The Weekly Sift

You might think that during a government shutdown, the shutdown itself would be the week’s most important story. But that’s not how I see the news this week. There is not actually that much to say about the shutdown: It’s happening. The real pain it will cause is mostly in the future. It looks like it might drag on a long time, because there’s no obvious compromise and Trump does not seem to be interested in compromise. For Trump to compromise would break his authoritarian narrative: that resistance to him is futile and will be punished.

But two other stories deserve more immediate attention: Trump and Hegseth’s bizarre speeches to an unprecedented gathering of America’s top military leaders, and the Trump regime’s continuing military attacks on Democratic-leaning cities for increasingly specious reasons. I’ll try to get a featured article on the speeches out before 10 EDT and the Chicago/Portland article out shortly thereafter.

That leaves the weekly summary to cover the shutdown, the Gaza peace proposal, the Argentina bailout, and a variety of other things. I’ll try to get that out by noon.