK,” he tells Axios. … - The U.S. could see 8.2% fewer international arrivals in 2025, per a forecast last month …
2025-09-13 14:10:03 UTC
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With not a single empty seat in the crowd, hundreds gathered at Washington DC’s Georgetown University for a screening of Zeteo’s documentary, ‘Gaza: Doctors Under Attack,’ which the BBC refused to air. The screening of the documentary, produced by Basement Films, was followed by a panel discussion with Mehdi and California trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who recently came back from Gaza. The panel was moderated by the Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Nader Hashemi. “I wish it wasn't a Zeteo film,” Mehdi opened by saying of the documentary. “It was supposed to have aired on the BBC, and yet the BBC decided, under pressure from all sorts of institutions, individuals, groups, that they couldn't run this film.” Subscribe now Dr. Sidhwa, who has been to Gaza twice since the genocide started and is planning for his third visit later this year, explained to the audience the realities of being a doctor in Gaza that our film couldn’t show. “You can only show so much in an hour,” said the trauma surgeon. “One thing it doesn't show is their struggle to survive.” The doctor shared personal experiences from his trips to Gaza, including the killing of one of his child patients while he was being treated, the difficulty of getting into the occupied strip, and testimonies from Palestinian doctors who cannot leave. “I fly in for two weeks, and I fly out, and I pat myself on the back, and then I go eat a big cheeseburger. But these folks are there literally just all the time. And there's countless stories of physicians working in the ER when their whole family is brought in dead,” Dr. Sidhwa recounts. Audience members got to take part in the conversation by putting their own questions to the panel, which ranged from what they can do to fight Israel’s brutality, how Dr. Sidhwa prepares for his trips to Gaza, and where Israel’s red lines are drawn, among many others. Mehdi, as ever, didn’t hold back in his scathing critique of both Israel’s genocidal government and our own complicit mainstream media! Paid subscribers can watch the full discussion above. Free subscribers can watch a three-minute preview. Do consider becoming a paid subscriber to Zeteo and never hitting another paywall again!
In case you missed them, here are some of our latest stories:
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2025-09-13 14:02:47 UTC
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Today's links
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Wallet voting: On the uses and abuses of consumerism.
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Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
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Object permanence: Microsoft copyright crackdown against Russian dissidents; Corbyn wins Labour leadership; Bill Gates' monopolism; TiVo won't record DRM shows; HDCP leaks; Puking sink; Mr Gotcha…
2025-09-13 13:45:00 UTC
13 Sep 2025
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David Gilbert / Wired:
Extremist Groups Hated Charlie Kirk. They're Using His Death to Radicalize Others — The Oath Keepers are apparently restarting, and extremist groups like the Proud Boys are calling for “state violence” in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death. — For years, extremist groups, white nationalists …
2025-09-13 13:15:01 UTC
Wired
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NBC News:
After Charlie Kirk's death, teachers and professors nationwide fired or disciplined over social media posts — At least a dozen faculty and staff have faced fallout over insensitive comments online. — Following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk this week …
2025-09-13 12:45:01 UTC
NBC News
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Wired:
Bullets Found After the Charlie Kirk Shooting Carried Messages. Here's What They Mean — The inscriptions on bullets recovered near the scene of Charlie Kirk's murder appear to reference video games like Helldivers 2 and online furry roleplay, not a legible political ideology.
2025-09-13 10:25:00 UTC
Wired
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NBC News:
Pete Hegseth tells Pentagon staff to hunt for negative Charlie Kirk posts by service members — Several people have already been relieved of their jobs because of their posts on social media, defense officials told NBC News. — WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has told his staff …
2025-09-13 05:05:00 UTC
NBC News
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Steve Kopack / NBC News:
Lisa Cook's bank documents appear to contradict Trump administration's mortgage fraud allegations — President Donald Trump is seeking to remove Cook, a board member at the Federal Reserve, over claims that she falsified financial forms regarding a secondary home.
2025-09-13 05:00:05 UTC
NBC News
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pbump:
Reassessing the ‘fine people hoax’ hoax — Donald Trump appeared on Fox News' “Fox & Friends” Friday morning, returning to the program where he was a weekly contributor until he announced his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Back then, he used to offer right-wing assessments …
2025-09-13 04:45:01 UTC
pbump
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CNN:
Trump shelves Chicago crackdown plans for now as advisers warn of legal headaches — President Donald Trump shelved his plans to target Chicago as the next city for his domestic crime push after advisers warned him that sending in troops to help with local law enforcement without buy …
2025-09-13 02:50:00 UTC
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As you will hopefully recall, that very strange patent lawsuit between Nintendo and PocketPair over the latter’s hit game, Palworld, is ongoing. At the heart of that case is a series of overly broad patents for what are generally considered generic game mechanics that also have a bunch of prior art from before their use by Nintendo in its Pokémon games. These include concepts like throwing a capture item at an NPC to collect a character, as well as riding and mounting/dismounting NPCs in an open world setting. The result, even as the litigation is ongoing, has been PocketPair patching out several of these game mechanics from its game in order to protect itself. That it feels this is necessary as a result of these broad patents is unfortunate.
And, because of the failure of the USPTO to do its job, it seems things will only get worse. Nintendo was awarded two additional patents in just the past couple of weeks and those patents are being called an “embarrassing failure” by patent attorney Kirk Sigmon.
The last 10 days have brought a string of patent wins for Nintendo. Yesterday, the company was granted US patent 12,409,387, a patent covering riding and flying systems similar to those Nintendo has been criticized for claiming in its Palworld lawsuit (via Gamesfray). Last week, however, Nintendo received a more troubling weapon in its legal arsenal: US patent 12,403,397, a patent on summoning and battling characters that the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted with alarmingly little resistance.
According to videogame patent lawyer Kirk Sigmon, the USPTO granting Nintendo these latest patents isn’t just a moment of questionable legal theory. It’s an indictment of American patent law.
“Broadly, I don’t disagree with the many online complaints about these Nintendo patents,” said Sigmon, whose opinions do not represent those of his firm and clients. “They have been an embarrassing failure of the US patent system.”
And as Sigmon goes on to note, the failure is multifaceted in both instances. Sigmon notes that both patents are for mechanics and concepts that ought to be obvious to anyone with a reasonable amount of skill in this industry, which ought to have made them ineligible to be patented. That standard of patent law only works, however, if the USPTO acts as a true interlocutor during the filing process. In both of these cases, though, the USPTO appears to have not been in the mood to do their jobs.
Sigmon notes that it is common for patent applications like this to show some amount of questioning or pushback from the examiner. In both of these cases, that seemed almost entirely absent from the process, especially for patent ‘397.
Most of the claims made in the ‘387 patent’s single parent case, US Pat. No. 12,246,255, were immediately allowed by the USPTO, which Sigmon said is “a very unusual result: most claims are rejected at least once.” When the claims were ultimately allowed, the only reasoning the USPTO offered was a block quote of text from the claims themselves.
The ‘397 patent granted last week is even more striking. It’s a patent on summoning and battling with “sub-characters,” using specific language suggesting it’s based on the Let’s Go! mechanics in the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet games. Despite its relevance to a conceit in countless games—calling characters to battle enemies for you—it was allowed without any pushback whatsoever from the USPTO, which Sigmon said is essentially unheard of.
“Like the above case, the reasons for allowance don’t give us even a hint of why it was allowed: the Examiner just paraphrases the claims (after block quoting them) without explaining why the claims are allowed over the prior art,” Sigmon said. “This is extremely unusual and raises a large number of red flags.”
It’s hard to know what to say here. I obviously can’t crawl inside the head of whoever examined these patents at the USPTO. To that end, it would be irresponsible to claim that this is obvious laziness by a government employee, though on the surface that’s certainly what this looks like. Absent more information that is not currently available, any alternate theories as to why these applications were handled is mere speculation.
But with the Palworld example fresh in our minds, we do certainly know what the granting of patents like this will result in: more patent bullying by Nintendo.
“Pragmatically speaking, though, it’s not impossible to be sued for patent infringement even when a claim infringement argument is weak, and bad patents like this cast a massive shadow on the industry,” Sigmon said.
For a company at Nintendo’s scale, the claims of the ‘397 patent don’t need to make for a strong argument that would hold up in court. The threat of a lawsuit can stifle competition well enough on its own when it would cost millions of dollars to defend against.
And in the current environment, where challenging bad patents has become essentially pointless, you can bet we’ll see Nintendo wielding these patents against competitors in the near future.
2025-09-13 02:39:00 UTC
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Wiktoria Gucia / The Daily Beast:
Fired MSNBC Contributor Says Right Wing Mob Came for Him — FIRED UP — The ousted MSNBC analyst has spoken out about the network's decision. — Matthew Dowd says most at MSNBC knew his comments following Charlie Kirk's death were “misconstructed,” but claims the network caved to a “Right Wing media mob” in deciding to fire him.
2025-09-13 02:30:01 UTC
The Daily Beast
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Farrah Tomazin / The Daily Beast:
Keystone Kash Kept Kirk Arrest Secret So Trump Could Spill on Fox — MADE FOR TV — The investigation has placed FBI Director Kash Patel and his lack of experience under scrutiny. — FBI Director Kash Patel did not disclose for hours that Charlie Kirk's suspected killer had been arrested …
2025-09-13 01:25:02 UTC
The Daily Beast
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Elizabeth Spiers / The Nation:
Charlie Kirk's Legacy Deserves No Mourning — The white Christian nationalist provocateur wasn't a promoter of civil discourse. He preached hate, bigotry, and division — Pocket — Charles James Kirk, 31, died on Wednesday from a gunshot to the neck at a Utah Valley University campus event …
2025-09-13 01:10:04 UTC
The Nation
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Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge:
The WSJ carelessly spread anti-trans misinformation — While I generally respect The Wall Street Journal, every once in a while it sees fit to remind me that it is, in fact, owned by Rupert Murdoch. This time, it printed something dangerously close to anti-trans blood libel in the wake of Charlie Kirk's shooting.
2025-09-13 00:25:00 UTC
The Verge
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Washington Post:
After Charlie Kirk's killing, suspect's family put the country first — A father's choice spared the country further agony by accelerating justice in this case. — Just now — Details are still pouring in about the capture of the suspect in the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
2025-09-12 23:45:01 UTC
Washington Post
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Cy Neff / The Guardian:
Charlie Kirk shooting: suspect set to face aggravated murder charge - live updates — Tyler Robinson, 22, expected to be charged on Tuesday; family friend contacted authorities after being told he had shot rightwing activist — Suspect's high school friend says Robinson was the only ‘leftist’ in a family of ‘very hard’ Republicans
2025-09-12 23:25:02 UTC
The Guardian
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Meryl Kornfield / Washington Post:
Lutnick says Musk was ‘backward’ in cutting government — The commerce secretary said the billionaire's efforts focused too much on reducing the workforce rather than targeting waste. — Just now — Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said former Trump adviser Elon Musk was “backward” …
2025-09-12 23:10:01 UTC
Washington Post
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Meredith Lee Hill / Politico:
'Don't even bother dealing with them,' Trump says of Democrats' shutdown demands … Lawmakers have until midnight on Sept. 30 to reach a funding deal. … But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said this week that Democrats will not vote for any such bill absent bipartisan negotiations.
2025-09-12 23:00:49 UTC
Politico
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The Colorado Sun:
Evergreen High School shooter embraced Columbine, antisemitism and white supremacy online — T he 16-year-old boy accused of shooting two classmates at Evergreen High School on Wednesday before fatally shooting himself embraced conspiratorial, antisemitic and white supremacist social media content …
2025-09-12 22:45:01 UTC
The Colorado Sun
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This story was originally published by ProPublica. Republished under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.
The Trump administration has vowed to go after anyone who got lower mortgage rates by claiming more than one primary residence on their loan papers.
President Donald Trump has used it as a justification to target political foes, including a governor on the Federal Reserve Board, a Democratic U.S. senator, and a state attorney general.
Real estate experts say claiming primary residences on different mortgages at the same time is often legal and rarely prosecuted.
But if administration officials continue the campaign, mortgage records show there’s another place they could look: Trump’s own Cabinet.
Underscoring how common the practice is, ProPublica found that at least three of Trump’s Cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages. We discovered the loans while examining financial disclosure forms, county real estate records and publicly available mortgage data provided by Hunterbrook Media.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer entered into two primary-residence mortgages in quick succession, including for a second home near a country club in Arizona, where she’s known to vacation. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has primary-residence mortgages in New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, has one primary-residence mortgage in Long Island and another in Washington, D.C., according to loan records.
In a flurry of interviews and rapid-fire posts on X, Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, has led the charge in accusing Trump opponents of mortgage fraud. “If somebody is claiming two primary residences, that is not appropriate, and we will refer it for criminal investigation,” Pulte said last month.
A political donor to the president and heir to a housing company fortune, Pulte’s posts online tease big developments and criminal referrals, drawing reposts from Trump himself and promises of swift consequences. “Fraud will not be tolerated in President Trump’s housing market,” Pulte has warned.
Real estate experts told ProPublica that, in its bid to wrest control of the historically independent Fed and go after political enemies, the Trump administration has mischaracterized mortgage rules. Its justification for launching criminal investigations, they said, could also apply to the Trump Cabinet members.
All three Cabinet members denied wrongdoing. In a statement, a White House spokesperson said: “This is just another hit piece from a left-wing dark money group that constantly attempts to smear President Trump’s incredible Cabinet members. Unlike [Fed Gov.] Lisa ‘Corrupt’ Cook who blatantly and intentionally committed mortgage fraud, Secretary DeRemer, Secretary Duffy, and Administrator Zeldin own multiple residences, and they have followed the law and they are fully compliant with all ethical obligations.”
Mortgages for a person’s main home tend to receive more favorable terms than for a second home or an investment property. That includes better interest rates and the ability to borrow more money.
The idea is that borrowers are more likely to pay back — and less likely to default on — a loan attached to the home they actually live in. That makes those loans less risky for lenders. Interest rates are typically a quarter- to a half-point lower for primary mortgages, according to Pulte. On the low end, that could save around $75 each month over the life of a 30-year, 5% interest, half-million-dollar loan — or a total of around $25,000.
Standard mortgage documents commonly include an occupancy clause that requires the borrower to use the property as their principal residence for at least a year. They also include a section where borrowers can check a box when the mortgage is for a second home.
Misrepresenting occupancy status is not rare, according to a widely cited 2023 study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. In interviews, real estate lawyers said that mortgage lenders are typically well aware of their clients’ other loans and sometimes even encourage the primary-residence language for second homes.
They also pointed to a mundane reason that innocent mistakes are common: Homebuyers simply sign stacks of forms without reading them.
“Few consumers understand this issue, and if there is someone at fault here, it is likely the loan officer who likely advised them to sign up for this loan that obviously wasn’t for their primary residence,” said real estate lawyer Doug Miller. “Loan officers who are competing for business will often quote lower rates in order to get a customer’s business.”
Mortgage fraud is rarely prosecuted, according to real estate lawyers and federal sentencing data. Pulte has pointed to a case from 2016 in which a California woman was found guilty of obtaining multiple loans for condos that she falsely stated would be her primary residence. But that case had an added layer of fraud: The woman never intended to live in the homes. She was secretly being paid because she had good credit to act as a front for the true buyer of the properties, to whom they were later transferred. She later defaulted on the loans, causing more than half a million dollars in losses for the lenders.
Lawyers told ProPublica that determining ill intent would be key to prosecute. “Fraud requires the borrower to be aware that the borrower was making a false representation,” said Jon Goodman, an attorney focused on real estate at Frascona, Joiner, Goodman and Greenstein.
But Pulte has framed the issue in black-and-white terms: “Your second home is not your primary home,” he warned in one recent post on X.
By that standard, Trump’s labor secretary, Chavez-DeRemer, could be in the wrong.
In her financial disclosure form, she listed two mortgages on personal residences, both obtained in 2021. Mortgage records show her home is in Happy Valley, a city near Portland where Chavez-DeRemer served as mayor before being elected to represent the area in the U.S. House.
She and her husband, Shawn DeRemer, who leads an anesthesia company in Portland, refinanced their longtime Oregon home in January 2021. Two months later, the couple bought a newly built house near a golf course in Fountain Hills, Arizona.
The pair had previously enjoyed vacationing in Arizona, according to news reports and social media posts. (In one incident that made the news, Chavez-DeRemer was briefly hospitalized after a golf cart accident on her way back from watching a Sonoran Desert sunset.)
The mortgage agreement for the Arizona property required them to occupy the home as their “principal residence” for at least a year, barring “extenuating circumstances” or the lender allowing them to violate the stipulation.
A spokesperson for Chavez-DeRemer said that the couple bought the Arizona home with the intent to retire there, but then Chavez-DeRemer decided to run for Congress representing her Oregon district and did not move.
“This is nothing more than a left-wing rag inventing a story just to attack the Trump Administration. It’s common for families to refinance then buy a home with future plans in mind — trying to spin that as some type of scandal is pure nonsense,” said spokesperson Courtney Parella.
In response to questions from ProPublica, a White House official said that although DeRemer opted to stay in Oregon, her husband “continued to move forward with the process of becoming” an Arizona resident. Political donation records list his home in Oregon as recently as late 2023.
Duffy, Trump’s transportation secretary, and his wife also have two primary-residence mortgages, obtained a few years apart.
In August 2021, the Duffys, who have nine children, purchased a large $2 million home in Far Hills, New Jersey, about an hour’s drive from Manhattan, where Rachel Campos-Duffy works as a Fox News host.
They got a $1.6 million mortgage to purchase the property, and documents show it was a “principal residence” loan.
In February, after Duffy took the job in Trump’s cabinet, the couple bought another home, in Washington, D.C. Again, they got a principal-residence mortgage, this time for $1.76 million. Both Duffy and his wife are listed as borrowers on both mortgages, which came from the same bank.
It’s not clear where Sean Duffy lives most of the time, and a Department of Transportation spokesperson declined to answer questions about where Duffy and his wife each make their primary home. In late May, several months after they purchased the Washington home, “Fox & Friends Weekend” ran a segment in which Rachel Campos-Duffy cooked a “Make America Healthy Again” breakfast for host Steve Doocy. Sean Duffy and some of the couple’s children were also in the segment, and it was filmed in the New Jersey home.
Duffy’s spokesperson said in a statement that after being confirmed, “Sean purchased a home in Washington D.C. where he works full-time. The home in DC is not a rental, investment or vacation property. The same bank holds both mortgages and was fully informed of Secretary Duffy’s new employment location and need for a DC residence.”
A White House spokesperson said, “The bank, not the Secretary, determined and classified both mortgages as primary residences.”
Like the Duffys, Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, and his wife also have two concurrent primary-residence mortgages.
One, obtained in 2007, is on a home in Shirley, New York, on Long Island, which Zeldin represented in Congress for several years. Last year, Zeldin and his wife obtained a second mortgage, for $712,500, on a property in Washington, D.C., a short walk from the EPA’s headquarters. Both are primary-residence mortgages.
An EPA spokesperson said in a statement that Zeldin’s primary residence was previously on Long Island but is now in Washington. The spokesperson didn’t respond to questions about where his wife lives. “Administrator Zeldin followed ALL steps to complete the move in accordance with all laws, rules, and contracts, notifying his mortgage company, insurance company, and local government,” the spokesperson said. “EVERY ‘I’ was dotted and ‘t’ was crossed 1000% by the book without exception.”
The dual mortgages identified by ProPublica among Trump’s cabinet secretaries resemble the loans obtained by U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, whom Trump accused of mortgage fraud.
In May, Pulte referred Schiff to the Justice Department for taking out a primary-residence mortgage in Maryland, for a home he purchased in 2003 after being elected to the House, while also claiming his primary home was in Burbank, California, in the district he represented. Schiff and his wife refinanced the Maryland home several times as a primary residence, Pulte noted, until a 2020 refinance in which they reclassified it as a secondary home.
“Schiff appears to have falsified records in order to receive favorable loan terms,” Pulte concluded in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Representatives for Schiff called the allegations “transparently false” and said his lenders had “full knowledge of the senator’s year-round bicoastal work obligations” and “his use of two homes for that reason.” Schiff, according to his office, navigated the two mortgages in consultation with a House lawyer.
Pulte made similar allegations in a criminal referral about New York Attorney General Letitia James, alleging she may have committed fraud by getting a primary-residence mortgage for a home in Virginia, even though her position required her to live in New York. Her lawyer has said James helped a family member buy the property and notified the mortgage broker at the time that it would not be her primary residence. James became one of Trump’s top political enemies after she brought a fraud lawsuit against the president and his company in 2022. Representatives for James have called the fraud claims made against her politically motivated and false. (Pulte did not respond to a request for comment from ProPublica.)
Pulte’s most consequential allegations thus far were made against Cook, a Federal Reserve governor. Trump has been going after Fed Chair Jerome Powell for months for not lowering interest rates, even raising the specter that he would take the unprecedented step of attempting to fire the chair. Pulte’s criminal referral against Cook presented Trump with another avenue for bending the traditionally independent Fed to his will, securing a majority of the Fed’s board by firing Cook, a move that Cook has sued to block.
Pulte pointed to mortgage records that show that within just a couple of weeks, Cook signed primary-residence mortgages for homes in Michigan and Georgia. Legal experts said the close proximity was a red flag but that much was still unknown, including Cook’s intent and what her lenders were told. Pulte also flagged a third property, in Massachusetts, that Cook represented as a second home in mortgage documents but as an investment property in subsequent financial disclosures. Investment properties can be hit with higher mortgage rates than second homes.
“3 strikes and you’re out,” he posted on X.
Cook’s lawyers have denied that she committed mortgage fraud but have not provided a detailed explanation of the context for the various mortgages. They argued in court this week that her loans cannot be legally used as grounds to terminate her.
The Justice Department has begun investigating all three Trump foes singled out in Pulte’s referrals, according to news reports. The department has issued subpoenas in Cook’s case, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
ProPublica’s review of mortgage agreements by Trump cabinet officials shows that some made clear to lenders they were purchasing second homes.
When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for example, got a mortgage for his home near the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, the agreement included a rider making it clear he would be using it as a second home.
2025-09-12 22:35:40 UTC
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Associated Press:
ICE officer fatally shoots suspect after being dragged by car near Chicago, officials say — A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a suspect who tried to evade arrest Friday in a Chicago suburb by driving his car at officers and dragging one of them, officials said.
2025-09-12 22:25:00 UTC
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Amber Levis / The Daily Beast:
Charlie Kirk Suspect's Grandma Says Family Is All MAGA — RELATIVELY REPUBLICAN — Tyler Robinson, the prime suspect for Charlie Kirk's assassination, comes from a proud MAGA family, according to his grandmother. — Tyler Robinson, 22, the man arrested in connection with the assassination …
2025-09-12 22:15:00 UTC
The Daily Beast
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Reuters:
Exclusive: Fed Governor Cook declared her Atlanta property as “vacation home,” documents show — Cook's declarations on loan, job-vetting forms appear to undercut fraud claims — Cook never sought tax exemption for Georgia home as primary residence — Accusations against Cook …
2025-09-12 21:55:00 UTC
Reuters
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US EPA:
EPA Releases Proposal to End the Burdensome, Costly Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, Saving up to $2.4 Billion — WASHINGTON - Today, in accordance with President Trump's Day One executive orders, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a proposed rule …
2025-09-12 21:50:00 UTC
US EPA
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My Polish father survived the Holocaust. Last Saturday, I was arrested for protesting against a genocide. I had made the conscious decision to attend a protest against the UK's draconian law that makes it a crime to support Palestine Action, a group the government recently proscribed as a terrorist organization, knowing I would be arrested. Hundreds, including an 89-year-old woman, a blind man in a wheelchair, and many others in their 60s like me, have been arrested at similar protests in London. So going there, I knew how my day would end.
Read more
2025-09-12 21:16:27 UTC
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We’ve been tracking the growing judicial revolt against the Supreme Court’s shadow docket nonsense, from individual district judges getting snarky in footnotes to anonymous judges speaking to reporters. But what happened Thursday at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals crosses into entirely new territory: a full en banc panel of federal judges openly criticizing the Supreme Court’s approach during a live oral argument session.
This isn’t normal. Federal judges don’t usually air their grievances about the Supreme Court in open court. The fact that an entire appeals court panel—including respected conservative judges—turned their oral argument into what Politico called “a remarkable, 80-minute venting session” tells you everything about how broken the system has become.
The immediate catalyst was trying to figure out what to do with a case about DOGE’s access to Social Security data after the Supreme Court issued one of its trademark unexplained emergency orders. But the real issue was much bigger: how are lower courts supposed to function when the highest court in the land operates like it’s playing Calvinball?
“They’re leaving the circuit courts, the district courts out in limbo,” said Judge James Wynn… “We’re out here flailing. … I’m not criticizing the justices. They’re using a vehicle that’s there, but they are telling us nothing. They could easily just give us direction and we would follow it.”
Judge Wynn didn’t stop there:
“They cannot get amnesia in the future because they didn’t write an opinion on it. Write an opinion,” Wynn said. “We need to understand why you did it. We judges would just love to hear your reasoning as to why you rule that way. It makes our job easier. We will follow the law. We will follow the Supreme Court, but we’d like to know what it is we are following.”
I’ve been writing about the law for almost three decades. I’ve never seen anything like this. Ever. Not even in the same zip code as this. These are judges crying out for help under a completely lawless Supreme Court.
And, no, this wasn’t just liberal judges complaining. Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III—a Reagan appointee and one of the most respected conservative jurists in the country—was right there with them:
“The Supreme Court’s action must mean something,” said Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Reagan appointee. “It doesn’t do these things just for the kicks of it.”
Even Wilkinson can’t figure out what the hell the Supreme Court is doing. When you’ve lost Harvie Wilkinson—a judge so conservative and institutionally minded that he’s basically judicial royalty—you’ve completely broken the system.
The specific case that triggered this judicial revolt involves the Supreme Court’s typical shadow docket bullshit. In June, the Court overruled the Fourth Circuit’s decision and lifted an injunction against DOGE’s use of Social Security data. But they did so in the most bizarre and troubling way. After sending the case back to the Fourth Circuit for more review, it said that even if the Fourth Circuit rules that DOGE is breaking the law, the stay will remain in place.
By an apparent 6-3 vote, the justices went further, saying that no matter what the appeals court decided, the injunction would remain on hold until the case returned to the Supreme Court. Yet, the high court’s majority offered no substantive rationale for the lower court to parse.
So the Supreme Court basically said: “We’re overturning you, and also whatever you decide doesn’t matter anyway, but we’re not going to tell you why.” This left the entire Fourth Circuit panel wondering what the fuck they’re even supposed to do.
That left many of the 15 4th Circuit judges on hand for Thursday’s unusual en banc arguments puzzling at their role. One even suggested the appeals court should simply issue a one-line opinion saying the injunction is lifted and kick the case back to the Supreme Court to resolve.
Some judges thought they should just give up entirely and punt the case back to SCOTUS since SCOTUS has already said whatever they decide here doesn’t actually matter. Others insisted they had a constitutional duty to actually do their jobs:
“It sounds like some of my colleagues think that there’s no work to be done, that we’re done because the Supreme Court has told us what the answer is,” said Judge Albert Diaz, an Obama appointee.
Judge Robert King said punting on the case would be a mistake.
“We each have a commission and we have a robe and we have an oath to abide by,” said King, a Clinton appointee.
This perfectly captures the impossible position the Supreme Court has created. Lower court judges literally don’t know if they’re supposed to do their jobs or just rubber-stamp whatever vibes they think they’re getting from the shadow docket.
The whole mess stems from a series of recent Supreme Court shadow docket rulings (without much explanation) basically telling lower courts they have to follow SCOTUS shadow docket rulings (also without much explanation) as binding precedent. But as we’ve written about extensively, these aren’t reasoned legal decisions—they’re often unexplained orders issued with minimal briefing, no oral arguments, and little to no explanation of any reasoning.
This has created a situation where experienced federal judges—people who’ve spent decades interpreting legal precedent (often longer than the Justices themselves)—literally can’t figure out what the Supreme Court wants them to do.
What we’re witnessing is the breakdown of the federal judiciary as a functioning institution. When Reagan and Obama appointees are united in open revolt, and Harvie Wilkinson can’t figure out what the Supreme Court wants, the system has collapsed.
The three liberal Justices have been warning about this in dissent after dissent, while the conservative majority just keeps issuing more unexplained orders and then getting pissy when lower courts can’t read their minds. This isn’t jurisprudence. It’s government by judicial decree, where constitutional law operates on vibes and the only consistent principle is “give Trump whatever he wants.”
When federal judges with decades of experience are reduced to public pleading for basic guidance during oral arguments, we’ve crossed into judicial authoritarianism. The Supreme Court has effectively told the entire federal judiciary: “Follow our orders, but we won’t explain what they mean, and if you guess wrong, we’ll scold you for defying us.”
That’s not how precedent works. That’s not how courts work. That’s not the rule of law. It’s just nine people in robes demanding deference to their unexplained whims.
2025-09-12 20:41:47 UTC
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Politico:
Judge worries Trump administration is sidestepping torture protections for deported Africans … The immigrants had all won legal protections from being deported to their home countries over fear of being persecuted or tortured. Their lawyers say the Trump administration is circumventing …
2025-09-12 20:40:00 UTC
Politico
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NBC News:
Live updates: Charlie Kirk shooting suspect Tyler Robinson in custody; family turned him in, sources say — The FBI has offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the identification and arrest of the shooter. … White House defends Patel's handling of the Kirk investigation
2025-09-12 20:25:00 UTC
NBC News
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