SHUTDOWN, DAY THREE: President Trump said yesterday on his social media feed that he’s going to target what he calls “Democrat Agencies” in retaliation for the government shutdown forced by Senate Democrats.

  Trump wrote on his Truth Social that he would meet with his budget director, Russell Vought, “to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut.”

  He went on: I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”

  The Democrats are trying to stop the expiration of healthcare subsidies for lower income Americans at the end of the year. Insurance companies need to know soon whether the subsidies will survive, or how high they will need to raise their rates. Couples earning about $84,000 who want the so-called  “Silver-tier”  affordable Care Act plan would end up paying as much as $21,340 … an impossibility.

  Yet Trump and other Republicans are repeating the lie that, as he posted in all caps, “THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO GIVE YOUR HEALTHCARE MONEY TO ILLEGAL ALIENS.” It is already established that only immigrants lawfully living in the country are eligible for benefits.

  Democrats so far are holding fast on the demand that healthcare subsidies must be extended before they vote to fund and re-open the government. Although Republican leaders are labelling it the “Democrat Shutdown,” which it is, polls show that more Americans blame the Republicans than Democrats.

THE REGIME:

— President Trump sent notice to several congressional committees that he’s decided that the United States is in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels and that he considers their members to be “unlawful combatants.” 

  The notice is intended to support the military’s legally questionable destruction of three purported drug boats in international waters in the Caribbean, killing 17 people aboard them. Whatever the occupants of the boats were doing, they were not carrying out an armed attack on the US. Trump’s declaration would allow him to use war powers to kill enemy combatants even when they pose no immediate threat.

    Legal experts have said that importing drugs cannot be considered an armed attack.

— The Food and Drug Administration approved a generic version of the abortion pill mifepristone, expanding its supply and lowering cost, much to the dismay of abortion opponents who want to restrict access to abortion pills.

  The abortion pill has become increasingly popular since the Supreme Court overturned the nationally recognized right to the procedure. Nearly two-thirds of abortions in the country are carried out with medication.

— Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired a leading scientist at the National Institutes of Health who had filed a whistle-blower complaint that the Trump administration defied court orders in undermining vaccine research. Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo had directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 

— Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is at war … war against leakers. The Pentagon is preparing to require all military and civilians working in and around the Pentagon to sign a nondisclosure agreement that “prohibits the release of non-public information without approval or through a defined process,” according to a draft memo obtained by The Washington Post.

— As an example of the politicization of federal agencies, the Education Department changed the “out of office” email reply for department employees to say: ““Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations” and that “Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status.” 

SPEAK UP: This week more than 550 celebrities relaunched a First Amendment group originally organized during the post-World War II Red Scare saying, “The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry.”

  Actress Jane Fonda heads the revival of The Committee for the First Amendment. Her father, the actor Henry Fonda, was one of the founders of the original committee that fought the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee.

  A recruiting letter from the committee says dark forces similar to those of the McCarthy era have returned, “And it is our turn to stand together in defense of our constitutional rights.”

THE OBIT PAGE: Balin Miller, a rising star in solo climbing from Anchorage, fell to his death Wednesday from El Capitan, the 3,000 foot vertical granite formation that towers over California’s Yosemite Valley. He was 23.

  Witnesses said Miller was rappelling down to retrieve his stuck equipment bag and descended right off the end of his rope.

THE SPIN RACK: Convicted sex trafficker Sean “Diddy” Combs sent the federal judge in his case a plea for leniency, saying that he had been “humbled” and would “never commit a crime again.” Diddy’s former girlfriend, Cassie Ventura, also sent the judge a letter saying the music mogul was responsible for a “horrific decade of my life stained by abuse, violence, forced sex and degradation.” Combs is up for sentencing today and prosecutors are asking for more than 11 years in prison. — Police in Manchester England admit that one of two men who died in an attack on a synagogue was killed by police gunfire. The police also killed the assailant. — Fire and a massive explosion broke out last night at a Chevron oil refinery outside Los Angeles. It’s Chevron’s second largest facility. — Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London, has been named the first woman to be Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England. 

BELOW THE FOLD: PEN America has found that horror fiction writer Stephen King is the most banned author in American public schools … 207 times.

   King’s classics include “It,” “The Shining,” “The Stand,” and “Misery.” Book banners target books that include race, sex, LGBTQ topics … and anything fun to read.

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