US politics

US politics

"I have to say, there have been a few mayors who have expressed thoughtfulness about what to do"

In the months after a 2018 Supreme Court decision opened the door for states to legalize sports betting within their borders, giddy lawmakers across the country couldn't move quickly enough. No one wanted to miss out on the billions of dollars in tax revenue that the high court had suddenly placed within their reach-or, worse yet, to watch that easy money go to neighboring states whose leaders had the presence of mind to move first.

"The federal Medicaid cuts are an absolute disaster for HCBS," said Sabrina Epstein, a policy analyst at Disability Rights California.

The newly-named Federal Reserve chairman faces an historic challenge that no predecessor has encountered since the years immediately following World War II. In that period, the gigantic spending required to aid our allies and secure military victory saddled the U.S. with towering debt. President Truman-fearing that huge interest costs would swamp the budget-heavily pressured the Fed to hold down rates. Today, the U.S. is wrestling with its biggest budget crisis in 70 years, and we're confronting a similar conundrum.

"We're looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened," Blanche said during a news conference.

By this point I think you're all sadly familiar with Kash Patel, the former host of a MAGA podcast and current director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He's the guy accused of abusing the FBI's $60 million jet to go on dates with his 27-year-old country singer girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, and has a bad habit of running to Twitter to clout-post while federal investigations are still underway.

The US Senate approved a major government funding package on Friday, after the killings of two US citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis upended spending talks and gave out-of-power rare leverage over Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign. In a 71-29 tally, the Senate overcame last-minute opposition from a handful of Republicans to rally behind a deal the president struck with Democrats, an unusual display of bipartisanship as tensions rise nationally over the presence of ICE in American cities.

Much of the week's news revolved around the killing of protester Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and Republicans' scrambling to limit the fallout. As the week went on, we got a new Fed chair announcement, Tulsi Gabbard showing up at an FBI raid in Georgia, and what appears to be a long weekend government shutdown? Don Lemon, you will have to wait until next week, sorry. If only the Surge could control the flow and spacing of news events, the world would run a lot smoother.

Economist Claudia Sahm is an expert (if not the expert) on the conditions that presage a recession and how policymakers should react as a result. She is the creator of "the Sahm Rule," an employment indicator monitored by everyone from central banks to the global financial giants. The Sahm Rule says that a recession is likely when the three-month moving average of the national unemployment rate rises by 0.5 percentage points or more, relative to the minimum of the three-month averages from the previous year.

Taken Wednesday in Minneapolis, it shows an unidentifiable protester face down on the ground; two Border Patrol agents are on top of him, holding him there, while a third unloads pepper spray into his face from just inches away. The photo ran on the front page of The Minnesota Star Tribune on Friday and already feels like a defining image of the long ICE incursion in Minneapolis-a powerful illustration of how the agency has acted, in broad daylight, with excessive force and impunity.

Blanche and all the others have been blaming Gov. Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey. Alternatively, they smear paid agitators. But the federal cowboys who flooded Minnesota streets actually ran headfirst into the state's formidable civil society a network of civically engaged people and organizations that makes this a risky place for the federal government to pick a fight with its own citizens.

One of the files contains a list of especially shocking and graphic sexual abuse allegations against Donald Trump, including claims involving minors. After independent media company MeidasTouch published screenshots of the listed allegations-formatted as individual "complaint summar[ies]"-the DOJ seemingly removed the file, only to reupload it again an hour later.