...It's the Smell of Pritzkery
Trump surrenders almost immediately, ending the U.S.-Chicago War in less than two days
Sept. 8: Trump entering second month of saying he’ll send troops into Chicago … Ezra Klein tells Democrats to block GOP funding … Here comes the next GOP murder-victim celebre … Israeli Supreme Court says Israel starving Palestinian prisoners and also orders Israel to stop starving Palestinian prisoners …
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Pres. Donald Trump on Sunday said that the war he declared on Saturday with Chicago had ended with minimal casualties. Instead, Trump said, the federal government will invade to help clean up around the place, evoking last month’s National Guard victory over litter in Washington, DC.
“We’re not going to war, we’re going to clean up our cities. We’re going to clean them up so they don’t kill five people every weekend. That’s not war. That’s common sense.”
Trump’s remarks came after his declaration of war against Chicago on Saturday. Accompanied by the picture above, Trump posted the following:
Some notes, including notes trivial but satisfying:
The top line of text wasn’t cut off by your serif-respecting TFN. Instead of posting text, Trump posted an image of words, and cut off the top serifs the way Trump cuts tariffs: Haphazardly.
Yes, it’s objectively hilarious to threaten war with three emojis of unarmed helicopters that look like they’re touring Gilligan’s Island.
It’s not called the Department of WAR, it’s still officially the Department of Defense.
Everyone already knows why Trump calls it the Department of WAR.
Trump is quoting and depicting himself as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore from Apocalypse Now. The militaristic Kilgore (get it?) revels in performative displays, is oblivious to details and human suffering, oh, and his side loses.
Trump’s faux movie poster includes the title “Chipocalypse Now,” suggesting his hypothetical war movie is about cookies.
The poster depicts U.S. military helicopters fleeing Chicago despite not even being pursued.
The city of Chicago is intact.
Trump’s ass is in flames.
Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) responded to Trump’s post, writing,
“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city.
“This is not a joke. This is not normal.
“Donald Trump isn't a strongman, he's a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”
The White House says there’s a distinction between federal law enforcement hunting for undocumented immigrants in Chicago and deploying the National Guard there (illegally) to fight crime (except the crime of them being there).
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are already operating in Chicago. And Trump insists the National Guard will go in to save everyone from crime … but not yet. Trump has been talking about it for almost a month now, so it’s not clear why Trump is letting all these people die, but whatever.
The delay might be explained by a few things. For one, Pritzker isn’t just waiting for Trump to do his crimes.
Pritzker and a tiny handful of other Democrats are giving Trump minions cause to think twice, or even once, before “just following orders.” They’re threatening lawsuits and even prosecution. As everyone should be doing.
Plus, a judge has already ruled that the Los Angeles invasion was illegal. And Trump waffling for a month now over Chicago makes it harder every day for Trump to argue that it’s an emergency.
THE REAL WAR Trump was asked on Sunday about his Apocalypse Now post, and got apoplectic then. Of course, Trump was shockingly rude to the person who asked it … while being Black.
NBC News White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor asked, “Are you trying to go to war with Chicago?” Trump responded like an asshole, and not just because that’s what his mouth looks like, but because the noises it made sounded like asshole noises:
“When you say that, darling, that’s fake news. [Crosstalk.] Be quiet. Listen. You don’t listen. You never listen. That’s why you’re second-rate.”
As civil-rights lawyer Sherrylin Ifill noted, Trump has a history of wielding uniquely rude and insulting language against Black women and bossing them around — “Sit down,” “Be quiet” — almost as if he’s thinking of a different time.
As always, the problem isn’t just transgressors, it’s whether defenders defend. And yet, Alcindor’s fellow members of the White House Press Corps failed to press Trump on his shocking display, let alone defend her.
Our corporate media shouldn’t be shocked, therefore, that the American people aren’t exactly rising to their defense, either.
Shutdown-mentum Is Building
The federal government will run out of money at the end of this month unless Congress passes a new appropriations bill. Republicans don’t have enough votes in their own party to avoid a shutdown, so they need Democratic votes. Just like they did in March.
As TFN argued at the time, it made no sense for Democrats to claim that Pres. Donald Trump wanted a shutdown because it would empower him legally to decide what government functions would continue on an emergency basis.
Yes, it’s clear now that he’s already deciding, illegally, what government functions to pretend to continue. But my argument was even simpler: If Trump wanted a shutdown, why not just veto the funding bill?
Maybe, after all, Trump doesn’t actually want his fingerprints on every piece of government he destroys.
Well, now, New York Times writer Ezra Klein, darling of centrist Democrats, has come around to the shutdown argument. In a lengthy but thoughtful meditation (gift link), Klein concludes that the Democratic Party can no longer count on courts, especially the Supreme one, to safeguard the Constitution when it comes to spending:
I’m not going to tell you I am absolutely sure Democrats should shut the government down. I’m not. At the same time, joining Republicans to fund this government is worse than failing at opposition. It’s complicity.
I’m not a political strategist. I hope somebody has better ideas than I do. But it’s been about six months since [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer [D-NY] decided that it wasn’t the time for a fight, that neither he nor the country was ready. Democratic leaders have had six months to come up with a plan. If there’s a better plan than a shutdown, great. But if the plan is still nothing, then Democrats need new leaders.
Due to being less-smart than Klein, I’m not inclined to challenge his conclusion. But due to having been pro-shutdown before he was, I’m going to anyway.
As I’ve written before, I don’t think Democratic leadership is the problem. They have those jobs because they protect their members. Schumer, I suspect, is protecting Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and a handful of others.
TAKING ACTION Indivisible is mobilizing against Gillibrand and other Democrats not to repeat the mistake of helping Republicans fund Trump’s assault on America again.
INCENTIVES Klein is getting some praise for flipping as he did on Sunday. But as former Biden administration attorney Sam Bagenstos writes, “[W]e seem to be once again creating a dynamic in our party where the people who got to the right answer sooner are marginalized for doing so, while people who were wrong get credit for changing their minds once it became obvious they were wrong.”
Yes. This is an enormous, pernicious problem. And not just for marginalized ol’ me.
Trump To Use Woman After Her Death For Once
The White House is planning to politicize last month’s murder of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, NC, because it’ll help her her family them.
If anyone wants to know the dynamics of this case, here’s a picture of Zarutska and a picture of DeCarlos Brown, Jr., the man captured on video stabbing her on a light-rail train on Aug. 22:
Asked about the killing, because the right wing has an extensive media ecosystem, Pres. Donald Trump said on Sunday, “I'll know all about it by tomorrow morning.” That’s today, kids! We’ll find out if he did his homework!
Elon Musk, apparently resentful that the light-rail train wasn’t going through one of his tunnels, highlighted the case, as did Trump administration officials and other Republicans.
They’re already blaming Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC) for Brown’s release, falsely citing some executive order Cooper signed that had no bearing on early release. But, y’know, whatever!
After all, what Republican is gonna look at those pictures and not crank out a thousand points of campaign ads?
As one Trump adviser told Axios, “This is not just about North Carolina. Other campaigns will deal with this.”
And why not? After all, “Crime is not a data thing — it's a feeling thing,” as the Trump adviser told Axios. “It's not about whether you're a victim. It's about whether you feel you're a victim or not.”
And if you don’t, Republicans will do their best to make you feel like you feel you do.
It’s not yet clear how they’ll use her, other than generic mongering of fear. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, for instance, appeared to threaten federal funding for unsafe transit systems. In other words, defunding the police.
But there are all kinds of ways for Democrats to respond, from pointing out that Republican defunding prevents the kind of comprehensive mental health care and social services that might have prevented this (Brown’s lawyers are claiming competency issues). Not to mention that Trump was blocking more Ukrainian refugees from coming into the country and threatening to send thousands of them back to get killed by Russian war crimes instead of American street crime.
Either way, the media are gonna be all over this as of today because the victim was a slender young white woman with lots of glamor shots you’ll be seeing on TV news if you make the mistake of watching TV news.
Epstein Watch
On Saturday, your watchful TFN spotted Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) already trying to undo his hilarious fanfic of Donald Trump: Undercover FBI. Corporate media don’t seem to have noticed until Sunday, so you Newsfuckers knew it first!
My bigger point in that Saturday Bonus Story, however, was that Johnson’s claims about Trump hearing about Epstein, severing Epstein (ew), and cooperating with, um, somebody against Epstein…
…is just add another log on to the fire already burning away Trump’s credibility on the timing of what he knew when. And that, as I’ve been suggesting, is where Trump’s actually, really vulnerable here.
War-Crimes Watch
Your Sunday TFN Bonus Story was a deep dive into the ill legality of the Sept. 2 murder by the U.S. government of 11 people in a boat. Specifically, I looked at the military commander whose sworn duty — when Pres. Donald Trump ordered these murders — was to tell Trump, “Sir, fuck that shit, sir.”
Admiral Alvin Holsey, commander of U.S. Southern Command, hasn’t even been named in coverage of the murders, or the apparent build-up of an effort to encourage violent regime change in Venezuela. (Your support made it possible for TFN to rectify that!)
Four Quickies
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday predicted a “substantial acceleration” in the economy by the fourth quarter. Presumably, he didn’t mean downward. Bad news for him, though, the fourth quarter starts next month. They’ve got some numbers to cook! Also hilariously, the White House can’t even keep their hypothetical numbers straight. Just two days prior, Pres. Donald Trump said it won’t be until “a year from now” that we’ll see “job numbers like our country has never seen.” Presumably, he didn’t mean downward. Gulp.
DailyKos has a handy roundup of folks reporting on and airing the booing of Pres. Donald Trump during his appearance at the U.S. Open, after the U.S. Tennis Association asked everyone to pretend Trump wasn’t getting booed which he was. Love love it.
The notoriously antisemitic Israeli Supreme Court ruled Sunday that the Israeli government is starving Palestinian prisoners, the kind of hateful accusation that could be motivated only by profound hatred of Jews. Two of the court’s three Jewish Israeli judges ruled for civil rights groups alleging malnutrition and starvation due to not enough food. All three self-hating judges ordered Israel to provide food, risking deportation to El Salvador by the Trump administration.
Longtime Newsfuckers may recall how TFN was literally the only news outlet to warn about the private equity trying to piranha America’s most legendary (surviving) retailer, Macy’s. As TFN flagged, a batch of real-estate bros were trying to eat Macy’s so they could poop out its real estate, digesting Macy’s in the process. Macy’s fought them off, shed low-profit outlets, and refocused on luxury. Which is bad because aiming more of our economy at rich people leaves more of the rest of us behind. But in this case it also means that Macy’s is bouncing back. They just posted their strongest store-growth numbers in years. Suck it, private equity.
TCB
HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN Thanks to all of you Newsfuckers who upgraded to paid subscriptions during my trip this week to take my son to start his college career and finally escape the day-to-day meddling of his parents. You helped TFN to keep going and growing while my time to devote to journalism was limited.
Now it’s on me.
There’s a lot of stuff I want to do deep dives on, plus backed-up stories in the pipeline. The reality is that TFN, each weekday, doesn’t on its own bring in enough revenue to become financially sustainable. To reach that goal requires additional pieces: enterprise reporting, investigative stuff, analysis, and Big Thoughts.
We’ve now made it through the summer Substack slowdown, however, and the number of new free Newsfuckers is ticking up. Welcome! And whether you’re new in these here newsfucking parts or you’re a long-timer, if you find that you’re making TFN a part of your day, this would be a great day to pitch in and make sure I can keep doing this forever (biological limitations may apply). E pluribus fuckem.
NEWSFUCKING IN THE WILD Catch me Mondays on The Nicole Sandler Show at 3:30pm eastern, for free, right here.
Superstar superhero writer Mark Waid joins me for a live chat on Monday, Sept. 15, at 4:30pm eastern time to talk about his Superman movie Easter egg and super-powered politics.
RESOURCES
Go get ‘em, kids! If you thought inflation would hurt Trump politically, wait’ll his own job numbers tell the truth about the job he’s doing…
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
Tracking the podcast just now I realized I forgot to refresh the Taking Care of Business section. Sorry about that!
Knocked it out of the park again today, Jonathan. Now I have to go back and read some links.