Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Independent News Drop. I'm Keli, with Hast.

HAST Good afternoon. We're leading with equity stakes and federal power — then the courts, then the borderlands. Heavy hour.

KELI From our Ground News desk: the President claimed Sunday he'd made hundreds of billions in stock gains for the country, not himself. He posted it with AI images — the Moon as U.S. territory, Canada under the flag, that kind of material. But the portfolio is real. Thirty-nine announced equity stakes, about 26.7 billion dollars, spread across Commerce, Defense, the DFC, and Energy. No consolidated public ledger. Intel alone — the administration converted 433 million shares out of CHIPS Act grants after stripping labor and buyback conditions — that stake has climbed from 8.9 billion to roughly 42 billion dollars. Federal budget rules treat the purchase as an outlay, so that 33-billion-dollar gain appears in no budget document at all. Tad DeHaven at the Cato Institute is tracking the portfolio deal by deal. He calls it assembling a pseudo-sovereign wealth fund under executive control, one deal at a time.

HAST Here's what other newsrooms are saying: the President made a stock-picking call that paid off. The Moon imagery grabbed the press. What's actually happening is different. The administration is building an off-books investment vehicle using statutory authority meant for development finance and defense partnership, stripping conditions Congress wrote into grant law, and banking gains that don't show in federal accounting. Check in the coming weeks whether Congress demands a consolidated ledger or whether the DFC's statutory authority gets tested in court.

KELI A federal appellate court ruled today that 27 religious organizations have standing to challenge the administration's policy allowing immigration raids inside houses of worship. The decision came out of the Fourth Circuit. The case turns on whether federal agents can cross the threshold of a church, mosque, or synagogue without a warrant, absent an active threat. The court said the organizations — churches, Jewish congregations, Muslim centers — have constitutional injury to sue. The administration can appeal.

HAST Staying with enforcement: the Trump administration is pushing a new rule to upgrade SNAP cards — food assistance — with biometric or chip technology to fight fraud. The summary says fraud has cost recipients millions. But the practical effect is that the administration wants to tighten the mechanism. The rule is a continuation of what's been in motion, and it's moving toward the Federal Register.

KELI Texas next. Ken Paxton, the state Attorney General, sued OpenAI and Sam Altman today. The lawsuit alleges unfair competition and deception. What the Tribune also reported: Altman and ChatGPT are top competitors to Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who is fueling Paxton's U.S. Senate campaign. So you have a campaign beneficiary in the White House ecosystem suing the Musk rival. The claim exists independent of that fact, but the fact exists alongside it.

HAST Broader reach, different mechanism. In late August, the Trump administration loaded 12 Somali nationals onto a plane and flew them to an ICE facility at Guantanamo Bay. Sakariye Abdi Mohamed, one of the detainees, told journalist Amanda Moore last month from the facility: "Nobody tell us that we're going to Guantanamo Bay. Just like kidnapping." He said Gitmo was the worst place he'd ever been. The Department of Homeland Security has been using the base as a detention site. It's a continuation of a practice that began earlier this year.

KELI Before we close, a history note: October 26th, 1985. The Australian government returned ownership of Uluru to the local Pitjantjatjara Aboriginals — the first major land return to Indigenous peoples in the country.

HAST That's the Independent News Drop. Racer.wiki for track setup and dirt diagnostics. Lawz bodycam explainers on the channel. Cards, Bible shirts, and art shirts at inkwell.wiki slash cards. Full scripts at inkwell.wiki slash news. From Inkwell.

KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. Gil's Intelligent Version has a new companion piece on how the Latter-day Saints read the Trinity — three distinct beings, one in purpose, rather than three persons of one substance.

HAST It's an evenhanded look at the same question, decided the other way. At inkwell dot wiki, slash godhead.