September 25, 2025

Thursday, September 25, 2025. Annette’s Roundup for Democracy.

Another Special Election for the House. Guess who won?

One more thing.

The Epstein files remain on America’s mind.

A statue entitled “Best Friends Forever” showing Trump and Jeffrey Epstein holding hands was placed on the National Mall in front of the U.S. Capitol early Tuesday.

House Republicans canceled votes on the 29th and 30th, delaying the final signature on the discharge petition to release Epstein Files, but sooner or later, 218 votes in the House may lead to this.👇 Stay tuned!

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Yes, Kamala is enthusiastic about Mamdani for New York City Mayor.

Kamala and New York City Democratic Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

Two days after Kamala Harris, the former vice president and presidential candidate, gave a somewhat muted endorsement of Zohran Mamdani’s bid to become mayor of New York City, she reached out to him in a private call on Wednesday.

Mr. Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, said in an interview that Ms. Harris had initiated the roughly 10-minute conversation, and that she had taken care to emphasize her support.

“I was excited the vice president reached out for a conversation where she reiterated her support for my candidacy, and I shared my appreciation,” he said. “We discussed the affordability agenda that I ran on and the importance of joy amidst the struggle of our politics.

At an event in Manhattan on Wednesday night to promote her book, “107 Days,” Ms. Harris said she told Mr. Mamdani during the call that she was excited that his candidacy was uniting people.

“You are bringing people in and you are showing that there are voices that want to be heard, have felt left out and are now a part of what you are doing,” she said she had told him.

While Mr. Mamdani, 33, is certainly to the left of Ms. Harris, 60, they have some things in common and have both found support from younger voters at a moment when some in the party are calling for generational change. Ms. Harris’s stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, supported Mr. Mamdani during the primary and appeared at a campaign event with him in May.

Ms. Harris is the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who were immigrants. Mr. Mamdani was born in Uganda to parents of Indian descent and moved to New York City as a child.

“She mentioned the way in which our candidacy has brought more New Yorkers to see themselves in our politics,” Mr. Mamdani said. “I think hers offered the same to so many across the country.”

Mr. Mamdani said Ms. Harris had offered her support during the final weeks of the campaign, and in the years ahead if he becomes mayor.

“I appreciated the manner in which we have a shared understanding that the success of this campaign will be in the governance of the city and the delivery of this agenda,” he said.

This is excerpted from a New York Times article. To read the whole article, click here

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The embarrassing Trump visit to the U.N.

Well worth watching.👇

The BBC wasn’t the only critic of Trump’s rambling at the U.N.

In case you wonder what happened to the escalator and teleprompter at the U.N.

Ishaan Tharoor is the Global Affairs columnist
at the Washington Post and the anchor of The Post's WorldView column on Imternational Politics.👇

Trump's United Nations Speech: Read Full Text Transcript here

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Jimmy Kimmel’s return to late night television.

Again, well worth watching. Great moments for Democracy.👇

Jimmy Kimmel called Trump’s actions against comedians and threats against ABC “anti-American.” How’s this response to Kimmel’s being back on air from the money-grubbing man in the White House? Trump dreams of money because Kimmel is back. 👇

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Trump flips on Ukraine.

In a Sudden Shift, Trump Says Ukraine Can Win the War With Russia.

President Trump’s pivot could give him room to distance himself from a conflict that he once promised to solve in days or weeks.

President Trump reversed himself on one of the key foreign policy issues of his presidency on Tuesday, abandoning his insistence that Ukraine give up land to strike a peace deal with Russia and instead declaring that Ukraine, with the support of Europe, was “in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.”

His turnabout on social media shortly after a meeting in New York with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was a head-spinning pivot. After his three-hour meeting with Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in Alaska more than five weeks ago, he insisted that Mr. Zelensky would have to face reality and make a deal, giving up territory to its larger and stronger neighbor.

Mr. Trump provided no rationale for his stunning turnaround, though several European officials suspected that by distancing himself from the war, the president was washing his hands of a conflict that he once promised to solve in days or weeks. In his eight months in office, Mr. Trump has ricocheted from one position to another on Ukraine.

In February, he slammed Mr. Zelensky for insisting on American aid, yelling at him in the Oval Office, “You don’t have the cards.” In the spring, he cultivated Mr. Putin, exempting him from tariffs. This summer, he rolled out a red carpet for him in Alaska.

Now, he sounded as if he was siding anew with Ukraine while also taking something of a back seat, ending with the words: “I wish both Countries well.”

Hours after he declared Ukraine could “win” over the Russians, perhaps even taking land beyond its own boundaries, he was contradicted by his own secretary of state and acting national security adviser, Marco Rubio. Mr. Rubio said the war in Ukraine “cannot end militarily,” and predicted “it will end at the negotiating table,” reflecting Mr. Trump’s previous position.

In Alaska, Mr. Trump had taken a similar position, even promising to meet with the two adversaries together to hammer out an agreement. He had rejected the idea of pressing Mr. Putin for a cease-fire, declaring that a full peace accord would be more permanent.

With Mr. Rubio, Mr. Trump was even in discussions with European allies about creating some kind of post-peace accord security force for Ukraine, one that he said could include American air support, to protect a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine.

But on Tuesday, after his nearly hourlong speech to the United Nations in which he only briefly touched on the Ukraine conflict that has consumed American national security officials since the Russian invasion in February 2022, Mr. Trump dispensed with that strategy.

Clearly frustrated with Mr. Putin, who embarrassed him by never executing on the peace negotiations that Mr. Trump insisted they had agreed upon, Mr. Trump wrote a long post on Russia’s economic and strategic difficulties. “Russia has been fighting aimlessly for three and a half years a War that should have taken a Real Military Power less than a week to win,” he said, using his distinctive capitalization. “This is not distinguishing Russia.”

He added that Mr. Putin’s forces were a “paper tiger” — the reverse of how he had described the nuclear armed nation before. He also wrote about gasoline lines and the vast amounts of money being spent by Russia on the war. “Putin and Russia are in BIG economic trouble,” he said.

But all of that was true before the meeting in Alaska. And Mr. Trump never explained why he now believed that Ukraine, which has continuously lost modest amounts of territory to Russian troops over the past year, would suddenly be able to seize it back.

As one senior NATO military officer in New York for the United Nations meetings noted, Ukraine was not able to gain ground when American aid to the country was at a peak, and the Russians had not massed a larger force.

Nor did Mr. Trump offer to restore the tens of billions of dollars in American military aid, saying simply: “We will continue to supply weapons to NATO for NATO to do what they want with them.”

While Mr. Trump’s statement made it sound like the United States and NATO operate with their own rationale, the reality is more complicated. NATO military forces are commanded by an American general who also has the title Supreme Allied Commander Europe, a post currently held by Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich.

But the decisions about how much to spend on arming Ukraine will be influenced heavily by the largest European powers in the NATO alliance — led by Britain, France and Germany — and the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte.

Mr. Zelensky said of Mr. Trump: “I think that he is more close now to the situation.” Speaking in English to reporters, Mr. Zelensky called Mr. Trump a “game-changer.”Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York Times

Mr. Zelensky, speaking at the United Nations, decided his best strategy was to welcome the news and praise Mr. Trump, with whom he had the famous on-camera blowup in February. At that time, Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance had yelled at him for not being sufficiently grateful to the United States. Now, Mr. Zelensky said of Mr. Trump: “I think that he is more close now to the situation.”

Speaking in English to reporters, Mr. Zelensky called Mr. Trump a “game-changer.”

It may be months before it is clear whether Mr. Trump’s declaration amounts to a game-changer, and for which side in the brutal conflict. And there are scenarios in which the United States could still be drawn into the conflict.

For example, Mr. Trump on Tuesday said that NATO countries had the right to shoot down Russian military aircraft that enter their airspace. In Estonia last week, Russian fighter jets spent 12 minutes over the tiny country. Days before, Russian drones flew deep into Poland, an event Mr. Trump quickly suggested may have been a “mistake,” only to be contradicted by President Emmanuel Macron of France.

But when Mr. Trump was pressed by reporters on whether he would back up his allies if they found themselves in an air war over NATO territory, he said it “depends on the circumstances.”

One of the many unknowns now is how Mr. Putin will react to Mr. Trump’s shift. He had clearly calculated, after the Alaska meeting, that the president had no stomach for a continued conflict, and no interest in donating billions more to the Ukrainian cause or letting American soldiers join a NATO peacekeeping force.

So he may take solace in Mr. Trump’s pullback, even if the American president is ultimately expressing some support for Ukraine. Or, Mr. Putin may decide to amplify his attacks and his threats, figuring that time and mass will favor Russia. (New York Times)

One more thing.

Somehow Trump on Ukraine reminds me of Trump in the past and this old song. 👇

Trump of yesteryear.

Trump yesterday.

** My Dog Rags.**

I have a dog his name is Rags;
He eats so much his tummy sags,
His ears flip flop, his tail wig wags
And when he walks, he walks zig zag.

He goes flip flop, wig wag, zig zag;
He goes flip flop, wig wag, zig zag;
He goes flip flop, wig wag, zig zag;
I love Rags and he loves me!

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Whenever your local news - print or electronic - says Trump had a “win,“ tell them the fight for Democracy is not a football game.

Good reminder from my friend, journalist Margaret Sullivan. 👇

Legacy media's destructive addiction to describing Trump's 'winning'

Metaphors of sport and politics come too easily. They can blind us as to what is at stake.

One of the worst habits of the mainstream media is seeing politics and government as a game. Or maybe a horserace, but definitely something with clear winners and losers.

If you start paying attention, you see it everywhere, and it may push you over the edge, given the precarious state of the nation and world right now.

A few examples among a great many:

When Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed in July, benefitting the wealthy and throwing millions off their health care, was that really a win? CNN wanted you to think so: Trump lands first major legislative win, after Congress passes his massive domestic policy bill.

When a court tossed out a huge penalty against Trump for committing fraud, despite his conviction, was that really a win? Reuters thought so: In huge win for Trump, court throws out half-billion fraud penalty.

When the Supreme Court ruled that racial profiling by ICE was A-OK, was that really a win? Newsweek thought so: “Supreme Court Hands Donald Trump New Win.”

When Trump enacted a bunch of tariffs and pissed off friends and allies around the world, the New York Times saw it this way: “Trump is Winning His Trade War. What Does That Mean for the Economy?” (The American public is not actually happy with Trump’s economic moves, according to most polls.)

When Trump threatened to send the Army into U.S. cities and invaded Washington, D.C. streets with the National Guard, the AP headline told the story from his point of view: “Trump embraces tough on crime mantra amid DC takeover as he and Democrats claim political wins.” Here, note the seeming acceptance of “tough on crime” as a rationale.

Why does this happen so often? I see a few reasons. One is what I’ll call “headline-ese” — the shorthand language that comes from print journalism’s long history of dealing with a limited word count. You’ll notice that “win” is a nice, short word, however reductive and misleading.

A second is, as mentioned above, the media’s knee-jerk reduction of everything into a zero-sum game of winners and losers. During campaigns, this results in the “neck-and-neck as they approach the finish line” coverage and the over-reliance on undependable polls.

And the third, I’m sorry to say, is a brutal combination: laziness, combined with a failure of mission. To get across the nuance of who is actually affected by these “wins,” you’d have to be coming at news coverage from a different point of view.

Let’s just say that your newsroom’s clear and well communicated aim was to constantly have the public’s interest as your top priority. Let’s say that you cared about poor and middle-class people — vulnerable people — as much or more than the rich and powerful.

You could never then write a headline that portrayed the ability to racially profile people and throw them into vans without due process as a win for anybody. You might see some headlines about losses, though — like a loss for democracy, or a loss for low-income people. You might even see a “win for democracy” headline if voting rights, for example, were upheld.

But the public interest is not what many mainstream media outlets are focused on. They are focused on not looking biased; they are focused on taking things down the supposed middle; they are focused on performative fairness to Trump and to MAGA — even while this president and his allies are trying to destroy what journalists do. The scope of that effort is mind-boggling. The New York Times described Trump’s all-out campaign against the press and media organizations in the story that led their print front page on Friday. (Margaret Sullivan, Substack)

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