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Trump is pushing us toward a financial crash. It could be 1929 all over again

Trump is pushing us toward a financial crash. It could be 1929 all over again

William A. Birdthistle writes: President Trump’s Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, set to the theme of “The Great Gatsby,” re-enacted the decadence of that story’s licentious era: befeathered flappers shimmying in the crowd; gilded and onyx décor; scantily clad women posing in an enormous champagne coupe. The revelatory moment says so much about where we stand today — and what we could be lurching into next. Published a century ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” captured the culture of an…

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Why a federal judge just resigned from his lifetime appointment

Why a federal judge just resigned from his lifetime appointment

Judge Mark L. Wolf was appointed as a federal judge by Ronald Reagan in 1985. On Friday he resigned. He writes: I decided all of my cases based on the facts and the law, without regard to politics, popularity, or my personal preferences. That is how justice is supposed to be administered—equally for everyone, without fear or favor. This is the opposite of what is happening now. As I watched in dismay and disgust from my position on the bench,…

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Hearings that can last less than two minutes for hundreds of thousands of anonymous deportees

Hearings that can last less than two minutes for hundreds of thousands of anonymous deportees

Caitlin Dickerson writes: One morning in March, as ICE was building momentum in carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, dozens of people who had recently been detained throughout Virginia were being rushed through preliminary hearings. The government was using Zoom to save time, so Judge Karen Donoso Stevens sat in a mostly empty courtroom, adjourning some proceedings in less than two minutes each. Donoso Stevens yelled at a man to “stop talking!” while his own case was being heard…

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‘Mega detention centers’: ICE considers buying large warehouses to hold immigrants

‘Mega detention centers’: ICE considers buying large warehouses to hold immigrants

NBC News reports: The Trump administration is exploring buying warehouses that were designed for clients like Amazon and retrofitting them as detention facilities for immigrants before they are deported, a move that would vastly expand the government’s detention capacity, according to a Homeland Security Department official and a White House official. The precise warehouses that Immigration and Customs Enforcement may buy have not yet been determined, but the agency is looking at locations in the southern U.S. near airports where…

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How Gen Z toppled Nepal’s leader and chose a new one on Discord

How Gen Z toppled Nepal’s leader and chose a new one on Discord

Wired reports: At 11:30 pm on Tuesday, September 9, Rakshya Bam stepped down from an army jeep outside military headquarters in a pitch-dark, locked-down Kathmandu. The 26-year-old hadn’t slept in more than a day. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy, the whites threaded with thin lines of fatigue. A wave of youth-led protests had rocked Nepal, born on Discord servers, TikTok feeds, and encrypted messaging apps. In just a few days, Bam had seen friends gunned down, watched parliament buildings…

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How to maintain good cognitive health at any age

How to maintain good cognitive health at any age

By Benjamin Boller, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) Is it an achievable goal to remain mentally sharp while aging, or is it a pipe dream? It’s entirely possible if you cultivate habits throughout your life that are beneficial to brain function. As a researcher in cognitive neuroscience and the neuropsychology of aging processes, I aim to shed light on the ways we can maintain good cognitive health while aging in light of recent scientific advances. This article is part…

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Judge Michael Luttig issues a dire warning to the Supreme Court over Trump

Judge Michael Luttig issues a dire warning to the Supreme Court over Trump

  When Donald Trump was sworn in as president in January, both John Roberts and Trump knew that the oath he was taking was meaningless — it had been rendered meaningless by the Roberts’ edict, Trump v. United States (2024), granting presidential immunity. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, “the President is now a king above the law.” Commenting on the Supreme Court ruling that effectively turned the president into a monarch by granting unprecedented presidential immunity from criminal…

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Federal officials ban religious gatherings in front of the Broadview ICE facility

Federal officials ban religious gatherings in front of the Broadview ICE facility

Block Club Chicago reports: Federal authorities told demonstrators Friday that there would be “no more prayer” in front of or inside the Broadview ICE facility, in a move that mystified local leaders and raised legal questions. A federal representative delivered the news to a huddle of faith leaders and activists standing outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility Friday, speaking after faith leaders were denied entry to the building for the third time Friday. Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills, whose…

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Accounts from the men that Trump sent to El Salvador where they were tortured

Accounts from the men that Trump sent to El Salvador where they were tortured

The New York Times reports: They said they were shackled, beaten, shot with rubber bullets and tear gassed until they passed out. They said they were punished in a dark room called the island, where they were trampled, kicked and forced to kneel for hours. One man said officers thrust his head into a tank of water to simulate drowning. Another said he was forced to perform oral sex on guards wearing hoods. They said they were told by officials…

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The mafia presidency rules through threats of extortion

The mafia presidency rules through threats of extortion

Adam Serwer writes: The Sunday before the New York City mayoral race, President Donald Trump told New Yorkers he might withhold federal funding if Zohran Mamdani won. “It’s gonna be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York, because if you have a Communist running New York, all you’re doing is wasting the money you’re sending there,” Trump told CBS’s 60 Minutes. Mamdani responded to Trump’s threat of extortion—vote for my preferred candidate…

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Steve Bannon warns fellow conservatives if they lose key elections, he and some of them may face jail time

Steve Bannon warns fellow conservatives if they lose key elections, he and some of them may face jail time

TNND reports: Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon warned a room full of conservatives that many of them could face jail time if Republicans lose the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election. “And I will tell you right now, as God is my witness, if we lose the midterms, if we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison – myself included. They’re not gonna stop,” Bannon said in reference to Democrats. They are getting more and more and…

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How Trump is giving even more tax breaks to corporations and the ultrarich

How Trump is giving even more tax breaks to corporations and the ultrarich

The New York Times reports: With little public scrutiny, the Trump administration is handing out hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to some of the country’s most profitable companies and wealthiest investors. The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service, through a series of new notices and proposed regulations, are giving breaks to giant private equity firms, crypto companies, foreign real estate investors, insurance providers and a variety of multinational corporations. The primary target: The administration is rapidly gutting…

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Judge permanently bars Trump from deploying National Guard to Portland in response to protests

Judge permanently bars Trump from deploying National Guard to Portland in response to protests

NBC News reports: A federal judge in Oregon on Friday issued a permanent injunction barring the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard on the streets of Portland in response to protests against the president’s immigration policies. “This Court arrives at the necessary conclusion that there was neither ‘a rebellion or danger of a rebellion’ nor was the President ‘unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States’ in Oregon when he ordered the federalization and…

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Trump’s lame duck era has begun

Trump’s lame duck era has begun

Politico reports: Hours after witnessing his party’s worst electoral drubbing in at least six years, President Donald Trump hosted Senate Republicans at the White House and demanded they ditch their chamber’s supermajority rules. “If you don’t terminate the filibuster, you’ll be in bad shape,” he told them over breakfast in the State Dining Room. It was classic Trump dominance theater, like many other occasions this year where he successfully muscled recalcitrant Republicans to confirm controversial nominees, support divisive policies and…

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