September’s Consumer Price Index rose to 3.0% on an annual rate, up from +2.9% in August, the Labor Department reports Friday. On a month-over-month basis, the CPI was up 0.3% for last month, following an 0.4% increase in August. Gasoline prices were up 4.1% in September to account for much of the CPI increase, with energy up 1.5%, food +0.2%, food at home +0.3% and food away from home +0.1%. The Labor Department for September CPI data collection was completed before the government shutdown and published late this month for calculation of 2026 Social Security benefit cost of living increases. [CHART: Bureau of Labor Statistics.]
FRIDAY 10/24/25
Take Off, Canada – President Trump abruptly cut off trade negotiations with Canada Thursday after the province of Ontario released a television commercial of an edited excerpt of a 1987 anti-tariff radio address by President Ronald Reagan (per Newsweek). Trump called the Canadian video "fake" and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library put out a statement criticizing editing of “Commitment to Free Trade is a Commitment to Fair Trade” as misleading. Ford’s office did edit the original five-minute, 32-second video of course, but it doesn’t alter the former president’s message from the radio address that tariffs are not good for workers and the US economy.
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Shutdown Day 24 – Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) offered up separate, competing bills for weeks to pay all federal employees during a shutdown, but neither bill had the votes to make their way out of Senate committee. Senators from both parties will meet to bring both bills together in order to have the bipartisan support to bring it to the Senate floor, Roll Call reports.
Sticking point up to now is a provision in Van Hollen’s bill that would prevent the Trump administration from conducting layoffs during a shutdown.
Many of the 700,000-some federal employees on furlough will miss their first full paychecks Friday.
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Crypto Pro Quo – Let’s do this chronologically, from The Wall Street Journal’s report.
In 2023, Binance crypto house founder Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to violating US anti-laundering requirements. Binance crypto was banned from operating in the US.
September 2024, Zhao left prison after four months over related charges.
By the time Donald J. Trump won the November 2024 presidential election, Binance had become a key supporter of the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto.
In early 2025, Binance hired lobbyist Ches McDowell to help pursue a pardon from President Trump.
As of this September 1, World Liberty Financial had added $5 billion to the Trump family’s wealth, according to the WSJ.
This Wednesday, Trump signed a pardon for Zhao, “who was prosecuted by the Biden administration in their war on cryptocurrency,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “The Biden administration’s war on crypto is over.” –TL
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THURSDAY 10/23/25
Guilding the East Wing -- You've seen elsewhere distressing -- depressing? -- photos of the Trump White House's demolition of the East Wing. This is a rendering of the gold-and-white 999-seat ballroom Trump plans to build in its place. (See left column for commentary by contributing pundit Sharon Lintner.)
Trump Sanctions Russian Oil – The Trump administration announced its first sanctions on Russia Wednesday since the president took office in January. After a Ukrainian peace talks meeting in Budapest between President Trump and Russian dictator/President Vladimir Putin was canceled last week, the US is sanctioning Russian oil giants Rusneft and Lukoil, according to The Kyiv Independent.
“Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
EU’s financing plan for Ukraine … As Trump has frozen military aid and last Friday refused to sell Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine after the president’s meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, European Union leaders meeting in Brussels were expected Thursday to approve using billions of dollars of frozen Russian state assets to finance Ukraine’s military, The Guardian reports. The plan involves a possible 140 billion euro ($162.4 billion) three-year loan to Ukraine, from an estimated 290 billion euros ($336.4 billion) of Russian assets. One EU member, Belgium, may not agree to the plan as its Euroclear central securities depository in Brussels holds the Russian assets, and it fears Russia will demand billions of euros if sanctions are lifted.
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Somewhere, Roy Cohn is Smiling – Even the president admits he has an undeniable advantage in his demand the Justice Department – his Justice Department – pay him roughly $230 million for indignities he suffered in a couple of investigations against him. President Trump has submitted claims through an administrative process that usually precludes a precursor to a lawsuit, according to The New York Times, which first reported the story.
Trump attorneys filed both claims during the Biden administration, but says now that “I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.
Awfully strange. Or maybe that should be, “taxpayers are paying me.”
First, in 2023, Trump filed a claim seeking damages for what he said were violations of his civil rights when the FBI and a special counsel investigated Russian election tampering connected to his 2016 presidential campaign. The second, filed in 2024, accuses the FBI of violating Trump’s privacy rights when Mar-a-Lago was searched for classified documents from his first administration.
“I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity,” he said, according to the NYT report. –TL