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US Monthly Headline News November 2023 - Page 1
Story by David Edwards

Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) called out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) on Thursday for ignoring Donald Trump's plans to use the federal government to exact revenge on his enemies if he becomes president again. At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the weaponization of the government, Plaskett opened by wondering why Chairman Jordan had turned a blind eye to Trump's threats. Plaskett accused Republicans of wanting to "ramp up their own misinformation campaign before the 2024 election."

"They want to distract from the actual threat of the weaponization of government on the American people. That is Donald Trump," she explained. "He has vowed to use the Department of Justice to investigate his political enemies. He has said that those who oppose him should be executed for treason. He has called his political opponents cockroaches, vermin, said that immigrants are poisoning American society."
Story by Jennifer Bendery

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee had full-blown meltdowns on Thursday after Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) held votes on two of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees without allowing debate on them, saying he was simply following the “new precedent” established by Republicans when they did the same thing to Democrats, twice.

Durbin appeared to completely blindside Republicans by moving straight to votes on two U.S. District Court nominees, Mustafa Kasubhai and Eumi Lee, without opening up the floor for discussions on them. Both nominees had two previous hearings and had been debated. But typically the panel would still allow for more discussion in what was their confirmation hearing.

Not Thursday. Durbin went straight to their votes, saying senators already had two chances to debate their nominations. And GOP reactions went from confusion to anger to the kinds of high-octane tantrums familiar to anyone with children under the age of 5. “Are we going to have an opportunity to speak?” asked Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I would also like to speak on the nomination,” said Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). “I understand what you’d like to do, but I’m saying, in fairness, we’ve debated these nominees twice,” Durbin said. “I ask the clerk to call the roll.”
Story by Rachel Weiner, Spencer Hsu, Devlin Barrett

On Dec. 30, 2020, Jeffrey Clark was nervous. He had just been told that Donald Trump was “very happy” with him. “I’m praying,” the Justice Department official told Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who less than two weeks earlier had arranged for Clark to meet the president. “And wonder if I’m worthy or ready.” “You are the man. I have confirmed it,” Perry replied. “God does what he does for a reason.”

The text exchange, briefly made public as part of a court dispute over special counsel prosecutors’ access to Perry’s phone, illuminates the extent of Perry’s involvement in the machinations that have led to criminal charges against both Clark and Trump over their attempts to prevent President Biden from taking office. The U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit said that a district court judge needed to individually review roughly 2,000 communications to decide which ones were “speech or debate” — falling under a clause that grants members of Congress immunity from criminal investigation in their official capacities. But the same appellate panel on Wednesday exposed many of those messages by unsealing that lower court judge’s 51-page opinion, previously available only with heavy redactions.
Kevin Breuninger

A New York appeals court Thursday reinstated a gag order on Donald Trump in the former president’s $250 million civil business fraud trial. The order bars Trump from making public statements about the staff of Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over the ongoing trial.

Engoron had imposed the gag order on Trump, and later expanded it to cover his attorneys, after they repeatedly targeted the judge’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield.

Engoron has said his chambers have been “inundated” with threats and harassment against him and his staff during the trial. An official who monitors threats for the New York Court System’s Department of Public Safety told the appeals court in a sworn statement that Trump’s comments about Greenfield have prompted “hundreds” of threatening messages, many of which were antisemitic.

“After years building up to this climactic moment—the opportunity to grill Hunter Biden under oath in front of the country—Republicans retreated from their own battle. This has to be the most humiliating loss for James Comer yet,” says Chris Hayes
Story by Kate Plummer

Marjorie Taylor Greene has triggered a backlash after posting Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.

Posting on X, formerly Twitter, the Georgia representative, who has consistently been critical of aid to Ukraine since the war began in February 2022, posted an article originally published by The Islander, a self-professed geopolitical analysis site, and reposted by the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) and wrote: "Anyone who votes to fund Ukraine is funding the most corrupt money scheme of any foreign war in our country's history.

"And forcing the American people to pay for it." The article claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's closest associates bought two yachts worth a combined total of $75 million in October and speculated they may have used Western aid to do so. But a community note added by other X users said: "Rep. Greene is reposting content from the Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russian state propaganda outlet sanctioned for spreading disinformation and interfering in U.S. elections," alongside links to information about the foundation.
Face the Nation

Henry Kissinger, the controversial diplomat who served as secretary of state and national security adviser under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, died Wednesday at age 100, his firm said. CBS News correspondent Skyler Henry looks back on Kissinger's life.
Story by Tony Diver

Donald Trump has been accused of using his company’s funds to pay his tax and legal bills, in breach of a court ruling that requires him to notify a financial auditor before withdrawing cash. The former president reportedly moved $40 million (£31.5 million) from the Trump Organisation into a personal bank account in three cash transfers across ten months of financial statements, The Daily Beast reported.

Mr Trump has been ordered to notify Barbara S Jones, a former federal judge, before withdrawing more than $5 million from his trust, in an attempt to regulate the Trump Organisation’s business practices. Ms Jones has notified a New York State court that Mr Trump moved the money out of his businesses account to pay a $29 million tax bill and a $5 million penalty from the E Jean Carroll lawsuit.

In that case in May, Mr Trump was ordered to pay Ms Carroll damages for sex abuse and defamation. The restriction on the former president’s financial activities was imposed by Arthur Engoron, the judge in his New York civil fraud trial, in the run-up to a judgment that could see him fined $250 million and barred from operating businesses in the city.
Story by Cynthia Paul

In his ongoing civil fraud trial in New York, Donald Trump had his worst day to yet on Tuesday—and it was all because of one of his own important witnesses, a former executive of the Trump Organization who directly connected the former president to the murky arithmetic at the heart of the case.

Trump Linked Firmly to Conspiracy and Fraud Counts
Jeffrey McConney, the former spreadsheet guru and comptroller for Trump Organization, was the witness. During the non-jury trial, McConney was asked to testify by the defense. However, during the state attorney general’s office’s cross-examination on Tuesday, he established a strong connection between Trump and the conspiracy and fraud charges that are now pending resolution.

DJT to Get Final Review
People’s Exhibit 3054, a draft of Trump’s 2014 net worth declaration, was sent to McConney. He was called to look at his own handwritten notation, “DJT TO GET FINAL REVIEW,” scribbled on the first page of the document in faint blue ink.
House Republicans had requested a closed-door interview, but a lawyer for the president's son proposed testifying at a hearing instead.
By Sarah Fitzpatrick and Summer Concepcion

Hunter Biden is open to testifying publicly before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Dec. 13, his lawyer said in a letter sent to the panel Tuesday. The president’s son was subpoenaed by House Republicans in early November and summoned to appear for a closed-door transcribed interview as part of an escalation of Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into the president.

"We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public. We therefore propose opening the door," his lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a Tuesday letter to Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky. Comer pushed back at Lowell’s letter in a Tuesday morning statement posted to X: “Hunter Biden is trying to play by his own rules instead of following the rules required of everyone else. That won’t stand with House Republicans.”
Story by David McAfee

Donald Trump on Saturday heard boos when he arrived at the South Carolina "Palmetto Bowl." He also reportedly saw billboards telling him that he lost. Trump attended the bowl at least in part to show up his GOP rival Nikki Haley at her alma mater, but it appears things didn't go exactly as planned for the former president. He was met with two billboards saying, "You lost. You’re guilty. Welcome to Columbia, Donald," according to the Messenger's report.
Story by Joseph Ellis

Ex-President Donald Trump has been identified as one of the top global threats for 2024 by The Economist. Reports indicate that his allies are screening potential followers and planning to expand his power in the U.S. government if he wins in 2024.

Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat warns that Trump’s actions are reminiscent of authoritarian regimes, including plans for mass detentions and expansion of psychiatric institutions. “Yeah, well, you know, Trump is an autocrat, not a Democrat,” Ben-Ghiat said.

“What he is doing here is straight out of the history of authoritarianism. it is not just the content of what he wants to do, mask importation’s mass detentions, and also if you get into it, he says he wants to expand psychiatric institutions, to put people in there.”

Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana was confronted about the high firearms death rate in his home state during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence.

So far in 2023, over 39,000 people have been killed by firearms in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an organization that tracks shootings. There have been at least 619 mass shootings and 33 mass murders this year, prompting calls for Congress to strengthen national gun laws, as gun control remains a tensely divided matter in the United States.

Proponents of gun control say limiting the ability of individuals to buy some weapons, such as assault rifles, would mitigate the number of shootings. Others, however, say stronger gun laws would impede the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.
Mr. Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd during a 2020 arrest, was serving a sentence of more than 20 years.
By Glenn Thrush and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd during a 2020 arrest that set off a wave of protests, was stabbed at a federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., on Friday, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an inmate at the Tucson prison was stabbed at 12:30 p.m., though the agency’s statement did not identify Mr. Chauvin, 47, by name. No other inmates or prison staff were injured, and the situation was quickly contained, according to the people familiar with the situation.

Emergency medical technicians “initiated lifesaving measures” before transporting the inmate to a local hospital “for further treatment and evaluation,” bureau officials wrote. No details were immediately available on his condition, but one of the people with knowledge of the incident said that Mr. Chauvin survived the attack.
By Lee Moran

A new book reports that former President Donald Trump made disparaging comments about evangelical Christians during the 2016 Republican primary.

The then-candidate described evangelicals backing rival Republican hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) as “so-called Christians” and “some real pieces of shit,” The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta wrote in his upcoming “ The Kingdom, The Power, And The Glory: American Evangelicals In An Age Of Extremism .”

The Guardian shared the detail from the book on Thursday ahead of its Dec. 5 release.

Trump was sent “into a spiral” and speculated “there was a conspiracy among powerful evangelicals to deny him the GOP nomination” after he drew ridicule for flubbing on what was his favorite Bible verse ― saying “Two Corinthians” instead of “Second Corinthians,” per Alberta. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins then endorsed Cruz.
Story by Amy Lewis

The question at hand diverges from the broader discussion about the impact of the MAGA movement on the United States and the world. Instead, the primary objective here is to delve into the specific aspects adversely affected by MAGA, shedding light on the unfortunate consequences it has brought about for countless individuals. It is worth noting that some of these repercussions are undeniably heart-wrenching, highlighting the profound and often painful effects of this movement on people’s lives.

Personal Safety
An individual shared their perspective, revealing, “The MAGA thing just made me look at people differently, more cynically.” They elaborated on this shift in outlook by mentioning, “I’m skeptical of people” and how they often perceive them as selfish or evil. This commentary underscores the profound impact of the MAGA movement on this person’s perception of others, leading to a heightened sense of cynicism and suspicion in their interactions with fellow individuals.
Story by Trisha Leigh

At this point, everyone knows we need to do something about climate change and all of the carbon polluting the air. I mean, unless you’re purposefully avoiding the news, in which case, more power to you. Thankfully, though, there are some out there actually doing the good work required to make change happen – this time in the form of “carbon capture” plants meant to reverse the process.

It should come as no surprise that this prototype plant exists in California, and though it is a step in the right direction, it is still very small in scale. The plant is run by Heirloom Carbon Technologies and pulls carbon dioxide out of the air – up to 1000 tons per year – and stores it underground.
Story by Zachary Leeman

The Democrat trolled Republicans responding to initial reporting that the explosion was an attempted terror attack, which authorities confirmed it was not.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., trolled Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, over the latter's suggestion a car explosion at the US-Canada Rainbow Bridge border crossing was a terror attack after the FBI confirmed that the incident was not terror related.

"This confirms our worst fear: the explosion at Rainbow Bridge was a terrorist attack," Cruz posted to X in response to an early Fox News report citing high level law enforcement officials suggesting the explosion, which killed two people, was potentially terror-related.

Remember when Lindsey Graham wanted anyone but Trump for President, even made jabs at Trump over a game of billiards, only to end up… supporting Trump? Here’s thirteen minutes of spineless Senator Lindsey Graham! #DailyShow #Comedy
Story by Kunal Dey

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: In a disturbing turn of events, the New York judge presiding over former President Donald Trump's civil fraud trial, Arthur Engoron, and his law clerk have reportedly been subjected to a barrage of harassing messages deemed "serious and credible" by court security. The onslaught reportedly began on October 3, shortly after Trump levied unfounded allegations against Judge Engoron's law clerk on social media.

Security concerns prompt gag order
Charles Hollon, a court officer-captain assigned to the Judicial Threats Assessment unit of the Department of Public Safety, revealed in a sworn statement that threats against the judge and his clerk have "increased exponentially" since Trump's inflammatory post.

According to NBC News, Trump posted a message on Truth Social identifying Engoron's principal law clerk and claimed she was in a relationship with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Democrat Senator from New York.
Story by Allison Quinn

A group of masked neo-Nazis marched through the capital of Wisconsin on Saturday afternoon waving swastikas around, shouting racial slurs at onlookers, and chanting “there will be blood.”

About two dozen men wearing red shirts that identified them as members of Blood Tribe—a white supremacist group that has been trying to make a name for itself since 2021 by targeting Jews, people of color, and the LGBTQ community—took part in the march in Madison, according to local reports.

Footage from the scene showed them standing in formation to perform a Nazi salute while onlookers mostly mocked them and called them “disgusting.” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that they spent about 30 minutes outside the statehouse after marching through state Capitol grounds. The group reportedly also stopped in front of a local synagogue and, among other hateful rhetoric, chanted, “Israel is not our friend.”

Christopher Pohlhaus, a founder of Blood Tribe who famously tried to set up a white supremacist haven in Maine only to sell the property once the public became aware of it and it became “too dangerous,” was also reportedly in attendance at the march.
Story by J.D. Wolf

Trump painted his political opponent as “communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical left thugs.” These are all common attacks Trump uses for Democratic and judicial opponents. Trump claimed “threats from outside forces” are “far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within.” Trump is claiming his political opponents are a greater threat than terrorists and extremists who wish to kill Americans. In a way, Trump is implying his fight is more challenging than the foreign adversaries veterans have fought. After echoing Hitler in his Veterans Day post on his social media account, Trump then made near verbatim comments during his rally on Saturday in Claremont, New Hampshire.

Today, especially, in honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible, they'll do anything, whether legal or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream. The real threat is not from the radical right, the real threat is from the radical left, and it's growing every day, every single day. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within.
Trump continues boosting extreme accounts
J.D. Wolf

Over the last day, Trump has continued amplifying QAnon accounts on Truth Social. Trump has some favorites that he promotes to his millions of loyal followers. Trump is regularly boosting fringe accounts to his MAGA base.

Trump shared content from user "FruitSnacks," who previously posted an image of Trump with a "Q+" graphic on his suit and a claim that the January 6th riot was staged by the government. Reminder, Trump was president on January 6th.

Trump shared posts complaining about his indictment and calling government leaders "traitors" from account "Lara47," who uses the QAnon slogan WWG1WGA, "Where We Go One, We Go All."   
Story by Lauren Irwin

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who previously supported former President Trump, said the Trump administration was “crazier” and “more dangerous” than he expected, in a recent interview.

Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, has been a vocal supporter and financial advocate for Trump. In an interview with The Atlantic published Thursday, Thiel said he is not giving money to the former president — or any other candidate — in the 2024 presidential campaign.

“Voting for Trump was like a not very articulate scream for help,” he said. Thiel told The Atlantic that he had hoped Trump’s election would force a national reckoning, that someone needed to tear things down before the country could rebuild.

“There are a lot of things I got wrong,” he said. “It was crazier than I thought. It was more dangerous than I thought,” Thiel continued. “They couldn’t get the most basic pieces of the government to work. So that was — I think that part was maybe worse than even my low expectations.”
Story by Tommy Christopher

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins extended her interview with former Trump attorney Jim Trusty to smack down his claim of a “two-tiered justice system” — by citing the prosecutions of Democratic figures like Hunter Biden and Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ).

Trusty represented Trump in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into classified documents under the Espionage Act — until shortly after former President Donald Trump announced his own indictment.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins told Trusty — who remains a Trump loyalist since his departure — that she was prepared to let him go until he dropped an aside about Trump being treated unfairly:
Story by Gabriel Roman

Donald Trump’s team is stirring the pot with their latest strategy in Nevada’s primary elections, raising eyebrows and tempers. A recent report suggests there may be more going on behind the scenes than voters are aware of. As we explore the details, both sides of the argument present compelling points.

Primary Process Under Scrutiny
The recent actions of Donald Trump’s team are placing the Nevada primary process under a microscope. Insiders suggest that these changes could dramatically shift the outcome of the 2024 Republican presidential primary. With the fairness of the election in question, there’s a rising chorus of voices demanding clarity and an even playing field for all candidates.

Trump’s Accusations Turn Ironic
Donald Trump’s history of calling the 2020 election as “rigged” strikes a contrast to his current silence. His silence becomes all the more pronounced when the so-called “rigging” appears to swing in his favor, casting a shadow on his previous fervent claims of election fraud. This prompts some to wonder about the genuineness of Trump’s crusade for electoral integrity.
Story by Carl Gibson

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is selectively accepting cases to the Court's docket in a long-term project to weaken democracy, according to a recent analysis.

In an essay published recently by Slate, legal activist Sarah Lipton-Lubet argued that the Roberts Court is marching down a path that leads to the overall erosion of voting rights in selecting the cases it chooses to hear in a given term. Lipton-Lubet tracked the number of cases the Court has heard concerning "core democracy issues" like gerrymandering, redistricting, voting rights enforcement, and campaign finance since the Roberts Court's 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision that gutted portions of the Voting Rights Act pertaining to racial discrimination.

She found that out of 32 such cases, the Roberts Court agreed to hear 26 in which it had an opportunity to overturn a lower court ruling in favor of democracy, and only six in which it could potentially overturn an anti-democracy ruling (the Supreme Court can decide to hear a case if four of nine justices agree to issue a writ of certiorari).
By Katherine Fung

Former President Donald Trump was caught in a lie during his Monday testimony, telling prosecutors he was too "busy in the White House" to be involved in the preparing of his 2021 financial statements, even though he had already been succeeded by Joe Biden.

Asked about whether he was involved in the 2021 valuations of his properties, Trump defended himself by telling prosecutor Kevin Wallace, "I was so busy in the White House. My threshold was China, Russia, and keeping our country safe." Wallace followed up by asking, "Just to clarify, you weren't president in 2021, correct?" to which Trump replied, "No, I wasn't."
Opinion by Sarah Posner

The sudden elevation of Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., to House speaker pushed his record's vetting to after his election. So it was only once he became second in line to the presidency that most people learned Johnson played a key role in the House’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is virulently anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ Americans, and has promoted teaching the Bible as a history book in public schools.

Now Johnson and his allies are hitting back against his critics. Remarkably, their response to the exposure of Johnson’s turbocharged theo-politics is not to argue that media reports exaggerate or misapprehend his record as a lawyer or legislator, or his intentions as speaker. Instead, Johnson’s closest allies are amplifying his extreme views, and recasting them as mainstream “truths” that are beyond challenge.

This week Johnson gave an interview to the Daily Signal, the news site of the Heritage Foundation, an agenda-setting hub for the right, and particularly the religious right. Johnson was able to “open up,” as the Daily Signal’s Mary Margaret Olohan put it, about how his Christian faith “informs his politics.” While he’s hardly been tight-lipped about that topic, this fresh clarification of his central political philosophy makes his rapid, uninterrogated ascension even more worrisome.
by Aris Folley

The House GOP’s $14.3 billion Israel aid package, which is coupled with $14.3 billion in cuts to the IRS, could actually end up adding billions of dollars to the nation’s deficits, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said Wednesday. The estimate released by the nonpartisan office said the package could cost the nation $26 billion in revenue over the next 10 years by reducing what the IRS would take in through taxes.

House Republicans rolled out their supplemental funding package for Israel on Monday, pairing it with the cuts to the IRS so that they could argue the proposal is budget neutral. Republican leaders and conservatives are unlikely to waver on the pairing even after the CBO estimate, as they have been aggressive in pursuing cuts to the IRS.
By Ella Lee

The Trump Organization’s skewed financial statements may have cost banks more than $168 million in interest, according to an expert witness hired by the New York attorney general’s office. Michiel McCarty, chairman and CEO at the investment bank M.M. Dillon & Co., testified Wednesday to his “lost interest calculations” for banks that handed out loans to the Trump Organization. His calculations determined that across four Trump Organization assets, banks lost out on just over $168 million in interest.

The assets — 40 Wall Street, Trump’s Chicago hotel, the Old Post Office-turned-hotel and Trump’s golf course in Doral, Fla. — each lost banks tens of millions of dollars in interest across nearly a decade, according to McCarty’s assessment. Judge Arthur Engoron already found Trump, the Trump Organization and several executives — including Trump’s adult sons — liable for fraud before the trial began, ruling that New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) had proved the crux of her case.
By Elizabeth Wolfe and Jessica Xing, CNN

CNN — The Cornell University student accused of threatening in online posts to harm his New York college’s Jewish community is due in court Wednesday, prosecutors said, as antisemitic threats and incidents have flared across the United States amid mounting Mideast conflict following Hamas’ attack on Israel.

Patrick Dai, a 21-year-old junior at the Ivy League school, was arrested Tuesday and charged federally with “posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications,” the US Attorney’s Office for New York’s Northern District announced. The charge is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Dai is scheduled to appear at 2:30 p.m. in federal court in Syracuse, said Richard Southwick, a spokesperson for the US attorney’s office. Prosecutors say Dai published posts in an online discussion forum in which he threatened to kill and injure Cornell’s Jewish students and “shoot up” the university’s predominantly kosher dining hall, 104 West.
By Jack Queen

NEW YORK, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. is set to testify on Wednesday afternoon in a New York civil fraud trial accusing the former U.S. president and his family businesses of inflating asset values to dupe lenders and insurers. Donald Jr., an executive vice president at the Trump Organization and a co-defendant in the case, will be the first of Trump’s adult children to take the stand, followed by Eric and Ivanka Trump. Their father is set to testify on Monday.

The trial is one of many legal troubles Trump faces as he campaigns to retake the White House. He holds a commanding lead over his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination to face Democrat Joe Biden in the November 2024 election, opinion polls show. The elder Trump also faces four separate criminal prosecutions, including cases in Washington and Georgia related to his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
Reducing funds for the tax agency is a top priority of House Republicans, setting up a budget clash with the Senate and White House
By Jacob Bogage and Jeff Stein

House Republicans’ plan to pay for emergency aid to Israel by cutting the Internal Revenue Service’s budget would increase the deficit by $90 billion over 10 years, the chief of the tax agency said Tuesday. Seeking to pay for $14 billion of proposed aid to Israel sought by both parties, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Monday unveiled legislation that would cut roughly $14 billion from funds recently approved by Democrats to expand the IRS. But Daniel Werfel, who was nominated by President Biden as the IRS commissioner last year, said the cuts would lead to greater expense by reducing audits of the wealthy and large corporations and hampering the agency’s ability to collect revenue that funds the government.
By Julia Silverman | The Oregonian/OregonLive

Portland Public Schools teachers have spurned a last-ditch offer from the district and launched a strike that has shuttered all 81 schools. The strike, the first in district history, comes after a 10 month stalemate during which district and union leaders were unable to agree on even basic budget realities. How long the strike might last is unknown, though sources have pegged the likely duration as three days to two weeks. Teachers will lose their health insurance for December if they do not return to work by mid-November.

There is a yawning gap of at least $200 million between what teachers are seeking and what the district says it can afford without having to make deep and painful cuts in the years ahead, whether through layoffs, fewer instructional days, closed schools or a combination of the three. The two sides will not meet again to negotiate until Friday, which means schools will close Thursday too. Friday was already a day off for students and had been scheduled as a teacher professional development day.
An attorney wants to trademark phrase used on T-shirts that stems from an exchange during a 2016 presidential debate when the size of Trump’s hands was being discussed.
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON — No case is too small for the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, the high court heard arguments in a dispute over whether a California lawyer can trademark the phrase “Trump too small,” a reference to a bawdy joke that Sen. Marc Rubio, R-Fla., made about a sensitive part of Donald Trump’s anatomy. Based on the oral arguments, the court looks likely to affirm a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office decision that rejected the application.

Attorney Steve Elster is selling T-shirts featuring the phrase stemming from an exchange during a 2016 presidential debate in which Rubio made a crude comment when the size of Trump's hands was being discussed. "And you know what they say about guys with small hands," Rubio said, leaving no doubt which part of the body he was referring to.
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