Okay, I’m back, and the laptop seems fine. On we go.

It has taken me a while to sort out what is happening with Trump’s media ban, but I believe this is it: Early this morning Judge Timothy J. Kelly issued a 14-day restraining order that reversed the ban on CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House. Even so, when reporters from the three media companies tried to enter the White House this morning, they were blocked and their press credentials confiscated. And then, probably after a lot legal thrashing around, they were given their credentials back and admitted some time before noon.

Early this afternoon Judge Kelly set filing deadlines for motions on a preliminary injunction, which could extend the restraining order beyond the 14 days.

I’m also reading in the New York Times:

The White House allowed a limited number of photojournalists, but not reporters, into the Oval Office for the start of Trump’s meeting with China’s leader, Xi Jinping. The print reporter and photographer pool has continued to operate even as the television pool was sitting out until the administration restored banned outlets’ access into the White House. During the event, Trump made a remark about how the Chinese had the friendliest press corps, according to photographers who were present and shared details with the print pool.

So he kept all the U.S. reporters out so he wouldn’t have to admit the ones he tried to ban. I hope the television pool continues to not “pool” him. This is from New Republic:

Despite a court order Wednesday night restoring White House access to Politico, MS NOW, and CNN, their journalists were still barred from the grounds Thursday morning. As a result, the entire White House TV press pool, which includes Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, continued their boycott from broadcasting the president live, and were joined by White House photojournalists.

“Although a court decision restored media access to CNN, Politico & MS NOW earlier this morning, we are currently without a network pool camera. If anything changes, I’ll send out an update,” White House print pool reporter Kerry Picket said.

As a result, China Global Television Network was one of the few outlets to have video of Xi’s arrival at the White House, a reminder of when Trump in his first term barred the U.S. press pool from the building while allowing Russian state media to take pictures of Trump with Russian officials.

After the outlets were barred Thursday morning, they immediately notified the court. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly gave the White House until 12:30 p.m. to explain the continued ban. The White House responded just before the deadline, claiming in a court document that access was restored to Politico, CNN, and MS NOW as of 9:55 a.m.

So I think that catches us up with the media ban story. But see also A Revealing Exchange Between Donald Trump and Kaitlan Collins at The Atlantic. Trump was angry to see the CNN reporter there; apparently he thought his ban stopped her from covering him anywhere.

Update: I’m hearing that this evening that MS NOW and CNN reporter were denied access to some event before tonight’s state dinner for Xi Jinping. So this may be ongoing.

In other news, Bibi Netanyahu is not having a good day at the UN.

Dozens of representatives from participating member countries staged a mass walkout at the United Nations Thursday, just as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu walked up to the podium to begin speaking.

There are 193 countries in the United Nations General Assembly. It was the second year in a row that delegates protested Netanyahu’s appearance. As nearly everybody in the room stood up and filed out of the main hall, others remained but stood up and applauded the international protest.

Meanwhile, around the room, supporters of the Israeli leader began chanting, “Am Yisrael Chai,” a refrain that translates to “The nation of Israel lives.”

Netanyahu’s appearance came hours after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas spoke to the General Assembly. Abbas decried what he described as Israel’s “malicious colonial scheme” to steal and control Gaza and the West Bank, and force Palestinians off the land.

Outside on the street, police were arresting participants of another protest. Hundreds of protesters with Jewish Voices for Peace—including celebrities Elliot Page, Susan Sarandon, Hannah Einbinder, and Chelsea Manning—blocked the U.N.’s entrance road, chanting, “We charged you with genocide, Netanyahu you can’t hide.”

Good times.

Trump has banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, and has threatened to ban the Washington Post and the New York Times. News outlets seem genuinely distressed about this. After all that sanewashing and normalizing — that enabled him to get elected — and he does this. Outrageous!

But will they learn any lessons from this? We’ll see.

According to Politico, Trump issued the ban Friday on Truth Social, while chief of staff Susie Wiles was out of town, and white House staff were blindsided. Today reporters from the three media outlets were denied entry to the White House. I’m sure lawsuits are being prepared if not filed already.

At the Atlantic, Adam Serwer writes Speak at Your Own Risk.

This is far from the first time Trump has tried to pressure the media into giving him favorable coverage or punish those who run stories he does not like. As The New York Timeshas documented, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission has repeatedly tried to intimidate networks over their airing of material that Trump finds offensive, including criticism of Trump and interviews with Democratic politicians, by threatening to revoke their broadcast license. Three journalists fired from Stars and Stripes, an independent media outlet that is federally funded, are suing the Pentagon, accusing it of silencing them because of their factual coverage of deplorable conditions for U.S. service members. The Pentagon also sought to force media organizations to sign a self-censorship pledge in exchange for press credentials. His Federal Trade Commission is investigating the liberal media watchdog Media Matters, whose work consists mostly of just publishing the things conservatives say, and NewsGuard, a nonpartisan outlet that provides “scores for news and information websites based on nine journalistic criteria.” Trump sought to ban the AP for refusing to identify the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” as Trump had ordered. This is not even close to an exhaustive list.

Trump’s campaign of censorship is not limited to journalists, however, and the First Amendment does not belong only to the media. Trump’s Justice Department has sought to pressure American colleges and universities over what they are allowed to teach, whom they are allowed to hire, and whom they are allowed to admit. It has used federal funding to censor technological, medical, and scientific research. The administration has singled out left-wing organizations for scrutiny and used federal resources to investigate them for opposing the president. It has sought to deport immigrants because of their pro-Palestinian views.

Some of that isn’t just Trump. A lot of specimens in the Republican party have wanted to put speech controls on universities for a while.

But while of course I side with the press on freedom of speech issues, the media really did bring this on themselves.

See, for example, my post from 2022, How Jeff Zucker Made Trump. Jeff Zucker is a guy with a long and ignoble record in television. When he was head of NBC Entertainment Zucker helped create “The Apprentice” as a vehicle for Trump. And then as head of CNN Zucker helped make Donald Trump president. Zucker. was president of CNN worldwide from 2013 and until his resignation in 2022.  In 2017 Warren Olney wrote in the Los Angeles Times that Trump owed his election victory to  Zucker.

During the election season, I saw entire Trump rallies carried live by CNN, interrupted only for mandatory commercials. Not only was there no critical fact-checking, there was no serious effort to provide context for viewers. Never raised, let alone answered, was the question: Why should a developer with a shaky reputation and no relevant experience be seriously considered for the most powerful job in the world?

See also one of my other earlier rants, from 2017, Are Our News Media Learning?

CNN to me may have been the most egregious of the cable news networks in covering presidential elections. In 2024 I remember a particularly bad interview of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz by Dana Bash of CNN. It was all “gotcha” type questions. This interview was not about helping viewers learn about the candidates; it was just entertainment. I remember turning it off after about fifteen minutes.

But the other networks weren’t that much better. Trump could issue statements that were barely more than word salad, and news media would somehow glean meaningful sentences out of them and report them seriously. His mental deterioration — which got called out on the former MS NBC at least — would be not noticed, and his obvious confusion about policy — like believing foreign countries and not importers paid tariffs — was carefully ignored.

And I know the media were pulling punches because if they were as aggressive with Trump as they were with Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, Trump would have had a tantrum, and right-wing media and Trump’s supporters would have screamed to the rafters about media bias.

But I say to you, news media, are you learning now?

In other news: A couple of days ago WaPo ran a news story headlined Gas prices are about to take a big jump, analysts say, with the worst still to come. The economy is thoroughly screwed. Just abvout everything is going to get more expensive now. And it’s certainly not going to get better before the midterms.  But at least we can hope that this will push midterm voters toward the Democrats. It’s our only hope.

Update: I just saw a report at TPM by Josh Kovensky headlined A Far-Right Meltdown that’s a must read. It involves a men’s only, Christians only group that is about a hard right as one can imagine that is working to get members into influential positions in government and business. Just read it.

I guess you heard that Mitch is back. Sort of. Going by this report at The New Republic he is breathing but doesn’t appear to be all there mentally.

Trump’s current obsession appears to be demolishing the Kennedy Center because judges won’t let him put his name on the building. See Photos Spur Speculation About Possible Demolition of Kennedy Center by Shawn McCreesh at the New York Times. Since taking it over last year Trump has just about destroyed it anyway, but if he leaves the building standing there’s always hope it can be a real cultural center again. But if he doesn’t get h is name on the building he’s going to rip it down. A judge has ordered the administration to give he court 30 days’ notice before doing anything to the Kennedy Center, but you know he will ignore that order.

The man destroys everything he touches. But the Kennedy Center also appears to be what is consuming his attention these days. It’s even crowded out the Marie Antoinette ballroom from Trump’s head. Not the war in Iran. Not the economy, except for being on the lookout for a quick fix to his oil prices problem. Can we all admit this isn’t rational?

Over the past several months I’ve read a lot of opinion pieces about how Trump has peaked and it’s all downhill for him from now on. I read these with a grain of salt. But I think  now he does seem to be losing it. His old trick was to figure out what people wanted and promise to give it to them. But now he’s lost touch with popular opinion on anything. He’s telling people the economy is great and everybody wants data centers. Um, no. His core base of around a third of voters is still with him. But He’s lost independents. And this appears to be impacting midterm races. See Republicans Reel on the Midterm Map as Deep-Red Areas Come Into Play at the New York Times.

I want to call your attention to Pennsylvania’s Measles Outbreak Is Enormous by Tom Bartlett at The Atlantic. Pennsylvania is getting slammed.

Four deaths in roughly four weeks suggest that the state is in the midst of an enormous outbreak. The Pennsylvania health department lists total cases at 693, with 99 in the past week. But considering that measles kills about one to three of every 1,000 children it infects, the actual number is likely much larger. Milder cases are going unreported. Many who fall ill, particularly in the Amish community, aren’t getting tested; the Amish parents of the infant who died with a ruptured spleen told me that their 13 living children had all caught the virus, but they never got swabbed.

RFK the Lesser’s response is to ignore the problem.

Tomorrow, Kennedy is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the annual conference for Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization that he founded before becoming health secretary. Children’s Health Defense has a long history of ginning up fears about the vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella while downplaying the seriousness of the diseases. Kennedy does, too. In July 2021, Kennedy told attendees at an Amish country fair in Pennsylvania, “The cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A.” In fact, no known cure for measles exists; vitamin A has shown some promise in people with severe vitamin A deficiency, which is exceedingly rare in the United States. Since becoming health secretary, he has stated publicly that vaccination is “the most effective way to prevent measles infection,” but as I’ve reported, he also undercut that message by telling the father of a girl who died in West Texas that “you don’t know what’s in the vaccine anymore.” Kennedy has been a stronger advocate for measles itself, which he’s falsely credited with boosting resistance to cancer and cardiac disease, than he has for the vaccine that prevents it.

Some weeks ago I was reading about a measles outbreak in Utah, and people were saying that measles was much worse than they’d been told. They thought people just got a few spots and got over it in a couple of days. That’s true of Rubella, German measles, for most people, but measles can be worse an unpredictably dangerous. I understand rates of vaccination have gone way up in Pennsylvania. Especially as school is starting, the kids really need to be vaccinated.

As I was writing this the Supreme Court issued a decision that slaps down Trump’s scheme to take over mail-in voting to rig the midterms. The decision was 7-2, Thomas and Alito dissenting. However, I’m hearing this decision only stops the scheme for the midterms but leaves a door open to re-activate it in future elections. I haven’t had a chance to read it myself.

Earlier today there were stories that federal agents may have broken state laws in their search for voter fraud.

Investigators may have broken state laws under the direction of top Homeland Security leaders as part of an expansive effort to find noncitizens on the nation’s voter rolls, according to a federal whistle-blower’s account released on Monday.

The authorities also required agents to examine at least 40 voters each day, the account said, suggesting a rushed pace that raises questions about the thoroughness of the investigation. The effort has relied on questionable data, and has likely improperly flagged U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote, the whistle-blower said in a nearly 30-page report.

The first news headline I noticed this morning was E.P.A. Expected to Erase Limits on Climate Pollution From Power Plants in the New York Times.

The shift by the Environmental Protection Agency would complete the administration’s erasure of the most consequential climate policies of Presidents Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Barack Obama. If the move survives expected legal challenges, it could also prevent future administrations from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

Also in the Ny Times, I saw U.S. Health Officials Move Quickly to Deploy Medical A.I. Despite Concerns.

The Trump administration is accelerating efforts to make artificial intelligence an integral part of medical care in the United States, throwing the resources and support of the federal government into projects that deploy A.I. agents to diagnose and prescribe treatments to patients..

Paul Krugman has a must-read substack column headlined The MAGA Plot(s) to Destroy Humanity: On AI and climate, it’s the same story of mass destruction. Yeah, pretty much.

My impression is that Trump got it in his head that AI is going to make a lot of money. On his first day back in office he overturned a President Biden executive order that called for a whole-society effort to mitigate its dangers.

I’ve been something of an AI luddite all along and believe everybody is rushing too fast to cash in on the big bucks everyone thinks will materialize. I think it was rolled out too soon. It makes mistakes, and they don’t call it “AI slop” for nothing. No way would I accept medical treatment from an AI agent. And AI is being integrated into a lot of military operations. What could possibly go wrong?

Another must read is Judge Michael Luttig’s piece at The New Republic, The Final Battle for American Democracy. And I haven’t had a chance to read it myself, but I understand Anne Applebaum’s MAGA Is Making the World Safe for Corruption at The Atlantic is very good.

I thought you’d get a kick out of this headline on the CNBC site.

I’m sure Trump sees many things. And of course CNBC published Trump’s “vision” with no editorial comment.

But speaking of Iran — this is from CNN, headlined ‘A f***-up of epic proportions’: Blame game begins after Iran-backed Houthis’ lightning advance down Red Sea coast:

The desperate pleas for air cover from Yemeni generals started coming mid-morning on Thursday. An advance by the Iran-backed Houthis toward Yemen’s strategic port city of Mocha was in full swing, and backup support from chief ally Saudi Arabia was nowhere in sight.

“The Houthis committed everything they had – waves upon waves of fighters … along with their available ballistic missiles and weapons,” a senior Yemeni source attached to their military forces told CNN. The source said he contacted the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) and was assured the US was “watching the situation closely and that Saudi air support was coming.”

“But the air support never came,” the source said. “And Mocha has now fallen.”

Hours later, on Friday, the Houthis captured another key coastal asset, Perim Island, at the mouth of the Red Sea. The island splits the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in two, giving Tehran de facto control over another key shipping route.

That doesn’t sound good.

And then there’s the coming AI Apocalypse I’ve seen headlines about. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” it says here. Okay, so we should probably be taking this seriously, even if we (speaking for myself) don’t entirely understand it. And then there’s this:

Dario Amodei, the chief executive of Anthropic, called for a global slowdown of artificial intelligence development in a 3,800-word essay on Saturday, just days after one of the company’s employees quit over concerns about the safety of the technology.

The leaders of two other top A.I. companies quickly signed on to the effort. Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, and Elon Musk, whose SpaceX rocket company has been ramping up spending on A.I., said in social media posts that they agreed on the need for a slower pace.

So the people who have been hell bent to cover the earth in data centers and charge ahead, no holds barred, with AI tech are saying they need to slow down. I think much of the public saw that some time back. So while I still don’t understand any of this, there does appear to be reason for concern. See also AI Is Running Laps Around Our Political System by Toluse Olorunnipa at The Atlantic.

And here are a couple of more good reads — Michelle Cottle at the New York Times, Trump Catastrophically Miscalculated in Georgia; and Alexandra Petri at The Atlantic, A Recap of a Surreal Midterm Convention.

I didn’t watch the ceremonies, but it appears no anti-Mamdani protesters showed up in NYC to disrupt them. I’m guessing there was enough of an NYPD presence that they didn’t dare. So that’s a relief. And from what I can see from some distance, Mayor Mamdani did not put a foot wrong this week.

I want to call your attention to an article at TPM, How 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Are Still Shaping Our World by Mike Rothschild. This is fascinating stuff, and a lot of it I didn’t know. I wasn’t tuned into right-wing nutjob media in those days. Or ever. But it shows how the (extremely inaccurate) alt-narrative of the day spun by Truthers was being crafted even before the dust cleared. The character in this bit is named Bill Cooper.

Cooper seemed to know a lot for someone complaining he didn’t know anything. Just 40 minutes into his first hour on the air, Cooper declared that whatever the media and government will say about the Towers will be a lie. The buildings could not have collapsed solely due to being hit by a 737. He knew, without a doubt, that the government did it and would pin it on someone else, because it was the same thing that happened in Oklahoma City in 1995 — an act he claimed was carried out by the FBI and pinned on the innocent members of the militia movement, as an excuse to arrest and purge them. 

And more than anything, he knew it because it was obvious to anyone with a brain.

“The core of the building being blown out” could have only happened thanks to shaped charges that were “placed on the main structural members” of the buildings, Cooper announced, referencing the steel reinforced concrete pillars holding the building together that never could have simply crumbled.

“Airplanes didn’t bring those buildings down,” Cooper thundered. “And if you think they did, you have air between your ears.”

I remember that on September 13, 2001, I visited Union Square Park in Manhattan to see what was going on, and there was one young man there standing a few feet from the George Washington statue and yelling that 9/11 was an inside job. I realize now that pretty much the whole conspiracy theory and most of its variants were already spreading everywhere. And the culture that supported this nonsense is still alive and well and continues to undermine the connection between U.S. citizens and reality. The many Covid conspiracies and the irrational belief that Dr. Fauci somehow caused the pandemic come to mind.

And my commemorative September 11 essay over at Patheos, I Watched the Towers Fall. Here’s What You Missed, could have been subtitled It Didn’t Happen the Way The Truthers Say It Happened.

It’s been a while since I’ve communicated with them, but so much of what Truthers believed just wasn’t true. The towers did not neatly collapse into their own footprints but sent debris and bodies and dust flying everywhere, over considerable distance. The other five buildings of the seven-building World Trade Center complex were all destroyed by flying debris, much of which was on fire, as were at least a couple of buildings that were outside the World Trade Center. No explosions such as what you see in a controlled demolition were visible before the towers collapsed. The billowing light gray plumes one sees in the photos is dust, not smoke. And if you really want to know how the towers fell, read the comprehensive report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). It matches what I saw.

In other news — it might gratify you to know that the two-day Republican Trumpapalooza Convention was a ratings flop. Fox News, one of the few networks that aired the whole thing, actually got fewer viewers for Trump’s big second-night speech than they usually get in that same time slot. See also “Doesn’t Give a Sh*t”: What the Convention Revealed About Trump by Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling at The New Republic. In brief, Republicans are growing disillusioned with Trump.

There are a lot of stories today about how money is pouring in to “save” the Republicans in the midterms. Republican candidates are starting to outspend the Democrats. I’m guessing most of these will be negative ads, as Republicans literally have nothing to run on. So we’ll see how it goes.

Today’s big yuk was Trump’s offer to pay every American $5,000 if the voters keep the House and Senate in Republican hands. A lot of people sincerely believed they’d get a $5,000 DOGE check, or else the $2000 tariff check. I encountered a couple of people who were checking the mail every day waiting for that check. Will voters believe him this time? The Washington Post editorial board thinks not.

This would cost an estimated $1.2 trillion next year, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The money would need to be borrowed on top of the $40 trillion national debt — and paid back with interest.

Of course,  no way it’s going to happen.

But don’t count on checks in the mail. Trump has repeatedly promised payments that never materialized, including from savings that the U.S. DOGE Service was supposed to identify before its failure. Last November, Trump called for a $2,000 check funded by tariffs. (On Thursday, Trump separately announced that nearly a million Americans will receive $500 rebate checks before the election after being overcharged for their Obamacare plans.)

Yeah, don’t hold your breath. I have a hard time believing that anyone would take this seriously.

I understand my congressman, Mike Lawler, is a speaker at the Republican Trumpapalooza Convention today. I’m a bit baffled as to why he’s even there. My district takes in all or part of four counties, and I understand some of those other counties are more conservative that where I am. But the district has a long history of mostly voting for Democrats, including Kamala Harris in 2024. Lawler has represented the district since 2023, and while he won fairly easily in 2024, I don’t see that he’s all that loved and admired. There were some issues going on with the Dem candidate that I don’t entirely understand but which appear to have cost  him a lot of votes. It may have been a case of the Democrat losing more than Lawler winning.  And getting closer to Trump will do Lawler no good in these parts. Maybe he’s hoping Trump will give him more campaign money.

Regarding Trump’s attempt to take over mail in voting — a group of state election officials. including several Republicans, filed a brief with the Supreme Court arguing that it’s too late to change the mail-in voting rules. Mail in voting has already started in some places, I understand. I got a form for requesting a mail ballot in yesterday’s mail, but I prefer to vote in person

Also under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, election officials are supposed to finish any program for systematically removing ineligible voters 90 days before Election Day in federal races. We’re well within the 90 days.

This just got reported at the New York Times:

The Department of Justice sent threatening letters to at least 30 top election officials across the country, expanding its efforts to gain access to private voter data and election records.

The letters warned states not to destroy any records related to the 2024 election, explaining that their chief election officials“are currently under investigation” and subject to “ongoing litigation.” The notices come amid a barrage of efforts by President Trump and his administration, which have been fruitless so far, to find evidence of widespread voter fraud.

It is not clear what the department is investigating, nor whether its probe is criminal or civil in nature. The letters do not cite any criminal statutes. Instead, they point to some of the same claims made previously as part of the administration’s ongoing effort to identify fraud in the nation’s elections, including machine anomalies and noncitizen voting. In court, the Justice Department has tried to force states to hand over unredacted voter lists, including personal information like driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.

The Justice Department has sued 30 different states for this data. They’ve lost 23 of those cases and have won none. Decisions are pending in the rest.

There was no other purpose for this than intimidation.

Here’s a fun read — All the Places Trump Was on 9/11 by Marie-Rose Sheinerman at The Atlantic. I doubt Trump was in any of those places. But the question is, does he know he’s lying? Or is his brain so degraded he really can’t tell fantasy from reality?

See also Donald Trump’s Nephew Pokes Holes in President’s Claims About His 9/11 Aid, Saying It ‘So Offends Me That I Need to Speak Out’. Among Trump’s claims is that he sent one of his building crews to Ground Zero to help out. But the nephew has said that Trump had no building projects going on at the time.

“The only crew he claimed to bring to the site would have been secretarial and accounting employees from Trump Tower,” wrote Fred, the son of the president’s eldest brother.

He added, “I knew many of them, and pretty sure they were not capable physically to help (if they could, I am sure they would try).”

Also, I understand there are reports that AI is going to get us all killed. I’ll try to look into that tomorrow.

In between doctor’s appointments (getting old is not fun) I’ve been working on a September 11 retrospective just published at Patheos. See I Watched the Towers Fall. Here’s What You Missed. I think it turned out pretty well. And now I have two whole weeks until the next doctor’s appointment. So look for something longer here tomorrow.

My biggest worry for the week is that some jerks will show up at the New York City September 11 observance to protest Mayor Mamdani. On social media one cannot mention Mayor Mamdani without attracting hoards of bigots, often saying that NYC “forgot” 9/11 when they elected a Muslim mayor. In their minds all Muslims are personally responsible for 9/11, it seems.

Note that Zohran Mamdani was nine years old and enrolled in elementary school in upper Manhattan on the day the towers fell. And he is a Shia Muslim. The perpetrators were from a radical Sunni faction that doesn’t get along with many other Muslims. I don’t think the Mayor was in on it.

Mayor Mamdani has accomplished quite a lot in just eight months. He approved a rent freeze for one- and two-year leases on rent-stabilized apartments. He won $34 million in repairs, settlements, and judgments from bad landlords. He upgraded over 6,000 apartments through tenant enforcement actions. He got new rules adopted to speed up the removal of scaffolding. (That may not seem like a big deal, but scaffolding that goes up and never comes down is a big issue in Manhattan.) He secured $1.2 billion in funding to expand free child care for low-income families. He’s providing free child care seats for toddlers in partnership with the state. 100,000 potholes were filled. He created a dedicated park repair team to fix broken playground equipment, basketball hoops, and sports courts. He got public sports facilities, including tennis courts in the Bronx, resurfaced and renovated. He closed an inherited city budget deficit. His administration recovered $9.3 million for workers and small businesses affected by wage theft or infractions. There’s a lot more in the works, but that’s the stuff that can be checked off. He’s like the Energizer Bunny of mayors.

Of course, a lot of people just can’t get past his being Muslim. So they are certain he’s a fraud. I suspect a lot of these people are the same ones giving Trump his 33 percent approval rating.

One issue that comes up a lot is that Mamdani inherited a $12 billion budget deficit spanning fiscal years 2026 and 2027 from former Mayor Eric Adams. The budget has been balanced for 2027. I understand New York City has received about $5.5 billion in financial assistance and gap-closing support from New York State this year. This set off screams of “other people’s money!” and “Just wait until the bill comes due!” They are predicting NYC will go bankrupt.

However, for many years taxes from New York City have provided New York State with about 55 percent of its total revenue. Last year NYC and its taxpayers gave the state $68.8 billion. To a large extend the city has been subsidizing the state for a very long time. $5.5 billion to keep the cash cow healthy seems a good investment.

There’s a massive amount of wealth in NYC. New York City has 384,500 millionaires, the most resident millionaires of any city in the world. And no, they aren’t moving out. It has the New York Stock Exchange and the North American headquarters of about every major bank and financial institution on the planet. It’s the bleeping galactic capital of capitalism, for pity’s sake. It seems to me a small tax hike on the big shots would be less expensive for them than moving their long-established operations elsewhere.

Anyway, a recent Siena College poll found that 69 percent of New Yorkers approve of Mayor Mamdani. I’m not sure 69 percent of New Yorkers have ever approved of anything. But I just hope a bunch of bigoted jerks don’t show up at the memorial observance.

In other news — Canada’s counter-tariffs on U.S. goods go into effect at midnight tonight. It might be a good time to stock up on toilet paper.

Interesting read: Neo-Nazis and the Impotence of Trumponomics by Paul Krugman.

This is just a quick note to let you know I haven’t evaporated and advise you to rest up tomorrow for the rest of the week. Among other upcoming events will be the Republican midterm convention featuring Peak Trump. I will not be watching if it’s televised. There’s to be a Charlie Kirk memorial on September 10th that I intend to entirely ignore. (See MAGA Is Mourning Charlie Kirk With Ridiculous AI Slop Merch) And then Friday is the 25th anniversary of September 11. Plus midterm mail-in ballots are already being mailed to voters in some places, even as Trump frantically and unconstitutionally is trying to take over the mail-in voting process so he can throw out Democrats’ votes.

Try to enjoy Labor Day, anyway.