Cam here 👋 bringing you your daily dose of what people are doing – good, bad, and otherwise – in the world of politics. We’re diving into the stories you won’t see anywhere else. And remember, you can also keep up with me over on TikTok and Bluesky.
Date set in lawsuit over Speaker Johnson’s refusal to seat Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva
The lawsuit over Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal to swear in a recently elected Democrat has been assigned to a hardline conservative judge who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term.
Trevor McFadden will oversee Mayes v. USA, a lawsuit filed by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes against the US House of Representatives over Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva.
“Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy,” said Grijalva. “When those aren’t honoured, it’s anti-democratic and it’s silencing the voices of southern Arizona by denying them full representation and access to services from their member of Congress.”
Grijalva won a special election on September 23, and flew to Washington, DC to be sworn in shortly after. Johnson has given a number of excuses not to swear her in in a transparent attempt to use her seat as a political pawn in the battle over the government shutdown.
But Grijalva and others believe the real reason has little to do with the federal budget: once seated, Grijalva would provide the final vote needed to force the release of the Epstein Files, something Trump has ordered Johnson not to let happen.
It’s part of a larger cover-up by the president to keep his old friend Epstein’s sordid history private, so Johnson appears to be executing the best strategy he could think of: shut down the House, ignore Grijalva, and hope she goes away.
But she’s not.
Grijalva has put constant pressure on Johnson, and after a month of delay, Grijalva and Mayes filed a lawsuit against the House, alleging that to prevent her from being sworn in, Johnson is denying Arizonans’ their constitutional right to representation.
“By blocking Adelita Grijalva from taking her rightful oath of office, he is subjecting Arizona’s seventh Congressional district to taxation without representation,” said Mayes. “I will not allow Arizonans to be silenced or treated as second-class citizens in their own democracy.”
And now, whether or not she will be able to represent the people of Arizona is in the hands of District Court Judge Trevor McFadden.
Here’s a brief overview of who McFadden is, and how he’s ruled on issues relating to Trump in the past:
McFadden joined the far-right legal group the Federalist Society when he was 25, and worked on and off at the Department of Justice. He donated $1,000 to Trump’s campaign in 2016, volunteered to help vet cabinet members in 2017, and was appointed to be a federal judge by Trump later that year.
In 2018, he set a precedent of not recusing himself from Trump-related cases by taking on a libel lawsuit between BuzzFeed News and a Russian oligarch named in the Steele Dossier. McFadden said he could be impartial and that he’d never even met the president — despite having vetted Trump’s cabinet.
In 2019, McFadden ruled in favor of Trump’s attempt to declare a national emergency so he could spend $6 billion to build a border wall. A month after the January 6, 2021, insurrection, he gave one insurrectionist whose case he was assigned permission to travel out of the country while on trial. After she was convicted, he removed the probation condition that would have prohibited her from owning a firearm.
McFadden became so disillusioned with how January 6 insurrectionists were being treated in court that he began issuing them acquittals.
In 2021, however, he sided with Congress and gave them permission to obtain Trump’s tax returns, and in April of this year, he ordered the White House to restore briefing room access to the Associated Press, which had been revoked after they refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
The first court date in Mayes v. USA is October 30th at 10 a.m.
Since day one of Trump’s political career, people have desperately attempted to normalize his absurd abuses of power and blatant corruption – and 10 years later, much of corporate media remains a victim of their own attempts to return to a sense of normalcy.
It’s time to stop sane-washing the insanity.
The Trump administration has gone on a $22 billion spending spree this year — and hasn’t stopped in spite of the government being shut down.
The government shutdown — a result of congressional Republicans’ refusal to negotiate with Democrats over the federal budget — is entering its fourth week with no end in sight. A growing number of government services become unavailable with each passing day: national parks and museums have closed, wait times for medical and financial services like Medicare and Social Security have skyrocketed, government employees are working without pay, and on November 1, food assistance for nearly 42 million people will be cut off. Any funds on SNAP debit cards will no longer be available, meaning one in 10 Americans will no longer be able to pay for groceries, even if they had money in their account.
The growing economic turmoil is a result of the Trump administration’s insistence that Republicans in Congress not renew a handful of healthcare-related laws as part of the federal budget. The sunset of these laws will reduce the budget by about $30 billion per year, but will take away 15 million people’s health insurance and drastically increase healthcare costs for nearly everyone else.
But the cost of the shutdown, coupled with the Trump administration’s lavish spending, will soon dwarf any savings from the potential reduction in healthcare coverage. Economists estimate that the shutdown will cost the US economy $7 billion per week, and pet projects like Trump’s White House ballroom grow more expensive by the day. Government watchdog groups like Defend America Action say that where the money flows is a key indicator of the administration’s true priorities.
“Working families are already getting crushed by higher costs and health care cuts under Trump’s agenda, and now they’re facing another disaster on November 1st when millions of Americans will risk losing their coverage or watching their premiums soar thanks to the health care cliff Republicans created,” said Jess McIntosh, senior advisor at Defend America Action. “But instead of focusing on stopping their own manufactured health care crisis before November 1, Trump and his administration are focused on their own selfish spending on ballrooms, private jets, and bailouts for authoritarian allies.”
Here is where the Trump administration is focusing its economic agenda during the shutdown:
$1 million (per day): National Guard deployment
The Trump administration currently has the National Guard deployed in California, Tennessee, and Washington, DC. While the official purpose is for soldiers to fight crime, they are constitutionally prohibited from doing so, and are mainly used for their regimecore aesthetic.
But it isn’t a cheap look: according to estimates from past deployments, it costs taxpayers approximately $1 million per day to keep the 2,500 troops on the streets of US cities.
$1.5 million (and counting): Dipping the White House in Gold
The president has also brought in his “gold guy” to glam out the White House. The public hasn’t been told what the total cost will be yet, but a little napkin math from what is known can be used to create a general baseline.
He used 24-karat gold to make the frames for the 20 portraits now hanging in the Oval Office and for smaller portraits of each president in his newly-created Presidential Wall of Fame.
Gold goes for about $4k an ounce, and frames those sizes weigh about 5-10 pounds each. So on those frames alone, we’re looking at expenses of about $1.5 million. He did say he was paying for the gold himself, but he says a lot of things.
$40 million (so far): Trump’s ‘legacy projects’
Then there’s another $2 million to turn the Rose Garden into a private club, $40 million to build a Mount Rushmore-esque Garden of Heroes, millions more for a rush-order monumental arch Trump said he wants to build for himself before America’s 250th birthday next July — and of course, the $60 grand that went to putting up gigantic, propaganda-style posters of his face on federal buildings before he had the government shut down.
$172 million: Twin jets for Kristi Noem
Another $172 million is being used to buy DHS Secretary Kristi Noem two lightly used private jets that are only worth $80 million each, brand new. The approved budget from earlier this year was only $50 million, enough to replace one old jet.
But the pair of G700’s is the same jet used by Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, making the extravagant expenditure appear to be more of an attempt to keep up with the Joneses than a necessary use of taxpayer dollars.
$230 million: Reimbursing Trump’s legal fees.
Between terms, Trump was charged with a number of crimes, although most federal cases were tied up in court by Trump-appointed judges until he won reelection, after which the cases were dropped by the Biden administration’s Justice Department.
He has since asked the Department of Justice — which is now run by two of his personal attorneys, one of whom was his criminal lawyer for the case he was convicted in — to pay him back. If they approve the request, which is almost guaranteed, Trump said he’ll then sign off on the $230 million taxpayer-funded reimbursement.
$350 Million: White House Ballroom
The East Wing of the White House has been completely demolished this week in order to make room for Trump’s $300 million golden ballroom. While the president and ballroom apologists say the cost is irrelevant because it’s being privately funded, the claim is not entirely accurate.
According to court documents, the ballroom contributions are being accepted as donations to the Trust for the National Mall, a tax-exempt non-profit.
What that means is that, for example, when Google donates $22 million, it can write it off as a charitable contribution. Trump has also said he plans to donate funds for the ballroom, essentially using tax breaks to pay himself to build himself a ballroom.
$1 billion: Upgrading Trump’s personal jet
A billion dollars is going toward upgrading Trump’s personal, private jet that was given to him by the Qatari government. And this one he gets to take with him when he leaves office.
$20 billion: Bailing out the Argentine government
The US Treasury purchased $28 trillion Argentine pesos in early October in an attempt to stabilize the South American country’s tumbling economy.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has framed the bailout as an investment and said that the US will reap the benefits once Argentina rebounds, the timeline of which is unclear. The immediate benefactors will be investment firms and hedge fund managers like Bessent ally Robert Citrone, who Keystone political correspondent Sean Kitchen discovered owns a significant amount of Argentina’s debt and will profit greatly from the bailout.
On par with pre-shutdown spending
Not that the shutdown was seen as a financial opportunity, per se: the Trump administration has given itself blank checks all year. $30 million was spent on Trump’s birthday party, $240 million went to his inauguration party, and $50 million has gone to promoting ICE’s efforts to kidnap children, abduct adults, and build and fill concentration camps.
Attempts to Sanewash
White House East Wing demolition nearly complete to make room for Trump ballroom
DHS responds to report private jets bought for Noem: Officials’ use
US government workers miss first full paycheques as shutdown drags on
Far-Right Spin
THE DUMBEST CYCLE: National Media Obsess Over Local Zoning Dispute
The facts about planes used by Noem after libs spin wild narrative
Trump blocks $26 million in disaster relief for Wisconsin
Story by Pat Kreitlow, UpNorthNews / COURIER
Gov. Tony Evers blasted the Trump administration Friday for rejecting a plea for $26.5 million in public infrastructure disaster relief caused by flash flooding in August in southeastern Wisconsin.
“It has been determined that the Public Assistance program is not warranted,” wrote an official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in a letter to Evers received Thursday. “Therefore, your request for the Public Assistance Assistance program is denied.”
“Denying federal assistance doesn’t just delay recovery,” Evers responded in a statement, “it sends a message to our communities that they are on their own, and that the Trump Administration doesn’t think over $26 million in damages to public infrastructure is worthy of their help. I couldn’t disagree more.”
During storms on Aug. 9-10, parts of the region received as much as 14 inches of rain in less than 24 hours and caused four rivers in the Milwaukee area to hit record-high levels. At least 51 homes were destroyed. Around 4,500 residential and commercial buildings were damaged, with 1,500 homes receiving major damage.
Advertise in this newsletter
Do you or your company want to support COURIER’s mission and showcase your products or services to an aligned audience of 190,000+ subscribers at the same time? Contact advertising@couriernewsroom.com for more information.
