That ignorant, drunken, talk-show-host, rapist Sec Def is systematically purging the military of women. I’m sure he’d be fine with keeping them around to cook and clean. Maybe they can do some clerical work. But that’s about it. After all, if you don’t have a penis there’s really not much you’re good at (except for, well, you know.)

They’re just making it impossible for women to pursue their careers:

Everything was set for the Navy officer to take over a new role that would have capped an already distinguished career— and made her the first woman in a Naval Special Warfare command overseeing Navy SEALs.

Ranked the top officer for promotion in her cohort, she received a Purple Heart after being injured in an IED attack during a combat tour in Iraq. She then became the first woman to serve with SEAL Team Six in the role of troop commander, one of several senior positions within the squadrons that make up the elite naval unit.

A formal ceremony marking her new position was planned for July. Invitations went out two months in advance.

But just two weeks before the ceremony, her command was abruptly canceled with little explanation, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation. The decision didn’t come through formal channels but by a series of phone calls from the Pentagon, one of the sources said. The circumstances were unusual and seemed designed to omit a paper trail, according to multiple sources.

Under the Navy’s “up or out” policy, with no command slot to take, the officer’s more than two-decade military career was effectively over.

Everybody knew it was Hegseth. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t want any women in leadership roles (or really, in the military at all.)

. . .

This one is just … incredible (HuffPost):

A provision of the government funding bill that passed the Senate on Monday could give Republican senators a big payday over the government allegedly spying on them.

The legislation, expected to become law this week and end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, looks like it would allow the aggrieved senators to sue the government for at least $500,000 in statutory damages.

The FBI sought phone records from eight Republican senators in 2023 as part of its investigation into Donald Trump’s efforts to subvert the certification of his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, according to documents obtained by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who said the government “spied” on the lawmakers.

[…]

“Any Senator whose Senate data, or the Senate data of whose Senate office, has been acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed, or disclosed in violation of this section may bring a civil action against the United States if the violation was committed by an officer, employee, or agent of the United States or of any Federal department or agency,” the bill text says.

Crucially, the provision comes with “limited retroactive applicability” covering any violations since January 2022, so the eight senators would be eligible for damages for the probe that occurred in 2023.

The investigation, nicknamed “Arctic Frost,” looked at the timing of phone calls by the lawmakers from Jan. 4 to Jan. 7, 2021. The records included details about call times but not the actual contents of the communications, contrary to one Republican who complained his phone had been “wiretapped.”

The eight senators are Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). Investigators also obtained phone records for Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), but the legislation doesn’t create a cause of action for House members. None of the lawmakers were charged with crimes or were known to be the targets of a criminal investigation.

Public record shows that those Senators were being sought to help with the coup. The special counsel was trying to establish a timeline. But naturally these senators are squealing about being “spied on” when the truth is that they were participating in a coup attempt. But whatever.

. . .

The US datacenter industry is reaping huge benefits from state-level subsidies, but transparency around these incentives is limited and states that do calculate their returns find they are losing money on the deals.

Hundreds of billions is being lavished on datacenter construction across the country, however, a report published today claims many of these projects are being funded at the expense of taxpayers, with few states confirming the names of the beneficiaries.

Cloudy Data, Costly Deals: How Poorly States Disclose Data Center Subsidies is published by Good Jobs First, a non-profit body focused on corporate and government accountability. It points to 36 states where economic development subsidies for server farm projects mean that building materials and IT equipment are exempt from sales and use taxes.

The report claims only 11 states actually disclose which companies are receiving subsidies, and even then the disclosure is typically just the name of a Limited Liability Company (LLC) set up to develop the project, concealing which parent tech corporation is ultimately benefiting.

. . .

Taxpayers are typically coughing up at least $1 million for each permanent datacenter job created, according to the figures.

Good Jobs First claims the states that calculated their return on investment found they are losing between 52 and 70 cents for every dollar of datacenter tax exemption. It questions whether this is defensible given federal austerity measures that will significantly impact administrative budgets, and says states need to seriously consider ending or reducing these tax breaks.

In addition, the pace of datacenter construction is outpacing the ability of regional energy grids to supply enough juice, as a consequence of which Americans could face a 70 percent hike in their electricity bills by 2030 unless action is taken.

. . .

When I first started this Substack, four years ago to the day, I was feeling hopeful about the state of the country. We had come together to elect Joe Biden; a COVID vaccine had been made available; we seemed to have a handle on stopping the spread of the disease; Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate and there was hope that major legislation could be passed.

There were, of course, serious signs that all was not well. Donald’s big lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him gained traction within the Republican Party and began to spread. Much more worrisome was the fact that not only had Donald gotten away with his attempted auto-coup on January 6, 2021, the entire Republican Party has since become complicit in his attempts to re-write history.

Despite all of the horrors of the first Trump administration; despite Biden’s getting us through COVID and doing everything in his power to fix the economy Donald almost destroyed; despite Republicans’ clearly articulating their intentions in their fascist playbook, Project 2025, to gut federal agencies, vilify immigrants, and weaken our rights: four years later, the Republican Party—a party of fascist authoritarians who do not represent the interests of the vast majority of the American people—are in control of every single branch of government.

In the ten months since Donald re-entered the Oval Office, he and his minions have taken a wrecking ball to our institutions, our rights, and our standing in the world. Due to his utter ineptitude, the American economy is on the brink of disaster, and the global economy is at risk. Individuals, regardless of their status, are being illegally detained and in some cases disappeared. The Trump regime is engaged in lawless attacks on alleged “narco-terrorists” having thus far murdered at least 66 people.

The corrupt, illegitimate super-majority of the Supreme Court has made Donald nearly invincible. Adding to his sense of impunity: the continued complicity of media corporations, white-shoe law firms, and academic institutions have not only capitulated to the Trump regime’s outrageous demands, but they have also further enriched him.

. . .

. . .

As an exercise in prospective benchmarking, I laid out in “The Situation” on Sept. 30 exactly what I thought a shutdown would need to accomplish in order to be worth doing, noting that “there’s more to this battle than health care funding, as important as that may be for tens of millions of people.”

The shutdown would “be costly but worthwhile,” I argued, “if congressional enactments are able to do more work both in compelling and in restraining the president after the shutdown fight than before.”

But there’s a catch, I also argued: You can’t play the game as a congressional minority party unless you’re willing to see it through:

If you’re going back down in 24, 48, or 72 hours, throw in the towel now before a shutdown even starts. Nothing is weaker than setting up a fight and then flinching from it as soon as it starts—though for some reason, this point never sticks to a man who earned the nickname TACO and has made a signature move out of setting a deadline and then blowing past it. But it will stick to congressional Democrats, life being unfair. Doing that is unfair to the men and women who will lose their jobs in the first several days of this shutdown. If you’re going to play this game, you have a moral obligation to win it.

. . .

By any reasonable standard, to put it simply, the Democratic tactics would have to be judged a total failure: They got nothing in exchange for the pain they inflicted. They went to war, with federal workers and recipients of government services bearing the risk of the battle, unprepared to do what it would take to win. They lacked the moral seriousness not to play at all if they weren’t going to have the fortitude to see the matter through.

. . .

How did a Vershire man come to possess the address book of infamous pedophile, international financier and friend to the world’s most powerful people Jeffrey Epstein?

Why, eBay, of course.

Five years ago, Christopher Helali saw the book for sale online and took a gamble, spending a few hundred bucks on the off chance the artifact was the real thing.

When the “little black book” filled with the contacts of the world’s most notorious sex criminal arrived in Vershire, Helali picked it up at the post office and opened it in gloves and a mask, careful not to leave fingerprints. Though at the time the veracity of the document remained in question, Helali himself was quickly convinced.

. . .

While the subject of Epstein and his connection to the halls of power has gone quiet in the daily news cycle since this summer’s fever pitch, the saga sustains a perennial appeal for Helali and others like him. They believe there’s more going on behind the scenes than what most people imagine. To them, it’s clear, as long as you pay attention: In Epstein, the most far-fetched of conspiracies crystalize — if not in verifiable fact, then at least in circumstantial evidence.

“The vast networks of financial interests, intelligence interests, and the military aspects that intersect with the media, with powerful people who can shape narratives and can shape people’s perceptions” all join together in the Epstein tale, Helali said. “What it ultimately raises the specter of is what people sometimes refer to as the deep state.”

South Carolina’s First District GOP Rep. Nancy Mace seems real crazy! Not pretend crazy for cameras, a la Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s now suddenly imbued with the horse sense to realize that the Epstein coverup and ballooning healthcare costs from the Big Blowjobs Bill are wildly unpopular. Or horny-racist-redneck-crazy, like Lauren Boebert. Mace seems for real crazy, the kind that is not self-aware enough to know it is crazy. Wild-eyed swamp-water cuckoo!

And that means bubbling trouble a-brewin’ for her bid for governor of South Carolina. There was her freaking out and suing the TSA and American Airlines for forcing her to have a screaming, cursing meltdown at agents after they neglected to meet her at the curb at the local airport (she was in a different-colored car than her staff had told them), which was bad enough to even make Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott publicly rebuke her. Luckily, she is being represented in her lawsuit by Larry Klayman, the greatest lawyer in the world.

But there is an even worse escándalo, a new lawsuit/counterclaim from her ex Patrick Bryant seeking damages for invasion of privacy, defamation, and emotional distress. Remember him? He’s her former fiancé, the guy Mace’s onetime political adviser Wesley Donehue claimed in a deposition last April Mace had been trying to blackmail into signing over $5.5 million worth of property they’d shared, by threatening to air sex-crime allegations against him.

Now Bryant’s suit has added more scorchers, including accusations that Mace and the ex-wife of another one of the four Mace accused of sex crimes, Eric Bowman, conspired to concoct a plot to convince another woman to falsely accuse Bowman and Bryant of raping her and filming it. Holy moly! The four men are also being sued by the Jane Doe, we’ll see what happens with that, but none of the men have been charged with a crime.

. . .

Hardly a wonder, isn’t it, that so many of its columnists left the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post in 2025 after he announced its change of editorial focus to “personal liberties and free markets“? A quick search includes among them Jonathan Capehart, David von Drehle, Perry Bacon Jr., Molly Roberts and David Hoffman (both on the editorial board), Philip Bump, Jennifer Rubin, and Eugene Robinson. Some accepted buyouts. Others just left.

The Bulwark last week announced that Catherine Rampell has joined their team. She left the Post in July after 11 years.

The Post’s remaining editorial board has relocated to Cloud Cuckoo Land, or else to a billionaire prepper bunker.

. . .

The board is back this morning with an editorial that might have originated in the right-wing echo chamber (emphasis mine):

A new era of class warfare has begun in New York, and no one is more excited than Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani. Witness the mayor-elect’s change of character since his Tuesday election victory.

Mamdani ran an upbeat campaign, with a nice-guy demeanor and perpetual smile papering over a long history of divisive and demagogic statements. New Yorkers periodically checking in on politics could understandably believe that he simply wanted to bring the city together and make it more affordable. That interpretation became much harder after his victory speech.

Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment, Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity. It isn’t about letting people build better lives for themselves. It is about identifying class enemies — from landlords who take advantage of tenants to “the bosses” who exploit workers — and then crushing them. His goal is not to increase wealth but to dole it out to favored groups. The word “growth” didn’t appear in the speech, but President Donald Trump garnered eight mentions.

It goes on, but you get the point.

Further evidence that the resistance to Trumpism is growing comes from a retired senior United States district judge in Massachusetts. Reagan-appointed Mark Wolf explains he is leaving “that lifetime appointment and giving up the opportunity for public service that I have loved” (The Atlantic, gift link):

My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.

Wolf lays out some personal history in the job as well as Trumpish sins against the rule of law that will be familiar to Hullabaloo readers. He then summarizes his plans for the near future:

Others who have held positions of authority, including former federal judges and ambassadors, have been opposing this government’s efforts to undermine the principled, impartial administration of justice and distort the free and fair functioning of American democracy. They have urged me to work with them. As much as I have treasured being a judge, I can now think of nothing more important than joining them, and doing everything in my power to combat today’s existential threat to democracy and the rule of law.

Will he make a difference? He’s unsure, but has to try:

I cannot be confident that I will make a difference. I am reminded, however, of what Senator Robert F. Kennedy said in 1966 about ending apartheid in South Africa: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” Enough of these ripples can become a tidal wave.

Start splashing every chance you get.