Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – June 28, 2026
by Tony Wikrent
Trump administration begins mass layoffs at ODNI
Drop Site Daily, June 23, 2026
The Trump administration has begun mass layoffs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with hundreds of employees expected to lose their jobs, CNN reported Monday.
Acting ODNI Director Bill Pulte, whom President Donald Trump tasked with downsizing the agency, is overseeing cuts expected to hit the National Counterterrorism Center and National Counterintelligence and Security Center, with as many as 400 employees at the counterterrorism center reportedly targeted.
War on voting
The Real Reason Trump Never Stops Talking About Voter Fraud
Jamelle Bouie, June 17, 2026 [New York Times]
… To say, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that there was systematic voter fraud is to lie. And Trump, again, was lying. But he was also making a specific political claim. If there were no shenanigans but there was still “fraud” because the election was “rigged,” then it’s clear that the meaning of fraud has less to do with any particular set of rules and procedures than it does with the more elemental aspects of American political life. And it doesn’t take much work to decipher the president’s conception of “fraud.”
There was a reason, to put it differently, that Trump centered his crusade on ferreting out “illegal votes”; there was a reason he focused on cities with large Black populations like Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee and Philadelphia; and there was a reason that when his supporters fought their way into the Capitol, they unfurled Confederate flags to mark their achievement.The president’s convoluted and false claims about “fraud” were little more than a smoke screen for a more basic claim about who belongs to the community — about who counts as a voter and who counts as a citizen. To say that Democratic victories in Pennsylvania or Georgia were the product of fraud in Philadelphia or Atlanta was to say, in short, that the wrong people were voting. And in the same way that Trump’s “birtherism” wasn’t really about whether Barack Obama was born in the United States, his crusade to “stop the steal” wasn’t about the nation’s election procedures. It was a declaration that the only real voters were his own….
“Voter fraud” is not about fraud. It is about who votes and how. It is about the breadth and scope of the political community. It is, as with most MAGA obsessions, about who can call themselves Americans — entitled to govern as equals — and who are mere subjects. Trump’s obsession with voter fraud is just another expression of the reactionary populist belief that the people who inhabit a place are not equivalent to the people, who are entitled to rule.We should treat this contretemps in Los Angeles, as silly as it is, as a dress rehearsal for what will probably happen in November, if and when Republicans lose control of Congress. Any result short of victory for Trump and his allies will be denounced as “fraud.” Not because there is anything wrong with the system, but because, as they see it, this is their country and theirs alone.
Brad Reed, June 25, 2026 [CommonDreams]
Letters from an American, June 24, 2026
Heather Cox Richardson, Jun 25, 2026
… this morning at 9:49, Trump suddenly announced he will not sign the bill into law until Congress passes the so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE or SAVE America Act, that he keeps pushing….
Then, at 10:26, he posted: “Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
That language is important. Since retaking office in 2025, Trump has used official emergency declarations at an unprecedented rate in order to claim emergency powers under which he can ignore laws. Although the Republicans hold a majority in both the House and the Senate, meaning Trump could work with Congress to pass legislation, he and his advisors appear to be applying the strategy of Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt.
Much of Schmitt’s philosophy centered around the idea that in a nation that is based in a constitution and the rule of law, power belongs to the man who can exploit emergencies that create exceptions to the constitutional order, enabling him to exercise power without regard to the law. Trump—who himself almost certainly has not read Schmitt—asserted this view in August of last year when he said: “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country’s in danger—and it is in danger in the cities—I can do it.”
Alex Kaplan of Media Matters notes that since Trump took office in 2025, his loyalists have urged him simply to declare a national emergency in order to justify dictating new voting and election rules to the states.
The U.S. Constitution gives to the states the authority to conduct elections, but the Trump administration wants state voter lists, at least in part so it can run them through a tool designed to find noncitizens who might have applied for benefits for which they’re ineligible. That system, known as Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements and, confusingly, also abbreviated as SAVE, is not designed for voter rolls, and as Liz Dye explained today in Public Notice, it explicitly did not cover U.S. citizens.
But, Dye explains, between last April and last August, employees of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Department of Homeland Security, and the Social Security Administration linked the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements to the master file from Social Security, called NUMIDENT. Then they reprogrammed SAVE to upload voter rolls for mass citizenship screening.
Certain Republican-dominated states, like Texas, handed over their voter rolls. An investigation by Jen Fifield of ProPublica and Zach Despart of ProPublica and the Texas Tribune in February showed that when used to try to identify noncitizen voters, the system had an error rate of at least 14%, misidentifying legal voters as illegal ones.
In addition to the system’s inaccuracy, the uploading of the files, Dye notes, was “a gross violation of the Privacy Act of 1974,” which prohibits the government from repurposing an individual’s data for a new use without notice and without providing for 30 days of public comment….
Marc Elias: The Stakes in November – The famed election lawyer sizes up where we stand
Win McCormack, June 26, 2026 [The New Republic]
War
Negotiating Without Leverage And With Lies – What We Are Seeing Is Astonishing For The USA
Phillips P. OBrien, June 24, 2026 [via Letters from an American, June 24, 2026]
… Personally, I have never seen the US in such a position of weakness.
Because the US has no significant leverage over Iran, the Trump administration (as it has been for months, it needs to be said) will simply have to dissemble about non-existent Iranian concessions to try and make it seem that they have not been completely routed. And that is the second part of this update. The US government has reached the stage where the default assumption must be that it is lying when it comes to Iran making any concessions. For months the Administration has been claiming that Iran was agreeing to this concession or that concession—and none of these claims has been true. Now that the US has even less leverage, the lies will probably get larger.
We are witnessing the most extraordinary negotiating moment in the history of US foreign relations, and that alone makes it worthy of note….
Simplicius [via Naked Capitalism 06-22-2026]
The underlying report: How Iran Devastated an American Naval Base—and Caused a U.S. Recalculation
[Wall Street Journal, via Naked Capitalism 06-27-2026]
Trump not violating any law
‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’
Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025
The Prairieland Sentences Are a National Emergency
Melissa Gira Grant, June 25, 2026 [The New Republic]
A federal court has punished Texas ICE demonstrators with decades in prison. This is dark news, not just for them but for anyone who may want to register political dissent.
Seth Stern, Jeremy Busby, June 26 2026 [The Intercept]
Hussein Askary@HusseinAskary
You will only read it here! President Trump has quitely and without any news reporting renewed Executive Order 13303, which puts all Iraqi oil revenues under his control. There has not been a single news item or White House press release since Trump signed the renewal in early May, 2026.When Iraq sells oil to foreign companies, including the largest buyers, the Chinese, they deposit the money in a bank account in the New York Federal Reserve branch, not in an Iraqi bank. That account is controlled by the U.S. President and U.S. Treasury. EO 13303 was first signed by President George W. Bush in May 2003 after the illegal invasion of Iraq. All American presidents have since then ritually renewed it in May of every year under the guise of “national security emergency”. The details of how this was done and why it is not legal have been explained by myself in different media. The Iraqi government has not dared to challenge this political and economic crime to the extent that Trump in March this year said that he did not want Nouri Al-Maliki (winner of elections last October) to become the new prime minister of Iraq. And the Iraqis obeyed. I explain some of the details in this previous interview: youtube.com/watch?v=5s96Cp
Strategic Political Economy
Meet the megadonors pouring more than $1.3 billion into the 2026 election
The top donors in American politics have poured more than $1.3 billion so far this cycle into influencing the country’s politics, according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission data.The donors lean Republican and cash could prove critical for the GOP to maintain control of Congress in November. In the first half of 2026, Republican-leaning donors gave $880 million, compared to $290 million from Democratic-leaning givers and $200 million from bipartisan and special interest groups.But most of the money, regardless of affiliation, was given to super PACs that can legally accept unlimited sums….
Global power shift
TABLE: Understanding Trump’s Iran Deal: A Quick Guide
Molly Ploofkins [via The Big Picture, June 21, 2026]
China plans postwar aid for Iran, with eye on energy supply
[Nikkei, via Naked Capitalism 06-24-2026]
The Paradigm’s Changing: China’s Suggestion
Karl Sanchez [via Naked Capitalism 06-24-2026]
…with the publication of the White Paper, an introduction can be made to:
China’s principles, proposals and actions in global governance, foster broader consensus within the international community, ensure more effective responses to global challenges, and build a more just and equitable global governance system.
The White Paper provides us another opportunity to learn what China’s governing group thinks about the global situation and what their policy approaches based on that thinking are so we not only learn but can better predict China’s stance on other non-related issues. In fact, that’s what all China’s White Papers provide and are must reads for anyone serious about learning about contemporary China. That archive is here….
DARPA needs new powerful batteries for the Department of War. But China just built them
Kevin Walmsley [via Naked Capitalism 06-23-2026]
Oligarchy
Techno-oligarchy and privatization of sovereignty: the new phase of capitalism
[rebelion-org, via Naked Capitalism 06-27-2026]
… We are facing a new economic elite with enormous economic power and influence, extending far beyond the known boundaries of private enterprise. These are major players in the technology sector who control digital platforms, artificial intelligence, powerful communication networks, and certain productive sectors such as the automotive and aerospace industries. They provide information on completed projects in which the administration is directly involved due to the lobbying activities of these magnates. One of the top figures recruited from Wall Street in all these processes involving the Pentagon is George K. Kollitides II, director of the Economic Defense Unit. This is a new institution whose objective is to integrate economic, financial, and industrial elements into U.S. national security. This financier comes from the private sector, having been a top executive at Cerberus Capital Management, and his mission is to mobilize strategic investments to strengthen the U.S. industrial base.
The causal chain being driven is this: the Pentagon drafts the clauses, techno-oligarchs manage the investment funds, Palantir scrutinizes the situation, Nvidia supplies information and data, and the Treasury completes the bureaucracy. Economic history provides inspiration: a 2010 study by T. Roy at the London School of Economics ( Rethinking the Origins of British India: State Formation and Military-Fiscal Undertakings in an Eighteenth Century World Region , Working Papers, 142/10) already outlines this scheme of combining economic, financial, and industrial power in a national security strategy, with the British East India Company playing a leading role, operating from the 18th century until its dissolution in 1874. Some analysts have invoked this analogy. It is the use of private capital and financial expertise to support lucrative state objectives. a hybrid between State and market (on all this, see E. Morozov, “Faced with Beijing, Washington has a plan”, Le Monde Diplomatique , June 2026)….
Elon Musk, Trillionaire Politics, and the Rise of Techno-Fascism
Henry A. Giroux, June 23, 2026 [LA Progressive]
Musk’s rise is not a triumph of individual initiative or entrepreneurial genius. It is the product of a social order in which public resources, state subsidies, collective labor, and technological infrastructures are privatized and redirected toward the enrichment of a tiny oligarchic elite. He despises the social contract because it places obligations on wealth and imposes democratic limits on power. As Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff note in Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, in its place, Musk advances a far-right vision that fuses state power with technological control, elevates algorithmic governance over democratic accountability, and normalizes racialized exclusion as a principle of social order. Musk’s political project promises freedom while producing new forms of dependence, claiming to democratize technology even as it concentrates unprecedented power in private hands.
Elon Musk and the trillionaire class test democracy’s limits
[Salon, via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2026]
Zuckerberg’s increasingly bizarre war on whistleblowers
Cory Doctorow, June 27, 2026 [Pluralistic]
… in the UK, Zuckerberg’s war on whistleblowers keeps finding new, ice cream grade depths of absurdity to plumb. The whistleblower in question is, of course, Sarah Wynn-Williams, author of the internationally bestselling memoir Careless People, which details the criminality she witnesses during her years as the head of Facebook’s international relations team:
https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/23/zuckerstreisand/#zdgaf
Careless People is full of revelations about the gross institutional misconduct of Facebook, including its knowing encouragement of a genocide in Myanmar. But it’s also full of stories about the severe personal failings of Facebook’s executive team, especially Sheryl Sandberg, Joel Kaplan and Mark Zuckerberg.
These three come off as the most colossal of assholes, cruel, petty and predatory. Sandberg comes across as a sexual abuser who dreams of trafficking in poor people’s organs. Kaplan is an oaf whose plan to provide paid internet access to refugee camps falls apart once he learns that refugees in camps don’t have any money (he also takes points off of Wynn-Williams’ workplace evaluation for being “unresponsive” over a period when she was in a near-death coma). Worst of all, though, is Zuckerberg, whose sins range from cheating at Settlers of Catan to endangering the Colombian peace process after a 50-year civil war because he refused to get out of bed before noon. Zuck is also revealed to have given the Chinese state access to all of Facebook and the power to censor content they disliked, as part of a failed bid to get permission to offer a Facebook service in China.
It’s a terrible company, with awful products, run by the worst people. Wynn-Williams’ conditions of employment required her to sign a contract that bound her to silence (nondisclosure), forbade her from speaking ill of the company (nondisparagement), and denied her access to the legal system in all her dealings with Meta (binding arbitration).
Together, these three clauses – routinely used by Meta to silence would-be whistleblowers – meant that after Wynn-Williams’s book was published, Meta got its arbitrator – a lawyer who is paid by Meta to adjudicate contractual disputes instead of an actual judge – to order her to never promote or even speak about her book.
The arbitrator awarded Meta $50,000 for each criticism that Wynn-Williams levied, quickly coming to a total of over $11,000,000. This vastly exceeds the assets and lifetime earning potential of Wynn-Williams and her husband (a reporter with the Financial Times). If this bill ever truly comes due, they will be wiped out….
when she was booked to speak – about a subject other than her book – at the Hay Festival on a stage with Tim Wu and Carole Cadwalladr, Meta sent a legal threat to the festival and Wynn-Williams, claiming that if by speaking about anything in public, she would violate the arbitrator’s order. Accordingly, Wynn-Williams maintained total silence and a blank facial expression for an hour on stage, saying not one word, while Wu and Cadwalladr carried on a discussion. Careless People was withdrawn from the festival bookshop on the days she appeared there:
Nevertheless, Meta has informed Wynn-Williams that her silent, motionless appearance on a stage constitutes a further breach of her “agreement” and that they are going to seek even more damages from her. This act of anti-ice cream thuggery has pushed Wynn-Williams over the edge and now she’s sued to invalidate her contract:
Her lawyers have posted their documents related to the suit, including a 285-page declaration by Wynn-Williams explaining the great lengths she’s gone to in order to comply with Meta’s demands, and the company’s absolute intransigence and arbitrary menace:
https://katzbanks.com/sarah-wynn-williams-meta-lawsuit-documents/ ….
Apocalypse Early Warning System
[Apocalypse Early Warning System, via The Big Picture, June 21, 2026]
In the event of an imminent nuclear apocalypse, we suspect that many people who have access to private jets will immediately take to the skies and escape city centers. This site tracks this indicator in realtime. The current emergency level is reported on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being an indicator of a likely imminent apocalypse. Kyle McDonald’s running tracker of civilizational risk indicators — climate, financial stress, geopolitical tail risks — in one place. Bracing and useful.
Felonomics
US manufacturing jobs fall at fastest rate since the pandemic
[Financial Times, via The Big Picture, June 25, 2026]
US army bases to host critical minerals plants in onshoring push
[Mining.com, via Naked Capitalism 06-27-2026]
The carnage of mainstream neoliberal economics
Report: The States Where Corporate Landlords Own the Most Housing
[Governing, via Naked Capitalism 06-22-2026]
They’re not capitalists — they’re predatory criminals
Exec Sentenced for Embezzling Millions From CFA Institute
[Chief Investment Officer, via Naked Capitalism 06-24-2026]
[CFA = Chartered Financial Analyst.]
How Jeffrey Epstein’s Israeli Network Shaped Congo’s Deadly Mineral Trade
Murtaza Hussain and Ryan Grim, June 24, 2026 [DropSite]
Leaked documents reveal how military contractors linked to Israeli intelligence secretly trained a special operations strike force in mineral-rich eastern Congo.
Restoring balance to the economy
What Amish Country Can Teach us About The Future of Rail
[The Transit Guy, via Naked Capitalism 06-22-2026]
…Lancaster has the second-highest rail ridership of the 14 Amtrak stations in Pennsylvania, beating out much larger cities like Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. It sees 1,255 riders a day, averaging 44 riders per train served. In fact, of the top 25 Amtrak stations in the country, Lancaster ranks fifth per capita.
What’s happening in Lancaster isn’t a happy accident. It’s a repeatable formula for regional success I hypothesize as the “Lancaster Model”. For a city to replicate these numbers, it must meet four specific criteria:
The Four Criteria
- Satellite Geography: Located 50–100 miles from a Tier-1 metro (the “Sun”).
- Frequency Floor: Must be frequent enough to be useful (>10 round trips daily). No “peak-only” service.
- The Connected Urban Anchor: The station must be in a walkable, gridded core, not a highway island.
- The Speed Rule: The train must beat or be equal to the car. This requires electrification and high-level platforms to minimize “speed sinks” like slow acceleration and long dwell times….
The United States Can Afford to Modernize Itself. Capital Simply Refuses to Pay
William Murphy [via Naked Capitalism 06-27-2026]
Creating new economic potential – science and technology
The best accidents in science: 20 discoveries that changed the world without meaning to
[Quartz, via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2026]
Egypt Targets 60% Renewable Electricity by 2040
Felicity Bradstock, June 28, 2026 [oilprice.com]
… While Egypt continues to rely heavily on fossil fuels, that could soon change thanks to high levels of private investment in green energy, supported by favourable national policies.
Egypt has significant potential to develop its solar and wind energy sectors, thanks to its favourable geographical conditions, with abundant land, including arid deserts, sunny weather, and high wind speeds. The North African country has some of the highest solar irradiance levels in the world, with between 2,000 and 3,200 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per square meter annually…. The government aims to generate 42 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and increase this to 60 per cent by 2040….
Egypt has already developed several large-scale renewable energy projects, including the 1.8GW Benban Solar Park, which is set for expansion. Meanwhile, AMEA Power’s additional 2 GW project with 900 MWh of battery storage and a 500 MW facility at the Abydos Kom Ombo Solar PV Park are under development….
Disrupting mainstream economics
Objectively Yours – Alan Greenspan’s Legacy
John Ganz, June 26, 2026 [Unpopular Front]
…Greenspan was certainly polished and respectable, but, as every obituary notes, he was part of Ayn Rand’s inner circle. Rand essentially ran a libertarian cult that inculcated its members in a philosophy of extreme selfishness. While Rand had many famous fallings out with disciples, their relationship endured and she attended his swearing in as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors the Oval Office in 1974.
It would be grossly inaccurate to say all of Greenspan’s policies were simply downstream from Rand’s “Objectivist” doctrine. On the contrary, he was flexible on questions of dogma. For a Rand publication in 1966, he was writing in favor of the Gold Standard, which seems to be every crank’s favorite monetary idea. “Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard,” he concludes. Of course, you can’t really be a gold bug at the Fed—part of your job is to ensure the liquidity the economy needs not to collapse during a crisis. So, he dropped that part of the Randian doctrine, but he never stopped advocating for laissez-faire principles….
Surely, in his career, he must have encountered the work of Hyman Minsky, who argued that the combination of the Fed’s infusions and deregulation was creating the equivalent of a financial hydrogen bomb. But that would’ve had to involve admitting that the market could be irrational and that was the one thing central view that could not be abandoned. The other problem with Rand cult’s ideology was the essential elitism: the business elite, the 1% if you will, got there from being superior, from being more rational, they were productive and virtuous, and therefore they deserved the Fed’s help. They could be trusted with it because they would always act with their superior self-interest as their guide. When it’s broken down to its essentials, this is not a worldview that should have ever been given serious consideration, no matter the short term success its adherents might demonstrate. It’s a glib and arrogant series of bromides….
Robert Reich, June 22, 2026
But the truth must be told: If any single person was responsible for the financial crisis of 2008, it was Greenspan. That crisis — the worst collapse since 1929, which led to the worst recession in decades, in which millions of Americans lost their jobs, their savings, and even their homes — resulted from the deregulation of Wall Street that Greenspan advocated.
Disrupting mainstream politics
Liberal Elites Promote ‘Abundance,’ But Democratic Voters Want Socialism
[American Conservative, via Naked Capitalism 06-24-2026]
[TW: Like Klein and Thompson, they simply cannot see that the fight is about pushing back and ultimately limiting the power of oligarchs in order to preserve our experiment in republican self government.]
[Pew Research Center, June 10, 2026]
Information age dystopia / surveillance state
Companies That Embraced AI Are Now Rotting Away in a Very Specific Way
[Futurism, via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2026]
The phenomenon, dubbed “knowledge decay,” describes the deterioration of information over time, marked by workers forgetting skills and organizations relying on outdated processes. In the context of AI, it can be a dangerous downward spiral that starts with workers using AI to produce low-quality work, which wastes colleagues’ time, erodes trust, and gradually sloppifies organizational knowledge into worthless soup.
Multiply that by entire departments, and a business’s outputs start to crumble as well, as the Harvard Business Review explains.
How Many Barrels of Oil Do AI Data Centers Consume on a Daily Basis?
James Stafford, June 22, 2026 [OilPrice.com]
Data centers pulled about 415 terawatt-hours off the world’s grids in 2024, according to the IEA.
Run that through the same conversion, and you get roughly 670,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, every day, just to keep the servers humming.
By 2030 the agency expects that to more than double to 945 terawatt-hours, the equivalent of about 1.5 million barrels of oil equivalent a day…
YouTube Lays Claim to Another Crown: The World’s Largest Media Company
[The Hollywood Reporter, via The Big Picture, June 25, 2026]
YouTube had more than $60 billion in revenue in 2025, parent company Alphabet reported last month. Now, the influential financial research firm MoffettNathanson runs the numbers and comes to the conclusion that YouTube’s estimated $62 billion in 2025 will have allowed it to pass The Walt Disney Co.’s media business, which generated $60.9 billion last year (excluding Disney’s lucrative experiences division).
[reclaimthenet.org, June 21, 2026]
Thomas Neuburger, June 25, 2026 [God’s Spies]
Thomas Neuburger, June 16, 2026 [God’s Spies]
Collapse of independent news media
Mark Hertsgaard, June 20, 2026 [The New Republic]
The publisher of The New York Times recently made an extraordinary speech about AI, journalism, and the public square that’s received surprisingly little public reaction. What makes A.G. Sulzberger’s speech extraordinary is that it was unabashedly crusading, and crusading is a stance New York Times publishers have rarely if ever adopted over the newspaper’s 175-year history. What makes the scant reaction surprising is that the speech’s audience—fellow leaders of some of the world’s most powerful news organizations—have a commercial self-interest in the crusade Sulzberger is advocating for. What’s more, the accusations Sulzberger made, the plainspoken language he used, the alleged villains he called out by name—Google, Meta, OpenAI—are the stuff of high drama….
Paramount+ blocks FPF ad about Trump-Ellison censorship threat
[Freedom of the Press Foundation, via Naked Capitalism 06-21-2026]
Climate and environmental crises
Beyond Denial – How Oil Execs Shaped a Landmark Climate Study
Maddie Stone, Drilled; additional reporting by Amy Westervelt, Drilled, and Katie Worth, June 25, 2026 [ProPublica]
Reporting Highlights
- Conflicted Funds: BP sponsored an elite Princeton research center to address the climate problem without getting off fossil fuels, handpicking scientists aligned with their interests.
- A Paradigm-Setting Paper: Princeton scientists who wrote a climate paper criticized as making solutions seem “easy” coordinated with the oil company’s executives and showed them multiple drafts.
- Oversold Solutions: Researchers depicted technology to capture carbon and store it underground as being proven and in use at industrial scale, a characterization that stretched the facts.
The Climate Deception Dossiers
June 27, 2026 [defenddemocracy.press]
For nearly three decades, many of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies have knowingly worked to deceive the public about the realities and risks of climate change.
Their deceptive tactics are now highlighted in this set of seven “deception dossiers”—collections of internal company and trade association documents that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests.
Each collection provides an illuminating inside look at this coordinated campaign of deception, an effort underwritten by ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell, Peabody Energy, and other members of the fossil fuel industry….
Source documents (PDFs)
- Email from Former Exxon Employee Lenny Bernstein
- Deception Dossier #1: Dr. Wei-Hock Soon’s Smithsonian Contracts
- Deception Dossier #2: American Petroleum Institute’s “Roadmap” Memo
- Deception Dossier #3: Western States Petroleum Association’s Deception Campaign
- Deception Dossier #4: Forged Letters from the Coal Industry to Members of Congress
- Deception Dossier #5: Coal’s “Information Council on the Environment” Sham
- Deception Dossier #6: Deception by the American Legislative Exchange Council
- Deception Dossier #7: The Global Climate Coalition’s 1995 Primer on Climate Change Science
- Deception Dossiers: All Documents
High-Resolution Graphics (JPGs)
- Deception Dossier #1: Dr. Wei-Hock Soon’s Smithsonian Contracts
- Deception Dossier #2: American Petroleum Institute’s “Roadmap” Memo
- Deception Dossier #3: Western States Petroleum Association’s Deception Campaign
- Deception Dossier #4: Forged Letters from the Coal Industry to Members of Congress
- Deception Dossier #5: Coal’s “Information Council on the Environment” Sham
- Deception Dossier #6: Deception by the American Legislative Exchange Council
- Deception Dossier #7: The Global Climate Coalition’s 1995 Primer on Climate Change Science
Three everyday oils are driving a global biodiversity crisis
[Earth, via Naked Capitalism 06-24-2026]
Democrats’ political malpractice
Political earthquake in NYC: Here’s what it means
Jordan Zakarin, June 24, 2026 [Progress Report]
- Democratic voters are pissed at an establishment that lost touch with its base
- The base of the Democratic Party is changing demographically
- Party leaders, at least as of last night, still don’t really understand either shift
Prem Thakker and Team Zeteo, Jun 27, 2026
The Mamdani-backed lefty trio talks with Zeteo’s Prem Thakker about universal programs, aid to Israel, AI data centers, and how they plan to shake up DC. Oh, and they also respond to their haters.
How Wall Street Tried Replacing the Civil Rights Movement With Human Resources
Matt Stoller, June 21, 2026 [BIG]
… During the “seven mystic years” between 1866 and 1873, as Dubois called them, the North wrestled with how to reintegrate Southern rebels into the Union, while recognizing that “black folk were men.”
A few years later, this vision lay in tatters. Why? The answer is Wall Street. During the war, the financial district in lower Manhattan had emerged as a gateway to move capital into huge projects, with government financing flourishing. And afterwards, it was a period of booming investment in railroads. But in 1873, Ulysses S. Grant’s administration sought to put the U.S. back on the gold standard, a form of brutal fiscal and monetary austerity.
The giant bubble of railroad financing through Wall Street popped, and America slid into a depression. There was no central bank, no deposit insurance, and corporations were regulated by states, so this downturn was one of the worst collapses in global history, which in the U.S. was known as the Panic of 1873. It fostered wage cuts en masse, and bitter battles as railroads threatened entire cities. Southern states, already economically destitute, defaulted on their bonds, which were owned by capitalists in the North. The multi-racial leadership groups attempting to build schools and welfare states were booted out, in some cases simply murdered, by white supremacist redeemers.
As Dubois noted:
Then came in 1873-76 sudden and complete disillusion not at Negroes but at the world-at business, at work, at religion, at art. A bitter protest of Southern property reenforced Northern reaction ; and while after long years the American world recovered in most matters, it has never yet quite understood why it could ever have thought that black men were altogether human.
The broad disillusionment of a financial crisis and a resulting failure to restore an egalitarian commercial republic eroded faith in equality as a principle….
Taxing Billionaires Is the Easiest Way Democrats Could Gain Voter Trust
Tiffany Muller and Igor Volsky, June 23, 2026 [Talking Points Memo]
… This growing wave of progressive populists understand that raising taxes on billionaires is overwhelmingly popular — 77% of voters support doing so, including 71% of Independents and 65% of Republicans….
INSIDE LABOUR TOGETHER’S SECRET BATTLE AGAINST JEREMY CORBYN
[Declassified UK, via Naked Capitalism 06-26-2026]
McSweeney went on to be Keir Starmer’s chief of staff while Simons became a cabinet minister until he resigned following revelations that he had hired a reputation management firm to “proactively undermine” journalistic investigations into Labour Together, McSweeney and Sir Keir Starmer….
Internal documents detail how Labour Together under McSweeney’s watch (2017-20) conducted polling of the Labour membership to monitor its views on the incidence of antisemitism in the party.
This polling allowed McSweeney and his allies to track responses to the antisemitism narrative that they were simultaneously helping to sustain by placing arguably alarmist stories in the media.
The documents further detail how The Canary media outlet was highly trusted among Labour members and identified as a political challenge because it defended Corbyn amid antisemitism accusations.
The Canary was subsequently targeted by the McSweeney-linked Stop Funding Fake News campaign with an advertiser boycott, which helped to diminish its revenue….
Cory Doctorow, June 22, 2026 [Pluralistic]
… Contrast Lula’s muscular, deliverism-based politics that seeks to improve the lives of working people in tangible, immediate ways with the catastrophic series of blunders that Keir Starmer’s Labour has delivered. Despite having won a majority so large it would have made Saddam Hussein blush (not because Labour was popular, but because the outgoing Conservatives were universally loathed), Starmer has refused to lift a finger to improve Britons’ lives. Instead, he’s abetted genocide, criminalized protest, proposed ending jury trials, imposed austerity, handed the NHS over to Palantir and all the remaining potable water and electrical capacity in the country over to American most unprofitable AI giants.
Starmer’s insistence that we can’t have nice things is bad politics, because (and it’s weird that this has to be said) a government that makes people’s lives worse is less popular than a government that makes people’s lives better:
https://www.whatwelo.st/p/everyone-hates-tech-but-nobody-knows
Now, the right is incapable of making working people’s lives better, because broad improvements to the vast majority necessarily come at the expense of the tiny minority of morbidly wealthy hoarders whom the right serves….
Resistance
A New Era of State Legislative Opposition Has Arrived – Four New Laws That Can Fight Fascism
Christopher Armitage, June 22, 2026 [The Existentialist Republic]
We’ve released substantially expanded, more robust versions of our model legislation. Read them if you want, and share if you think more people should see it. If you want to exercise some serious influence on public policy, you can get them in front of your state representatives. Email, call, text, mail, book meetings, leave it on their car windshield, fold it into a paper airplane and toss it to their staff; all great options.
Look up your representatives at openstates.org, then talk their ear off and advocate for the policies that can change everything.
The four bills are the Fiscal Sovereignty and Election Protection Act, the Bribe Is a Bribe Act, the Child Sex Trafficking Investigation and Accountability Act, and the Corporate Welfare Accountability Act. If you want to see the 125-page academic working paper behind these laws, you can read Oppositional Federalism on SSRN.
Christopher Armitage, June 23, 2026 [The Existentialist Republic]
Nearly every nonviolent campaign that reached the active, sustained participation of roughly three and a half percent of a population achieved its objective, a pattern Chenoweth and Stephan found across 323 campaigns between 1900 and 2006. The exception, Bahrain, exceeded the threshold and failed, and most successful campaigns never reached it at all.
Reaching three and a half percent, then, is not what determines whether a campaign succeeds. In later work, Chenoweth found two things. Nonviolent campaigns succeed less often than they once did: their success rate was highest in the 1990s and has fallen most sharply since 2010. And they have shrunk, drawing in a smaller share of the population than they used to.
Two of my favorite ideas come from outside Chenoweth’s work, and laying them over those findings is the part I find fascinating. The first is the Pareto principle: across many settings, a small share of participants does most of the work. The second is the network effect: each person who joins makes joining safer and more worthwhile for the next, because larger numbers lower the risk to everyone and raise the odds that the movement succeeds….
This is the pattern behind the fall of East Germany. Susanne Lohmann, in “The Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989 to 1991,” World Politics 1994, tracked 42 Monday demonstrations across five cycles and showed the cascade in real time. The earliest protesters were high-grievance radicals who turned out when repression was most likely. Their visible turnout showed everyone else how much opposition existed, which lowered the cost for moderates to join, until the regime lost its viability.
The formal collective-action backbone is Marwell and Oliver, The Critical Mass in Collective Action, 1993, the standard work showing a critical mass of early contributors triggers wider participation when the payoff curve accelerates. And for a modern empirical version on real protest data, Barberá et al, “The Critical Periphery in the Growth of Social Protests,” PLOS One 2015, shows the committed core generates the signal and the periphery spreads it. Across all three, the same pattern matters more than the exact figure, three and a half percent included: a committed minority that persists can draw in a much larger population once it passes a critical point.
A count of participants also understates opposition. Timur Kuran described why a government can appear stable until shortly before it falls: where people fear the state, many conceal their actual views, so observable support exceeds the genuine level. Once enough people reveal those views, the concealment ends quickly, and a population that appeared compliant proves to have opposed the government for years, which is part of why such collapses are difficult to predict.
Concealed opinion is one element. The outcome also depends on the people who carry out the government’s orders. The factor most strongly associated with success in Chenoweth and Stephan’s data is defection. A government’s orders are executed by specific actors: soldiers, police, civil servants, judges, broadcasters, and the firms on which the economy depends. Security-force defections appeared in more than half of the successful campaigns and made a campaign forty-six times more likely to succeed than a comparable campaign without them….
101 Former Judges Ask the New York Bar to Investigate Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche
Joyce Vance, June 24, 2026 [Civil Discourse]
Today, 101 former judges filed a complaint, asking the New York State Bar Attorney Grievance Commission to “initiate an investigation into Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche (Registration No. 4192456) for violation of the New York Rules of Professional Conduct.” The judges are joined by Democracy Defenders Fund and Lawyers Defending American Democracy….
Fighting the Corporate Duopoly at the Ballot Box (w/ Kshama Sawant)
Chris Hedges, June 24, 2026
Kshama Sawant’s revolutionary socialist campaign for Congress shows us how we can turn the weight of the class war back against the billionaires and their political representatives.
Conservative / Libertarian / (anti)Republican Drive to Civil War
The MAGA stars freaked out by their own movement
[Vox, via The Big Picture, June 25, 2026]
Vox on the conservative-media stars who built the audience and are now alarmed by what it’s becoming. The base often outpaces its leaders. The right’s leading lights are looking for anyone to blame for the right’s growing extremism — except themselves.
Massie is the poster child for a particular kind of conservative now emerging in Trump’s second term: influential Trump allies who have sounded the alarm about the right’s direction, but who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that their own actions in the Trump era may have had something to do with it.The examples are mounting. Joe Rogan, who regularly sells his audience on conspiratorial mistrust of official narratives, is now denouncing conspiracy theories about the assassination attempts on Trump. The pundit Ben Shapiro has gone to war against right-wing podcaster Candace Owens, who he now calls an antisemitic crank — while barely acknowledging that he himself played an instrumental role in Owens’s rise. You can even see this happening with Trump himself, who has spent his presidency battling rumors about an elite pedophile network run by Jeffrey Epstein that he helped stoke earlier, and which arose from a MAGA movement he trained to see conspiracy at every turn.
Jessica Corbett, June 26, 2026 [CommonDreams]
After a series of electoral victories for democratic socialists and legal blows to President Donald Trump’s authoritarian agenda this week, the Republican on Friday ranted to a Christian conference that progressives—whom he called “hardcore, godless communists”—are “the most serious threat to our country since its existence, in my opinion, 250 years ago.”
Trump previewed his nearly 50-minute speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s policy conference….
Trump’s Most Sinister Legacy: He’s Brought Out the Worst in America
Ralph Nader, June 27, 2026 [Common Dreams]
[A thorough list of particulars.]
The (anti)Federalist Society assault on the Constitution
Josh Kovensky, June 25, 2026 [Talking Points Memo]
… Within four hours, this case was decided.
That’s a wild level of speed in a decision that saw no adversary. No person or entity opposed the lawsuit or had the chance to do so. The case was filed in a single-judge division, where Judge Reed O’Connor, a reliable administration ally, sits. In less than five hours, he issued a ruling that purported to permanently block the DOJ — under any future administration — from issuing the rule while also annulling it.
Timestamps show that the complaint was filed against the DOJ at 1:51 p.m. At 2:59 p.m., the DOJ and Texas filed a motion jointly asking the court to order what Paxton’s complaint sought. At 6:29 p.m., 278 minutes from the time the case was filed, Judge O’Connor, chief judge in the Northern District of Texas, gave the DOJ and Paxton much of what they asked for….
How John Roberts Court Made Bribery Legal – U.S. Code 666 and the John Robert’s Court
Christopher Armitage, June 26, 2026 [The Existentialist Republic]
Civic republicanism
Elon Musk Confirms Ancient Concerns About the Superrich
David Lay Williams [New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 06-24-2026]
Dr. Williams is a professor of political science who studies the role of economic inequality in the history of political thought….…But of all the numbers I’ve seen, the one that struck me most forcefully was a calculation in The Times that Mr. Musk’s net worth is five million times as large as that of the average American family.As a historian of political thought, I immediately thought of Plato, the first Western philosopher to really grapple with economic inequality. In his “Laws,” through the character of the Athenian Stranger, Plato contended that in a thriving republic, if anyone acquired more than four times the wealth of the poorest citizens, he should donate the surplus to the city. Not five million times the wealth of the typical family — four times the wealth of the poorest….For Plato, the source of inequality was a disease of the soul that the Greeks called pleonexia — a kind of insatiable greed. In Plato’s “Gorgias,” Socrates likened this condition to a leaky jug: No matter how much water one pours into it, it will demand more. For some, the desire for money extends only so far as is necessary to cover their needs; for others, the desire is infinite. Plato likened those insatiable souls to slaves who are ruled by their desires.Someone consumed with his unquenchable desires comes to love himself far beyond what he can feel for the rest of humanity. He was, for Plato, “a poor judge of what is just and good and noble,” because he would always treat his desires as more valuable even than the truth. As a consequence, Plato wrote, “it is impossible that those who become very rich also become good.”Plato’s fears about insatiable greed have been vindicated by Mr. Musk, who has already set his sights on $10 trillion. He has confirmed Plato’s concerns about the moral failures of the superrich by characterizing empathy as “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization.” With his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, he put the U.S. Agency for International Development program “into the wood chipper,” as he gleefully put it, contributing to the deaths of an estimated 600,000 people. Such carnage is a predictable outcome of a society that has chosen to place no upper limits on wealth….David Lay Williams is a professor of political science at DePaul University and the author of “The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought From Plato to Marx.”
“It’s a pretty terrifying time to be a political historian,” Freeman told us in our latest conversation.
“The people who were framing and founding the government believed that what made this government different from a monarchy was the degree to which it was grounded in public opinion,” she added. “But now, the president is openly profiting off the office while destroying and misusing the physical White House as though he owns it, even though it belongs to us. I am angry, because what we’re watching right now isn’t what a president is supposed to be.“ ….
Speaking as an early American historian who spent decades immersed in what the founding generation thought about political power — specifically about executive power — this presidency is entirely out of bounds and beyond anything the founding folk could have conceived of. I’m not an originalist, and I don’t think every single thing they said and did in the founding era needs to be duplicated now, but this is a lot.
What they created in that moment were living documents in a living system. Our system is grounded on checks and balances — the entire system — and right now we have a Congress, with a Republican majority, that isn’t really standing up to do its duties. We have a Supreme Court that’s pretty much in line with the executive.
And then we have an executive and an administration that seem to believe they possess all of the power now. If there’s one thing that the founding folk made clear, particularly the framers of the Constitution, it was a lack of trust in a single individual having a massive amount of power….
spud
Keen’s newest on how to ruin a country, he starts out with the U.K., and it ends in the last 6 minutes or so of what happened under bill clinton, and why i say we can never reverse his policies, we will end up like the U.K..
also if states want to get some sort of civil society back, they better reckon that the states are facing their ottoman empire janissary moment. the police in just this one county, has almost bleed the county dry.
the prosecutors, judges, and politicians know this is going on, and approve of it. the jury system needs to be upgraded to ensure the police and their unions, can’t plant a bootlicker on the jury. even then, the payouts from the fines is enormous, even after stacking a jury.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzRwvdcqA_s
Unlawful Arrest Footage Of Journalist By Police Union President
different clue
Here is a little video of someone at Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission meeting offering the announcement that ” there is no such thing as a Separation of Church and State” and henceforth all governmental policy will or should be based on that fact.
This opinion may be ever-so-exquisitely shyster-legal. Its the kind of thing that the Leo Federalist Society ShysterLegalism agents embedded all over the Judiciary would certainly support and rule in favor of.
These people represent part of the Trump voters who were NOT voting about NAFTA. These are the people who voted and will keep voting for the Christianazification of America. These are the people who would like to send us all to Concentration Bible Camp.
“Dan Patrick: “Separation of Church and state is not in the Constitution” ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1uhkxxa/dan_patrick_separation_of_church_and_state_is_not/
spud
forgot the link to keen,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzvAtOOfhuo
The Shocking Reason Why Keir Starmer Has Resigned: Top Economist
Purple Library Guy
Say, does anyone have any ideas about this weird “Canadian mining company” that’s hiring Kristi Noem as a director and whose other directors are mostly US ex-military guys and whatnot? It feels like some combination of a REALLY BAD front for espionage and just a pump-and-dump scheme that happens to involve high-level Trumpy grifters, but I don’t know.
different clue
Here is a video offering a “slice-of-life” view of some Americans and a “slice-of-living-death” for some other Americans. I will merely offer it without any kind of editorial comment on my part.
“White Folks Are CRYING as Poverty Hits HARD | Black Folks Say They’ve Been Through Worse than This!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUvdt_dV-CM
Since it is one of those African re-aggregators-of-American-made-content videos, it may be as badly mis-titled as most of them are. I offer it in case it becomes never-findable-ever-again, as many things on You Tube become.
In 2026, DemSenate and DemHouse wannabes could run on repealing the One Big Beautiful Bill in its entirety. They could, but they won’t. They could call it the One Big Beautiful Repeal. They could, but they won’t.
The time to have voted Blue no matter who was in 2024. By 2026, there may be nothing whatsoever even left to be saved.. . . . at the “national” “federal” level. People in “Blue-culture” states should vote their hardest for Separate Survival in those Separate States. If they want to vote about “national” “federal” stuff, just to feel good about doing something, they can do that. I will do that. But I will focus on voting my hardest for Separate Survival if any Separate Survival choices exist closer to home.
By the way, why would Mr. Pulte be focusing on firing as many Domestic Counterterrorism workers from the ODNI? I offer the following speculation . . . the Republicanfederate Party and the Conservative Community are planning for the possibility of losing the election so bigly that they can’t pretend they didn’t lose it. If that happens, they will begin organizing terrorist attacks all over America in order to accelerationize breakdown and terrorise citizens into demanding a Real Law and Order Emergency Government. Dismantling the CounterTerrorism workforce would make it easier for the Republicanfederates and the Conservatives to succeed in unleashing the wave of bombings, arson, sabotage, etc., that they will plan to unleash and attempt to carry out. That’s just a theory, but I think it is a good one. It is based in recognizing the reality of what Republicanfederates and Conservatives are in personal-human-quality terms. If you can accept the reality of what they are, you can guess at the possibility of what they will do . . . and how they will plan to prepare for it.
different clue
American Black American poscaster Phillip Scott has lately been making videos about White people who are doing very badly now in this political-economic society. He offers his own theories as to why. I don’t link to very many. People can find them by search-engining Phillip Scott or You Tube Phillip Scott or whatever.
But this one is good enough that I will offer a link to it. He offers any White audience viewers who might be out here . . . some advice on just what it is about The System which isn’t working for them anymore the way it used to, and what sort of re-orientation of basic approach and expectations they might undertake in order to “do something different” in order to “get different results”.
“She Makes More Than She Ever Made In Her Life Still Broke, Anti-Black Racism Is Expensive”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjyg66QZM54
different clue
More on the Crockett-Tallarico-Paxton situation and potential futures in Texas . . .
Podcaster Dr. Omekongo Dibinga begins this videocast by offering his understanding of what Black Texamerica feels has been done to them and why they in general are feeling the way they do.
He then goes on to be very coldly dispassionate and pragmatic and suggests that despite everything, a Senator Paxton would be so vastly worse than a Senator Tallarico that an “avoid-the-greater-danger” approach may be the best approach to raising the chances of mere brute survival over the coming last two years of President Trump. And so he hopes that enough of Black Texamerica and the non-Black communities for Tallarico can somehow come somewhat together just enough to avoid and prevent the genuine disaster of a Paxton victory. He suggests that raising the chances of mere survival should be the political imperative in Texas’s coming Senate election, perfectly understandable deeply-held sentiments notwithstanding.
“Is it on James Talarico or Jasmine Crockett to unite democrats in Texas”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb0vb9kfzv8
spud
different clue:
yep, those 200 reliable blue counties were fire walls against the cranks, charlatans and outright fascists from taking power. bill clintons disastrous polices and obamas betrayal took away those 200 counties ability to earn income, and contribute to americas wealth, driving them into the hands of the fascists.
today texas is teaching the bible in public schools. this will spread to all states. if anyone takes this to court, the evangelical charlatans will win. this court is another democrat betrayal.
you can only imagine citizens of this country, being forced into teachings that are only reserved for churches, having this shoved down their throats.
here is the guy who opened this door,
In 2000, President Bill Clinton highlighted charter schools as a way to improve public education and announced new federal grants and funding increases to support them.
National Archives fordhaminstitute.org
Bill Clinton’s Stance on Charter Schools
In 2000, President Bill Clinton emphasized the importance of charter schools in enhancing public education. He believed that charter schools could provide quality education to all children, regardless of their backgrounds. During his presidency, he announced new federal grants and funding increases to support the charter school movement, which he viewed as a vital component of educational reform.
Religious Charter Schools and Recent Developments
Supreme Court Decisions
The issue of religious charter schools has gained attention due to recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings. Notably, the 2022 case Carson v. Makin established that if states provide funding for private schools, they cannot exclude religious schools from receiving those funds. This decision has led to discussions about the constitutionality of religious charter schools.
Oklahoma Case
In May 2025, the Supreme Court faced a case involving a private Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, which was barred from joining the state’s publicly funded charter program. The tie in the Supreme Court did not set a precedent but indicated ongoing legal debates about the funding of religious institutions.
Implications for Education Policy
The evolving landscape of charter schools, including the potential for religious charter schools, reflects a significant shift in educational policy. While Clinton’s administration focused on secular charter schools, current discussions may lead to a re-evaluation of the separation between church and state in education. This could fundamentally change how public funding is allocated to schools with religious affiliations.
realcleareducation.com Freedom Forum
spud
different clue:
there is no way of getting out of this. your right, concentrate on state and local jurisdictions can mitigate some of it. to much was changed from 1993 on wards. steve keens stunning graphs show what 1993 on wards has led to.
but to survive state and local wise, you need to get the Janissary situation under control.
today the police control just about all state and local decisions. in many locals, the police have a large presence in locals meetings for public input, this of of course to intimidate the locals and the councils. and the police are backed up fully in most cases, by the prosecutors and judges.
———
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, signed by Bill Clinton, included provisions that funded the hiring of 100,000 new police officers and provided significant resources for law enforcement, which some critics argue contributed to the militarization of police forces across the United States. This act is often viewed as a pivotal moment in the expansion of police powers and resources.
Wikipedia FactCheck.org
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, signed by President Bill Clinton, is often cited as a significant factor in the militarization of police in the United States. This act provided substantial funding and resources aimed at enhancing law enforcement capabilities.
Funding for Police: The act allocated resources for hiring 100,000 new police officers across the country.
Increased Law Enforcement Resources: It provided significant financial support for law enforcement agencies, which some critics argue led to the militarization of police forces.
Impact on Police Militarization
The funding and resources from the 1994 Crime Bill contributed to:
Enhanced Equipment: Police departments acquired military-grade equipment and technology, which changed the nature of policing.
Tactical Training: Increased funding allowed for more tactical training, further aligning police practices with military operations.
Critics argue that these changes have led to:
Increased Aggression: The militarization of police has been linked to more aggressive policing tactics, particularly in communities of color.
Public Safety Concerns: The presence of militarized police forces has raised concerns about public safety and community relations.
The 1994 Crime Bill is thus viewed as a pivotal moment that significantly influenced the trajectory of police militarization in the United States.
Wikipedia
The question of whether the militarization of police is unconstitutional is complex and subject to legal interpretation. Key points include:
First and Fourth Amendments: Concerns about excessive force and the right to peaceful assembly.
Judicial Precedents: Courts have ruled on various aspects of police conduct, but there is no definitive ruling on the constitutionality of militarization itself.
Legal arguments regarding the constitutionality of police militarization often focus on the separation of military and law enforcement, as established by the Third Amendment, which prohibits the quartering of troops in private homes. Critics argue that the militarization of police can threaten constitutional rights and public safety, resembling an occupying force rather than a community protector.
FBI pogo.org
The 1994 Crime Bill, signed by Bill Clinton, included provisions that funded the hiring of 100,000 new police officers and provided significant resources for law enforcement, which some critics argue contributed to the militarization of police and increased violence. This law is often associated with rising incarceration rates and a more aggressive policing approach in communities, particularly affecting minorities.
Wikipedia ojp.gov
Critics of the 1994 Crime Bill argue that its emphasis on funding and aggressive policing strategies contributed to the militarization of police. This shift has been linked to:
Increased use of military-grade equipment by local police departments.
A more aggressive approach to law enforcement, which some believe has led to heightened violence in communities.
The bill is often associated with rising incarceration rates, particularly among minorities. This has raised concerns about the long-term effects of such policies on communities and the criminal justice system.
The 1994 Crime Bill contributed to increased police presence in communities of color, which has been linked to ongoing issues of police misconduct and racial profiling. Additionally, the bill’s policies have been criticized for exacerbating mass incarceration, particularly affecting marginalized communities, and fostering an environment where police violence can occur more frequently.
americanprogress.org Brookings
The 1994 Crime Bill significantly contributed to increased incarceration rates in minority communities by implementing harsh sentencing laws, such as the “three strikes” rule, and expanding the use of the death penalty, which disproportionately affected people of color. This legislation led to a dramatic rise in the prison population, particularly among Black and Latinx individuals, due to its tough-on-crime policies and increased policing in these communities.
americanprogress.org baji.org
Statistics on police violence have shown a troubling trend, with incidents of police brutality and excessive force remaining a significant issue in the United States. While specific numbers since the 1994 Crime Bill vary, the perception of police as oppressors, particularly among marginalized groups, has been noted, indicating ongoing concerns about police violence and accountability.
Wikipedia ojp.gov
The 1994 Crime Bill significantly contributed to mass incarceration in communities of color by implementing harsh sentencing laws, such as mandatory life sentences for repeat offenders and expanding the death penalty, which disproportionately affected Black and Latinx individuals. Additionally, it increased funding for policing and prison construction, leading to a rise in incarceration rates among these communities.
americanprogress.org Brookings
———–
and of course, bill clintons corporate run prisons for profit.
Bill Clinton’s administration saw the rise of the private prison industry, which began in the early 1980s with the establishment of companies like Corrections Corporation of America. This trend has led to significant profits for private prison companies, contributing to the ongoing debate about mass incarceration in the U.S.
Mother Jones inthesetimes.com
The private prison industry in the United States began to take shape in the early 1980s, coinciding with Bill Clinton’s administration. This period marked the establishment of companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which pioneered the concept of running prisons for profit.
Early Foundations: CCA was founded by Thomas Beasley, Doctor R. Crants, and T. Don Hutto, and it started operating county jails and juvenile detention centers.
Growth of the Industry: The private prison sector has expanded significantly, with estimates suggesting it generates between $4 billion to $8 billion annually. By 2014, over 131,000 inmates were held in private facilities.
Political Influence: The rise of private prisons has led to increased political influence, as these companies often lobby for policies that support their interests, contributing to the ongoing debate about mass incarceration in the U.S.
Impact on Incarceration Rates
The expansion of the private prison industry has been linked to the broader issue of mass incarceration. Critics argue that the profit motive encourages the incarceration of more individuals, often disproportionately affecting communities of color.
Statistics
Year Inmates in Private Prisons Percentage of Total Inmates
2014 131,000 8%
The establishment and growth of the private prison industry during Bill Clinton’s administration have had lasting implications for the U.S. criminal justice system, raising concerns about the ethics of profiting from incarceration and its impact on society.
Wikipedia CNBC
Bill Clinton’s policies, particularly the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, contributed to the growth of private prisons by providing significant funding for prison expansion and implementing tough sentencing laws like the “three strikes” rule. This legislation incentivized the construction of new facilities and increased the overall prison population, benefiting private prison companies.
interrogatingjustice.org BBC
Profit-driven incarceration raises significant ethical concerns, including the prioritization of corporate profits over inmate welfare, which can lead to unsafe and inhumane conditions. Additionally, it creates financial incentives for companies to lobby for stricter laws, contributing to mass incarceration and undermining justice.
ACLU Ohio ciceroinstitute.org
————
the task of creating any type of civil society at state and locals levels, is a monumental task because of the policies that were embedded into america from 1993 on wards, is going to be tough, to almost impossible to over come.
you have to first remove the occupying army. minneapolis is finding this out the hard way. they are being forced by the courts, into increasing the police force size by about 200 more cops. whilst trying to get over time under control, which is bleeding to city dry.
my hunch is the police union is behind this.
different clue
@spud,
It may be “difficult-to-impossible”, but it is worth trying with any spare energy and time we might have after investing our main time and energy in RegionaLocal Mutual Co-Survivalism. If we surrender without even a counter-effort, we will never know if we might have won if we had figured out something effective to do and done that.
I hope people will submit genuine ideas and information here in these threads that might assist other people reading that material in taking it back into the MeatSpace Analog Realisphere. Before the Internet is shut-down or drowned in shit once and for all.
This Weekly Wrap Up and the Open Thread might be the best place to leave such comments with a suitable header to make them easiest to find. That would make any “look-back ” brute-force searching easier for people to do if and when they so choose.
And as long as at least some people are writing high-information comments-worth-reading, there is a chance that others may come here from elsewhere to read them.
Usually I try writing my comments with the following thought in mind: what if 150 million counterMAGA Americans were reading this comment? Would it provide something that some of those 150 million could take up, adapt, use, weaponize, disseminationize, viralize and spread if they so chose?
different clue
I like Belle of the Ranch Videos. They are much more info-dense than Beau of the Fifth Column videos were.
Here is one called: ” Let’s talk about the GOP’s Five Year Plan for Social Security”.
Yes, lets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G0hnia7HLo
It offers something for Democrats to run against. It offers something for Dem Socialists and Social Dems to bash mainstream Dems with in every upcoming primary, by reminding every potential primary voter that Clinton and Gingrich were co-conspiring to privatise Social Security until Monica Lewinsky diverted Clinton’s attention and energy.
The Catfood Democrats share the Republicans’ goal of privatising Social Security. The only reason they couldn’t come together to achieve it is that each Party wanted to be the Great Historical Grand-Bargain Party who put their name on the Privatization. And the other Party would rather sabotage the conspiracy at any given moment rather than let the “other other” Party get the credit.
different clue
Here is a video of Justice Thomas walking through the GOP House leadership offices part of the Capitol Building. Just listening to a reporter’s questions and answering none of them. And he isn’t even mad. He is just laughing. He knows who has power here and who does not.
“Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas caught walking through the House side of the Capitol where the Speaker’s and GOP Reps’ offices are. He didn’t say why he was there, replying that he was meeting with “nobody.””
https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1uj6ek6/supreme_court_justice_clarence_thomas_caught/
If the Dems get maforities in 2026, many of the people voting for Dems will be voting for cheaper eggs and cheaper gas. Many of them won’t know what a “republic” is and many of them will not even be able to spell it. So if DemElecteds want to do a thorough disinfection and fumigation of Federal Governance, they will have to make the cheaper eggs and gas community happy fast enough to even buy themselves time for governmental decontamination and fumigation.
somecomputerguy
Objectivists like the gold standard, because it has so much history that it is easy to pretend that the gold standard provides an objective measure of value.
I think this is really the fatal weakness of Ojectivism; All value is collectively constructed.
different clue
I think it would be very funny if a great depression resulted in unemployable Philosophical Objectivists standing by the roadside holding signs saying: ” Will explain Philosophical Objectivism for food.”
different clue
Here is a different content creator/ videocaster talking about the Talarico-Paxton election and who does or does not owe what to whom. She does not tell any listeners, or even hint to any listeners, that they should not vote for Talarico. What she does say is that since Talarico won the nomination, it is Talarico’s responsibility and mission to figure out how to approach the Black Texas voter community and convince them to vote for him.
Since she says all that, and other things too, better than I could re-say or paraphrase them, I will go straight to offering the name and link to the videotalk. It is about 4 minutes long, which is not an unendurable burdensome chunk of time.
“Black Women Don’t Owe James Talarico a Campaign”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R7gPcY0HH8
different clue
Here is a video of an active-duty military person making a video of himself calling for the Impeachment of Trump. That’s taking a real career-risk, as he knows just exactly how the TrumpAdmin will respond to his video.
“An active-duty Air Force Major calls for the impeachment of Donald Trump”
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1ukx6js/an_activeduty_air_force_major_calls_for_the/
It reminds me of a joke I read somewhere. An Army General and a Marine General were bragging at eachother over whether Soldiers or Marines could show more courage. So they ordered their respective Enlisteds to do this and that as competing displays of courage.
Finally, the Army General ordered an Army Private to “climb that tallest tower, take off your helmet, do a dive jump and land on your head.” The Private said ” Sir! Yes Sir!”, did it and died. And the General said ” see what courage?”
So the Marine General ordered one of his privates to do the very same thing, and the Marine Private said: ” Sir! Fuck you, Sir!” And the Marine General turned to the Army General and said: ” now, THAT’S courage.”
different clue
Here is a video I found pointing up the basic racism and anti-human spitred and hatred at the center, base and core of KlanMAGA NaziTrumpism. Not every vote for Trump was economics-based. Millions of those votes were pure Race-based, and nothing else.
Not one thing else.
“MAGA Voters Are Mad That Black People Aren’t Suffering And Complaining over Trump Being Elected”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cihrNp6af7s
These are the people who voted deliberately and on purpose to release the leopards to eat MY face. So let their own leopards, which they deliberately and with malice aforethought, eat THEIR face inSTEAD. Because, after all, its THEIR leopards which THEY voted to release against US on PURPOSE.
I hope the 2026 election can be the start of a rolling wave of purification and decontamination by US against THEM. Because, as Yoda said to young Luke Skywalker . . . ” We? WE!? US or US NOT. There is no ‘we’.”
Mark Level
Why hasn’t Trump been removed by the 25th Amendment yet?
Shocking video out today, July 2, on Judge Nap with Pepe Escobar: Trump goes to the Theodore Roosevelt National Museum and interacts with an AI version of T.R., believes they have had a real conversation!! Why the Panama Canal is one of TR’s greatest feats. He wants to ask TR about the cowardly Dummocrats “giving the Canal away to Panama for $1”!!, an atrocity. He thanks the AI for its “time.”
He goes out to talk to the CHUDs outside, reports their friendly conversation as Presidents, and that Teddy “fought against Communism”, only maybe a word in a book by Marx when TR was alive.
It’s in the last 6-7 minutes of the Judge Nap video here. DJT beyond Grandpa Simpson level dementia, at a Joe Biden level, or higher.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjUQc8C6gBs
different clue
Here is a tiny ” citizen video” taken in Jackson , Mississippi. To the best of my memory, Jackson is a majority-Black-population city. Last I knew, their Black mayor was Socialist.
But that is just memory, too.
Anyway, here is the several-second video from BlackPeopleofReddit:
“In the heart of Mississippi”
https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleofReddit/comments/1ult806/in_the_heart_of_mississippi/
One wonders if people living or travelling within a reasonable distance of Jackson, Mississippi could make a special point of going there as often as feasible and buying something, to show real material support for the people who back this sentiment and put up a sign about it. It could be a ” reverse-boycott” , i. e. , supporting what people want more of.
different clue
Here is a Belle of the Ranch video telling us in briefest about Trump having an AI ” talking Teddy Roosevelt” generated with a talking Trump generated along with it so they could ” talk” to “eachother”.
She spends most of the video explaining and describing TR’s views on a few relevant things and stuff, with quotes where appropriate. She opines that TR would not have approved of Trump nor wanted him to be President, which seems like a reasonable opinion to me. It also gives a hint of how a number of New Deal concepts went right back to some of TR’s thinking.
“Let’s talk about Trump talking to AI Teddy Roosevelt and what Teddy really said about Trump-types…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t283bdngQ38
different clue
Here is a little ABC video about tourists at Trump’s ” DC Fair”. I noted two interesting little observations. The newsperson was interviewing a mother ( with her child) up from Jacksonville, Florida . . . and the woman from Jacksonville said that the heat in Washington was heatier than the heat in Jacksonville. ( heatier is my word, so far not in general use by anyone except me).
And between timepoints 1:37 and 1:47, she interviewed an Albertan wearing a ” Make Alberta Great Again” red hat. I hadn’t expected that.
“Great American State Fair attendees try to navigate through DC’s intense heat wave”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTGGyOSeNSQ
I really wish the MAGA movement had organized a Million MAGA March for July 4th in DC. The thought of a million MAGAs right there in that heat is so delicious.
different clue
I saw very recently a Black content creator saying that Asian owners-of-stores-in-Black-neighborhoods are beginning to make pre-emptive accusatory videos about Black people supposedly threatening to burn and loot Asian-owned stores.
This content creator said that Black people have not said anything remotely like that and that no actual factual video of any Black person saying that will be findable anywhere. She then went on to claim that Asian store owners will soon start burning their own stores and/or arranging for false-flag “lootings and robberies” in order to collect insurance payouts before their businesses flatline so totally down to zero that there is nothing left for insurance to payout on. She then warns insurance companies to vastly ramp up their “due diligence and fraudwatch” teams to pre-emptively spot such Asian-business self-arson and/or self-looting/breaking in . . . so as to be in a position to refuse payout if the burndown or looting was indeed self-inflicted or false-flag. I don’t know if any insurance personnel will have watched her video. But maybe they will start thinking independently in these terms their own selves.
Black neighborhood boycotters might be well advised to set up their own seamless and unimpeachable 24/7 video surveillance of these stores and businesses so as to have a seamless wall-to-wall video-record of the total absence of any Black person anywhere near a store when it “mysteriously” starts burning. Not to say that they would take my advice or even see it in these threads.
different clue
Here is a little newsblatt before it disappears back into unfindability.
” ‘They’re not wearing those red hats anymore’: Fmr. ND Senator on economic struggles in rural America ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2UoKuCM1ME
This news report focuses on North Dakota. I suspect the percent of KlanMAGA racists in North Dakota is rather lower than in a place like Missouri and etc. And the percent of Trumpanon cultists would be rather higher.
In any event, IF the Dems win veto-proof majorities of both Houses, I wish they would tailor their ‘policies’ to benefit only people who elected Democrats. I wish they would keep the Trump Poverty Policies as much in effect as possible for still-Republicanfederate voting zones to push them into either abject submission or functional extinction. And IF a KlanMAGA Christianazian district or state converts itself to decent American, Then and ONLY then should policy permitting recovery from poverty be extended to those places.
It does no good to “recover and repair” America if the KlanMAGA Christianazians and the Militant Backwardite Stupidite Retardates are allowed to remain in socially functional existence. If they are not “exterminated” from existence, they will bide their time and prepare to try it all again and make sure they succeed totally.
different clue
Here is another video I found on reddit which I will offer before it disappears into the fog of unfindability.
It is of a DemParty Congressman earnestly looking into the camera and telling us about something pretty boring but pretty important in its own way. It is emblematic of how the TrumpAdmin operates ( and what the Republicanfederates, Trumpanons, KlanMaGAs , etc. all approve of).
“Congressman Jared Huffman (Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee) has released a staff report detailing how the official, non-partisan celebration of America’s 250th anniversary was compromised by a private shadow organization.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/SipsTea/comments/1um707g/congressman_jared_huffman_ranking_member_of_the/
If the Dems get a huge House majority, I hope enough of that majority is composed of DemSocs that they can form a bloc to torture and embarrass the Hakim Jeffries-type mainstreamers in the Congress, and perhaps make them look bad enough and anti-justice enough that their constituents will purge and burn them out of their seats.
What the Democrats need is a few ” Red Gingriches” .
different clue
Hunter Biden has written up a satirical little recommendation of Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. I hope he has sent a genuine formal letter of actual recommendation to the actual Nobel Committee.
Hunter Biden
https://www.reddit.com/r/PoursTea/comments/1umf6mp/hunter_biden/
different clue
I just saw a new video in what might start to become a whole little sub-genre of Black Boycott videos . . . the subgenre of ” ‘Are Asian store-owners false-flag vandalizing their own stores?”
Has it gone from the theoretical problem raised by that other content creator I mentioned a little bit up above, and is it going to become a real problem?
“Asians Damaged Their Shops To BLAME BLACK People of V@ndalism. Boycott is working well”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_l993jwLi0
Black neighborhood residents really need to put every single Asian-owned store in or near their Black neighborhoods under prophylactic 24/7 seamless video surveillance . . . to be able to PROVE by “playing the tape” that no Black person was involved in any
such incident should a claim be filed based on such an incident. Such Black Surveillance-masters might go further and make a standing offer to the Insurance Companies of America to let any and every insurance company faced with such a claim view the surveillance tape of the store and area around it so the Insurance company could make its determination based on that.
different clue
Here is something interesting, bearing on the so-called “election” of Trump. This video contains a referrence to Ken Paxton speaking in another video . . . with Steve Bannon . . .
bragging about Paxton’s own role in disallowing 2.5 mail-in ballots from being counted in the Texas presidential election.
” KEN PAXTON IS F*CKED ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKUGIZYuHX4
But why listen to a whole video just to hear this particular keypoint? It starts at timepoint 1:12 on the slider bar and goes on for a few seconds before the video moves on to Paxton’s other weaknesses. But that one little few-second talk-stretch lays out how Trump did not in fact necessarily win the Texas part of the election. ( I haven’t worked out how not-winning-Texas would have impacted the overall election).
This allegation regarding what Paxton is said to have bragged about achieving is very easily checkable. Did Paxton really say this? If he did and it can be verified that he did, the next question is . . . could this have replaced an actual defeat of Trump with a faked-up “victory” for Trump?
Bystanders and onlookers might well ask: ” after all this time, what difference does it make anyway?” Well . . . rubbing the noses of many millions of bipartisanship-cuck Democrat supporters and voters would get a few of them, perhaps just enough of them, to realize that the Republicanfederates and Conservanazis are the Enemy Within and not ” our fellow Americans” at all. And those ” non-conservatives” willing to abandon bipartisanship-cuckery and reach-across-the-aisle cuckery and kumbaya-liberal cuckery and willing to adopt a viewpoint of “exterminate” the enemy at the very least in order to save themselves might be just enough to accept the necessity of “reconquest” . . . of ” reconquering” US’s country from THEM and making sure that it is never ever THEM’s country ever again.
The spirit should be: ” Conservative keep on moving, this is a Liberal neighborhood”.
” God help you MAGA if the sun sets on you here”.
different clue
In my comment just above, I must admit that I ” thought too fast” and missed the fact that the election in Texas that Paxton bragged about stealing for Trump was in 2020, not 2024. And it wasn’t quite enough for Trump at the national level that time around.
But it still goes to show just what the KlanMAGA Christianazian Republicanfederate Conservative Community is and stands for. And my recommendation for the proper spiritual and political orientation towards those “people” is still exactly correct and is the least possible US could do to create any hope of reconquering US’s country back from THEM.
” What? ‘US’ and ‘THEM’? What about ‘WE’ ? ”
Silly Liberal. ‘WE’ is for cucks.
different clue
Offering more and more videos about the coming Senatorial election in Texas can seem boring and repetitious, I know. But I think this video is itself a non-boring sample of non-boring advisories from some Black Texan commenters about what the Talarico campaign does or does not need to do to win Black Texan votes. I don’t know which of the featured commenters reflect what percentages of Black Texan opinion. Some of the commenters appear to offer earnest advice on approaches that could work if they were truly taken. Other commenters appear to feel that parts-at-least of the Black Texas community have hardened into the attitude of getting electoral revenge against what at least some Black Texans feel that White Racist Moderates and the White Racist Left did to Jasmine Crockett and continues to do to Jasmine Crockett, and by extension, to Black Texans in general.
If the Talarico Campaign actually wants to win its election, its personnel might consider studying content like this, however unpleasant some of it might be. But they certainly don’t have to study it or even pay any attention to it at all if they don’t want to. I’m nobody special. I’m not even Texan. And God made a scroll button.
(Again, the title is utterly worthless, as so many of these titles are. Does You Tube put its AI on drugs before it assigns its AI to write these titles?)
“W🤍 Pe0ple Are Crashing Out As B🖤 Pe0ple Are Not Scared Of SEGREGATION & Sent A STRONG Warning”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajpu3zr3wwc
different clue
Here is a video-load of more content relative to the boycott of Asian-owned businesses in and around Black neighborhoods.
“Black Americans Say ‘Enough Is Enough’—They’re No Longer Backing Down!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B3E3NDUPxc
The second sampled video-chunk is especially disturbing. I don’t know what surrounding context ( if any) was not recorded, but the recorded part certainly appears to show a shop-owner of some kind calling the police and trying to sound weepy and scared on purpose in order to draw the police and sic them on this Black citizen.
I suspect if enough of this sort of thing is documented and passed around, the boycotters will harden their goal into achieving the complete and total deletion-from-existence of every Asian-owned bussiness which has a majority-Black customer base.
The Age of Inter-Ethnic Solidarity is OVER. It is GONE. It is DONE.
To have any hope of success in the future, Inter-Ethnic-Group interactions will have to be strictly transactional and rigidly reciprocal, to the total satisfaction of all parties involved.