Today in Politics, Bulletin 221. 10/3/25 WHAT A MINUTE! WHAT? ROBERT MORRIS SEXUALLY ABUSED 12 YEAR OLD GIRL? ONLY 6 MONTHS IN COUNTY JAIL?

Today in Politics, Bulletin 221. 10/3/25 Ron Filipkowski Oct 3 ∙ … Trump’s former spiritual advisor and donor Robert Morris just pled guilty to sexually abusing a 12 year old girl. NBC: “The Texas megachurch pastor who built Gateway Church into one of the largest congregations in the country, pleaded guilty Thurs in Osage County District Court to charges that he sexually abused a girl in the 1980s.” … Morris pled guilty to 5 felony counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child. Under a negotiated plea agreement, he was given a 10-year sentence, but he will serve only 6 months in the county jail. He must also register as a sex offender and pay $250,000 in restitution." … “The plea represents a remarkable fall for Morris, who founded Gateway in 2000 in Southlake, TX, and grew it into a megachurch with tens of thousands of weekly attendees. His sermons were broadcast to audiences around the world, his books became bestsellers in evangelical circles, and he served as a faith adviser to President Trump.” … Trump went on another batshit crazy, late-night social media barrage last night. This was one of them. … And JD Vance just got done lecturing us all week about inflammatory rhetoric. … Russ Vought continues to freeze federal funding on infrastructure projects underway in blue states: “$2.1 billion in Chicago infrastructure projects-specifically the Red Line Extension and the Red and Purple Modernization Project -have been put on hold to ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting. More info to come soon from USDOT.” … SPINELESS MAGA Mike Johnson on Trump’s deranged social media posts and Vought’s impoundment of funds appropriated by Congress to projects in blue states: “He has that opportunity now to say, ‘This is a program that would serve the American people if it was not funded, because govt would be more efficient and effective.’ So they’re gonna make those decisions. Are they taking great pleasure in that? No. Is he trolling the Democrats? Yes. Because that’s what Trump does and people are having fun with this. Russ takes no pleasure in this - the president takes no pleasure in this.” … Fox reporter to Johnson: “How can you say ‘they take no pleasure in this,’ and then the next minute say, ‘Oh, they’re just having fun and trolling?’” … BLEACH BLOND BRAIN DEAD Karoline Leavitt’s press conference today: Q - “You just said this is an unenviable choice, and layoffs are an unfortunate consequence. But the president posted a video likening Vought to the grim reaper. So which is it? Leavitt: Look, the president likes to have a little fun every now and then.” … Speaking of trolling and having a little fun, Gavin Newsom just posted this. … Reporter: “Do you commit to doing something to address the ACA subsidies so that insurance premiums don’t spike for Americans? Johnson: Republicans commit to continuing the work we’ve already been doing.” … That means no. … Vance on CBS: “We inherited this really bad healthcare system from the last days of the Biden admin. We want to fix it. We just don’t want to shut down the govt while we’re fixing it. Why can’t we open up the govt and fix the healthcare problem?” … Trump and Republicans have been promising to “fix” the health care system since 2016. Trump repeatedly said in his first term his health care plan was coming in two weeks. It never happened. It hasn’t happened this term. Now Dems are supposed to just vote for this and trust the Trump admin suddenly has a secret plan. … BLEACH BLOND BRAIN DEAD Karoline Leavitt: “When an illegal alien goes to the emergency room, who’s paying for it? The American taxpayer.” … Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich: “This is due to a law signed by Ronald Reagan and has nothing to do with this shutdown fight. But consider this... Emergency Medicaid spending in 2023 cost $3.4 billion - just 0.4% of total Medicaid spending. Now what about the $20 billion taxpayers are giving to Argentina?” … Q: “Has the president abandoned his campaign pledge to mandate insurance coverage for IVF? Leavitt: No. Q: Is there any update on that? Leavitt: I’ll check.” … Rep. Marge Greene (R-GA) says that Republicans can end the shutdown anytime they want without Democratic votes: “On the govt shutdown, here’s what you’re not being told. If Republican Senators wanted to pass the CR and reopen the govt they could, by using the nuclear option to override the 60 vote rule and pass the CR with a simple majority vote. We have 53 R Senators.” … “The Senate just recently used the nuclear option to push through a large package of the President’s nominees. They know how to do it. And as far as worrying that using the nuclear option would damage partisan relations, let’s be real, that ship has sailed a long time ago. There are no partisan relations.” … Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on Fox: “There’s no one in America who believes that the Democrats are in charge. Trump brags about his big victories in the House and Senate. Everyone knows he’s controlling govt - in fact, too much. So the argument to blame Democrats - no one in America believes it.” … A strong majority of Americans in every poll shows that they blame Republicans for the shutdown: … Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) on CNN: Q - “A WaPo poll shows more Americans are blaming Republicans for the shutdown. Does that give you pause? Marshall: I discount that poll altogether. There are so many other polls that say just the opposite. Q - Which ones? Marshall: I don’t have them at my fingertips right now.” … New KFF poll: Percentage of Americans who want to extend the Obamacare tax credits: Democrats-92%. Independents-82%. Republicans-59%. 74% of people say they would blame Republicans or Trump if credits are not extended. Just 22% would blame Dems. … Emma Wagner: “Since the enhanced PTCs were introduced, the number of people who receive health coverage through the ACA Marketplaces has more than doubled. In 6 states (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia and West Virginia), enrollment has more than tripled in 5 years.” … Health care policy analyst Larry Leavitt: “This is a remarkable statistic: 18.7 million out of the 24.3 million Obamacare enrollees are in states won by Trump in 2024. 80% of all ACA premium tax credits go to people in states won by Trump in 2024.” … Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio: “If the Republican candidate lets the premium tax credit expire, the Republican trails the Democrat on the general ballot by 15-points.” … WaPo: “Three days into the govt shutdown, it’s increasingly unclear where the US economy is headed - not because of a direct hit from the federal closures but a lack of official data. The absence of the Labor Dept’s monthly jobs report, which was scheduled to be released Friday morning, is the first casualty in what is likely to be a string of delayed or missed economic data.” … “The timing could hardly be worse. Policymakers have been watching closely for signs that a cooling job market, rising unemployment and worsening inflation could be weighing on the economy. The Sept jobs report was expected to provide a much-anticipated snapshot of the US labor market, after a summer of rapid cooling. The lack of data is a particular problem for the Federal Reserve, which will meet later this month to decide whether it should keep cutting interest rates.” … “The central bank, responsible for keeping inflation stable without hurting the job market, relies heavily on govt data to guide its decisions. Without updated figures to gauge the state of the labor market or inflation, the Fed will be in an extraordinary difficult spot.” … Erica Groshen, who was the head of BLS during the 2013 shutdown: “It’s a bad time to be missing data. We are flying blind right as the economy could be turning.” … Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer on CNN: Q - “Construction jobs fell in Aug, private sector payrolls plunged in Sept. Why is it heading in the wrong direction? DeRemer: All indicators shows we have the strongest economy in the world. What we inherited from the Biden admin... Q - Jobs economy? Do we have the strongest jobs economy compared to last year when when there were hundreds of thousands of jobs added each month? DeRemer: Absolutely.” … Politico: “The Trump admin is planning to roll out the first tranche of bailout payments for farmers in the coming weeks, likely using billions of dollars in funding from an internal USDA account. But it won’t be enough: USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation fund - which Trump previously tapped to provide $28 billion in farm aid during his first-term trade war with China - has just $4 billion left in the account. Some Republicans estimate they will eventually need to provide $35-$50 billion in aid to farmers hit by Trump’s tariffs. … “Trump officials, including those at the Treasury Dept, are looking at how to tap tariff receipts or other funding to supplement the payments without triggering a messy fight in Congress. Trump has said he would use tariff revenue to provide cash bailouts to farmers, but Congress would likely need to vote to authorize such a move. GOP lawmakers could also move to refill the internal USDA fund in their govt funding fight later this fall, but that will be a battle with Democrats.” … Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) on Newsmax: “Unfortunately, our farmers do need that assistance. They don’t like it. They consider it welfare. They want trade, not aid. So we really need to see some of these new markets opening up around the globe. We lost a lot of soybean contracts due to these elongated negotiations. But if there’s anybody that can make a deal, it’s President Trump.” … DOG KILLER Kristi Noem was fuming today after a municipal city building in Illinois wouldn’t allow her in to use their restroom: “The city police wouldn’t even let us use the restroom. A municipal worker at the city building here at Broadview would not allow us to go in to use the restroom. So as much as these local leaders talk about cooperating, this is what we have to put up with every single day.” … CNBC: “The top 10% of Americans added $5 trillion to their wealth in the second quarter as the stock market rally continued to benefit the biggest investors, according to new data from the Federal Reserve. The total wealth of the top 10% - or those with a net worth of more than $2 million - reached a record $113 trillion in Q2, up from $108 trillion in Q1.” … “The top 0.1% saw their wealth grow by 10% over the past year. Since the pandemic, the top 0.1%, or those with a net worth of at least $46 million, have seen their total wealth nearly double to over $23 trillion.” … CNN: “FBI Director Kash Patel has fired a longtime bureau employee who displayed a Pride flag in his workspace during a past assignment. The employee was undergoing new agent training at the FBI’s academy when he received a letter from Patel ordering his immediate dismissal. In a previous non-agent role with the FBI, the employee, who received multiple awards for service during his career, had also been a field office diversity program coordinator and displayed a Pride flag at his workstation.” … “In notifying the individual of their dismissal, Patel said the agent trainee was being summarily dismissed for past ‘poor judgment’ and ‘an inappropriate display of political signage.’” … Meanwhile, Patel is now handing out these. Photo - Ken Dilanian, MSNBC Reminder no Bulletin tomorrow because I am off Saturdays. The next two weeks are peak fall foliage season here and we are going on a 4-hour train excursion tomorrow through the lakes region of southeast New Hampshire. I will be back with my Weekend Bulletin on Sunday night. If you missed yesterday’s Bulletin, you can find it here. Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. … Trump continues to escalate his war on American cities. BLEACH BLOND BRAIN DEAD Karoline Leavitt made this announcement today: “President Trump will end the radical left’s reign of terror in Portland once and for all. The president has directed Secretary DRUNK Hegseth to provide all necessary troops to protect war-ravaged Portland.” … Daily Beast: “Apple has capitulated to demands from the Trump admin and removed apps from its App Store that allowed users to track ICE officers. The company removed ICEBlock, a crowd-sourced app that allowed users to report sightings of ICE goons around the country, from its App Store.” … CORRUPT AG Pam Bondi to Fox: “We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store - and Apple did so. ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed.“ … Joshua Aaron, who created the app: “Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move. ICEBlock is no different from crowd-sourcing speed traps, which every notable mapping application, including Apple’s own Maps app, implements as part of its core services.” … WSJ: “Senators on both sides of the aisle pressed the Pentagon’s top lawyer in a closed-door meeting to provide a better legal explanation for striking alleged Latin American drug boats in the Caribbean. In a classified Senate Armed Services Committee briefing, the Pentagon general counsel, Earl Matthews, detailed the legal basis for the military’s attacks ordered by Trump.” … “Matthews repeatedly referred to Trump’s designation of some Latin American drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which he said granted the Defense Dept unilateral authority to use military force against them. Matthews refused to provide a written justification for the strikes, which legal experts say is necessary for transparency and accountability.” … Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA): “I was there, I’m not satisfied.” … Ranking member on the committee Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI): “They provided no credible legal justification, evidence or intelligence for the strikes. Every American should be alarmed that their president has decided he can wage secret wars against anyone he calls an enemy.” … Senior national security prosecutor Michael Ben’Ary’s farewell letter to colleagues after LOONEY Laura Loomer got him fired: “I am disappointed to see what has happened to this office and the DOJ in just a few short months. The decisions to remove experienced career officials from US Attorneys Offices, the FBI, and other critical parts of DOJ undermines our country’s ability to counter terrorist organizations, malign nation-state actors, and countless others that seek to harm our nation and its citizens.” … Trump: “An Agreement must be reached with Hamas by Sunday Evening at SIX (6) P.M., Washington, D.C. time. Every Country has signed on! If this LAST CHANCE agreement is not reached, all HELL, like no one has ever seen before, will break out against Hamas. THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST ONE WAY OR THE OTHER.” … Actor Richard Gere on Trump: “We have a president who’s not only crazy, he’s a dark, dark presence. And it’s happened so quickly. In just over 6 months, he’s almost destroyed our country.” … WaPo: “The newly formed media giant Paramount Skydance will acquire the Free Press, an online publication, and install its iconoclastic founder, Bari Weiss, as editor in chief of CBS News. Paramount Skydance is expected to announce Monday that it will pay $150 million in cash and stock for the Free Press and name Weiss to CBS News’ top editorial job.” … “The appointment of Weiss, a staunch advocate of Israel and frequent critic of the mainstream media, to lead the company’s news operation follows its hiring last month of a conservative-leaning ombudsman to field complaints about the network’s editorial coverage.” … “Weiss, whose background is in opinion journalism and commentary, has no experience working at a broadcast television network. Hired by the NYT opinions section in 2017 as part of a push to bring more conservative voices onto its pages after Trump’s election, she resigned in 2020, saying she had been ‘bullied’ by liberal colleagues for her views.” … WKRN (TN): “A man wanted in Florida for multiple sex crimes against children was taken into custody Tues morning in Franklin. Andrew Paul Johnson was wanted for lewd and lascivious molestation of children under 12, lewd and lascivious molestation of children between 12-16, lewd and lascivious exhibition, and harmful material transmitted to minors.” … Johnson was a J6 defendant who was pardoned by Trump. This keeps happening with these guys. … BLEACH BLOND BRAIN DEAD Leavitt was asked about mass shootings today: Q - “We’ve seen this spate of gun violence in this country- mass shootings, Michigan church attacked, children being shot in pews in Minnesota. Has any of this made the president rethink gun safety prevention? Leavitt: The president is always going to protect the 2nd amendment constitutional rights of Americans.” … J6 organizer, Arizona election audit financier, and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne on Lindell TV: “We’re going to be charged with treason and hanged. That’s their plan if Democrats get back in. They plan on hitting us January 21, 2028 - hundreds of people. They’re going full Bolshevik.” … US Treasurer Brandon Beach announced today that the US will be issuing a new one dollar coin to commemorate the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: “These first drafts honoring America’s 250th Birthday and POTUS are real. Looking forward to sharing more soon, once the obstructionist shutdown of the US govt is over.” This is the first draft of the coin. GOD HELP US! … Politico: “Corey Lewandowski, a longtime ally of Trump, is considering a run for NH governor - as the WH weighs primarying GOP Gov. Kelly Ayotte over her resistance to redistricting. Lewandowski was one of Trump’s 2016 campaign managers, worked on his 2024 campaign and is currently serving as DHS senior adviser.” … Lewandowski: “Governor is the only job in Politics I would ever consider giving up what I am currently doing for.” … One longtime NH Republican consultant: “He’s obviously a smart guy, so he throws his name in there just to get headlines. But in the end, he’s not going to do it because he knows he can’t win.” … If he does run, I expect people in NH will be seeing a lot of Kristi Noem in their state. Only for official DHS business though, I’m sure. … The New Republic on recent comments by Pope Leo: “Speaking to reporters in Italian, Leo called Hegseth’s rhetoric ‘worrying, because it shows each time an increase in tensions.’ Citing Hegseth’s change in job title from ‘secretary of defense’ to ‘secretary of war,’ the pope said, ‘Let’s hope it is only a way of speaking.’” … Miami Herald: “Prosecutors in Tallahassee are convening a grand jury relating to the Hope Florida scandal. In recent weeks, the State Attorney’s Office for the 2nd Judicial Circuit has issued subpoenas for witnesses to appear before a grand jury the week of Oct. 13. State Attorney Jack Campbell declined to comment. In May, Campbell’s office confirmed that a criminal investigation was underway relating to information given about the Hope Florida Foundation, the charity spearheaded by first lady Casey DeSantis.” … “The investigation began after revelations that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ admin directed $10 million from a legal settlement with the Medicaid contractor Centene to the foundation for the governor’s political purposes. Nearly all of the money ended up in a political committee controlled by DeSantis’ chief of staff, James Uthmeier, which was dedicated to defeating last year’s recreational marijuana amendment.” … The Times (UK): “Middle age has a dreadful reputation. Knees creak, waistlines thicken, careers stall. Children demand more than you can give, parents need more than you can manage. The mirror is unkind, the inbox unforgiving. Little wonder it is often seen as the bleakest stretch of life’s journey. Yet a study offers consolation: however frazzled and arthritic you may feel in your late fifties, this is when your mind is at its finest.” … “The paper, published in the journal Intelligence, draws on decades of psychological research to produce what the authors have called the cognitive-personality functioning index (CPFI), a single measure that tracks how intelligence, judgment and other key mental and personality traits evolve over the average lifespan. The results indicate a pattern: that the overall functioning of the human brain reaches its zenith between 55 and 60.” … “The reason is that different abilities follow different trajectories. Fluid intelligence, which includes reasoning, memory span and processing speed, tends to peak in the early twenties. It then ebbs steadily. But the data suggests that so-called crystallized intelligence - the accumulation of knowledge and experience - continues to build for decades. Personality traits also mature: conscientiousness (the diligence to see things through) and emotional stability (the ability to keep calm under stress), increase across adulthood before leveling off in later life.” … “Other skills bloom late. Moral reasoning - the ability to weigh competing principles - deepens with experience, producing sounder judgments about fairness and duty. Financial literacy peaks in the late 60s, perhaps reflecting a lifetime of dealing with bills.” … I would just like to point out that I am 56 years old. … I was thinking today that it really is amazing how often you can repeat something Trump said verbatim without identifying Trump as the person who said it and Trump supporters will say it’s the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard.