Wednesday Reads: Everything is Awful, As Usual
Good Afternoon!!
Everything is awful again this morning. Trump’s coup is advancing rapidly as he increases his control of Washington DC, attempts to take over the Fed, and threatens Chicago and other large cities. He has already politicized the Department of Justice, and now his goons are working to destroy the Social Security Administration and the Department of Defense. He is even speaking openly about wanting to be a dictator.
Here’s the latest:
I’ve been briefed on a shooting at Annunciation Catholic School and will continue to provide updates as we get more information. The BCA and State Patrol are on scene.I’m praying for our kids and teachers whose first week of school was marred by this horrific act of violence.
— Governor Tim Walz (@governorwalz.mn.gov) 2025-08-27T14:10:52.098Z
BBC News live updates: Multiple people injured in Catholic school shooting in Minneapolis, police say.
Summary
— Two people have been killed and up to 20 are injured following a school shooting in Minneapolis, authorities tell CBS, the BBC’s US media partner
— Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says the attack happened at Annunciation Catholic School – and calls it an “horrific act of violence”
— There is “no active threat” in the area now and the gunman is dead, authorities say
— Of the 20 people who are injured, 10 of them are in a critical condition, CBS reports
— The shooting reportedly happened during a school-wide Catholic mass for students in kindergarten to eighth grade
— Police are due to give an update on the situation at about 11:30 local time (16:30 BST) – watch live at the top of this page.
Follow live updates at the link.
AP: Shooting occurs at Minneapolis Catholic school and authorities say shooter has been ‘contained.’
A shooting occurred Wednesday morning during the first week of classes at a Minneapolis Catholic school, Minnesota governor’s said. Authorities gave no immediate information on the number of injuries, but Gov. Tim Walz called the shooting “horrific.”
The Minneapolis city government said the shooter had been “contained” after the gunfire at Annunciation Catholic School and there was no longer any “active threat” to residents.
A spokesperson for Hennepin Healthcare, which has Minnesota’s largest emergency department, said in a text message that it was actively dealing with an emergency and provided no additional details. A social media post from the company said it was caring for patients from the shooting.
This is a developing story.
Yesterday Trump escalated his efforts to take over control of the Federal Reserve.
Charlie Savage at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Again Escalates Power Grabs in Bid to Fire Fed Member.
President Trump’s bid to fire a member of the Federal Reserve board is a new escalation of his efforts to amass more power over American government and society: Congress generations ago structured the agency, crucial to the health of the economy, to be independent of White House control.
In purporting to fire the board member, Lisa D. Cook, Mr. Trump is setting up another test of how far the Republican-appointed supermajority on the Supreme Court will let him go in eroding the checks and balances Congress has long imposed on executive power.
His attempt to fire Ms. Cook presents a new twist. It raises the question of whether he alone can decide whether there is cause to fire an official at an independent agency whose leaders are protected by law from arbitrary removal — or whether courts will be willing and able to intervene if judges believe his justification is a pretext.
But the move to oust Ms. Cook, whom the Senate confirmed for a term that ends in 2038, also fits into a now familiar arc, joining the various ways Mr. Trump has systematically accumulated greater authority.
Trump is drunk with power. Can anyone stop him?
Mr. Trump has stretched the bounds of some legal authorities, like prolifically declaring emergencies to unlock more expansive power, sending troops into the streets of American cities, unilaterally raising import taxes and blocking spending Congress had directed. In this case, he is pushing at the limits of a statute that says Fed board members serve 14-year terms unless removed “for cause” by a president.
Mr. Trump has also openly weaponized government power in ways that post-Watergate norms had forbidden, including directing the Justice Department to investigate perceived foes. In this case, a loyalist he installed atop the Federal Housing Finance Agency has scrutinized mortgage documents associated with various people Mr. Trump does not like, apparently finding a discrepancy in two loan applications Ms. Cook submitted in 2021.
And Mr. Trump has unabashedly violated statutes in which Congress set limits on when various types of officials may be fired, while seeking rulings striking down those laws as unconstitutional constraints on his powers. The restrictions apply to an array of officials, including board members of other independent agencies, inspectors general and civil servants.
But in telling Ms. Cook he was firing her, Mr. Trump invoked a provision Congress wrote into the Federal Reserve Act that says Fed board members may only be removed before their terms are up for cause. He said he had determined that sufficient cause existed to remove her.
That provision does not define what counts as a sufficient reason. In general, such provisions have been understood to mean something like significant misconduct or neglect of office.
Use the gift link to read the rest.
This is a true emergency. Fortunately, Cook plans to fight back by suing Trump.
CNBC: Trump White House pressures Fed Governor Lisa Cook to go on leave as lawsuit looms.
President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, said Wednesday that Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Lisa Cook should go on leave from the central bank even as she plans to file a lawsuit challenging her removal by Trump.
“If I were her in her circumstance, I would take leave,” Hassett told reporters outside the White House.
Lisa M. Cook
“I think it’s the honorable thing to do,” he continued, after a reporter asked about whether Cook should be presumed innocent of allegations of mortgage fraud raised by another Trump-appointed official….
Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, is expected to soon file a lawsuit over Trump’s move, her attorney, Abbe Lowell, said Tuesday.
Trump’s “attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis,” Lowell said in a statement.
The Fed said Tuesday that “Cook has indicated through her personal attorney that she will promptly challenge this action in court and seek a judicial decision that would confirm her ability to continue to fulfill her responsibilities as a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.”
The battle over Cook’s removal could end with the Supreme Court issuing a final decision on the matter.
Would the Supreme Court allow Trump to take control of the Federal Reserve? I’m not sure they will challenge Trump over any of his power grabs.
Alexander Willis at Raw Story: ‘Truly frightening’: Expert says new Trump move ‘could end very badly’ for economy.
As President Donald Trump continues to stand behind his decision to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, one former leader at the agency warns that the consequences of the firing, should it ultimately go through, could be catastrophic.
Trump announced on Monday that Cook would be fired “effective immediately,” alleging the Biden-appointee of mortgage fraud, claims that have yet to be litigated in court. Cook immediately rebuked Trump in declaring her intention to continue to serve out the remainder of her 14-year term.
Bill Dudley, a former president at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, however, warned that should Cook ultimately be fired, the new makeup of the agency’s board could set off a series of “standoffs, showdowns, chaos and uncertainty” that he said “would be truly frightening,” in an op-ed published in Bloomberg Wednesday.
“The attack on Cook represents a major escalation that could end very badly,” Dudley wrote. “Never before has a president tried to fire a Fed governor, and there’s much more at stake than one person’s job.”
Dudley went on to note that, should Cook be removed from her position, Trump would then have appointed four of the central bank’s seven governors, granting him a powerful majority that would grant the president far more leverage at the Fed.
“The Board of Governors could, for example, refuse to reappoint some or all of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents, whose five-year terms come up for renewal in February 2026 – and five of whom vote on the FOMC on a rotating basis. In theory, this could be a way to populate the (Federal Open Market Committee) with members that would do Trump’s bidding, empowering the president to get the big rate cuts he seeks.”
One more on the Fed crisis from former Fed Chair Janet Yellen at Financial Times: Trump’s attack on the Fed threatens US credibility.
US President Donald Trump’s claim that he has “fired” Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook “for cause” is not only unlawful. It is profoundly dangerous.
It represents a direct attempt to politicise the Fed, intimidate its leadership and bend monetary policy to the president’s will. This action threatens to end the independence of the Federal Reserve — and with it, the credibility of the US’s monetary policy both at home and abroad.
Janet Yellen
The law is clear: Federal Reserve governors serve 14-year terms precisely so they cannot be tossed aside by presidents who dislike their views or who seek their allegiance. Removal “for cause” is intended for documented misconduct. “Accusations” are not “cause”.
Cook has done her job with integrity — weighing evidence and voting for policies designed to achieve the Fed’s dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment. For Trump to invoke cause here is a fiction; it is a pretext to justify an autocratic power grab.
This is not about one Federal Reserve governor. It is about intimidation. By targeting Cook, Trump is sending a chilling message to every member of the Federal Reserve board and to the regional reserve bank presidents who take part in the Federal Open Market Committee: express disagreement with the president’s views and you are next.
Such threats could stifle these Federal Reserve leaders in their duty to offer honest, professional and independent views on monetary policy to the public. It could alter their voting behaviour. It would turn an institution renowned for its independence and strong record of accomplishment into a puppet stage for presidential whims and priorities.
A bit more:
At the moment, a key Trump administration priority is for the Fed to substantially cut interest rates to reduce the cost of servicing the US government’s $37tn debt. The consequences are likely to be catastrophic.
History offers a blunt lesson: chaos follows when leaders capture their central banks and force them to buy government debt or cut interest rates to hold down debt service expense. Germany in the 1920s, Hungary after the second world war. Likewise, Argentina and Turkey quite recently — the names change, but the story is the same.
Politicised central banks deliver higher inflation, volatile growth and weakened currencies. Such a road cannot be good for the US. We took this road once before: during the second world war, when the Fed was obliged to hold interest rates down to help the Treasury finance the war. The result was high inflation.
In other news, what is happening at the Social Security Administration is terrifying. A whistleblower has accused former DOGE staffer Edward “Big Balls” Coristine of endangering every American’s Social Security data.
Nicholas Nehamas at The New York Times (gift link): DOGE Put Critical Social Security Data at Risk, Whistle-Blower Says.
Members of the Department of Government Efficiency uploaded a copy of a crucial Social Security database in June to a vulnerable cloud server, putting the personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked, according to a whistle-blower complaint filed by the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer.
The database contains records of all Social Security numbers issued by the federal government. It includes individuals’ full names, addresses and birth dates, among other details that could be used to steal their identities, making it one of the nation’s most sensitive repositories of personal information.
Edward “Big Balls” Coristine
The account by the whistle-blower, Charles Borges, underscores concerns that have led to lawsuits seeking to block young software engineers at the agency built by Elon Musk from having access to confidential government data. In his complaint, Mr. Borges said DOGE members copied the data to an internal agency server that only DOGE could access, forgoing the type of “independent security monitoring” normally required under agency policy for such sensitive data and creating “enormous vulnerabilities.”
Mr. Borges did not indicate that the database had been breached or used inappropriately.
But his disclosure stated that as of late June, “no verified audit or oversight mechanisms” existed to monitor what DOGE was using the data for or whether it was being shared outside the agency. That kind of oversight would typically be provided by the agency’s career information security professionals, Mr. Borges said in his account.
And his complaint cites an official agency security assessment that described the project as “high risk” and that warned of “catastrophic impact” to Social Security beneficiaries and programs if the database were to be compromised.
“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital health care and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for reissuing every American a new Social Security number at great cost,” Mr. Borges’s complaint said. He alleged that DOGE did not involve him in discussions about the project, despite his role as chief data officer, leaving him to piece together evidence of what had happened after the fact.
Included in his account, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times, are more than two dozen pages of internal emails, memos and other records to document his claims. Mr. Borges’s complaint said that DOGE’s actions “potentially violated multiple federal statutes” designed to protect government data.
Unbelievable. Use the gift link to read the rest.
Trump’s crackdown on Washington DC continues. A couple of updates:
The Independent: National Guard called in to deal with ‘crime emergency’ in DC are now picking up trash outside the White House.
The National Guard, called in to deal with a “crime emergency” in DC declared by Donald Trump, have been spotted picking up trash.
Troops were seen donning yellow marigolds and orange high-visibility vests over their camouflage gear Tuesday as they picked up litter in Lafayette Park, just outside the White House.
According to officials, the military was deployed as part of a “beautification and restoration mission” in Lafayette Square, the National Mall, and the Tidal Basin.
At least 2,234 active guardsmen are on duty throughout the city; 929 of those are from the D.C. National Guard, while 1,305 come from Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia, say the Joint Task Force-DC Office.
Trump previously said he’d deployed the National Guard to grapple with “complete and total lawlessness” in the city, despite crime rates hitting a 30-year low earlier this year
Adrian Carrasquillo at The Bulwark: Trump Is Strangling the Life Out of D.C.’s Restaurants.
BY DONALD TRUMP’S TELLING, WASHINGTON, D.C.’s restaurants are doing great. And, naturally, it’s all because of him.
“Friends of mine are going out to dinner,” Trump told reporters Monday, claiming that his deployment of federal forces brought unaccustomed tranquility to the streets of the nation’s capital. “They haven’t gone out to dinner in four years, they were petrified. Half the restaurants closed because nobody could go because they’re afraid to go outside. Now those restaurants are opening, and new restaurants are opening up, it’s like a boomtown.”
Hold up. We’re supposed to believe that “half the restaurants” in the city were closed? Because Washingtonians were cowering at home, peeking through their blinds? Famed chef and humanitarian José Andrés fired back in a tweet:
Chef José Andrés @chefjoseandres · Aug 26 Mr. President
@realdonaldtrumpI understand why you are confused…all your time in DC you haven’t eaten ONCE outside the White House or your own hotel. I’ve lived here for 33 years, and it’s a flat out lie that half the restaurants have closed because of safety…but restaurants will close because you have troops with guns and federal agents harassing people…making people afraid to go out. Cities and towns and rural areas of America need policies that allow small business to thrive and all people including immigrants to live and work with dignity. People shouldn’t be afraid of their government…government should have respect for its people, not terrorize them.
Andrés is right. Trump’s deployment of 2,300 National Guard troops and 500 federal law enforcement agents has hurt foot traffic, chilled business, and made people cancel trips and nights out. It is slowly choking the life out of Washington, D.C. restaurants, which were still struggling to gain their post-pandemic footing just as Trump returned to town and started firing tens of thousands of their customers.
Shawn Townsend, head of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, announced that the city’s annual Restaurant Week is being extended because of the business-dampening effects of Trump’s actions, noting that “reservations were down in restaurants pretty significantly” the week after Trump launched his federal takeover. Data from OpenTable shows restaurant reservations down 24 percent from last year’s Restaurant Week, the New York Times reported.
But numbers tell only part of the story. In interviews with restaurant owners, chefs, and workers, another picture emerged: that of small businesses being harmed by a president who was elected because of his purported business acumen; of a man whose obsession with appearing tough on crime now threatens to sabotage urban economies across the country.
“People used to say Washington is recession-proof. Today Washington is a recession magnet,” Immigrant Food cofounder and “Restaurateur of the Year” candidate Peter Schechter told me. “We’re back to a very pandemic-feeling city. There are fewer people going to work, fewer people walking around, fewer cars, reservations are down, events have been canceled.”
“Everything Trump touches dies” — Rick Wilson
Another potential disaster is in the making. Trump and Kristy Noem have decimated FEMA and it has gotten worse.
Maxine Joselow at The New York Times: FEMA Suspends Staff Who Signed a Letter Criticizing Trump.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday suspended around 30 employees after those workers wrote to Congress warning that the Trump administration had gutted the nation’s ability to handle hurricanes, floods and other extreme weather disasters.
Of the 182 FEMA employees who signed the letter to Congress, 36 attached their names, while the rest withheld their identities for fear of retaliation.
Those who used their names received emails on Tuesday night saying they had been placed on paid administrative leave “effective immediately, and continuing until further notice,” according to copies of the emails reviewed by The New York Times.
The emails did not provide a reason for the decision. Representatives for FEMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Colette Delawalla, the executive director of Stand Up for Science, an advocacy group that helped publicize the letter, said the move appeared to be an act of retaliation.
“Once again, we are seeing the federal government retaliate against our civil servants for whistle-blowing — which is both illegal and a deep betrayal of the most dedicated among us,” Ms. Delawalla said in a statement.
The letter to Congress rebuked President Trump’s plan to drastically scale down FEMA and shift more responsibility for disaster response — and more costs — to the states. It was sent on Monday, days before the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest and costliest storms ever to strike the United States.
As I said, everything is awful. Here are a few more stories to check out if you can bear it:
CBS News: Denmark summons U.S. envoy over report people linked to Trump trying to foment dissent in Greenland.
Paul Waldman at Public Notice: Chairman Trump’s Great Grift Forward.
Huffpost: Trump Has Forced Out Nearly 10% Of The Federal Workforce.
Jennifer Rubin at The Contrarian: The Police State is Here. While proposing otherwise, Trump luxuriates in aspiring dictatorship.
Jamelle Bouie at The New York Times: All the Things Trump Thinks He Owns.
AP: Trump’s transportation secretary takes management of Washington’s Union Station away from Amtrak.
CNN: Pirro’s office fails three times to win felony indictment of alleged attacker of FBI agent.
That’s all I have for you today. As I said, everything is awful. Take care everyone!
#anotherSchoolShooting #CharlesBorges #Doge #DonaldTrump #EdwardCoristine #FascistCrackdownOnWashingtonDC #FEMA #GovernorTimWaltz #JanetYellen #LisaMCook #SocialSecurityAdministration #TrumpAttackOnTheFederalReserve
