THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT: The federal government shut down at midnight after congressional Republicans refused to negotiate over Democratic demands for healthcare spending and nutrition. The Democrats drew the line over expiring health care subsidies and Medicaid cuts enacted in President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”

  Both sides blame the other in tiresome indignant speeches although it is the Democrats likely to take the hit despite the Republican refusal to compromise on their agenda.

  President Trump said it’s an opportunity to get rid of things he doesn’t want. When he met with Democrats two days ago he had a “Trump 2028” hat on his desk.

  The immediate effect of shutdown will hit such places as national parks and monuments. Most federal workers are likely to be furloughed except for active-duty troops military, air traffic controllers, and federal law enforcement. But no one gets paid for the duration.

WAR OF WORDS: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth yesterday dressed down the military’s generals and admirals and ordered them to dress up.

  In a speech in which he denounced “fat” generals and soldiers, wokeism, diversity efforts, and lesser physical standards for female combat troops, Hegseth said, “It’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon leading commands around the country, in the world, it’s a bad look.” 

  Hegseth spoke at a gathering of 800 generals and admirals at the Marine base in  Quantico, Virginia. “If the Secretary of War can do regular, hard PT, so can every member of our joint force,” he said.

  People in combat posts will have to meet “this highest male standard only,” Hegseth announced. 

  He went on; “This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics, no more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris.”

  Putting a cap on it he declared, “As I’ve said before, and will say again, we are done with that shit.” 

  Speaking to the gathering for 73 minutes, President Trump suggested that the Department of Defense should use “dangerous cities as training grounds” for the military and National Guard.

  Trump delivered his standard ramble about renaming the Gulf of Mexico, efforts to end wars, his bid for the Nobel Peace Prize, his love for the word “tariff,” his love of the 1950s television show “Victory at War” (Victory at Sea), and the aesthetic shortcomings of the Navy’s ships. “I’m a very aesthetic person. I don’t like some of the ships you’re doing aesthetically,” he declared.

  His audience of America’s top military officers sat in stunned silence.

THE WAR ROOM: A majority of American voters now oppose sending additional economic and military aid to Israel, a big reversal in public opinion since the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre according to new polling from The NY Times and Siena University.

  Disapproval of Israel’s war in Gaza is growing. Following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, 47 percent of Americans sided with Israel, 20 percent with Palestinians. In the latest poll, 34 percent said they sided with Israel and 35 percent with Palestinians. Thirty-one percent said they were unsure or backed both equally.

  Forty percent of voters said Israel was intentionally killing civilians in Gaza, nearly double the number who agreed with that statement in the 2023 poll. As many as 66,000 people in Gaza have been killed in nearly two years of war.

THE REGIME:

— In Massachusetts a federal judge issued a scathing opinion saying the Trump administration uses the threat of deportation to silence non-citizen critics in academia.  Judge William Young, appointed by Ronald Reagan, wrote, that the case before him “squarely presents the issue whether noncitizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The court answers this constitutional question unequivocally, ‘Yes, they do.’”

— A federal judge this week ordered the Trump administration to reverse the layoffs of nearly all remaining employees at Voice of America, the federal news organization that provides independent reporting to countries with limited press freedom, such as China, Russia, and Iran.

  Kari Lake, the former Arizona news anchor and failed political candidate, has been in charge of gutting VOA. She has ignored court orders. In a scathing ruling Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia found that the administration had violated his April order to restore VOA’s news coverage so that it would “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.”

  He warned Lake and other officials that they could be held in contempt. “The defendants’ obfuscation of this court’s requests for information,” Lamberth wrote, “has wasted precious judicial time and resources and readily support contempt proceedings.”

— Memphis is preparing for the influx of National Guard troops sent by President Trump to quell what he believes to be overwhelming crime in that city.

THE ICE AGE: The superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district has been detained by immigration agents and had his education license revoked following the discovery that he may not be a legal resident. He announced he would resign.

  Ian Roberts, 54, the superintendent of Des Moines public schools, was detained by ICE agents last Friday. Roberts, a native of Guyana, was raised in Brooklyn and has worked as a school administrator in several states.

  Federal authorities say he does not have legal permission to live or work in the United States.

THE SPIN RACK:  At least 69 people were killed in a powerful earthquake that hit the Philippines. — Hurricane waters swept away five homes on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

BELOW THE FOLD: Number 32 Chunk at 1200 pounds won the annual Fat Bear competition at Katmai National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

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