Democrats Get Mariachi'd

Plus: Jimmy Kimmel Live! plagues my neighborhood, Hegseth's fancy meeting, Eric Adams gone but not forgotten, and more...

The federal government will shut down tonight. It looks like no real progress has been made and we're headed for a shutdown:

Schumer says there was a "candid, frank discussion" at the WH

Dems focused on 2 issues: expiring ACA subsidies and pocket rescissions

"When we made these arguments, it was clear there was a a possible division between the President and the two Republican leaders," he says

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 29, 2025

"I don't worry about that," President Donald Trump told Politico, "because people that are smart see what's happening. The Democrats are deranged."

"Democratic leaders are pushing for an extension of soon-to-expire health insurance subsidies, which the Trump administration, on Monday afternoon, seemed open to discussing if Democrats agreed to first keep the government open. By Monday night, however, Trump appeared less inclined to deal, saying he wouldn't help subsidize health insurance for undocumented immigrants," adds Politico. 

He didn't make that concept up: The Democrats' counterproposal would alter parts of the domestic policy bill that Trump signed into law in July, which "includes new curbs meant to keep noncitizens from accessing public benefits such as Medicaid."

"The American people are hurting in their health care," said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.). "We're seeing people not being able to get the health care they need, and the American people are crying out for some help. It is our job as legislative leaders to try and solve this problem." Schumer left the White House yesterday evening indicating no progress was made on this after meeting with the president.

Trump, true to form, posted an insane AI-generated video to Truth Social right after the meeting:

pic.twitter.com/JzQYLShOCt

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2025

"Look guys, there's no way to sugarcoat it: Nobody likes Democrats anymore," says fake Chuck Schumer. "We have no voters left because of all of our woke trans bullshit. Not even black people want to vote for us anymore, even Latinos hate us. So we need new voters. And if we give all these illegal aliens free healthcare, we might be able to get them on our side so they can vote for us." (You can tell it's fake because Schumer would never be so honest!)

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Scenes from New York: 

lmfao pic.twitter.com/3I80wwnSgG

— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) September 30, 2025

There was some sort of "Trump is a fascist" march/protest/gathering yesterday outside the Brooklyn Academy of Music (where they're, I suppose, holding the Jimmy Kimmel return shows) that was very difficult to walk through with two kids (one mine, one borrowed) in a stroller. But hey, they're saving democracy through humor, and what am I doing? Just schlepping children about.

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QUICK HITS

• "President Donald Trump ordered 10% tariffs on imports of softwood timber and lumber, as well as 25% levies on kitchen cabinets, vanities and upholstered wood products, marking his latest bid to use import taxes to shore up domestic manufacturing," per Bloomberg. Many of those tariffs will go into effect two weeks from now, on October 14.
• What is happening here? "President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are scheduled to address hundreds of senior U.S. military officers on Tuesday, in an extraordinary meeting that places many of the Pentagon's top generals and admirals in one room," reports The Washington Post. "The gathering, at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, was ordered by Hegseth last week, requiring some top military officers across the globe to fly thousands of miles on short notice. The order called for any general or admiral in a command position to attend, with rare exceptions granted." ("It's really just a very nice meeting talking about how well we're doing militarily, talking about being in great shape, talking about a lot of good, positive things," said the president.)
• Beware bad stats in Kamala Harris' new book:

New from me: Kamala Harris says in her book that 350 trans people were killed in the U.S. in 2024. An in-depth investigation (2 minutes on of Google) show that she lifted this figure from a report of *worldwide* deaths of trans people. U.S. figure is roughly 41.… pic.twitter.com/s2gI5WFlFd

— Jesse Singal (@jessesingal) September 29, 2025

• Wild (more here):

This is just an incredible story that says so much about our education system.
- blue district in a red state has years of school board meeting notes with quotas for POC hiring for district (illegal btw)
- hires Roberts in 2023, despite having a (domestic) criminal history
-… https://t.co/XdplvrItrt

— Inez Stepman ⚪️????⚪️ (@InezFeltscher) September 29, 2025

• The wave of deportations is leading to a boom in remittances, reports Bloomberg. "Honduras sees transfers jump 25% as migrants, fearing their time in the US will be cut short by the president's crackdown, bet their money is safer back home."
• "The chemical company DuPont held the patent on naltrexone into the 1990s, but there was never much uptake from doctors or clinics. When the patent expired, it went into generic production, and today, no drugmakers bother to market naltrexone, because they could be undercut by the drugmaker down the street," writes journalist Katie Herzog in her new book, Drink Your Way Sober, on the Sinclair Method, a little-known treatment involving the pill naltrexone that helps problem drinkers manage their addiction. "While this keeps the price low, it also means that you don't see a push from pharmaceutical companies to get naltrexone in the medicine cabinets of every overdrinker on the planet. There's some dark irony here: The very thing that makes naltrexone cheap and accessible also keeps it from being more widely known."
• Missing him already:

You never know how good you have it until it's gone pic.twitter.com/NGadWC0OKs

— Cluseau Investments (@blondesnmoney) September 29, 2025