On Our "Virtual Route 66" : On The Week That Was In Our World:

Our team prepared a Grid of the discourse at hand throughout the Week, which we decided ot headline to discuss a perspective on the top brass of the US Military Department and some of the other discourse throughout the week.    We also curated a snapshot of developments with thoughts courtesy, Crooked Media, Institute for Policy Studies, Heather Cox Richardson   France 24 on Morocco as The Government Shutdown continues, and as the threat of a recession looms ever more with a notation courtesy the team at the Atlantic,  as negotiations to finalize the Trump plan for the war in Gaza and as the War in Ukraine rages on with potential expansion into Europe.

(Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic)

Alan Greenspan knows a thing or two about underpants. American history’s second-longest-tenured Fed chairman also knows a thing or many about recessions, obviously, and the two are related: Sales of men’s underwear, Greenspan once reportedly suggested, are inversely proportional to economic anxiety. As the theory goes, men see underwear as a luxury, not a necessity. When money gets tight, boxers get holey. According to folk wisdom, when a recession is imminent, sales of snacks, cigarettes, champagne, and cardboard boxes also go down. Demand for lipstick, laxatives, instant noodles, used clothing, high heels, scary movies, and mini liquor bottles, meanwhile, goes up. Hemlines drop; law-school applications rise. Baby butts get rashy. Halloween gets less spooky. People gravitate toward public libraries and private labels. They spend less at restaurants. They stop dyeing their hair and dry-cleaning their clothes and going to the strip club, and they definitely do not buy an RV. Well, supposedly. If you ask an economist, they will almost certainly tell you that a recession is indicated by things such as mounting unemployment, falling industrial production, and short-term interest rates rising relative to long-term ones. If you ask the people working at National Bureau of Economic Research, who actually make the call about a recession, they will say it is a “significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.” They are highly unlikely to tell you that the best way to understand the state of global markets is to take a look at your ankles. That’s not to say that pop-culture recession indicators are meaningless. A recession is a phenomenon necessarily defined in hindsight, usually long after life has changed on the ground: The Great Recession officially began at the end of 2007, but NBER didn’t announce that it had until the following December, right around when more than half a million people lost their jobs in a single month. Consumer behavior is a reactive measure of how much money people have in their pocket, which is probably why Greenspan was apparently paying attention to underwear. Many other pop-culture recession indicators—including the rise in law-school applications, the decline in demand for cardboard boxes, and the growing use of libraries and generic products—have been validated as useful signals about the health of the economy. They currently show what the more traditional indicators also show: The American economy is full of uncertainty, even though it has not yet tipped officially into recession. But taking anecdotal intuition about individual consumer psychology and extrapolating widely can lead to some odd and unhelpful conclusions. The way people spend their money is personal, and the product of a complex set of factors. It’s also sometimes illogical. Case in point: In 2008, when the Nielsen Company did an analysis of consumer behavior during a recession, the firm’s findings indicated that whereas candy is recession-proof, soda—liquid candy—is among the most recession-prone consumer goods. And societies don’t respond to crises the same way every time. The hemline index, which holds that in bad times hemlines go down and in good times they rise, is one of the most cited pop-culture recession indicators. It originated in the 1920s, when most women didn’t work outside the home, style (and society) were far more rigid, the fashion industry operated completely differently, and the miniskirt did not exist. Even if it were possible to reliably measure hemlines on a large scale, they are also influenced, in the short and long term, by trends, weather, and norms. Economic anxiety is a powerful force, but it is not the only force dictating the way people act. Here is what we know, according to Joanne Hsu, who runs the University of Michigan’s consumer-sentiment survey program. Generally speaking, the less money people feel like they have, the more likely they are to skip big expenses and to substitute cheaper, lower-quality goods where they can. (Indeed, sales of Hamburger Helper are up 14.5 percent this year, as sales of most luxury goods are down.) They seek out stress relief, good deals, and cheap indulgence. They also apparently seek out economic folk wisdom. This may not be a recession, but it is definitely a boom time for talking about being in a recession. According to various reports, people are, at this moment, listening to “recession pop,” going “recession blonde,” and getting “recession nails.” Online, the recession indicator has quickly gone from pop-economic trivium to absurdist meme. Among the supposed signs of our impending economic catastrophe that whizzed past me this spring and summer like the world’s most depressing rewrite of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”: Labubus, urban lumberjacks, messy buns, capri pants, hot women in eviction court, Hot Pockets changing its packaging, the Coachella lineup dropping early, the resurgence of frozen yogurt, a new Air Bud sequel, an American pope. Some of these are legible enough; many are ridiculous. (Recession indicator is this season’s Sir, this is a Wendy’s, the blank form through which anyone can launder a basic observation into something that sort of resembles a joke, especially if you’re not paying very close attention.) None of these meme indicators have, to my knowledge, been formally validated by the academic establishment. But I find it very telling that young people on the internet are casually invoking an arcane economic concept in order to explain the way their world feels. Maybe the ultimate recession indicator is how much people are talking about recession indicators. Not that I blame them. “Recession indicators” are appealing like the 10-day weather forecast is appealing. We turn to them not because they are accurate, but because they offer the illusion of control. Everyone gets rained on in a monsoon, but it’s still nice to know to pack an umbrella. These little predictors make the abstract feel concrete and the future feel foreseeable, maybe even manageable. They reduce the economy—sprawling, complex, scary-big—down to something as small as a tube of lipstick. And maybe most important, they’re a quasi-academic way of corroborating your own reality—a vibe check, a pat on the shoulder, a Ph.D. for your dread. Starting in 2022, as inflation surged post-lockdowns, economists have been predicting a recession. Thus far, one hasn’t officially arrived. But try saying that to people paying $8 for eggs. “People don’t feel like they’re thriving as they should be, as they might expect to,” Hsu told me. “So I think it makes sense that people are looking for things that validate their experiences.” Of all the unorthodox recession indicators, cardboard-box production is one of the most reliable, because cardboard boxes are a very straightforward proxy for the quantity of goods being shipped around the world. The outlook isn’t good: On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that box shipments are at their lowest levels since 2016. All across the economy, people are buying less and doing less. They’re forgoing the things they really want because they cannot afford them, because they don’t have enough money. At a certain point, that’s indicator enough. Related: Trump is getting closer to having an “infinite money pit.” The economy is turning into a black box.

Morocco sees eighth straight day of protests organised by online Gen Z group Members of Moroccan online youth collective GenZ 212 protested for the eighth consecutive day on Saturday, demanding better public health and education services. The online group, which has more than… READ MORE

Lessons from Resistance to Authoritarianism Around the World A webinar series on what the U.S. can learn from anti-authoritarian movements around the world.

Learn More

International Allies against Mining in El Salvador Applauds Judicial Ruling That Finds All Five Water Defenders Innocent of All Charges The five prominent Water Defenders who faced politically-motivated charges are heroes of El Salvador — and they should never have been arrested.

Get 30% Off Chuck Collins’ New Book! Feeling Burned by Billionaires? Here’s your antidote.

Climate Week Is Here; Our Governors Are Still Siding with Polluters Frontline communities are exposing blue state governors that sell themselves as climate leaders while favoring polluters.

Even the Pope Is Fed Up With Overpaid CEOs Americans are fed up with CEOs that stiff their workers. And one of those fed up Americans happens to be the pope.

Trump Replaces GOP’s Pocket Constitutions with Unconstitutional ‘Pocket Recissions’ Unilateral attempts by the president to cut, freeze, delay or otherwise refuse to spend funds approved by lawmakers are unconstitutional, illegal and dangerous to our democracy.

Trump: It’s Not Funny Anymore Comedians are the canaries in the coalmines of authoritarianism.

México, Canadá y T-MEC, Statu Quo o Corregir Rumbo (En Español) Manuel Pérez Rocha warns about repeating past trade deals' mistakes as he analyzes key provisions in the new Mexico-Canada Action Plan.   Heather Cox Richardson   Today, with the popularity of President Donald J. Trump and his administration dropping, Trump’s disastrous performance at the United Nations, the return of comedian Jimmy Kimmel to the airwaves, and the Tuesday’s election in Arizona of Democratic representative Adelita Grijalva, who will provide the final signature on a discharge petition to demand a floor vote in the House over releasing all the government files on convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the administration appears to be making a dramatic push to seize complete control of the government. Last night, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought tried to jam the Democrats into passing the Republicans’ continuing resolution to fund the government. Officials leaked a memo to Politico, Punchbowl News, and Axios—publications that focus on events concerning Capitol Hill—saying that if the Democrats refuse to pass the Republicans’ measure, the administration will try to fire, rather than furlough, large numbers of federal employees. Such a move would be challenged in the courts, and the government has been forced to rehire many of the people it forced out earlier this year after those firings left agencies badly understaffed. But the threat is not idle; Vought is a Christian nationalist who has called for a “radical Constitutionalism” that demolishes the modern American state and replaces it with a powerful executive. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) responded: “Listen Russ, you are a malignant political hack. We will not be intimidated by your threat to engage in mass firings. Get lost.” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement: “Donald Trump has been firing federal workers since day one—not to govern, but to scare. This is nothing new and has nothing to do with funding the government. These unnecessary firings will either be overturned in court or the administration will end up hiring the workers back, just like they did as recently as today.” Trump appears focused on September 30, when the government funding crisis will hit, and the days after it. Although courts have ruled that he does not have the power to impose tariffs willy-nilly, today Trump announced new tariffs of 100% on pharmaceuticals, 50% on kitchen and bathroom cabinets, 30% on upholstered furniture, and 25% on “Heavy (Big!) Trucks” beginning on October 1. On social media, he claimed such tariffs were necessary “for National Security and other reasons.” Today, James LaPorta of CBS News reported that the National Archives and Records Administration improperly released Democratic representative Mikie Sherrill’s full military records to an ally of her Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, in the New Jersey governor’s race. The two candidates are tied, and Ciattarelli appears to be trying to link Sherrill to the 1994 Naval Academy cheating scandal involving more than 100 midshipmen. Sherrill had an unblemished career in the Navy and as a midshipman, LaPorta notes. She did not turn in her cheating classmates, but she was never accused of cheating herself. The unredacted release of Sherrill’s records appears to violate the 1974 Privacy Act. Sherrill said: “That Jack Ciattarelli and the Trump administration are illegally weaponizing my records for political gain is a violation of anyone who has ever served our country. No veteran’s record is safe.” While the National Archives maintained the release was a mistake and apologized for it, the administration’s influence in the Department of Justice tonight could not be explained away. Days after Trump demanded that the Department of Justice move “now” to prosecute those he perceives to be his enemies, a federal grand jury has indicted former FBI director James Comey for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing an investigation. Comey was an early casualty of Trump’s first administration, fired after he refused to kill the FBI investigation of the ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian operatives. Over last weekend, Trump exploded at then–acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert, a career prosecutor, after Siebert concluded there was not enough evidence of a crime to charge Comey for allegedly lying to Congress or New York attorney general Letitia James for alleged mortgage fraud. On Monday Trump replaced Siebert with White House aide and Trump’s former personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan, and yesterday three sources told Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig of MSNBC that they expected Halligan to try to get a grand jury to indict Comey before the five-year statute of limitations on lying to Congress runs out next Tuesday. Tonight the DOJ delivered an indictment against Comey. “My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” Comey said tonight in a video. “But we…will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either. Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant, and she’s right, but I’m not afraid, and I hope you’re not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does. My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system. I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial and keep the faith.” The DOJ was busy today. It also sued six states—California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania—to force them to hand over their voter rolls and information identifying those voters. Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket notes that state officials from both Democratic and Republican governments have questioned why the government wants that information. This lawsuit comes after a nearly identical lawsuit the DOJ filed last week against Maine and Oregon. Democratic secretary of state Tobias Read of Oregon called the lawsuits an attempt by President Donald Trump “to use the DOJ to go after his political opponents and undermine our elections.” Tara Copp, Dan Lamothe, Alex Horton, Ellen Nakashima, and Noah Robertson of the Washington Post reported today that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered about 800 of the military’s top generals and admirals, along with their senior enlisted advisors, to come to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, next week. Such a demand is highly unusual, and no one knows why Hegseth has made it. In The Bulwark, Mark Hertling, who was commander of U.S. Army Europe from 2011 to 2012, noted that the demand “is baffling and the cost will be staggering.” Instead of using the Pentagon’s secure video teleconferencing system, the personnel will require flights and accommodations that will cost millions, while the lost focus and readiness will affect their mission. Hertling points out that “[a]dversaries and allies are watching. This sudden, global, emergency recall of America’s top brass is a flashing red light to them: Something must be wrong inside the Pentagon.” Both Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance tried to downplay the meeting. “Why is that such a big deal?” Trump asked reporters. Vance incorrectly said the meeting is “not particularly unusual,” and said: “I think it’s odd that you guys have made it into such a big story.” This evening, Trump signed a memorandum targeting activists and nonprofits as part of what he called a “terror network” that he claims is fueling violence, especially against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. He and his allies claim that “radical left Democrats,” or “Radical Left Terrorists,” are behind that violence, although, as scholar of authoritarianism Timothy Snyder notes, the majority of political violence in the U.S. comes from the right. “Titled “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” the memo alleges that “common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” The document gives law enforcement wide latitude to “investigate, prosecute, and disrupt entities and individuals” engaged in behavior the administration opposes, as well as nonprofit organizations that fund them. It also orders law enforcement to “question and interrogate” people “regarding the entity or individual organizing such actions and any related financial sponsorship of those actions prior to adjudication or initiation of a plea agreement.” Former federal prosecutor Daniel Richman, who teaches at Columbia Law School, told Robert Tait and Aram Roston of The Guardian that an executive order cannot create new crimes, and Timothy Snyder noted that the memo nonetheless “undoes the basic tradition of American liberty and law, which is…that we are individuals to be judged on the basis of what we do as such. This memo, quite to the contrary, begins from the premise that the world is governed by mysterious, invisible entities to which individuals can be arbitrarily associated by the power of the government, thereby making those individuals guilty and subject to prosecution and punishment.” It makes responsibility collective, thus enabling the government to target everybody. “The groups that will…be targeted will be groups that are concerned with things like counting the votes, human rights, freedom of speech, and the rule of law.” All this, said Snyder, is both a “big lie” and a cliché. Authoritarians always say the country is facing an emergency and that their opponents are “terrorists.” It’s a cliché to say “there’s a mysterious, bottomless, organization that we have to chase to the ends of the Earth and break all the rules to find. That’s what they always say.” Snyder noted that Congress can pass laws to rule such behavior illegal, courts can find actions illegal and protect victims, commentators can describe reality, and citizens can say they “don’t want to be subject to an imagined emergency based on a big lie that does away with the essence of American liberty and law.” He concluded: “This has been done before. It can be stopped.”  Although President Donald J. Trump has not appeared in public since Tuesday, his social media account has been posting up a storm. Just three weeks ago, administration officials were insisting that Democrats were responsible for hateful political speech. Trump’s account last night posted images of prominent Democrats, including former President Joe Biden, with the heading “THE PARTY OF HATE, EVIL, AND SATAN.” It went on to say: “The Democratic Party is Dead! They have no leadership! [N]o message! [N]o hope! [T]heir only message for America is to hate Trump!” The Trump account posted another AI video last night, as well. Set to the music of Blue Öyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” the video shows Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance as band members—Trump on cowbell and Vance on drums—and features Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought as the Grim Reaper. As the video shows the U.S. Capitol, changed song lyrics say: “Here the power’s gone.” Under Vought, they say: “Russ Vought is the reaper. He wields the pen, the funds, and the brain… Dems you babies… gonna tie your hands… won’t be able to fly… cry baby end your plan.” The video shows people as zombies walking past an unemployment office, then shows Democratic leaders behind a chorus of “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah” before ending with a Halloween-nightmare image of AI ghouls trick-or-treating in MAGA garb. Veterans of the U.S. national security community posting as The Steady State noted that “a president posting a video depicting his opponents as prey for the Grim Reaper and zombies outside the ‘unemployment office’ is the opposite of what we expect in a healthy democracy.” Russell Vought is not an elected official. He is best known for his contributions to Project 2025, a plan for gutting the U.S. government and installing a theocratic dictatorship. Project 2025 was so unpopular when it came to light last summer—only 4% of voters who knew about it wanted to see it enacted—that Trump insisted he had nothing to do with it. Trolling the American people with the idea that Congress has no power and Russell Vought is running the government to destroy it is an odd choice for a president who is already deeply unpopular. But turning the government over to unelected individuals who ignore the law is a theme for this presidency. First, billionaire Elon Musk, who ran the “Department of Government Efficiency,” (DOGE) apparently with the help of Vought, impounded congressionally appropriated funds and fired government workers. Then reports surfaced that deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller was in charge of deportations, detentions, and the attempt to get rid of diversity programs, while also exercising influence over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Now Trump appears to be turning the reins of the government over to Russell Vought. Turning the powers of the government over to unelected bureaucrats has not been going terribly well. On September 25, from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC), top-ranking Democrat Gary Peters (D-MI) and his staff issued a report on the actions of DOGE, which slashed through government funding and fired employees on a crusade to combat what they called “waste, fraud, and abuse.” The hurried actions of those working for DOGE collapsed vital services, leaving government officials backpedaling. On September 24 the Associated Press examined the effect of DOGE on the General Services Administration (GSA), an agency established in the 1940s to manage the thousands of workplaces used by federal employees. DOGE employees targeted the GSA as a prime example of waste, fraud, and abuse. They abruptly canceled almost half of the leases for government space—without telling the tenants—and called for generating savings by selling off federally owned buildings. They also cut staff at headquarters by 79%, portfolio managers by 65%, and facilities managers by 35%. The Associated Press reports that 131 leases expired without the government actually leaving the office space, costing the agencies steep fees. Now officials are asking hundreds of GSA workers to come back after what the Associated Press says “amounts to a seven-month paid vacation.” Chad Becker, a former real estate official with the GSA, told the Associated Press: “Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed. They didn’t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.” The report from Senator Peters suggests that DOGE was efficient in at least one way: individuals associated with DOGE created databases that “contain highly sensitive personally identifiable information on every American” and that “can be manipulated with little to no oversight.” The report found even more concerning that administration officials “were unable or unwilling” to say who was “functionally in charge of significant policy changes at these agencies.” Some agencies couldn’t say what data DOGE had accessed or what the DOGE teams were doing. Some agency officials would not directly acknowledge they had DOGE teams, although Executive Order 14158 required each agency to have at least four DOGE people. And agency officials refused to show investigators offices or the infrastructure of Starlink, the satellite internet service controlled by Elon Musk. The report concluded that DOGE has violated the law and created unprecedented privacy and cybersecurity risks, while the secrecy surrounding DOGE prevented congressional oversight and public accountability. The report called for shutting down the accessible database DOGE created, revoking DOGE access to private information, reasserting agency control, identifying DOGE employees, and conducting a comprehensive audit of what sensitive data DOGE compiled. The escalating raids on undocumented immigrants are also running afoul of the law. Tuesday’s raid on an apartment building in Chicago, in which residents, including U.S. citizens, were detained, has galvanized opposition. Today, after reports that children were zip tied, separated from their parents, and detained for several hours, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker directed state agencies to evaluate the treatment of children during the raid and to “determine any formal steps or investigations that the state should initiate to hold federal agents accountable.” Today in Nashville, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw rebuked the Justice Department and its top officials for prosecuting Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an undocumented immigrant, on federal charges in what appears to be a vindictive prosecution. Crenshaw said officials from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security might have prosecuted Abrego for filing a successful lawsuit challenging his unlawful deportation to El Salvador. Alan Feuer of the New York Times notes that vindictive prosecution motions are very hard to win, and the fact that the court is even considering it is “a hugely embarrassing blow to the Trump administration.” A second federal court today rejected the administration’s attempt to end birthright citizenship, saying it is unconstitutional. On Monday, Hugo Lowell of The Guardian reported that Stephen Miller has directed the administration’s strikes on Venezuelan boats, taking precedence over secretary of state and national security advisor Marco Rubio. Today Defense Secretary Hegseth announced he had ordered a strike on another boat off the coast of Venezuela, killing four people Hegseth called “narcoterrorists.” Both Hegseth and Trump posted a video in which a small speedboat was blown to fragments by a strike. Trump declared that the boat was “loaded with enough drugs to kill 25 TO 50 THOUSAND PEOPLE.” The administration declared yesterday that such strikes are justified because it considers the U.S. in an armed conflict with drug cartels. Legal experts reject this assertion. If Trump’s reliance on unelected bureaucrats to run his administration has led officials astray, another video posted by the Department of Homeland Security today seemed to offer a different window onto what the president is trying to accomplish. The video shows a bar with words in a font that mimics that of early video games, saying: “LIFE AFTER ALL CRIMINAL ALIENS ARE DEPORTED.” Behind the bar runs a series of images of the United States in the late 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. It shows Trump himself as a young man and what appears to be the Trump Tower in New York City in the early 1980s. The nostalgic hope for reclaiming Trump’s glory days has tucked within it the McDonalds Mac Tonight moon image, an image used by white supremacists. The world depicted in that video reflects the period before Trump met convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but that story is not going away. The House of Representatives was supposed to be back in session on Monday, but House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has sent members home until October 14. Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) noted today that Johnson appears to be delaying the swearing-in of newly elected Arizona representative Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat. Grijalva says she will sign the discharge petition that will require the speaker to bring to the House floor a vote on instructing the Department of Justice to release the files from the investigation into Epstein’s actions, which needs only one more signature to force the vote. Regarding Johnson’s declaration that the House will take another week away from the Capitol rather than coming back to negotiate a way to end the government shutdown and preserve Americans’ access to healthcare, Pingree asked: “Is this about the shutdown, or is this about the Epstein files?

What A Day: All Fed Up Federal workers are worried about their jobs, their future — and their families. Matt Berg Oct 1   READ IN APP   SHUT DOWN AND OUT Donald Trump is threatening mass firings of federal workers if Democrats won’t meet his shutdown demands. Those workers fear for their jobs — and their families. Behind the political theater of the shutdown fight, there are real issues for millions of people at stake. Democrats are refusing to fund the government if it means slashing healthcare assistance for millions of people. Republicans insist those healthcare funds must go. Neither side is showing signs of compromise, suggesting that the first government shutdown in six years could stretch out for days, weeks… or even longer. For federal employees, the fight itself could be extraordinarily punishing, no matter who wins. President Donald Trump is threatening to fire large numbers of them to pressure Democrats to bend to his will. Those firings could come in “a day or two,” White House budget director Russ Vought reportedly told Republican lawmakers today. What A Day spoke with seven current federal workers, who outlined their fears amid a chaotic and unprecedented shutdown. “I’m really worried about my job,” said one furloughed State Department employee. “My household and almost all of the households of the people I love most are entirely dependent on federal jobs, so there is a lot to lose here.” One furloughed Health and Human Services employee has had two children since the last shutdown. Fortunately, her husband (who is also a fed employee) wasn’t furloughed this time. “At least we will have one check coming in if this goes on for a while,” she said. “If it does, that’s going to be really hard on us. And there is the real fear that we didn’t have before that my job might just be eliminated to make some kind of fucked up political point.” For federal contractors, the situation is even more precarious. “Sad, anxious, frustrated,” said one Federal Aviation Administration contractor, describing her emotions. “We’re funded for about a month. If it goes longer, I’m completely screwed financially.” Trump is taking the unprecedented step of using government websites and emails to broadcast his political message about this showdown — raising fears that it won’t end soon. Senior Trump officials have sent emails to employees across multiple agencies that blame Democrats for the shutdown, according to messages shared with What A Day. What’s more, the Department of Housing and Urban Development posted a bizarre message on its homepage, blasting the “Radical Left.” Several other government websites posted similar messages. Newsflash: The government isn’t supposed to use public agencies to push one party’s political talking points! “I’m very scared. Previous shutdowns have been a pain and frustrating, this one feels so uncertain,” one Social Security Administration worker said. “The political messages … are unprecedented, so it feels very volatile. Like, if you make any comment that is not pro-Trump they will make your life hell or just fire you.” The State Department employee put it bluntly: “This batshit messaging is so dystopian. It’s so insane, it’s almost funny. Trump and Republicans have done nothing but terrorize feds since January, they threatened to fire us during this shutdown, and yet they expect to convince us Dems are the problem? Lol wut??” While most federal workers I spoke with believe the shutdown will last awhile, all of them also support Democrats taking a stance against Republicans in this battle. At the National Parks Service, a supervisor described the situation as “a complete shit show,” according to an employee. The HHS employee summed up many workers’ feelings: “It’s just so exhausting to feel like you’re constantly a pawn for the dumbest people in the dumbest timeline.” WHAT ELSE? Israeli forces ramped up their assault on Gaza City today, just days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to Donald Trump’s peace plan to end the war. (Israel’s reluctance to stop fighting has been a major hurdle for peace prospects.) Meanwhile, Hamas indicated that it’s open to Trump’s plan — but the group wants more time to review the details. The Trump administration froze $18 billion for two major infrastructure projects in New York City, according to White House budget director Russ Vought. Why? To make sure money isn’t “flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles,” he said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. So… these infrastructure projects aren’t, uh… white enough? The U.S. lost 32,000 private-sector jobs in September, according to payroll processing company ADP. It’s the latest sign of a struggling Trump-era job market, and things could get worse if the president follows through on his threat to fire more government workers. Forty-three percent of Americans say that the Supreme Court is too conservative, a new record, according to a new Gallup poll. Before Justice Amy Coney Barrett replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that number never went above 33 percent. (Somehow, 17 percent of Americans think the current bench is too liberal… um, who are these people?!) Hollywood’s major actors union condemned Tilly Norwood, an artificial intelligence “actress” who multiple talent agents are reportedly interested in signing. “Are you serious? That’s an AI? Good Lord, we’re screwed,” real-human actress Emily Blunt said in an interview with Variety. “That is really, really scary. Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection.” Between this and Trump posting deepfake videos on social media, I’m not loving where things are going! Light at the End of the Email… The White House withdrew its nomination of E.J. Antoni, an unqualified and hyper-conservative economist, to take charge of the nation’s jobs statistics. It’s a stunning walkback by the Trump administration, after public complaints from conservative economists that this guy can’t be trusted to provide reliable data. The Supreme Court ruled that Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook can remain in her job for now, despite Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her. The court will hear Trump’s case against Cook in January. A federal judge ruled that Trump’s top federal prosecutor in Nevada was unlawfully appointed. The Department of Justice tried to keep the interim U.S. attorney, GOP activist Sigal Chattah in the role past the 120-day limit. Turns out, you have to follow the law sometimes, Donald! The Caribbean countries of Barbados, Belize, Dominica and St Vincent and the Grenadines struck a historic agreement to allow workers to work and live in any of the countries without needing a work or residency permit. That’s awesome… Can you please extend that to include the United States now??? Asking for a friend! How can you personally help fight climate change? A new project is helping people understand that their actions can make a difference, even when the president and oil companies make a bunch of mind-boggling decisions about the environment. Take the survey here! It’s the best time of year: Fat Bear Week. “Suffering from a dangling tooth on a broken jaw, grizzled Fat Bear Week veteran 32 ‘Chunk’ handily defeated an extremely large 856 to become the 2025 champion,” the Washington Post writes. This is Chunk’s first title, after taking part in the competition every year since it began and coming in second last year. Congratulations, Mr. Chunk.

On Our "Virtual Route 66" (Special W-End Edition): A Poem

 As a new quarter dawns, our team decided to release this, which is an inspiring message from Emerson  as we look forward to being of service:

On Our "Virtual Route 101" : As a New Quarter is Before Us

Welcome to the dawn of the new quarter here at the Daily Outsider. 

Please enjoy these courtesy the Team at Global Citizen (as the 2025 Global Citizen Festival was held) and thoughts courtesy the Daily Beast, while our team continues its engagements in Donald Trump's America:

 

Right now, as we went to press, the United States Government has shut down as Donald Trump promised mass layoffs with thoughts courtesy the National Review and Defense One, and a perspective on the meeting at the Pentagon courtesy the Coop Scoop:

SeSeptember 302025

By Marc Cooper

"If you were expecting something from Triumph of the Will, you instead got the Gong Show," said the Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last (JVL) about Tuesday's lecturing of America's 800 top military brass by Dumb and Dumber.

The cognitively shrinking Donald J. Trump and the drunken Christian Nationalist Secretary of War [sic] spent millions of dollars to fly in the U.S. military's top leadership from around the world so they could sit for a couple of hours and listen to two idiots who are their civilian commanders babble and watch them make asses of themselves in front of the entire world.

The web is flooded with hair-raising accounts of what was said, so no need to add much to the clutter except a few words.

Trump babbled for 70 minutes, appearing so subdued and numbed out it was like he loaded on lithium…which might be the case. He almost slurred through the whole performanc,,e which was at once senseless rambling paired with nonsensical paragrap ands, lies. Distortions and blatantly partisan exhortations. In short, he showered the brass in his routine insults of Obama and Biden, he declared all his opponents to be Radical Left Democrats, had nothing to say about our foreign adversaries, and instead mumbled about "the war within" that he is waging and hoping the military will win for him. He nominated himself again for the Nobel Peace Prize but remembered to refer to phantom urban criminals as "animals."

The big takeaway, however, that will be making headlines over the next 24 hours was this blockbuster: Trump said we should use "American cities as [military] training grounds." He did not specify if the current ground incursions should also include, say, practice air strikes against Seattle or nuclear bomb tests over Memphis.

As they damn well should have, the supposedly non-partisan professional officers sat stone-faced through the whole affair and ignored Trump's invitation to applaud. I assume most of the brass present voted for Trump, just as I assume they had deep regrets after watching this undiagnosed psychiatric patient up close and personal. Any remote chance for a pro-Trump military coup lessened today because a lot of these officers would have second, thir,d and fourth thoughts about breaking the democratic order to keep this moron fossil in power.

Then there was ouclean-cutut, heavy-drinking, ass-pinching, undereducated, inexperienced, all-American Secretary of War Pete Hegseth lecturing officers twice his age with decades of military experience as if he was some sort of blockhea9th-gradede P.E. teacher.

He promised them no more hassle with bothersome "rules of engagement," ignoring international law, vowed that fighting troops "warriors" must all meet "male physical standards," that women who wanted combat service must meet the same standard, but left unclear if they also had to grow a set of hairy balls (details forthcoming). He spoke as if the U.S. Armed Forces had been as weak as the Swiss Navy over the last 30 year,s and now it was time to man up and learn to ruthlessly destroy and kill the enem,y and as a sweetene,r he lifted the ban on hazing new recruits. I’m not sure if kegstands have become mandatory, though.

Indeed, sounding exactly like my own 8th grade P.E. teacher in 1963, a sawed off, buzz cut, Korean war vet and thinking of himself a sort of drill sergeant commanding 12 year old boys, he would line us up in formation to make sure our sideburns weren't too long and would snap open our gym trucks to make sure we wearing jocks straps and not civilian underwear. This all came back to mind when I saw Hegseth today order mandatory daily physical training and twice-yearly fitness tests. (it's gonna be a bear to carry that out as it is estimated that 20% of active duty troops are obese).

"It's tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops," said Hegseth. “Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals in the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world.”

He also ordered all troops to have short haircuts and be clean-shaven. “No more beardos,” he thundered.

It was all really phantasmagorical as he sounded like a 1969 hard-hat berating “peaceniks, hippies and weirdos.”

I’m inclined to offer no more details as this was a show that is getting universal horrific reviews across all media platforms so you will be drowning in them. I am not even going to try and guess what the overall impact of this charade will be other than it appears Trump will continue sending in troops to American cities.

I do offer you this excellent reaction conversation between JVL and Bill Kristol of The Bulwark. It’s calm, reasoned and on point. It’s 35 mins so u might want to save it for later. But it’s worth it. On the other side of this video, lower down, some thoughts on the government showdown. See the video after you read that part of this post.

About That Shutdown: Donald Trump WANTS a shutdown. He’s done everything possible to avoid negotiating for the 8 Democratic Senate votes he needs to ratify his horrific BBB.

Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, should be sued for political malpractice. They have been weedling and begging Trump and MAGA to negotiate and make a deal to give over those 8 votes. They are demanding that Trump erase the part of the bill that will not extend Obamacare subsidies for those with marketplace health insurance and that will expire at the end of the year. It’s a good cause because the BBB cut off of those subsidies will dramatically raise premiums for 22 million ACA users, perhaps as much as doubling them.

But why focus on only that? And why be a supplicant to the worst, most indifferent, dishonest president in history? He wipes his ass with such “deals” and there is no reason to trust him or the MAGA congress if some sort of last miute breakthrough is reached by midnight Tuesday.

Some Democrats have been fooled by the tough no-give rhetoric of Jeffries and Schumer. It’s bullshit. They and every other legislator knew six months ago that this showdown was coming on this date and what exactly did they do to lay the political and outreach groundwork for a balk on the votes? Nothing. Zero. Zip.

Even if a last minute deal on the subsidies is reached in the next few hours and the Dems sign on, it means they also become enablers of everything else in the execrable BBB: the trillion dollar cut to Medicaid affecting 15 million of the most vulnerable Americans, the slashing of the food stamp program taking aid from millions of others, it makes them complicit with a $1.2 trillion military budget, with another tens of millions dedicated to making ICE bigger than the Marines. The Democrats would be saving the ass of an increasingly dictatorial regime in which the Republicans control the three branches of government. If they can’t put together a rational budget that can pass, it’s their frickin’ problem, not anybody else’s. Not to speak of the crippling tariffs, the dismantling of once-independent federal agencies and so on. The Democratic stance could have been this budget shortfall should serve as a declaration of war against MAGA, which has been relentlessly waging war against the Republic for the last decade.

The Democratic position, after Schumer caved on the first round of this a half year ago, should have been a stern, inflexible warning to Trump that the Democratic answer this SeSeptember 30as going to be a flat no, no no to such a lopsided, cruel and un-American funding proposal and, hey, you guys go figure it out.

This crisis also starkly reveals the yawning chasm between the political class and the electorate — both of whom share responsibility for fecklessness albeit not in equal shares.

Not only did the Democratic leadership know a half year ago that today would be the showdown but so did the liberal NGO’s and community organizations that have been organizing the big No Kings demos. The next one is set for almost 3 weeks from now on October 18th.

Call me a dreamer, but would it have been impossible for the Democratic leadership and groups like Indivisible and its ilk to actually COORDINATE so that the they could all converge on the budget D-Day and make this a much larger confrontation with the regime other than one concession on health care? Again, maybe I’m naive to even muse about it, but this week could have been—but will not be— the opening of the first serious offensive against this whole ghastly regime, a battle fought non-violently in the streets and suites?

To answer my own rhetorical question: No, I don’t think Jeffries and Chuckie would be comfortable in such a coalition with the civilian-based protest groups. But those groups did not need the permission of the Democrats to protest the whole damn budget just as the Democrats were holding some, shrinking leverage over Trump.

I find this an ominous sign that our opposition is much weaker and non-strategic than I thought. As I write this at 5:15 pm EDT, I would not be surprised if the groveling Democrats capitulate, accept some half-baked Trump promise and sign onto the bill that funds an increasingly authoritarian regime. If the don’t. they mostly likely will some days or weeks into the shutdown.+++

As the government spirals toward a shutdown, Trump promises mass layoffs By Eric Katz A last-ditch effort to keep the government funded failed Tuesday night. Agencies will begin furloughing staff on Wednesday. Government Shuts Down as Lawmakers Fail to Reach Deal on Funding Bill The last shutdown occurred during Trump's first term, in December 2018, and lasted 35 days — the longest in ... READ MORE