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Sen. Tim Kaine explained to Fox’s Shannon Bream why Democrats can’t take Leader John Thune’s word for anything when it comes to ending the shutdown. Kaine made an appearance on this weekend’s Fox News Sunday, and was asked by host Shannon Bream about Sen. John Fetterman’s statement that he believes that “Majority Leader Thune is an honorable guy” and can be trusted to negotiate in good faith if the Democrats voted to end the shutdown.

Kain proceeded to explain why there’s no reason they should believe any of Thune’s assurances:

I would argue that any assurances from Trump are worthless as well, but it would make it harder for Republicans to weasel out of an agreement if Trump is on the record as supporting it. Right now they’re all telling Democrats to just trust them and they’ll negotiate in good faith later. They’ve all proven there’s absolutely no reason to believe that’s true.

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Rand Paul continues to butt heads with the Trump administration over their lawless killings of supposed drug traffickers in the Caribbean:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted the Trump administration Sunday for its ongoing military strikes on suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean, labeling them as “extrajudicial killings” that he argued were similar to how the Iranian or Chinese governments operate. […]

President Donald Trump has authorized at least ten strikes on suspected drug-carrying sea vessels since September, killing at least 43 people that his administration has labeled as “narco-terrorists.” The strikes have received widespread bi-partisan condemnation for potentially being a violation of international law, with the most-recent strike occurring late Thursday night into Friday morning, killing six.

Trump’s authority to authorize the strikes has also been questioned by critics, who point to Congress’ sole authority to approve declarations of war. Congress has not approved the strikes, and, according to Paul, have not even been briefed on the operations, or the evidence – should any exist – that those targeted were actually engaged in drug trafficking.

I assume the criticism he made on Fox News Sunday this weekend means Trump will continue to leave Paul off of the guest list for his Rose Garden lunches.

It’s ridiculous that Paul is the only Republican senator saying this instead of all of them. Here’s his back and forth with host Shannon Bream on Fox:

PAUL: You know, it’s not so much about a briefing, but we haven’t had a briefing. To be clear, we’ve got no information. I’ve been invited to no briefing.

But a briefing is not enough to overcome the Constitution. The Constitution says that when you go to war, Congress has to vote on it. And during a war, then, there’s a lower rules for engagement. People do sometimes get killed without due process.

But the drug war, or the war, or the crime war has typically been something we do through law enforcement, and so far, they have alleged that these people are drug dealers.

No one said their name. No one said what evidence. No one said whether they’re armed. And we’ve had no evidence presented. So at this point, I would call them extrajudicial killings, and this is akin to what China does, to Iran does with drug dealers. They summarily execute people without presenting evidence to the public. So it’s wrong.

[…]

BREAM: Well, and Senator Paul, I know you said this isn’t about a briefing, but would there be some level of information? Because I’ve heard other members say they are convinced they have been told that they can specifically identify these votes, the people on board and the cargo on board to the level that they’re comfortable. So Senator Paul, do you think that that needs to be a public vetting or if lawmakers are provided that information, that’s enough for you?

PAUL: Well, it won’t be enough, but at the very least it should be revealed. There’s at least two boats. One boat was said to be in distress and trying to get back to land that was bombed. That was said to be a fisherman. I don’t know because I don’t have any of the evidence.

There’s also an anomaly in the sense that one of the boats where a bunch were killed, there were two that survived. If they were drug dealers, why wouldn’t we prosecute them, present evidence of the drugs, show the arms they were about to invade us with, or show us something?

Instead, they’re being sent back to Colombia and to Ecuador, Without a trial and no one’s sort of trying to find out, who is the one behind this massive conspiracy to invade America with drugs? They’re just sending them back home.

So in the one instance, you’re killed on sight. In the other instance, if you’re captured, we just say, oh well, we’re just going to send you back to your country. Doesn’t make any sense.

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It’s well known that the current regime is screwing up by the numbers, especially when it comes to our own farmers. Thanks to Trump’s tariffs, soybean farmers have been cut off from their biggest market, China, who is now getting their soybean from Argentina. Trump is also getting ready to upset the beef market by getting beef from South America. (Anybody else remember when the right wing didn’t want beef from Central and South America and raised holy hell about it? They made it have special stickers and everything)

Despite the fact that Trump can’t tell the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground, he is falsely claiming that farmers love him and approach him with tears in their eyes to thank him for destroying their markets.

On Saturday, John Boyd, Jr, a fourth-generation farmer and president of the National Black Farmers Association went on MSNBC’s Weekend Primetime to set the record straight:

HOST: Let’s bring in John Boyd, Jr to talk about this. he’s a fourth-generation beef cattleman and the founder of the National Black Farmers Association. John, first, i want to get your reaction to trump saying that farmers are only doing well because of something that trump has done.

BOYD: Well, I’ll tell you. the President of the United States sold out farmers. He sold us out to Argentina, to his friend. And, you know, it’s humiliating that the president is going to this extent because farmers, for the first time in a very, very long time, have become very outspoken of the president’s leadership. Rght now, we’re probably our lowest point since the since the 80s. Farmers are doing that bad.. So, I don’t know what reports the president is watching saying, you know, beef cattle farmers are doing great, America’s farmers are doing great.

We are not doing great. Farm foreclosures are up, farm suicides are up, farm. bankruptcies are up. And all of this happened, I want.to remind you, within the last ten months of this president’s leadership, when he came in and started imposing. tariffs on China, tariffs on Mexico, imposing tariffs on Canada. China, the number one purchaser for us -corn, soybeans. Mexico, the number one purchaser for us grown corn. And Canada where we need all the implements for fertilizer. All of this has happened on the president’s watch. and farmers are losing out. Losing our farms out here while the president is giving his friend over here in Argentina some money. and when these farmers are going out here going out of business in the United States.

Boyd went on to say that J. Divan Vance and company has been buying up the farmland as the farms go under. Then Boyd explained just how fugly things are for soybean farmers right now:

BOYD: The calls that we’re getting right now, and we’re going to have a national conference in Birmingham, Alabama. could be 1000 farmers there October 31st and November 1st,. they’re asking the questions, John, where can we get bridge loans from? The actual soybean market in this country is not moving. The grain elevators are full. and guess what, people, I have even had to stop harvesting my soybeans because the grain elevators are full and not accepting any more soybeans.

That’s the first time that’s happened, and I’ve been a farmer in this country for 42 years, and I never got a call saying, we’re not taking any, any, any soybeans in this country.. And, you know, what’s more offensive is that the president, on top of all this stuff, he wants to buy the beef, as you just said, from, from Argentina.. I mean, so you dump on the guys who you already know are struggling. You dump on the guys who you already know that the markets are closed, are not taking in this country, and you dump on the guys who you know, that are in trouble, that are losing their farms. guess what? There needs to be a complete farm moratorium in this country. why is this administration allowing farm foreclosures for a man-made disaster?

And people, this isn’t putting America first. How many interviews you seen the president do, and he says, oh, well, yeah, I’m going to put America first? I love farmers? Well, the president loves farmers, he needs to stop farm foreclosures in this country under his watch.

I was only in grade school in the mid-1970s when Nixon got in trouble and was forced to resign. Despite my young age, I remember when journalists acted like journalists, and didn’t give a flying fuck about currying favoritism with a politician, even the president. It’s nice to see the current batch of news reporters starting to air opposing opinions than the tripe coming from what’s left of the White House. It would have been even nicer if they did it before the nation caught on fire.

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In a sign of California’s rising status as a major hub of Democratic politics, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday he’s considering a run for president in 2028 — just a day after the news that former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris made the same pronouncement.

Newsom, a Democrat who has become a nationally renowned figure this year pitching himself a leader of the resistance to President Trump, admitted for the first time publicly that he is carefully weighing a 2028 presidential run.

In an interview with “CBS News Sunday Morning,” Newsom was asked whether he would give “serious thought” after the 2026 midterms to a White House bid.

“Yeah, I’d be lying otherwise,” Newsom replied. “I’d just be lying. And I’m not — I can’t do that.”

Harris said in an interview with the BBC posted this weekend that she expects a woman will be president in the coming year. “Possibly,” she said, it could be her.

“I am not done,” she said. “I have lived my entire career as a life of service, and it’s in my bones.”

With more than three years until the November 2028 election, it is entirely possible that only one or neither of the two California politicians could ultimately throw their hat in the race.

But the early willingness of Newsom and Harris to publicly consider a White House bid shows that the Golden State remains a central power base in Democratic politics. It also sets up a potential 2028 political showdown between two of California’s most prominent and nationally polarizing political figureheads.

For years, Newsom has denied presidential ambitions, even as pundits have considered him a potential candidate. But since Trump defeated Harris in the November 2024 election, the California governor has emerged as a more vocal combative critic of the Trump administration’s agenda.

Under Newsom’s leadership, California has filed dozens of lawsuits against Trump — most noticeably against the Republican administration’s deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles. The governor has also become more aggressive on social media, taking to X to taunt and troll Trump.

Still, Newsom, whose term ends in January 2027 and who cannot run again for governor because of term limits, cautioned that he is not rushing into a 2028 presidential campaign.

“I have no idea,” Newsom said Sunday of whether he will actually decide to run.

After Trump defeated Harris in November, she was viewed as a possible candidate for California governor. But in July she announced that, after “serious thought,” she would not run for the top California office.

“For now, my leadership — and public service — will not be in elected office,” Harris said in a statement. “I look forward to getting back out and listening to the American people, helping elect Democrats across the nation who will fight fearlessly, and sharing more details in the months ahead about my own plans.”

Newsom’s interest in the White House raises the stakes for passing Proposition 50, a California ballot measure he has pushed — in response to a similar initiative in Texas — that would allow state Democrats to temporarily change the boundaries of U.S. House maps so that they are more favorable to Democrats. California voters will vote on Prop 50 in a special election next week.

Newsom has promoted his effort as a response to Trump’s push to redraw maps in Republican-controlled states to make them benefit the GOP. Some blue states have rules that prevent political gerrymandering, but Virginia is now following California’s lead and a few others, such as Illinois and Maryland, are weighing similar actions.

“I think it’s about our democracy,” Newsom said in the CBS interview. “It’s about the future of this republic. I think it’s about, you know, what the founding fathers lived and died for, this notion of the rule of law, and not the rule of Don.”

If Newsom is successful and Proposition 50 passes, the move could potentially help future Democratic candidates’ bid for the White House.

But either way, both Newsom and Harris would face high hurdles in battleground states if they ran for president.

Just being a Californian is a liability, some argue, at a time when Republicans depict the state as a bastion of woke ideas, high taxes and crime.

While California boasts the world’s fifth-largest economy and is home to the massive tech powerhouse of Silicon Valley and the cultural epicenter of Hollywood, it has struggled in recent years with high housing costs and massive income inequality. In September, a study found California tied with Louisiana for the nation’s highest poverty rate.

Although Harris and Newsom both hail from the Bay Area and worked their way up the Democratic political system in San Francisco, they have yet to publicly compete for the same office.

“We’ve been sort of on this track, but it was always adjacent,” Newsom told The Times last summer as Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee. “The tension was a sort of manifestation of punditry.”

Newsom, 58, a former San Francisco mayor who was born to a well-connected San Francisco family, suggested in the CBS interview that he had surmounted significant obstacles to get to this point. Early on, Newsom struggled in school and suffered from dyslexia.

“The idea that a guy who got 960 on his SAT, that still struggles to read scripts, that was always in the back of the classroom, the idea that you would even throw that out is, in and of itself, extraordinary,” Newsom said. “Who the hell knows? I’m looking forward to who presents themselves in 2028 and who meets that moment. And that’s the question for the American people.”

Harris, 61, who was born to immigrant parents and raised in Compton, was a San Francisco Attorney General before she served as California Attorney General, U.S Senator and became she became vice president in 2020 and then the Democratic Party’s nominee in the 2024 presidential election.

She received criticism last year after losing to Trump by more than 2.3 million votes, about 1.5% of the popular vote. Some Democrats accused her of being an elite, out of touch candidate who failed to connect with voters in battleground states who have struggled economically in recent years.

But speaking in Los Angeles last month as she promoted her new memoir, “107 Days,” Harris did not appeared to reflect on any errors she made in 2024.

“I wrote the book for many reasons, but primarily to remind us how unprecedented that election was,” Harris said.

“Think about it. A sitting president of the United States is running for reelection and three and a half months before the election decides not to run, and then a sitting vice president takes up the mantle to run against a former president of the United States who has been running for 10 years, with 107 days to go.”

Harris’ book received some criticism for keeping score and dishing dirt on Democrats who did not immediately support her bid for Democratic nominee. When she called Newsom, she wrote, he texted her that he was hiking and would call her back. According to Harris, he never did.

Already this year, Newsom has raised eyebrows by traveling to critical battleground election states.

In July, Newsom traveled more than 2,000 miles to South Carolina, a state that traditionally hosts the South’s first presidential primary. He said he was working to help the party win back the U.S. House of Representatives in 2026. But at the time there were a dozen competitive House districts in California. South Carolina, a staunchly conservative state, did not have a single competitive race.

After Newsom spoke at an event in Camden, S.C. Rep. James Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress and renowned Democratic kingmaker who played a key role in salvagingformer President Biden’s 2020 campaign, told The Times that Newsom would be “a hell of a candidate.”

“He’s demonstrated that over and over again,” Clyburn said, although he stopped short of endorsing him. “I feel good about his chances.”

But other leading South Carolina Democrats voiced doubts that Newsom could win over working class and swing voters in battleground states.

Richard Harpootlian, a South Carolina attorneyand former chairman of the state Democratic Party, dubbed Newsom “a handsome man with great hair.”

But he said the party was searching for someone quite different: “a left-of-moderate candidate who can articulate blue-collar hopes and desires.”

“If he had a track record of solving huge problems like homelessness, or the social safety net, he’d be a more palatable candidate,” Harpootlian said. “I just think he’s going to have a tough time explaining why there’s so many failures in California.”

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Yet another symbol of unity and peace destroyed by the Trump administration. Everything Trump touches dies.

via Haskell Free Library

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House was founded in 1901 and completed in 1904 by Canadian-American philanthropist Martha Stewart Haskell and her son, Horace Stewart Haskell, as a gift to the bordering communities of Derby Line, Vermont, and Stanstead, Quebec. Intentionally built on the border, it was conceived as a symbol of unity and a place for cultural enrichment for both countries, with its entrance in the U.S. and most of the books located in Canada. The building is also a designated heritage site in both Canada and the United States.

Source: AFP

In a picturesque town on the U.S.-Canada border, workers under dark clouds were building a new entrance for Canadians into a library to replace one that had long symbolized bilateral closeness.

For more than a century, Canadians in Stanstead, Quebec, could walk through a door in the Haskell Free Library into Derby Line, Vermont, without passing through customs.

But U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has canceled the arrangement, citing the need to counter “illicit cross-border activities.”

Standing on the black line inside the library that demarcates the US-Canada border, Sylvie Boudreau, Haskell’s board of trustees president, said the Trump administration’s announcement caused “a lot of anger on both sides.”

“It’s the end of something,” she told AFP.

As a result of the U.S. action, a new entrance is being constructed on the side of the building to give Canadians access to the library.

Canadian access to the library has been restricted before, including when tighter controls were imposed following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and again during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the Trump administration’s announcement marks the first definitive end to an arrangement that signaled enduring U.S.-Canada unity for many in Stanstead, a town dotted with large Victorian houses about a 90-minute drive from Montreal.

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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked on Sunday by Kristen Welker on Meet the Press about Trump’s increased tariffs on Canada because of a TV ad he didn’t like. The president doesn’t have legal authority to hike tariffs on another country because an ad hurt his feelings, but here we are. It’s 2025, and the Constitution gets shit on daily by this president.

“This week, President Trump abruptly broke off trade talks with Canada and put another 10% tariff on Canada in response to an ad that the government of Ontario ran,” Welker said. “It features former President Ronald Reagan. Why is the president setting trade policy based on a television ad he doesn’t like?”

“Well, Kristen, let’s think about this,” Bessent said. “This is a kind of propaganda against U.S. citizens. You know, it’s psyops.”

Fact check: The ad correctly quotes Ronald Reagan giving a speech, in his own voice.

“Why would the government of Ontario, I’m told that they have spent or were planning to spend up to $75 million on these ads to come across the U.S. border,” he continued. “So what was the purpose of that other than to sway public opinion? And you know, it’s some kind of propaganda that the premier of Ontario unilaterally launched.”

“Will the 10% tariff apply to all Canadian goods, Mr. Secretary?” Welker asked.

“Kristen, I’ve been traveling since this unfortunate event happened,” Bessent replied. “I know that the ad’s been taken down. So you know, we’ll have to see. But I just think it was terrible, terrible judgment by this premier, you know, who has a bit of a reputation for being a hothead.”

That’s just embarrassing. The ad accurately quotes Reagan, with Reagan’s voice, and Trump has been lying, claiming the audio Canada used of Reagan’s voice is AI. Next, Bessent, a gazillionaire, will claim that he’s just a poor soybean farmer. Oh, wait, he did!

Here’s the full video of Saint Ronnie decrying tariffs. Not AI.

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Trump has been throwing a fit over the Ontario, Canada, government’s ad against the president’s tariff tantrums, which features Ronald Reagan’s voice. Canada used audio from a recording dating back to the 80s, but Trump has insisted it’s AI, even though AI didn’t exist in the 80s. The president once again took to Truth Social to insist it was a “fraudulent advertisement” for accurately quoting Reagan.

Trump is increasing Canada’s tariffs, which the American consumer will pay for, because the ad hurt his feelings.

“Canada was caught, red handed, putting up a fraudulent advertisement on Ronald Reagan’s Speech on Tariffs,” he wrote. “The Reagan Foundation said that they, “created an ad campaign using selective audio and video of President Ronald Reagan. The ad misrepresents the Presidential Radio Address,” and “did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks.”

“The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute is reviewing its legal options in this matter,” he continued. “The sole purpose of this FRAUD was Canada’s hope that the United States Supreme Court will come to their “rescue” on Tariffs that they have used for years to hurt the United States. Now the United States is able to defend itself against high and overbearing Canadian Tariffs (and those from the rest of the World as well!).”

“Ronald Reagan LOVED Tariffs for purposes of National Security and the Economy, but Canada said he didn’t!” Trump falsely said. “Their Advertisement was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY, but they let it run last night during the World Series, knowing that it was a FRAUD. Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

The Internet weighed in.