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Trump forgot he banned the press from the White House and wandered around asking where the cameras went. The Supreme Court just handed his administration a tool to purge voters from the rolls six weeks before the midterms. A federal judge found that ICE deliberately punished immigrants in a Lower Manhattan detention facility to force them to self-deport. And hundreds of protesters were arrested outside the United Nations for protesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech.
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Most people develop object permanence by age two.
Trump was baffled by the lack of cameras at the White House on Thursday night, according to MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire. He told Morning Joe on Friday that the 80-year-old president had been walking around asking aides, “Where are the cameras?”
The cameras were gone because Trump had banned MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the White House, and every major broadcaster in the press pool suspended coverage in protest. The boycott has been in effect since Monday, and the networks are refusing to return unless all three outlets are allowed back.
Lemire reported that Trump did not consult with his aides before imposing the ban, but that his staff knew exactly how it would end. “They understand that he needs the media like he needs oxygen,” he said, “so he would be the one to miss it.”
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday night reinstating the outlets’ access, but the administration defied it the next morning. Some CNN and MS NOW journalists were still being turned away that evening as Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state dinner.
Sponsored Kalshi poll: Which party will win the U.S. Senate?
Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson are less a voting bloc and more of a support group at this point.
On Friday, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to allow the Trump administration to use a federal database to check the citizenship status of registered voters ahead of the midterms. The unreliable data could result in eligible U.S. citizens being purged from the rolls.
The database is the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements system (SAVE), created 40 years ago to verify the immigration status of noncitizens applying for government benefits. Last year, the DHS linked it to Social Security records and made it available for states to run their entire voter rolls through it.
The League of Women Voters, which is leading the lawsuit against the program, called the decision “profoundly disappointing” and said it “puts millions of Americans at risk of being unlawfully targeted by the administration’s unreliable voter purge database.”
They sanitized the record, but not the holding cells.
Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has ordered permanent safeguards against what he called inhumane and unconstitutional conditions in immigration holding cells at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan. In a 127-page ruling, Kaplan found that ICE had knowingly deprived detainees of sleep, sanitation, hygiene, food, water, and medical care.
Kaplan wrote that ICE knew that what it was doing to its detainees was wrong, but it kept doing it anyway to pressure them into self-deporting. He also found that ICE employees had attempted to cover up the conditions by sanitizing the record.
One man was held for nearly three weeks in a room with as many as 90 people, according to the trial record cited in the ruling. Another wore the same clothes for 19 days without bathing. One woman said guards provided an entire room of women with only two menstrual pads, and they housed a detainee who tested positive for tuberculosis for six days at its most crowded.
Kaplan found ICE had violated his earlier orders requiring minimum standards of care on 84 separate days and determined the agency would not improve on its own. He put in place permanent safeguards, including that every detainee get at least 50 square feet of space.
Apparently warrants only apply to grandmothers and Oscar winners.
More than 100 people were arrested in New York City on Thursday as protesters blocked streets near the United Nations ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the General Assembly. More than 400 people participated in the First Avenue sit-in, organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and NYC-DSA.
Those arrested included actress Susan Sarandon, comedian Hannah Einbinder, whistleblower Chelsea Manning, New York City Council member Chi Ossé, and Darializa Avila Chevalier, the Democratic nominee for New York’s 13th congressional district. “The deep irony is the person with the arrest warrant for crimes against humanity is not the one that will be facing arrest today,” Chevalier told reporters shortly before she was taken into custody.
Inside the building, dozens of delegations walked out as Netanyahu began his speech. Netanyahu’s response was to call them “moral cowards.” He then directly targeted New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, claiming Jews supposedly no longer feel safe in New York.
Mamdani responded in a statement, saying Netanyahu had used his speech to repeat baseless lies meant to sanitize his genocide of Palestinians. “No lie can change the fact that he remains the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Mamdani said.
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** House Republicans on Track to Lose Their Majority.** The nonpartisan Cook Political Report shifted 15 House races toward the Democrats on Friday, the latest indication that the political environment is turning against Republicans as they head into the midterm elections. Democrats need to win a net of only three seats to get the majority, and Cook now projects they are most likely to pick up between five and 15 seats. There are now 17 Republican held seats rated as Toss Ups, compared to just five Democratic held seats, and Trump is underwater in many of the most competitive districts. Much of the discontent in those districts is being fueled by frustration with how the president is handling the economy.
** 23 States Urge Congress to Regulate Artificial Intelligence.** Attorneys general from 23 states, the District of Columbia, and American Samoa sent a letter to congressional leaders Thursday urging broad federal regulation and safety standards for AI. The letter warned that unchecked AI development could soon threaten the financial system, infrastructure, and national security. New York Attorney General Letitia James said that recent “alarming reports of AI agents breaking containment have shocked the nation,” and called on Congress to act swiftly to establish a regulatory framework. “Artificial intelligence may show great promise, but we have a duty to ensure that this technology does not risk Americans’ safety,” she stated.
E. Jean Carroll Finally Receives Damages After Seven-Year Legal Battle with Trump. Journalist and writer E. Jean Carroll, who sued Trump for sexual assault and won, finally received the $5.6 million in damages awarded to her after a seven-year legal battle. The Supreme Court threw out what was thought to be Trump’s last attempt in late June, but his legal team then asked a court to issue an injunction to claw the money back. This week Carroll said both sides signed an agreement that the injunction was dead. She told AFP the money would go to everything Trump hates, including women’s rights, minority rights, and the environment. A second, much larger $83.3 million payout from a defamation case is still working its way through the courts.
Macklemore Announces “Free Palestine” Tour After Being Dropped from Ed Sheeran’s. Grammy-winning rapper Macklemore has announced the Free Palestine Tour, with three shows scheduled for Dublin, Paris and London in late October, after he was dropped as the opening act from Ed Sheeran’s U.S. stadium tour for making pro-Palestinian speeches on stage at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Macklemore said that U.S. venues gave Sheeran an ultimatum to remove him or they would cancel shows, and that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft rallied other stadium owners against him. All proceeds from the tour will go to organizations supporting Palestinians, including Anera, HEAL Palestine, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, and UNRWA USA.
