Trump regime orders states to stop full food assistnce benefits

 The Washington Post -   The Trump administration over the weekend ordered states to stop distributing full food assistance benefits for November to the 42 million low-income Americans risking food insecurity.

Donald Trump

Via Occupy Democrats
Getty Images releases stunning photographs of Donald Trump falling fast asleep during yesterday's Oval Office meeting.

Independent, UK -   California Governor Gavin Newsom dubbed President Donald Trump “The Nodfather” after photos captured him dozing off in the Oval Office.

The California Democrat’s press office account on X shared six photos of Trump nodding off at various occasions above the words “The Nodfather” in a golden font resembling the movie poster for “The Godfather.”

The 79-year-old president struggled to keep his eyes open Friday during a televised event at the White House, where several administration officials announced lower prices for weight loss drugs for Medicare and Medicaid recipients...

Axios - The White House is leaning into a report by ESPN that President Trump wants the Washington Commanders to name their new stadium after him. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: "That would surely be a beautiful name, as it was President Trump who made the rebuilding of the new stadium possible."

Trump team secretly handing out massive tax breaks to wealthy corporations

 Independent, UK -  Through proposed regulations, the Treasury Department has offered tax relief to private equity firms, crypto companies, foreign real estate investors, and other large corporations, the New York Times first reported.

For example, in October, the IRS issued new proposed regulations that would provide breaks to foreign investors in U.S. real estate. In August, the IRS proposed a rollback of rules to prevent multinational corporations from dodging taxes by claiming duplicate losses in multiple countries.

The notices have not made headlines, but have been flagged by accounting and consulting firms.

“Treasury has clearly been enacting unlegislated tax cuts,” Kyle Pomerleau, a senior fellow at the think-tank American Enterprise Institute, told the Times. “Congress determines tax law. Treasury undermines this constitutional principle when it asserts more authority over the structure of the tax code than Congress provides it.”  More 

America is losing its teenager enthusiasm

NY Times - Over the past two decades, the American share of the global box office has declined from 92 percent to 66 percent. In 2022, 142,000 people were employed in Los Angeles County in the motion picture industry; by 2024, it was 100,000. U.S. music is also in decline. By 2023, over half of the artists generating $10,000 or more on Spotify were from non-English-speaking countries. The teen bedrooms of the world are no longer dominated by posters of American performers. The bedrooms of American teenagers are no longer dominated by them, either.

Polls

Newsweek - A YouGov/Economist survey, conducted between October 31 and November 3, shows Trump’s net approval among those who voted for him has dropped to +70, down four points from late summer. In August, his approval among supporters stood at +74, falling slightly to +73 in September before reaching its current low amid the government shutdown. 

Newsweek - A poll conducted by PerryUndem between October 31 and November 2 found that an overwhelming majority, 91 percent, of Americans believe that the ongoing shutdown will lead more people to go to food banks...

The poll of 1,021 U.S. adults found that 77 percent believe the continue shutdown will likely increase hunger and 83 percent think it will force families to skip meals. Nearly four-fifths of participants, 79 percent, support the continuation of SNAP benefits during the shutdown. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

National flight disruption

 ABC News - Nationwide flight disruption stretched into Sunday following cancellations or delays to thousands of flights on Saturday, as the Federal Aviation Administration limited capacity at 40 major U.S. airports amid the longest government shutdown in American history.

As of 5:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, more than 1,100 flights were cancelled across the country according to the FlightAware website, as the FAA grappled with sustained staffing issues in air traffic controller towers and centers.

Saturday saw 1,521 flights canceled nationwide and more than 6,400 flights delayed. .

Trump's war on democracy

 The Guardian - Trump’s former chief political adviser, Steve Bannon, is urging him to get the elections “squared away” even before the voters have a chance to weigh in. Former legal advisers have suggested the electoral system is in itself an emergency justifying extraordinary intervention, possibly including federal agents and the military stationed outside polling stations.

When Bannon was asked whether voters might find this intimidating, he replied: “You’re damn right.”

The administration itself, meanwhile, is moving on multiple fronts. Most visibly, Trump is pressuring Republican-run states to redraw their congressional maps outside the usual once-a-decade schedule and lock in as many additional safe Republican seats as possible.

Texas has gerrymandered an additional five GOP seats, Ohio two, and Missouri and North Carolina one each, and other states are considering whether to follow suit. (California voters, in response, have just approved a map promising five additional Democratic seats.)

Meanwhile, the justice department has abandoned its decades-long defense of voting rights, and in some instances – notably, a pending supreme court case that risks erasing a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act – has switched to the side arguing against protecting minority rights. The Department of Homeland Security has slashed funding and cut staff at an agency dedicated to protecting elections from physical and cybersecurity threats.

The administration is also demanding states hand over sensitive voter data and purge voter rolls, despite grave concerns about this deterring or disenfranchising large numbers of legitimate voters. In an executive order issued in March, the White House said it wants voters to produce birth certificates or passports as proof of eligibility. It wants the vote count to be over on election night, disregarding provisional and late mail-in ballots. In fact, Trump would like to do away with mail-in balloting altogether. 

.Another possibility is that Trump will seek to wrest control of voting machines from state and local officials, as he came close to doing five years ago.

“Those of us engaged in this fight are witnessing a wholesale attack on free and fair elections,” said Marc Elias, a prominent election lawyer involved in more than 60 suits against the government. “From executive orders to budget cuts, the Trump administration is undermining election security and promoting voter disenfranchisement.”

Perhaps the biggest underlying fear is that Trump has no interest in democracy and aims, ultimately, to destroy it. “I don’t think Donald Trump wants another election,” California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, opined as Trump invoked legally questionable emergency powers to deploy national guard troops to US cities.

Ph.D. cuts hurt academia

Khadija T. Khan, Harvard Crimson - Earlier this month, Harvard announced that it would accept significantly fewer students to its graduate programs, one of the many cost-saving measures it has implemented in response to the Trump administration threatening billions of dollars in University funding.

Some might be wondering why anyone should care if, for example, the number of Harvard history Ph.D.s drops from 13 to five. Although these cuts might not look important, they signify something far darker for higher education. A lack of Ph.D. students will be felt everywhere: in the undergraduate classes that currently rely on their instruction, in the fields their research could have propelled forward, and, perhaps most importantly, in the generations to come that will suffer an absence of qualified educators. Trump’s attacks have irrevocably altered the playing field for academia, and it may never recover.

The transgender athlete debate

 Sam Smith - Absent from the debate over which teams  transgender athletes should be allowed to join has been information on the actual skill records of transgender players. This is an unusual debate because factual information is so absent. 

For example, I've seen no evidence that athletic skills are altered  by changes in gender status. It would help those struggling with this issue if there were more facts. 

Democrats picking up white clergy

 Axios - Dozens of white clergy are signing up to run as Democrats in 2026, as progressive faith leaders push back on the political dominance of the Christian right.  Democrats have a track record of Black clergy running for office, including Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.). But when white pastors have run, it's usually been as Republicans...

"We're tracking about 30 white clergy who are running for office as Democrats around the country. That's shocking," said Doug Pagitt, a pastor and executive director of the progressive Christian group Vote Common Good. Keep reading.

What Virginia and New Jersey can tell us

New Republic -  Both Spanberger and Sherrill entirely erased the GOP advantage with voters who lack a four-year degree. Spanberger tied her Republican opponent among them, with each getting 50 percent, a huge swing from four years earlier, when Glenn Youngkin won them by 59 percent to 40 percent. Meanwhile, Sherrill also tied her GOP opponent among non-college voters by 50 percent to 49 percent.

And here’s a striking nuance: While both Democrats lost non-college white voters by large amounts—a demographic the party continues to struggle with—Spanberger did reduce that margin relative to 2021. Critically, both made up for that by winning huge margins among non-college nonwhite voters: The spreads were 85–15 for Spanberger and 75–23 for Sherrill. Given that Trump’s 2024 victory unleashed a hurricane of analysis about his inroads with the nonwhite working class, those margins are heartening indeed.

True, there are nuances and caveats here. Virginia and New Jersey are blue-leaning; turnout differentials could help explain these shifts; they might not hold in a higher-turnout presidential election; exit polls are not the final word; and so forth. But still, such success for Democrats with non-college voters—relative to recent performances in the same states—suggests they may be starting to repair the damage Trump did to their coalition.

There’s a bizarre tendency in our political discourse to treat criticism of Trump—including his lawlessness and consolidation of authoritarian power—as somehow evading the “real” issues that working-class voters actually care about. Tuesday’s results sorely test this false dichotomy. On one front after another, the Democrats’ attacks on Trump were directly linked to voters’ material concerns.

Florida's real estate boom

Newsworthy -  Florida is experiencing a real estate boom, with over $100 million in contracts from New York buyers in recent months. This surge coincides with heightened political tension in New York City, where affluent residents are increasingly concerned about rising taxes, crime, and the outcome of the mayoral election. Realtors in Florida, particularly in Miami, are witnessing unprecedented demand, with New Yorkers aggressively purchasing luxury properties.

The election of Zohran Mamdani as New York City’s mayor has intensified fears among residents, prompting many to consider relocation. Mamdani’s progressive policies have created uncertainty, especially among business leaders and those with significant financial assets. This anxiety is driving wealthy New Yorkers to seek stability in Florida, attracted by its favorable tax environment and lifestyle amenities.

Why singing is good for your health

 Nice News -  Singing is one of those rare activities that don’t require talent to be enjoyable — those of us who can’t carry a tune often have just as much fun as professional crooners...

“For millennia, humans have used song to soothe, grieve, celebrate, and connect. It’s one of our oldest forms of communication,” Elisha Ellis Madsen, board-certified music therapist and master of social work candidate, told Nice News. “Now, science is catching up. Physiologically, singing regulates the nervous system through rhythmic breathing and vibration, which calm the body whether or not it ‘sounds good.’ Emotionally, it reawakens our capacity for play and self-expression — things many adults have lost touch with.”

In addition to those boons, there are myriad other mental and physical benefits of channeling your inner rock star (beyond just livening up long road trips). In fact, these benefits are impactful enough for us to make the case that you should be singing much more than you currently do … unless you’re someone who already turns every third thought into a melody. In that case, congrats on taking care of your health! More

Blue Tuesday: Dems also had down ballot wins

 MSNBC -  The most important takeaway from Tuesday's elections was that Democrats won everywhere and improved on their 2024 performance by striking margins. They didn't just win marquee races in Virginia, New Jersey and New York — they also won downballot races in Mississippi and Georgia, writes Paul Waldman. These kinds of wins by notably different campaigns can only be attributed to widespread opposition to the party in charge of the country, and Republican attempts to downplay them will only hurt them in the future. Read more.

Support for trans folk isn't hurting the Democrats

MSNBC -  Since Trump won a second term, the Democratic Party has faced pressure from pundits and strategists who argue it should give up the fight for trans rights in order to win. The results of Tuesday's elections were a resounding repudiation of that view, writes Katelyn Burns, the first openly transgender reporter to cover Capitol Hill. In Virginia, more than half of Republican ads fearmongered over trans acceptance in schools, but Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger said those questions should be left to parents, not the government, and won big. In many other races, Republican candidates who tried to distract from kitchen table issues by talking about the so-called trans threat lost. Democrats now have multiple successful playbooks to borrow when facing similar attacks in the future. Read the column here.

Who's watching TV ?

TechPanny -   

• There is an estimated 123.8 million TV homes in the United States in 2023.
• U.S. viewers aged 15 years and older spent on average almost three hours watching TV per day in 2021.
• Adults aged 65 and above spent the most time watching TV daily in 2021.
• Traditional TV viewing among 35-49-year-olds fall by 13.3% year-over-year.
• In 2021, 46% of respondents aged 18 to 29 years stated that they watched dramas on TV.

Age Group	Percentage of TV Viewers
18-34	28%
35-49	32%
50-64	23%
65+	17%

• The median age of a live TV viewer is 56.
• .Traditional TV viewing among 35-49-year-olds fell by 13.3% year-over-year as per data from Q3 2020.
• 95% of the TV time that children 7+ spend every day occurs without the company of their parents
• 56% of kids aged 8+ have a television in their room
• 30% of these kids usually watch the TV on their own there
• Only 1 in 12 parents in the US require children to do their homework before turning on the television

MORE 

Donald Trump

Trump:  “We could blow up the world 150 times, and there’s no need for this.” The president said he had spoken to Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin about potentially downsizing the global nuclear arms race.

Polls

 Newsweek -  Trump has a 41 percent approval rating versus a 49 percent disapproval rating. The poll was conducted from November 3 to November 4 among 1000 active registered voters and has a 3 percent margin of error.

The president's approval rating dropped from 45 percent in an October poll, and from his highest of 49 percent in January. The president's net approval rating with the pollster broke even with 45 percent in April. Trump's approval rating has been declining since, with Friday's poll marking his largest negative net approval rating gap.

“Nearly one year after he was elected, President Trump’s approval has flipped since the first Emerson College poll of the new administration,” executive director of Emerson College Polling Spencer Kimball said.

“Since his inauguration, Trump has lost support among key groups: Republican voters’ approval decreased 12 points from 91% to 79%, and his disapproval intensified among independent voters, from 44% to 51%, and Hispanics, from 39% to 54%.”

Honda recalling 400,000 cars

Indpendent, UK -   Honda has recalled more than 400,000 of its most popular cars due to a manufacturing error that could make the wheels fall off.

The issue lies with a small batch of wheels on Honda Civics from 2016 to 2021.

“Due to a manufacturing process error by a supplier, the steel lug seat inserts in aluminum accessory wheels may not have been installed (pressed) into the nut seating surface,” Honda said in a press release.

UPS and FedEx Ground some Cargo Planes After Louisville Crash

NY Times -  UPS and FedEx, two of the world’s largest cargo airlines, said late Friday that they had grounded their MD-11 planes, days after one of the planes was involved in a deadly crash in Kentucky....

There are around 70 MD-11 cargo planes in service. UPS said in its statement Friday that MD-11s are around 9 percent of its fleet. FedEx has 28 MD-11s, about 4 percent of its fleet.

Man who threw sandwich at US federal agent found not guilty

 The Guardian - A former Department of Justice employee who threw a sandwich at a federal agent during Donald Trump’s law enforcement surge in Washington DC was found not guilty of assault by a DC jury on Thursday in the latest legal rebuke of the federal intervention.

Sean Charles Dunn, a former justice department paralegal, became a symbol of the resistance to Trump’s occupation in the nation’s capital when video of him, clad in a pink polo shirt and shorts, throwing a sandwich at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent, wearing a bulletproof vest, went viral.

“Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!” Dunn shouted at the officers on 10 August, calling them “fascists”. After throwing the sandwich, he took off running.

Dunn’s lawyers argued his sandwich throw was a “harmless gesture” meant as an act of protest. In a city under federal siege, the incident served as a rallying point, with posters showing Dunn mid-throw popping up around the district. Prosecutors said Dunn knew he didn’t have a right to throw the sandwich at the agent, and that his speech was not the issue, but that he threw a sandwich at a federal officer “at point-blank range”.

Dunn’s attorney, Julia Gatto, said in opening statements this week: “Sean Dunn expressed his opinions. He expressed them loudly, and he expressed them maybe you think vulgarly, but he expressed his opinions. But words without force are never assault.”

A grand jury in DC declined to indict Dunn in August on a felony assault charge, but he was eventually charged with a misdemeanor. The case moved ahead in federal court, with US district judge Carl Nichols acknowledging the strange case and saying the trial would be short “because it’s the simplest case in the world”.

Word

 

Annie

Food shortage

NY Times - Millions of low-income families began Saturday with little clarity over the fate of their food stamp benefits, after a late-night Supreme Court order allowed the Trump administration to continue withholding some funding for the nation’s largest anti-hunger program.

Only one day earlier, states including Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Oregon had started sending full benefits to the roughly one in eight Americans who receive aid each month, putting an end to weeks of delay that had threatened many of the poorest Americans with severe financial hardship.

But the process appeared to grind to halt starting Friday night. The Supreme Court granted an emergency request by the Trump administration to pause an order issued by a federal judge, who had required the White House to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The late-night order was the latest turn in a weekslong battle waged by states and nonprofits seeking to ensure that the poorest Americans do not lose their ability to buy food during the federal shutdown. Throughout the closure, now the longest in history, the White House has refused to tap an ample store of leftover money that would prevent severe interruptions to the nutrition programs/
US supreme court issues emergency order blocking full Snap food aid payments

Meanwhile. . .

Fact Post News - This one was a doozy: The most job cuts for any October in more than two decades, going back to 2003. Companies announced about 153,000 job cuts last month, which was almost triple the number during the same month last year

Emily's List -  In 2019, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger were roommates in Washington, D.C. as freshmen congresswomen. Now, they're both the governor-elect in New Jersey and Virginia.

Washington National Opera may move out of Kennedy Center due to Trump ‘takeover’

 The Guardian - The Washington National Opera (WNO) is considering moving out of the Kennedy Center, the company’s home since the US’s national performing arts center opened in 1971.

The possibility has been forced on the company as a result of the “takeover” of the center by Donald Trump, according to WNO’s artistic director, Francesca Zambello. The president declared himself chair of the institution in February, sacking and replacing its board and leadership.

Leaving the Kennedy Center is a possible scenario after a collapse in box office revenue and “shattered” donor confidence in the wake of Trump’s takeover, said Zambello.

“It is our desire to perform in our home at the Kennedy Center,” she said. “But if we cannot raise enough money, or sell enough tickets in there, we have to consider other options.

“The two things that support a company financially, because of the takeover, have been severely compromised,” she said.

Taking aim aet whistleblowers

 Dirt Diggers Digest - Whistleblowers file their case on behalf of the federal government, and then one of two things will happen. The Justice Department can decide to take over the prosecution of the case, and the whistleblower receives a portion of any damages or settlement paid by the defendant. If the DOJ declines to intervene, the whistleblower can choose to pursue the lawsuit independently. Any financial recovery is then shared with Uncle Sam.

Both of those options may be in jeopardy. In 2023 the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the DOJ could choose to dismiss a qui tam case even if it initially decided not to intervene in the matter. The dissenting vote was cast by Justice Clarence Thomas, who used his dissent to question the constitutionality of the entire qui tam system.

Now an appellate court judge is seeking to make that view a reality. Judge James Ho of the 5^th Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a concurring opinion in a ruling that dismissed a qui tam case against Encompass Health Corp. for allegedly submitting false claims to Medicare.

Ho, appointed by Trump during his first term, urged his colleagues to revisit the constitutionality of qui tam by making the MAGA-style argument that whistleblowers should not be able to bring cases, given that they “are neither appointed by, not accountable to, the President.”

It is unclear whether Ho’s colleagues will go along with his suggestion, but it is troubling to think that other jurists will take up the call to abolish qui tam. Whistleblower lawsuits have played a major role in lawsuits exposing and punishing corporate fraud against the government and thus the public.

A substantial portion of the 3,000 False Claims Act cases we document in Violation Tracker were initiated by whistleblowers and taken over by the DOJ. When the DOJ declines to intervene, most qui tam cases collapse for lack of resources. Yet we document about two dozen that sur

How Americans Are Thinking About Aging

Trump's cost of living con

Thom Hartmann -  Donald Trump calls our concern over the cost of living a “con,” but the real con is being foisted on working Americans by the billionaires and corporate monopolies that bankroll him. For forty years, wages have flatlined while profits and CEO pay soared and Trump’s tax cuts, deregulation, and corporate handouts only supercharged that inequality. He brags about a cheaper Walmart Thanksgiving while ignoring that those “savings” come from poverty wages and taxpayer subsidies — and the fact that Walmart has made their “example basket” considerably smaller and gotten rid of brand-name products. This isn’t affordability, it’s exploitation fueled by pure BS. The truth is, Trump’s America works great for the morbidly rich and their gilded ballrooms and private jets, but for everyone else it’s a rigged game where corporations set prices, crush unions, and call it “freedom.” The real “con” is pretending that helping out billionaires helps people like you and me.

Word

New Yorker  - Cartoon by Ali Solomon

 

 “Bye, sweetie—have a day filled with social drama, drastically shifting friendships, and academic milestones, which you’ll describe to me later as ‘fine.’

Deaths in ICE holding faciliity

POGO - An Illinois judge issued a temporary restraining order to an ICE holding facility, expressing concerns about the “unnecessarily cruel” conditions and ordering them to immediately improve safety and sanitation. The holding cells at the facility were originally designed for stays no longer than 12 hours, but because of a reversal in ICE’s internal policy, people are now being held there, and at holding facilities nationwide, for days on end, and often without beds, access to showers and private toilets, or even adequate food, water, and medical care. The administration’s mandatory detention policy — which more than 100 federal judges across the country have independently rebuked — has placed more people in the detention system and for longer periods than the system was ever outfitted to handle.

POGO has investigated and long raised alarm about the conditions in ICE detention. The administration’s aggressive mass deportation agenda only had the potential to make these widespread problems much worse. At least 20 people have died in ICE custody this year. That is almost twice the fatalities of 2024. Shutdown consequences: The furloughing of staff at the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Detention Oversight means that ICE facilities are going without oversight at a time they need it most.