Category: Age of War and Revolution Page 1 of 26

On October 24, 2025

What else is China doing?

So…

NASA’s civil servant workforce has varied in size over the years, peaking during the Apollo program. During the 1990s, the Clinton administration reduced the workforce by 25% over five years, a process that some claim laid the groundwork for the shuttle Columbia disaster. This budget proposes to slash NASA’s workforce by nearly 1/3 in a single year via involuntary layoffs, resulting in the agency’s smallest workforce since fiscal year 1960, before NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Johnson Space Center, and Stennis Space Center even existed.

In pretty pictures:

No. SpaceX doesn’t make up for this. China does both, massive public spending and multiple space launch companies.

Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP or SSP), the concept of gathering solar power in space using solar power satellites (SPS) to send it back to Earth, may sound like science fiction, but it is getting closer to reality.

China plans to build a 1km-wide solar array in the geostationary orbit about 36,000km above Earth.

At this distance from atmospheric interferences such as day-night cycles and changing weather, the array will constantly gather solar energy, anticipated to surpass terrestrial photovoltaic systems by more than tenfold in efficiency.

Once collected, this energy will be transformed into microwaves and transmitted to a ground-based collector station.

Colloquially known as a powersat, this was suggested by O’Neill back in the 70s. It could have been done with tech that within reach in about a decade, but, of course, America did no such thing. The space shuttle cost way too much to launch, funding had dried up to do things better and cheaper and space was no longer a priority.

China’s following O’Neill’s playbook, weirdly enough. They’re doing what the US decided not to do. To put it bluntly, if humanity has a future in space, it will be Chinese, not American. This isn’t primarily about colonization, though some people will live in space for a time, it is about putting manufacturing, refining and mining into space so we can re-wild the Earth, and avoid the resource trap.

It’s not a sure thing, by any means, but given that Earth is limited and space is much less limited, it’s the only way out of the limited resource trap. China either succeeds (and it’s them or no one, because there is a ticking clock) or we face inevitable civilization collapse. Once that occurs, having already mined all the easily accessible resources, there is unlikely to be a second chance at a future in space, or even a particularly high tech society.

Anyway, as usual, the future happens in China, and America has given up. AI is bullshit, even if it works, American capitalists want it so they can put a third of the workforce out of work. Meanwhile China builds civilian robots, automates entire factories and ports, has flying cars and drones galore and is actually working towards a real future in space.

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Has China Put America Into the pre-WWII “Japan Trap?”

On October 20, 2025

Most modern weapon systems require rare earths to manufacture, including expendables like missiles and drones. Rare earths are less mined than they are refined, and China controls over 90% of the refining capability. Rare earths are generally found in small amounts in other ores. For example, Gallium in Aluminum. To get Gallium, you have to refine mountains of aluminum. Gallium comes from Bauxite as part of the refining process.

Fifty grams of Gallium per metric ton of refined aluminum.

China produces 98% of it.

Now Canada used to produce a lot of Gallium, as a side benefit of processing a lot of aluminum. But Canadian aluminum wasn’t as cheap as Chinese Aluminum. And this is the problem, if you want to scale you need long term contracts not just for Gallium but the Aluminum. (Do you trust any contract underwritten by the US government? If so, many bridges are available for sale to you.)

Every rare earth has similar issues.

Now cast your mind back to pre-war Asia. Japan is kicking ass, especially against the Chinese. They’ve conquered Taiwan, Korea and South Manchuria. All of this requires lots of oil, and they buy that oil from America, primarily, which was the Saudi Arabia of the day. FDR (who hated the Japanese and was a Sinophile) cut off oil exports to Japan.

Japan had only so much in the way of oil reserves. It decided to use them to go to war, grabbing as much territory as possible, while they still existed. Some of their conquests: Burma, the Dutch East Indies, and Borneo, had oil.

The situation today isn’t identical. There’s no non-China rare earth production to seize. Everyone else is pretty much happy to sell to America, they just don’t have enough to matter.

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But what does matter is that if China’s rare earth ban continues, America loses the ability to make large volumes of advanced weapons. Every time I look into estimates of how long it will take to get rare earths production up and running the West, the optimistic numbers are at about ten years, with a median around twenty. China itself took about twenty years, in the 80s and 90s.

China is getting stronger over time. Everyone with sense admits that. Even before the rare-earth ban it was clear that the West is growing weaker. In ten years, let alone twenty, no one will be able to pretend America can win a war against China.

So the rare earths ban means that if the US wants war against China, it has to be soon. Within a year, I’d say.

Note that this isn’t just about China. The West supplies Ukraine and Israel, for example, with weapons which have tons (literally) of rare earths in them. The ability to keep doing this is being taken away.

Heck, forget arming proxies, the West won’t be able to produce enough missiles and drones and radar and so on for its own military needs, meaning its ability to project power and keep other nations cowed and in line will go way down.

(At this point many of you are thinking “and this is bad, how?”)

So this is fairly existential for America. Its ability to bully everyone is about to be reduced significantly for ten to twenty years, by which time all its enemies will be well supplied by the Chinese and Russians with weapons more advanced than American ones.

Use it or lose it. I suspect this may be part of the reasoning (by the few parts of American government capable of reasoning) around attacking Venezuela, for example.

But the reason that America officials are freaking out about the rare earth ban is it really does matter. That America and the West let themselves get into the position is insane, people (including me) were pointing out this vulnerability twenty years ago. But if there’s one thing the West can’t do any more it’s definitely think beyond three months or “but China’s rare earths are cheaper, so we can’t do anything!!!!!”

Assuming a war can be avoided, the best outcome here (but bad for most citizens of the West because there are a lot of civilian rare earth applications) is for China to just leave the restrictions on permanently.

Oh, and as a ray of sunshine. If the US can’t supply Israel with weapons and if Russia and China won’t, well… More on that later.

China’s finally flexing its muscles. It spent the last eight years, ever since Trump’s absolutely crazed and stupid Huawei sanctions, making sure it has all the trump cards and no significant vulnerabilities.

And it had done so. Goodbye (not) Pax Americana.

China Seizes The Master’s Weapon As It Makes Itself The New Hegemon

On October 17, 2025

I’d like to highlight something Matt Stoller (the anti-trust guy) recently wrote:

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes believed that ideas, hospitality, travel, knowledge and science should move freely between nations. if a country could reasonably produce something physical it needed, it should. Trade should exist, but be kept to a minimum.

In May of 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared its economic strategy, using the phrase “dual circulation.” Dual circulation meant fostering a domestic productive apparatus that is independent of foreign technology and finance, while making sure the rest of the world is dependent on Chinese control of key supply chains, whether it’s shipping, railroad construction, electric batteries, or solar panels. Chinese ‘grand economic strategy,’ in other words, is to operate as a giant monopoly on which the rest of the world must rely.

Matt says this isn’t about Trump, but notice it’s from 2020. It is about Trump: Trump in the first term, with his anti-Huawei sanctions. The Chinese realized they were vulnerable and the national effort became making sure they controlled all their own critical supply chains. Having seen how the US used financial sanctions and supplier boycotts, they regrettably decided to reverse the situation.

Now what one needs to understand is that after WWII American controlled most of the key supply chains outside of the Russian bloc. They had over 50% of the world’s industry. If you wanted something, you have to get it from them. Over time, this franchise expanded, first back to the Euros, as they re-built their industry, then to the Japanese, Taiwanese and South Koreans. All of these nations were firmly American vassals. Not allies, vassals with military bases in their countries.

The West, led by America and the USSR had all the advanced tech. In the 70s the USSR fell behind, they couldn’t manage the digital revolution happening, and then the USSR collapsed and the West, really America, ruled unchecked.

If you wanted any advanced tech: planes, cars, computers, weapons, etc… it had to come from America or one its vassals. The US effectively had “dual circulation”, especially since it also had full control of the international finance system and could lock anyone out at will.

This wasn’t theoretical, US sanctions on Iraq in the 90s under Billy Clinton killed at least hundreds of thousands of people. I once talked to an Iraqi oncological pediatrician from the 90s and her incandescent rage over all the children who died of cancer she couldn’t save because of American sanctions was so hot it blotted out the sun.

Once such sanctions had been rare (though there are cases back in the 50s.) The most notable is the multi-generation trade blockade of Cuba.

But from Clinton on use of these sanctions became routine, “Treasury’s Wars.” Millions died, many more were impoverished.

So, China has learned from the evil master. And it has decided that if there is such a weapon, it will have it and use it and no one else can have it.

Everyone who rages against this is correct. No country should have this power. Not America. Not China. No one.

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What should be the case is a trade regime where everyone makes most of what they need. Need medicine? Make it in your country. (Shut up about prices, if the supply chain is domestic then almost all that crap that MMTers go on about becomes true. Prices are irrelevant, it’s all in money you print.) To the largest degree possible, everyone makes what they need. Smaller countries will have a harder time, and trade-states like Singapore obviously can’t, but this is what a good world looks like.

This maximizes political autonomy, too. You can’t be blackmailed by other countries. Spread nukes around, and much military force goes off the table too. (And they are going to spread. The US has taught everyone that if you have nukes you’re safe, and if you don’t, you’re dinner.)

So. China is teaching the Western world the same lesson America taught China and Africa and Iraq, and Iran and Cuba. We: Europe, the Anglo countries, South Korean, Taiwan and Japan, were inside the bubble during the period when the US allowed its vassals decent lives. (Oh, they destroyed Japan’s tech and industrial lead, they gutted Britain after WWII, they forced Canada to destroy its world leading aviation industry), but overall, if you were on the inside of the “Golden billion” or, early, “the golden 500 million”, life was pretty damn good.

America used the whip, its vassals jumped to obey and everyone else was poor.

Then Americans got stupid and thought that China was like Japan, they could ship their industry there, makes lots of money and if necessary bring China to heel if it got out of hand.

Wrong. Morons. I and others warned about this for decades, how stupid it was, but no one in power listened. Probably a good thing, since it led to a billion people getting out of poverty, but it’s not going to be fun for those us living in the West.

So: the weapon is being wrested from the old hegemon’s palsied hands, and being wielded by the apprentice, the new master, the new hegemon.

Bow, insects, the new lord is here. And no, America isn’t going to get its hegemon status back, nor should anyone who isn’t American want it to.

The actual solution is Keynes solution. No one should have the weapon—the power—because every country should make, grow and dig as much of they need as possible, using trade only for what they genuinely can’t make or for luxuries they can do without in a pinch.

Opposition to the Trump Takeover of Chicago

By Nat Wilson Turner

On October 16, 2025

Update 10.17: Added some of Gov. Pritzker’s threats of legal reprisal against Stephen Miller and my commentary on it at the bottom.

Opposition to the Trump regime’s infusion of ICE agents into Democrat-helmed cities and states is manifesting in two separate forms, seemingly uncoordinated: street-level resistance and state and local governments (the latter sometimes includes law enforcement).

I wrote yesterday for Naked Capitalism regarding the Trump administration’s increasing takeover of the federal government (headed up by Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought) and expanding ICE and National Guard assaults on Blue State cities (headed up by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller).

I thought a round-up of various efforts in Illinois to oppose the Trump takeover would be a good sequel to that piece.

Keep in mind that these oppositions are separate efforts.

We’re about 2 1/2 weeks into our annual fundraiser. Our goal is $12,500 (same as last year). So far we’ve raised $7,045 from 63 people out of a readership of about 10,000.

The New Yorker summed up recent Second City confrontations efficiently:

The most dramatic operation to date occurred on September 30th, at an apartment building at 7500 South Shore Drive. Hundreds of federal agents from Customs and Border Protection, the F.B.I., and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives stormed the hundred-and-fifty-unit building and questioned most if not everyone inside, allegedly because some people staying there had connections to drug and weapons crimes and violations of immigration law. Many of the building’s inhabitants, including children, were restrained and marched outside. A video of the operation, produced by the Department of Homeland Security, showed agents lining people up and loading them into vehicles, with the whirring of Black Hawk helicopters and a soundtrack of dramatic music in the background. By dawn, thirty-seven immigrants had been arrested. Hours later, Trump addressed leaders of the armed forces, whom Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had summoned to Quantico from around the world. “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” Trump told them.

The Chicagoans resisting federal agents include immigrants and their communities: elected officials, immigration attorneys, faith leaders, teachers, and many others who’ve felt compelled to fight for their neighbors. Quincy Worthington, a pastor at Highland Park Presbyterian Church, has been going to demonstrations at an ICE facility in Broadview since the beginning of September. A fellow-pastor had said that he feared violence at the facility. Masked ICE agents wielded guns, and protesters hurled insults at them. The other pastor told Worthington that “police seem to respond well to clergy,” and asked Worthington if he would “mind going there and maybe being a police liaison, talking between law enforcement and protesters to make sure everything goes as smooth as it possibly can.” Worthington went with him, and now, he said, the protesters at Broadview feel like “another congregation to me.” The day I was there, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Unitarian Universalist, United Methodist, and United Church of Christ ministers huddled in a circle with protesters and shared communion. But the main way that Worthington uses his religious training, he told me, is “by being present, listening to people, comforting people, helping people if I can.”

In an October 4th memo to Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and D.H.S. Secretary Kristi Noem, Trump ordered the deployment of the Illinois National Guard, writing, “The situation in the State of Illinois, particularly in and around the city of Chicago, cannot continue.” Federal facilities, he said, “have come under coordinated assault by violent groups intent on obstructing Federal law enforcement activities. These groups have sought to impede the deportation and removal of criminal aliens through violent demonstrations, intimidation, and sabotage of Federal operations.” National Guard troops from Texas and Illinois began to assemble on October 7th at the Army Reserve Training Center in Elwood, about fifty miles southwest of Chicago. Some went to the Broadview ICE facility; according to a statement from the U.S. Northern Command, the troops were assigned to protect federal property and personnel in the Chicago area. Two days later, a district judge, in response to a suit by Illinois and Chicago, blocked the National Guard’s deployment. The D.O.J. immediately appealed the court order, but, at least for now, the National Guard cannot help ICE carry out Operation Midway Blitz. Seemingly prepared for more court losses, Trump has also talked about the possibility of invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy the military in American cities, and against Americans, if courts, mayors, and governors were “holding us up.”

Citizen Activism in Chicago

From WBEZ in Chicago:

Cristóbal Cavazos leads the People’s Patrol, one of many volunteer rapid-response networks countering a Trump administration deportation blitz in the Chicago area. The idea is to locate immigration enforcement activity, record it, document abuses and, right on the spot, voice community opposition.

Cavazos’ network focuses on Chicago’s western suburbs. It’s housed at the Casa DuPage Workers Center, a small nonprofit devoted to immigrant rights.

…

Cavazos says the People’s Patrol includes 180 people, all volunteers. The center holds trainings for the work every other Friday.

As the volunteers go about their daily lives, they all keep an eye out for immigration enforcement activity. Some make a point of driving past parking lots and businesses where the federal authorities typically gather before a day’s operations.

The ICE officers usually drive unmarked vehicles. But People’s Patrol volunteers sometimes manage to tail them. If the officers stop a motorist or try to take people from a house or workplace, the volunteers send an alert through a Facebook page and through text groups.

“We’ll send people to go check it out,” Cavazos says. “We want to go in and show the community ‘Hey, we got your back.’ We’re in the midst of a historic fight-back right now against ICE. We’re not going to leave any space to ICE. The People’s Patrol is there to fill these spaces of terror and fear with solidarity and strength.”

Chicago organizer Kelly Hayes has posted about her efforts:

I left my apartment on foot, in the clothes I had slept in, and made my way up Clark Street, watching for any signs of ICE. When I saw a suspicious vehicle, I relayed what I’d seen through neighborhood channels that coordinate ICE watch activity. When I reached the intersection of Clark and Lunt, where the abductions had occurred, other neighbors, including some old friends of mine, were already assembling and taking directions from local organizers who had been preparing for this moment for months.

While some parts of Chicago have been targeted relentlessly during the recent federal onslaught known as “Operation Midway Blitz,” Rogers Park had seen more scattered reports of ICE activity—until Thursday, when their presence was confirmed at the start of the day with immigration arrests, and continually reported throughout the morning and afternoon. Neighbors fanned out, searching streets and alleyways for any sign of ICE activity, following up on reports, and communicating what we found. Before long, there were dozens, and then hundreds of people in the streets, watching and responding.

“Clark Street was flooded with people,” Daniel*, an activist with Protect RP, told me. “We had over 200 people on the streets. That was power.” Daniel noted that many people left work early, or “dropped whatever they were doing” to join the effort.

Longtime ICE watchers wore bright orange whistles around their necks, which are used to signal the presence of ICE. Newcomers received whistles from volunteers distributing them in the streets, making the crowds of ICE watchers a clear presence. The corridor of businesses on Clark Street, where many immigrants shop and work, was clearly defended by this mass presence.

Block Club Chicago has more on their efforts:

Ravenswood Community Services gathered volunteers Monday evening to assemble 600 whistle kits to pass out to parents and students. Pilsen Arts & Community House has a tutorial how to publish and distribute itsone-page whistle zine, which is available along with other printable resources online, and has been handing out whistle kits to local businesses to distribute.

Belmont Cragin United distributed 5,000 whistles at a recent event and is looking to hand out more than 12,000 by the end of October, said organizer Alonso Zaragoza. The organization recently launched Whistlemania, where volunteers assemble and distribute whistle kits across multiple Northwest Side neighborhoods. Each packet includes information on recognizing federal agents and advice from the ACLU, as well as a whistle to alert others in emergencies or during ICE encounters.
…

A new “walking school bus” program aims to provide a sense of security for families as they go to and from school, Zaragoza said. Seven or eight volunteers will position themselves along school routes, mirroring Safe Passage routes established by Chicago Public Schools. Similar corner watches have launched in Irving Park and Albany Park on the Northwest Side, as well.

“It’s about having bodies out around the school, keeping an eye out and making sure everybody’s safe,” Zaragoza said. “So that the kids who haven’t been going to school in the last couple weeks feel comfortable enough to come back and finish their education.”

After early challenges, the community-led effort is gaining traction as educators and parents work together. “Now the pieces of organizing are starting to fall into place,” Zaragoza said. “Everybody’s clicking together.”

I’ll wrap this section with a public Facebook post from K Hurley Wales:

Yesterday started like many others. Craig made us coffee. My neighbor offered us some freshly baked scones. The girls ate their breakfast, excited for a three day weekend and their daddy’s birthday.

At 8:15 AM, we learned that an elderly man had been tackled by border control in a nearby alley.

At 8:30 AM, ICE detained two landscapers near Foster and Lincoln, a few blocks away. The entire neighborhood came out to help by recording and protesting, one of whom happened to be a WGN producer. She was violently abducted. ICE slammed into a neighbor’s parked car during their rapid getaway and kept right on driving.

At 9 AM, our school principal initiated our rapid response network and hundreds of parent, staff, and communities mobilized to patrol our school in support of our at-risk families and to allow our children to safely play and learn outdoors.

At 10 AM, ICE arrived fully armed near Ravenswood Elementary, a local public school where many of our friends go and teach. I spoke directly with my dear friend who teaches there immediately after it happened and, as you can imagine, she was terrified and traumatized.

At 10:15, ICE was reported outside a local daycare, where many of our neighborhood kiddos go. As the day unfolded, at least 8 of our neighbors were detained, and there were dozens of confirmed ICE sightings outside local schools and businesses. Craig and I spent a collective 10 hours patrolling our daughters’ school. Several schools went into lockdown, following the same protocol response we’d follow for an active shooter.

Chicago and Illinois Elected Officials and Police

The Washington Post claims that Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker “finds his place at the ramparts of the Trump resistance:”

Pritzker has positioned himself among the most visible and unflinching figures of the resistance. The mutual antagonism between him and Trump has escalated to a point rarely seen between a president and the governor of a large state.

A billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, Pritzker will be on the Illinois ballot next year for a third term, but he is also assumed to have national aspirations. He brought his battle cry to the traditional first-in-the-nation presidential primary state of New Hampshire earlier this year.

“It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once,” Pritzker declared in a speech that brought Granite State Democrats to their feet. “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace.”

Pritzker’s rhetoric is aggressive, but the actual steps he’s taking to resist are small beer:

As a governor, Pritzker has little by way of formal power to stand in Trump’s way, but Illinois has joined a lawsuit by state attorneys general against the president’s executive order banning birthright citizenship and led one to block the administration’s freeze on federal grants, which the White House subsequently rescinded. He has also barred rioters pardoned by Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol from holding state government jobs.
…

“One reason that so few people have been picked up is because we have done, I think, a terrific job in our state of educating people about what their rights are,” Pritzker added, including the fact that a detainer issued by ICE does not have the force of a warrant issued by a judge or give agents the power to demand entry into a home.

The city of Chicago has at least deployed its Police Department, per the NY Times, which has come into direct conflict with ICE, although it’s not clear that was intentional on their part:

Federal agents deployed tear gas on Chicago residents and more than a dozen police officers on Tuesday, the latest clash in the nation’s third-largest city as the Trump administration has carried out its immigration crackdown.

The clash began on Tuesday morning when federal agents were seen chasing a car through a working-class, heavily Latino neighborhood on the city’s far South Side, witnesses said. An S.U.V. driven by the federal agents collided with the car they were pursuing, the Chicago Police Department said, sending that car into another vehicle that was parked nearby.
…
As the agents left, they released tear gas, apparently without warning, sending people coughing and running for cover. Among those affected by the gas were 13 Chicago Police Department officers, the police department said, and at least one officer was seen rinsing his eyes out with water from a neighbor’s garden hose.

Chicago PD Pissing Off National Police Union

One sign that the local authorities are at the very least, not helping with Trump’s clampdown is the angry objections of the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) via Fox News:

The nation’s largest police union condemned reports that Chicago officers were told not to help ICE agents surrounded by protesters, calling it “shocking” and a violation of law enforcement’s duty to protect fellow officers in danger.

Presidents of the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and Illinois State FOP expressed shock at reports that Chicago’s chief of patrol directed officers not to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as they were surrounded by protesters on Saturday.

“Details are still emerging, but it appears that officers from the Chicago Police Department were ordered not to assist a group of ICE agents while they were physically threatened by what appeared to be an angry mob,” said National FOP President Patrick Yoes in a press release. “Let me be clear, both the National FOP and the Illinois FOP believe that when an officer calls for assistance, you answer, no matter what.”
…

They cited the Illinois Trust Act, which limits local police involvement in immigration enforcement, and said it is contributing to a breakdown between local and federal law enforcement, particularly in sanctuary cities like Chicago.

Their comments followed Fox News’ report revealing that Chicago police officers were ordered by their chief of patrol not to respond after Border Patrol agents called for help, saying they were boxed in and surrounded following a ramming incident outside the city, according to multiple federal and Chicago law enforcement sources.

Fox News reviewed the computer-aided dispatch message sent to Chicago police officers by their chief of patrol. It instructed officers not to respond to a Saturday morning ramming incident on the southwest side of the city in which an armed woman was shot and agents were boxed in and surrounded.

The Chicago Police Department issued a statement on Sunday disputing claims that officers failed to respond, saying they were on the scene to maintain public safety and document the incident.

“To clarify misinformation currently circulating, CPD officers did in fact respond to the shooting scene involving federal authorities on Saturday to maintain public safety and traffic control,” the department said.

According to Seymour Hersh, the Trump administration is reportedly using these actions in Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. as a setup for more ambitious moves:

The Trump administration is playing another long game, or trying to, in the streets of US cities under Democratic Party governance, using existing presidential emergency powers to send National Guard, Army troops and ICE agents to hunt down and arrest suspected undocumented immigrants and detain and deport them, without the due process demanded by the Constitution. What’s happening now may be a trial run for the use of those forces to interfere on the behalf of the president and the Republican Party in states where the Democratic Party has a chance to win crucial seats in next fall’s Congressional elections.

None of this is going in a good direction, and I must commend the discipline of Chicago activists who have been restrained and seemingly effective in their ad hoc resistance efforts. I’m more skeptical of the efficacy of the actions taken by their elected representatives and local law enforcement.

Update: Found this Common Dreams post by way of Naked Capitalism:

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is warning top lieutenants of President Donald Trump’s violent and unlawful immigration enforcement policies that they will not always have the protection of presidential immunity and that lawmakers in the future will seek to hold them to account for their behavior, including unlawful orders given at the behest of the president.

With episodes of violent raids, unlawful search and seizures, and the mistreatment of immigrants, protesters, journalists, and everyday citizens, Pritzker, in a Thursday evening interview on MSNBC, specifically named White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, border czar Tom Homan, and Gregory Bovino, the Customs and Border Patrol commander operating in the Chicago area, as people whose actions will not be forgotten.

Pritzker said that all the people serving the president, “including all the way down to ICE agents, can be held accountable when there’s a change in administration that’s willing to hold them accountable when they break the law.”

Calling out Miller in particular, the governor charged that the xenophobic Trump advisor, who has been a leading champion and director of the harsh crackdown measures and federal deployments in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Chicago, and elsewhere, has “clearly ordering people to break the law.”

Pritzker: “Stephen Miller is clearly ordering people to break the law. So he should know that yeah, it may be three years from now that he is held accountable, but I think it’s important for them to know that whatever they do now, it’s not like we’re going to forget.” pic.twitter.com/ExpdyijtnO

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 17, 2025

I gotta say this strikes me as foolish. Threatening the White House Deputy Chief of Staff with prosecution serves no one’s interest. If Pritzker gets elected, he should, by all means, prosecute Miller and any other Trump official who violated the law, but in his current position of impotence, it’s best to keep his mouth shut.

There’s every reason to believe that the misguided Russiagate lawfare and impeachment over Ukraine bullshit radicalized Trump and made him more determined to seize the full reins of the Federal government in his second term.

Miller, et al., are chomping at the bit to pre-emptively prosecute Democrats. Pritzker is bringing a knife to a gunfight, something any Chicagoan should know not to do.

EU Leaders Determined To Win “Most Supine Slave Award”: Nexperia Edition

On October 15, 2025

A couple days ago I discussed the Dutch taking over Nexperia, a Chinese owned but Dutch domiciled company making commodity semiconductors. The company became Chinese owned because it was almost bankrupt, the Chinese bought it, fixed it and kept many jobs in Europe, including the headquarters.

What I didn’t know about the story on Monday is that the Dutch were between a rock and a hard place. The Americans threatened to put Nexperia on the entity list, and thus kill it with sanctions, if it remained Chinese owned. So if the Dutch didn’t kick the Chinese out, it was doomed.

But the Chinese have put a ban on any exports to or from Nexperia (it has facilities in China.) Which means it won’t be able to manufacture anything. So it’s doomed.

Now the important part here is that Nexperia mostly sold semiconductors in Europe. And American sanctions could stop a Dutch domiciled company from selling to other European countries.

That is how supine the EU is. They haven’t put in place a way to resist American sanctions on intra-European trade. That’s hilarious pathetic and servile.

Other Chinese companies will simply produce the chips Nexperia used to, and none of the money for that will go to Europe. This is a loss for the Dutch.

It should also be noted that the Dutch have more companies in China than vice versa. So if China really wants to retaliate, well, they can.

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Europe is being ground between America and China, and ground to dust. The only way to avoid winding up third world nations (I am not being hyperbolic about this) is to get out from in between. All the GDP numbers are fake, they mean NOTHING of importance. All that matters is what you grow, dig up, refine and make. Everything else is nice to have, but ultimately if you can’t produce what you need, you are at the mercy of those who can. Germany, the industrial heart of Europe, is de-industrializing furiously. Everyone else’s industry was already gutted by Germany’s use of the Euro to inflate their costs and move production to Germany.

China has no reason to love Europe, but they’re happy to do business. They offer a better deal than America does right now. Statesmen (of whom Europe has zero) would re-orient and tell America to go take a long leap off a short pier.

And yeah, that means accepting that Russia is going to win the Ukraine war, but, y’know what? It is anyway. And yes some of the Eastern Euros will scream, but who cares, they’re all welfare recipients who couldn’t make a budget without Germany and France subsidizing them. If they want to prioritize hating Russia over saving Europe, kick them out of the EU. Most of them should never have been let in in the first place. Start with the Baltics and Poland.

This is the great power shift, a historic switch of hegemonic powers which only happens every hundred to hundred and fifty years. You can align with the new hegemon and have a chance at prosperity, or you can choose to remain with the old order and suffer serious decline. This is especially true with America, whose current policy amounts to “loot the vassals while we still have them.”

European leaders need to stop being a bunch of supine wimps, and if they won’t, the European population needs to replace them, by whatever means necessary.

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The West Cannot Win A Trade War Against China

On October 13, 2025

So, the Dutch seized a Chinese owned semiconductor company:

The Dutch government seizes control over Nexperia, one of Europe’s biggest chipmaker, owned by China.

Nexperia’s Chinese operations pose a “threat to the continuity and safeguarding on Dutch and European soil of crucial technological knowledge and capabilities.” – 🇳🇱 Gov. pic.twitter.com/0PXmFIVvKp

— NXT EU (@NXT4EU) October 13, 2025

Mistake. Big mistake. And the Dutch will pay for it.

This is a clear escalation in the US/China trade war (the EU are on a leash, they have no independent trade policy.)

Here’s what I want everyone to understand. The Chinese make everything that matters. Not the end products, but the parts. They make the parts required for almost every industry to operate. For decades I inveigled against international trade logistics and the idea that “it doesn’t matter where something is made.”

China spent the last 9 years, since Trump kicked off the trade war era in 2016 with his absolutely moronic Huawei and chip bans, making sure that their supply chains are domestic or in completely trusted allies. (Vietnam is not going to start a trade war with China.) They make everything they need for most of their industries, with only a few exceptions, like commercial jet engines. (They’re working on that, but two or three years out.)

It used to be, for example, that they bought almost all their helium from America. They fixed that, and now make it domestically. This has been systematic. The Chinese looked at their weaknesses in a trade war and fixed almost all of them.

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America did little of significance, though Biden did start a small amount of rare earth and magnet industry. US industries almost all need parts or materials they can only get from China.

If China decides to seriously go to trade war, Western economies will collapse. They will have to shutter most factories, you won’t be able to get parts for household appliances, cars, planes, air conditioners, drying machines. Practically anything. And the West has given away so much basic industry that we’d be rebuilding almost from zero, in many cases. Even the expertise is gone in many industries, or those who have it are in their sixties or older.

If we fight a trade war with China we will be horrifically hurt.

China doesn’t want a trade war, because it will hurt them too. They still sell a lot to the West. But they will survive it far better than we will.

Stop being morons, and make trade-peace.

Is Trump Going To Purge Democrats, Seize Power and Rewrite the Constitution?

On October 12, 2025