by Tony Wikrent
Trump not violating any law
‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’
Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025 [mediaite.com]
Chris Hedges, Sep 28, 2025
Trump’s newest presidential memoranda criminalizes critics of empire, capitalism, Christian nationalism, abuses by the state and those who fight racism and gender discrimination.
Fascists, historically, are surprisingly candid about the world they intend to create. Those they target, despite this transparency, are surprisingly obtuse about what is coming.
The most ominous warning to date from our homegrown fascists is the latest Presidential memo, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence.” It accuses any critic of law enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the American empire, capitalism, the Christian right, the persecution of immigrants and those that decry discrimination based on race and gender, as well as those who question white, male patriarchy, described as “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality,” of fomenting “violent revolution.”
It is a declaration of war on the so-called “radical left,” those the Trump administration blames for “heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence” from the murder of the right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk to “the 2024 assassination of a senior healthcare executive and the 2022 assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.” ….
The memo brazenly inverts the rule of law. It turns the law into an instrument of injustice. It uses the decorum of federal agencies, the courts and trials to legalize state crimes. It is grounded in magical thinking, bizarre conspiracy theories and a paranoia that sees the most tepid acts of dissent or criticism as treason….
I spent two years with the architects of our emergent fascism when I wrote my book, “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” They do not hide their vision for America. They plan to make the legal system subservient to dogma. They hate the “secular humanist” society based on science and reason. They dream of making the Ten Commandments the basis of the legal system. They plan to teach Creationism or “Intelligent Design” in public schools and make education overtly “Christian.” They brand the LGBTQ community, immigrants, secular humanists, feminists, Jews, Muslims, criminals, and those dismissed as “nominal Christians” — meaning Christians who do not embrace the fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible — as deviants. These deviants are worthy only of being silenced, imprisoned or killed. They condemn government assistance programs, especially for the poor. The climate crisis is a hoax. They call for the federal government to be reduced to protecting property rights, “homeland” security and waging war. They want church organizations to run social-welfare agencies and schools. They demand the expansion of the death penalty to include “moral crimes,” including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy, and witchcraft, as well as abortion, which will be treated as murder. They call for a return to white, male patriarchy by mythologizing the past. They demand women be denied contraception, access to abortion and equality under the law. The only legitimate voices in public discourse and the media, to them, are “Christian.” America is sacralized as an agent of God. Those who defy the “Christian” authorities, at home and abroad, are agents of Satan.
These Christian fascists are incapable of dealing in the world of ideas, nuance and complexity. Stunted by emotional numbness and an inchoate rage, they are unable to communicate in any language other than threats and coercion. Diplomacy, scholarship, culture and journalism are an anathema. One’s duty is to obey.
Ken Klippenstein, Sep 27, 2025
…“This is the first time in American history that there is an all-of-government effort to dismantle left wing terrorism,” Trump’s homeland security advisor Stephen Miller said, referring to the issuance….
The Trump administration isn’t only targeting organizations or groups but even individuals and “entities” whom NSPM-7 says can be identified by any of the following “indicia” (indicators) of violence:
- anti-Americanism,
- anti-capitalism,
- anti-Christianity,
- support for the overthrow of the United States Government,
- extremism on migration,
- extremism on race,
- extremism on gender
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.
“The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts,” the directive states ….
Trump’s NSPM-7 Alarms Law Firms While Congress Is Silent
Ken Klippenstein [, via Naked Capitalism 10-01-2025]
Trump’s Blueprint to Crush the Left Draws from Decades of Counterterrorism Policy
Chip Gibbons, Oct 03, 2025 [DropSite]
…If there was any question as to whether his Executive Order was merely bluster, Trump clarified the matter three days later when he issued National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7). Bearing Trump’s signature, NSPM-7 was clearly drafted with a deep understanding of the U.S. counterterrorism bureaucracy. It seeks to “disrupt” not just those allegedly carrying out left-wing violence, but those who fund it and those who “radicalize” and recruit individuals to partake in it. It declares domestic terrorism to be a top priority and defines domestic terrorism priorities to include “civil unrest” and “doxing.”….
Project 2025: Taking on the Constitution
Joyce Vance, October 05, 2025 [Civil Discourse]
…Tonight, a federal judge in Oregon who was appointed by Donald Trump during his first term in office ruled he could not federalize the National Guard in that state. It’s a 14-day temporary injunction, but the Judge ruled the state of Oregon had shown it had a strong chance of success on the merits, would suffer irreparable injury in the absence of an injunction, and that the balance of equities and public interest were in its favor….
The administration argued, as it did in California when it deployed Guard troops and has elsewhere in multiple contexts that no court can “second guess” the president’s decisions. Judge Karin Immergut wrote that although the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in the California National Guard case, held that a president’s decisions are entitled to “a great level of deference,” that “is not equivalent to ignoring the facts on the ground” before rejecting the administration’s claim that it was necessary to federalize the Oregon Guard to protect ICE facilities. This insistence on the courts’ ability to engage in judicial review of presidential decision-making is essential to preserving the balance of the Constitution created between the three branches of government.
“The President’s own statements regarding the deployment of federalized National Guardsmen further support that his determination was not ‘conceived in good faith’ ….
Trump’s use of military force continues outside of the country as well. On Friday, he conducted the fourth strike on a boat in the Caribbean, claiming drug traffickers were on it. Four people on board were killed….
We studied Project 2025 together here at Civil Discourse, from the earliest moment it was made available publicly on the Heritage Foundation’s website. Much of what this administration is doing will sound familiar to those with even passing familiarity with that plan, which Trump disavowed during the campaign….
In addition to vowing to fire federal employees during the shutdown—expect lawsuits if this happens, as it’s strictly illegal—Vought is also behind cutting infrastructure funds for blue states including the Green New Deal. It’s partisan politics, not government, and Trump is behind it: “Republicans must use this opportunity of Democrat forced closure to clear out dead wood, waste, and fraud. Billions of Dollars can be saved. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he wrote on Truth Social….
Stephen Miller Calls For ‘Legitimate State Power’ To Dismantle ‘Leftwing Terrorism’
[Mediaite, October 4, 2025, via Yahoo News]
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called on the full power of the federal government to dismantle “leftwing terrorism,” saying it’s “the only remedy” for what ails the United States.
“The issue before is [sic] now is very simple and clear. There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country,” Miller posted on X on Saturday.
“It is well organized and funded. And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.”
Miller’s post was inspired by Bill Melugin, a Los Angeles-based correspondent for FOX News Channel, who reported, “DHS announces federal agents in Broadview, IL were rammed & boxed in by 10 cars, including a woman armed w/ a semi-automatic gun who had posted online threats to ‘fuck up’ ICE & was flagged in a CBP intel bulletin.” Federal officers “fired on her defensively,” according to DHS, Melugin said.
Jim Stewartson, Sep 30, 2025 [MindWar]
Joyce Vance, September 28, 2025 [Civil Discourse]
On Saturday, the “Department of War” asked Oregon for the use of up to 200 National Guard troops. The troops, which would be federally funded but remain under state control, are to help with immediate needs to protect “federal personnel, functions, and property” in the state. The “request,” included the claim that “failure to mobilize sufficient forces quickly to address the situation may risk lives and property damage.” There was a threat attached: If Oregon failed to go along—within 12 hours—the Secretary of War would federalize as many troops as he deemed necessary. The “request” was made to the Adjutant General of the Oregon National Guard (ORNG), not to the governor.
Trump posted on Truth Social that same day that the troops would “protect War ravaged Portland” and protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities that he claimed were “under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists.” He added that he was “authorizing Full Force, if necessary.” He didn’t specify what “full force” meant, but it was widely perceived as authorizing the use of lethal force against American citizens….
Summary of Trump’s speech to USA’s top military leaders
Heather Cox Richardson [Letters from an American, September 30, 2025]
…when President Donald J. Trump took the stage, he seemed uncomfortable at the lack of audience participation in what was essentially a rally speech. “I’ve never walked into a room so silent before,” he began. “This is very interesting. Don’t laugh, don’t laugh. You’re not allowed to do that. You know what? Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want. And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room.”
The president who received five draft deferments—four for college, one for bad feet—continued to a room full of career officers: “Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future….
…he spoke slowly, slurring words, delivering to the hundreds of professionals who had rushed from around the world to attend this meeting a rambling, incoherent stream of words that jumped from what appeared to be prepared remarks to his own improvisation. He covered the “Gulf of America,” the seven or eight wars he claims to have ended, the “millions and millions of lives” he has saved, nuclear weapons (one of the two “n-words” he informed the military leaders you can’t say), his demanding “beautiful paper, the gorgeous paper” with “the real gold writing” when he signs things (“I love my signature. I really do. Everyone loves my signature,” he said), finding $31 billion on “the tariff shelf,” making Canada the 51st state, his dislike of the “aesthetics” of certain Navy ships, wild claims about his 2024 electoral victory, the press, America First, immigrants from prisons and mental institutions, and Venezuelans not daring to go out in boats for fear the U.S. will “blow [them] out of existence.”
The speech was highly partisan, attacking former president Joe Biden by name eleven times, calling him “the auto pen” and claiming his administration was really run by “radical left lunatics.” “We were not respected with Biden,” Trump said…
Is Portland ‘War ravaged’ as Trump claims? Here’s what residents say.
[Washington Post, September 28, 2025]
[TW: Searching for confirmation of Trump’s statement to the assembled generals and admirals that firefighters are being shot off of their rescue ladders, this came up:]
FDNY Transfers 17 Firefighters Following Hazing Incidents
Thomas Tracy, Sept. 30, 2025 [New York Daily News, via Firehouse.com]
The hazing of rookie FDNY firefighters that included forcing them to hug naked male colleagues occurred in two Bronx firehouses.
[I suspect that Trump and Hegseth feel that being forced to hug naked male is almost as horrible an act of terrorism as shooting firemen.]
The Big Hurry: Why So Anxious For Dictatorship Right Now?
Jim Stewartson, Oct 04, 2025 [MindWar]
…The plan to attack “Antifa” in Portland by the administration has been telegraphed for several weeks. Donald Trump was reportedly shown old footage from protests in 2020, some not even from Portland, which gave him the impression there was ongoing violence—when there was none. Nevertheless, he is trying, and so far failing, to federalize the Oregon National Guard.
There has been a series of provocations in Portland—completely manufactured by the federal government and their sympathizers—in a transparent attempt to create an alternate reality of a militarized war zone. For example, Kristi Noem and her traveling press unit made a big show of visiting a snipers’ nest on the roof of a Portland ICE facility on Friday….
PICTURE: Trump memo on “recurrent motivations and indicia” of anti-fascism
The Trump administration is rapidly accelerating the United States toward a military one-party dictatorship at an almost comical speed. There is no effort to conceal the sheer desperation and fraudulence of their tactics. And on Saturday, Stephen Miller made his goals extra clear. Miller says the “Democrat Party” has filled the “legal and judicial system with radicals” which is a “dire crises for our Republican form of government.”
Note the capital-R. The United States is a republic; it is not a “Republican form of government.”
To make it even more plain, Stephen Miller followed up his promise for a one-party state, with a plan to achieve it identical to the Third Reich. On his hit list are “far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors, and attorneys general” which he intends to “dismantle” using “legitimate state power.”
This is a declaration of war on anyone who isn’t MAGA by the government….
Stephen Miller is in a hurry to destroy the Democrats and the constitutional republic and he doesn’t care how obvious he is about it. On Thursday night, Stephen Miller was heard telling ICE in Memphis, alongside Bondi and Hegseth:
“You are unleashed. The handcuffs you’re carrying are not on you anymore. They’re on the criminals. And whatever you need to get it done, we’re gonna get it done.”
This rapid push to complete a fascist occupation of American cities has been accompanied by more murders on the open sea and snuff films by Hegseth—along with a government shutdown being used as a sadistic weapon to “traumatize” government workers and punish Democrats.
An FBI Counterterrorism Vet Explains How To Use Trump’s New Orders Against The Left
Spencer Ackerman, 30 Sept 2025 [FOREVER WARS]
Trump: ‘Am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening?’
[Press Watch, via annieli, September 29, 2025 on DailyKos]
Trump referenced a weekend conversation with Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, and he alluded to being told by Kotek that the reality in Portland is different from what’s being portrayed to him.
“I spoke to the governor, she was very nice,” Trump said. “But I said, ‘Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening? My people tell me different.’ They are literally attacking and there are fires all over the place…it looks like terrible.”
Trump’s ICE Has Started Targeting Activists, Not Just Immigrants
[Truthout, via Naked Capitalism 10-02-2025]
Military leaders voice concern over Hegseth’s new Pentagon strategy
[The Washington Post]
…Trump political appointees within the Pentagon’s policy office — including some officials who have previously criticized long-standing American commitments to Europe and the Middle East — drafted the strategy, now in its final edits.
The draft plan has been shared widely with military leaders from the global combatant commands to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, some of whom questioned what its priorities would mean for a force designed to respond to crises around the globe, according to three people familiar with the matter.Dissent during the drafting process is normal, but the number of officials concerned about the document — and the depth of their criticism — is unusual, several people said….
Billions in Taxpayer Dollars Have Become Virtually Untraceable
[NOTUS, via Naked Capitalism 10-01-2025]
…Billions in taxpayer dollars have become virtually untraceable — a level of opaqueness in government funds that’s raising questions around the legality of the administration’s actions. Some of these taxpayer funds expire on Sept. 30. If they’re not spent by then, like all funds Congress appropriated specifically for 2025, they disappear.
NOTUS attempted to trace the money appropriated for more than 100 government programs to understand where taxpayer dollars are going, only to hit dead ends repeatedly. Data is outdated or conflicting, agencies have been vague in their explanations, and in many cases, there’s no publicly available evidence that appropriated money is being spent at all….
Inside the Trump Administration’s Push to Prosecute James Comey
Glenn Thrush, Maggie Haberman, Alan Feuer and Tyler Pager, Sept. 27, 2025 [New York Times]
…The indictment marked the culmination of an extraordinary series of White House actions that have, in the view of many Justice Department veterans, stripped away remaining legal and procedural restraints that might have prevented Mr. Trump from directing federal law enforcement to humiliate, investigate and prosecute the people he hates….
By late summer, bigger political forces were at work, namely the backlash over his department’s failure to release the full tranche of investigative files into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. In what was seen as an effort to divert public attention, many pro-Trump influencers — egged on by government officials like Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director — turned up the volume on their demands about prosecuting the president’s enemies.
The calls for vengeance reached such a frenzy that Mr. Trump himself eventually issued a chilling yet all but undeliverable threat: He claimed that former President Barack Obama had committed treason and should face “consequences.” ….
To avoid potential retribution, Michael doesn’t want to use his real name or share what branch of service he’s in. But he’s found creative ways to share his perspectives. For a little over a year, he’s been making anonymous TikTok videos that give people a window into a military culture he describes as racist. He says there’s also frequent discussion of violence towards civilians either at home or abroad, and after the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, Michael worries the recent militarization of American cities will only get worse.
“The American right conceptualizes their political enemies and the Democratic Party as a powerful hostile foreign insurgency,” he says. “Now with the clear path to escalation they have already been on, I definitely see a reaction where they take this National Guard and ICE energy and pivot it towards people of left-leaning ideals.”
[New York Times Magazine, via Naked Capitalism 10-01-2025]
First in a four-part series on crimes and impunity within the US Special Forces. Gift links to rest of stories can be found here.
Energy Department canceling over $7 billion in funding for clean energy projects
[NPR, via Clean Power Roundup, Oct 3, 2025]
Sixteen states that voted for Kamala Harris last year could see their clean energy projects defunded. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, says it’s politically motivated.
Trump Threatens to Yank Medical Benefits If There’s a Shutdown
Edith Olmsted, September 30, 2025 [The New Republic]
“We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them. Like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like,” Trump said.
Trump threatened to direct his attack dog, White House budget director Russell Vought, to “trim the budget to a level that you couldn’t do any other way.”
“So they’re taking a risk by having a shutdown. Because of the shutdown, we can do things medically—and other ways, including benefits, we can cut large numbers of people out. We don’t want to do that, but we don’t want fraud, waste, and abuse,” Trump continued.
ICE Targets Unaccompanied Immigrant Children, Offering $2,500 Payment for Deportation
Jonah Valdez, October 3 2025 [The Intercept]
On Friday, ICE kicked off a scheme to offer thousands of dollars to unaccompanied children as young as 14 in exchange for agreeing to be deported.
The Latest FCC Censorship Push No One Is Talking About Targets Incarcerated People
Jeremy Busby, October 3 2025 [The Intercept]
Brendan Carr is advancing a plan to choke communications for those of us who use cellphones to expose abuses in prison.
Strategic Political Economy
Digital ID: Gift or Key to Control?
Thomas Neuburger, Sep 30, 2025 [God’s Spies]
A quick hit: According to the World Economic Forum, home of Davos Man, Digital ID will become our mandated future. The chart above, for example, is from the WEF document Advancing Digital Agency: The Power of Data Intermediaries, published in 2022.
Digital ID is envisioned as your gateway to everything but a kiss good night. Every financial transaction, from health care to food to energy, social media, e-commerce purchases — even for citizens to file taxes, vote, collect benefits — will require, under this proposal, a Digital ID. Couple that with a cashless world and everything essential to life must be digitally controlled.
Siddhartha Mahanta, October 3, 2025 [The American Prospect]
How ICE Terror Campaigns Are Used to Discipline Labor
Sarah Lazare, October 1, 2025 [The American Prospect]
Venezuela as America’s next foreign policy disaster
Leon Hadar, October 4, 2025 [Asia Times, via Moon of Alabama]
Global power shift
LONG READ: The GEMIs – the Global Emerging Markets’ interlocking institutions
[Intellinews, via Naked Capitalism 10-03-2025]
[Phenomenal World, via Naked Capitalism 09-30-2025]
As the US withdraws from green tech industries and pressures its allies to follow suit, Chinese firms are stepping in to power the developing world’s green transition. A new report from the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University, co-authored by NZIPL Fellow Xiaokang (Harold) Xue and Senior Policy Fellow at LSE’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & the Environment Mathias Larsen, previews the insights from a comprehensive database on Chinese overseas investments in clean tech manufacturing. The scale is staggering. Chinese firms have committed over $227 billion across 461 green manufacturing projects in 54 countries since 2011—with 88 percent of investment occurring just since 2022. In inflation-adjusted dollars, this sum is larger than the $200 billion Marshall Plan.
China is ‘nanoseconds behind’ US in chips, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says
[South China Morning Post, 29 Sep 2025]
Sanctioned Chinese company builds revolutionary natural gas turbine. Who will buy it? Everyone.
Kevin Walmsley [via Naked Capitalism 10-02-2025]
Gaza / Palestine / Israel
Israel declares 600,000 in Gaza City ‘military targets,’ cuts off lifeline from south
[The Cradle, via Naked Capitalism 10-03-2025]
Trump’s 20-Point Gaza Plan: A Rubber Stamp of Legitimacy on Israel’s Subjugation of Palestine
Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmad, Sep 30, 2025 [Drop Site]
Russia / Ukraine
The End For Kiev : NATO Backs Down, Ukraine Disintegrates | Col Douglas Macgregor
[AzizGaming, YouTube, via Naked Capitalism 09-28-2025]
[NC: Early on, confirmation of drone incursion into Poland as false flag. Downed drones had Swedish, Polish, other European SIM cards.]
US ‘to provide Ukraine with intelligence for long-range strikes in Russia’
[The Telegraph, via Naked Capitalism 10-02-2025]
Oligarchy
Alex Krainer, Sep 28, 2025
…the co-founder of Oracle and one of the world’s wealthiest men, Larry Ellison, whom Donald Trump dubbed, the “CEO of everything.” Ellison also happens to be an arch-Zionist, a major donor to pro-Israel causes, and a powerful advocate for strong U.S.-Israel ties.
He is also a big developer and investor in “cybersecurity” and “defense” technologies that governments use to monitor their populations. He spoke about such technologies at an Oracle financial analysts meeting held in September 2024:
“The police will be on their best behavior. Because we’re constantly recording, watching and recording everything that’s going on. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”
This is about as close as anyone close to power has come to explicitly endorsing a total surveillance state as described in George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. The CEO of everything is also closely associated with the “Knight Companion” of City of London’s “most noble order of the Garter,” Sir Tony Blair. It is important to keep in mind that the City of London is the birthplace and the ultimate protector of the Zionist project. The government of the UK has been among the key enablers of its ongoing genocide in Gaza….
…More than twenty years ago, he was the key backer of a dystopian venture called Theranos and a mentor to the company’s young founder and CEO, Elizabeth Holmes. The 19-year old Holmes dropped out of Stanford University and launched Theranos in 2003 with the mission to “democratize diagnostics” with her revolutionary technology…. Theranos board of directors was dubbed “the board to take over the world,” and counted some of the most powerful people in the world….
[PICTURES of Theranos directors: Henry KIssinger, George Schultz, William Perry, Gen. Jim Mattis, David Boies, Adm. Gary Roughead, Sam Nunn.]
…It is time for us to shake off all pessimism… We must reject fear, disbelieve the hollow myths about the so-called elites: that they are smart, that they’re sophisticated, well-organized, that their power is irresistible and that they are invincible. Their track record of flops and failures is very long and equally impressive.
Recall, a bit over twenty years ago they launched the Project for the New American Century – a program for total US hegemony over the rest of the world. For all the power and hubris of their unipolar moment, in 20 years the whole thing has achieved nothing but a humiliating failure.
Their power is hollow, it is a fiction projected to daze us into submission. In fact, their success entirely depends on our compliance, which is why they invest as heavily into propagandizing us with endless deception and lies. It is the reason why Larry Ellison felt compelled to spend some $7 billion to invest into X, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount, CBS, and other media companies. Most recently Ellison bought the US operations of TikTok in what seems like a panicked move to keep his beloved Zionist project from unravelling.
But ultimately, all the brainwash and propaganda can’t withstand the power of truth. As long as we seek it out and speak it without fear, their power will collapse just as Theranos did.
They Want To Ruin Your Life — It’s Time To Accept That Big Tech Hates You
Matthew Hughes, Sep 30, 2025 [What We Lost]
Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, is an appalling human being, and last week he illustrated why in an appearance on (where else?) the All-In podcast, where a collection of the worst people in the world interview an array of guests from the tech industry who match them, pound for pound, in sheer awfulness.
His comments left a lot to unpack, but we’ll start with perhaps the most egregiously appalling one, where he said (I’m paraphrasing) that working in tech essentially requires that you surrender any notion of work-life balance….
And it gets worse. Last October, Schmidt said that the very modest climate goals — which won’t reverse the heating of the planet, or the ecological destruction that inevitably results, but rather minimize the damage — aren’t achievable, and therefore we should just give up and focus on developing AI, because AI might actually solve climate change.
He actually said that. Here’s the direct quote:
“We’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we’re not organized to do it — and the way to do it is with the ways that we’re talking about now — and yes, the needs in this area will be a problem. But I’d rather bet on AI solving the problem than constraining it and having the problem if you see my plan.”Taxing the Rich and the Survival of Emmanuel Macron
Taxing the Rich and the Survival of Emmanuel Macron
Robert Kuttner, Oct 3, 2025 [The American Prospect]
A crucial political meeting in Paris today will force a choice between a popular wealth tax and a deepening political crisis.
After Declining to Give Trump a Sword for King Charles, a Museum Leader Is Out
Jennifer Schuessler and Minho Kim, Oct 2, 2025 [New York Times]
The departure of Todd Arrington, who led the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, came after the administration sought a sword from its collection as a gift for King Charles….
Through a personal email address, an administration official approached the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum, and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kan., which has at least one Eisenhower sword in its collection, given to him in 1947 by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. But the library declined to release it or any other original artifact in its collection, on the grounds that they are the property of the U.S. government, which the library is obligated by law to preserve for the American public.Instead, Mr. Trump wound up giving King Charles a replica sword. And this week, the director of the Eisenhower library, Todd Arrington, was forced out of his job…..
“Though real equality be the very soul of a democracy, it is so difficult to establish, that an extreme exactness in this respect would not be always convenient. Sufficient is it to establish a census, which shall reduce or fix the differences to a certain point: it is afterwards the business of particular laws to level, as it were, the inequalities, by the duties laid upon the rich, and by the ease afforded to the poor. It is moderate riches alone that can give or suffer this sort of compensation; for as to men of overgrown estates, everything which does not contribute to advance their power and honor is considered by them as an injury.…” ]
Trump Seizes On Shutdown to Punish Political Foes
Tony Romm, Oct. 4, 2025 [New York Times]
President Trump has embarked on a legally dubious campaign to weaponize the federal budget during a contentious government shutdown, halting more than $27 billion in approved funding in a bid to punish Democratic-led cities and states.Rather than broker a legislative truce or seek to ameliorate the fallout of a costly fiscal stalemate, the president has leveraged the crisis to exact revenge on rivals, slash federal spending and pressure Democrats into accepting his political demands….
Richard Murphy, October 4 2025 [Funding the Future]
The essence of fascism is eugenic. It is its claim that there are people who have worth over others as a fact of nature, when there’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support that claim at all.
Fascism tries to split humanity into categories of worth.
Rights are made conditional and not universal.
And from this division, the horrors of fascism naturally follow.
The rule of law is suspended as a consequence of this division. It’s suspended for the subhuman.
Violence against those subhumans is then justified and celebrated.
And conflict becomes permanent proof of the worth of the superhuman.
Defining Oligarchy: The Fusion of Wealth and Power in American Democracy
Shelby Cefaratti-Bertin, February 24, 2025 [Baylor University]
…Political rhetoric scholar Luke Winslow, Ph.D., associate professor of communication at Baylor University and author of “Oligarchy in America: Power, Justice, and the Rule of the Few,” has traced the evolution of oligarchy in the United States to shed light on how modern oligarchy is reshaping America through the increasing fusion of economic power and political influence….
Winslow offered four key distinctions on oligarchy:
- Oligarchy is exclusive. It represents a form of governance focused on preserving the political and economic influence of the wealthy by securing the approval of the rest of the population. “It assumes not everyone is qualified to deliberate, participate and legislate,” Winslow said. When it comes to oligarchy, there is a belief that extreme wealth is equated to intellectual fitness across all domains, including governance.
Here’s a scientific explanation for why rich people think they’re better than everyone
[Business Insider, May 21, 2019]
- People born into higher social classes are more overconfident and have “an exaggerated belief” that they will perform better than others, more so than those in lower classes, a new study found.
Philip Agre: What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?
Originally published at:: http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html • August 2004
…the most central feature of conservatism is deference: a psychologically internalized attitude on the part of the common people that the aristocracy are better people than they are. Modern-day liberals often theorize that conservatives use “social issues” as a way to mask economic objectives, but this is almost backward: the true goal of conservatism is to establish an aristocracy, which is a social and psychological condition of inequality. Economic inequality and regressive taxation, while certainly welcomed by the aristocracy, are best understood as a means to their actual goal, which is simply to be aristocrats. More generally, it is crucial to conservatism that the people must literally love the order that dominates them. Of course this notion sounds bizarre to modern ears, but it is perfectly overt in the writings of leading conservative theorists such as Burke. Democracy, for them, is not about the mechanisms of voting and office-holding. In fact conservatives hold a wide variety of opinions about such secondary formal matters. For conservatives, rather, democracy is a psychological condition. People who believe that the aristocracy rightfully dominates society….
The “new fusionist” intellectuals are the missing link between nineteenth-century race science, twentieth-century libertarianism, and the contemporary alt-right.Reviewed:
Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right
by Quinn Slobodian“Arguments about politics always rest on claims about human nature,” Quinn Slobodian reminds us in his new intellectual history of the American far right. Hayek’s Bastards focuses on a coalition of libertarians, traditionalists, and paleoconservatives who, a century after Pearson, returned to theories of immutable genetic and racial differences to make the case for market supremacy and a minimalist state, a current of thinking Slobodian calls “new fusionism.” While a previous generation of conservatives had welded religious traditionalism to free market principles—the original fusionism associated with Frank Meyer and the National Review—their ideological successors found evolutionary psychology, genetics, and biological anthropology more useful.
These new fusionists included the libertarian economist and anarcho-capitalist Murray Rothbard, who viewed taxation as theft and regarded the state as the apex of organized crime; the white supremacist Peter Brimelow, once an editor at National Review and more recently the founder of the radical anti-immigration website VDARE; and the German American academic Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a protégé of Rothbard who founded the Property and Freedom Society, which nurtures the bonds between libertarianism and white supremacy. Together they brought what had been fringe ideas about racial differences back into the mainstream—with effects that are all too clear today.
Slobodian skillfully shows how Rothbard, Brimelow, Hoppe, and the other intellectuals of this movement emerged from prominent neoliberal institutions like the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS), the Manhattan Institute, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Founded in 1947 by the Austrian philosopher Friedrich Hayek, MPS has proved the most influential of these bodies, counting among its members luminaries such as Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Gary Becker. Their arguments in support of privatization, deregulation, and regressive taxation formed the intellectual core of the Reagan revolution. Reagan joined MPS’s libertarian economic and philosophical outlook to social conservatism and hawkish anticommunism, heralding the advent of the neoliberal era.
Hayek’s Bastards explains why second-generation MPS members like Rothbard and the historian Paul Gottfried could not enjoy the spoils of victory—even after the Berlin Wall came crumbling down. Aghast that the welfare state remained largely intact across Western democracies, they feared that the cold war had actually been lost. Not only were governments expanding environmental protections and still doling out welfare payments, but decades of “collectivism” and state dependency had, in Slobodian’s summary, “eroded the virtues of self-reliance that would allow for the reproduction of social life.” Worst of all, governments were increasingly motivated to intervene on behalf of racial minorities and women to pursue a more egalitarian social order. It was in the face of these developments that libertarians found arguments for biological determinism, long circulated in fringe publications like Mankind Quarterly, to be particularly appealing….
Ariel Dorfman, October 23, 2025 issue [The New York Review]
In 38 Londres Street Philippe Sands investigates a Nazi war criminal’s collaboration with the Chilean dictatorship’s system of repression, torture, and murder.
Matt Stoller [BIG, via Naked Capitalism 09-29-2025]
Wall Street Gets to Keep Its Government Open
Matt Stoller [BIG, via Naked Capitalism 10-02-2025]
Argentina gets $20 billion in US aid, hands over control of economic policy
[Argentina Reports, via Naked Capitalism 09-28-2025]
They’re not capitalists — they’re predatory criminals
Jeffrey Epstein ran a massive international blackmail ring—that’s why the cover up continues
Dean Obeidallah, Sep 28, 2025
…That is why Trump has apparently directed his pet poodle Speaker Mike Johnson to delay swearing in Grijalva to next week or even mid-October despite winning nearly 70% of the vote. Keep in mind, that when Democrat James Walkinshaw won a special election on Sept. 9, Johnson swore him in the very next day. But now with the looming swearing in of Grijalva—who has vowed to sign the Epstein discharge petition—Trump is scared because we may finally see the complete files.
And Trump should be very afraid of what we will learn. Earlier this week I spoke to Epstein survivor Lisa Phillips—who made it crystal clear that Epstein was the mastermind of a massive sex scandal involving countless powerful men from around the globe. (You can watch my interview of Lisa at end of this article.)
Phillips was one of the brave women who stood on Capitol Hill in early September to demand the release of the Epstein files. It was Phillips who made headlines with the comment that she was speaking to the other survivors about making their own list of the powerful men who engaged in sex with the women and children Epstein trafficked. Phillips also challenged the GOP controlled Congress that day with the line, “Congress must choose: will you continue to protect predators, or will you finally protect survivors?”
You Really Need to See Epstein’s Birthday Book for Yourself
[The Atlantic, via The Big Picture, October 04, 2025]
This time, the conspiracy theorists were right.
Looking back, I don’t know what exactly I was expecting when I opened “Request No. 1,” the PDF file containing the contents of Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th-birthday book. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s former girlfriend and co-conspirator, created the book in 2003 by soliciting tributes from the financier’s friends and associates. Given the crimes Epstein was convicted of, I steeled myself before scrolling. Somehow, my internet-addled imagination failed me. This book is a nightmare….
[All-Source Intelligence, via Naked Capitalism 10-01-2025]
…the uncomfortably close business dealings could help explain the new treasury secretary’s refusal to provide the U.S. Senate Finance Committee with financial records relating to Epstein. Ranking member Ron Wyden (D-OR) recently characterized Bessent as “a willing participant in the Trump administration’s Epstein cover-up.”
The Lever Daily, Sep 24, 2025
Four of Donald Trump’s children are now worth at least $100 million, Forbes estimates, having gotten rich off their father’s presidency thanks to cryptocurrency holdings, consulting fees, and international business partnerships. The explosive growth of the overseas-connected Trump family crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, has helped double the president’s net worth — and his children, Don Jr., Ivanka, Eric, and Barron are each getting their piece of the pie. Plus, the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is now a private equity billionaire thanks to foreign investments made with the help of key Middle East players Kushner met while serving in the first Trump administration.
The Justice Department Had 36 Lawyers Fighting Corruption Full-Time. Under Trump, It’s Down to Two.
Jose Pagliery, September 22, 2025
All the other lawyers in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section have either quit under pressure, resigned in protest or been detailed to other matters across the nation, according to several sources who spoke with NOTUS. The section has also lost all but one of more than a dozen paralegals….
Sources with knowledge of the section’s operations say the reduction in staff means it can no longer advise the 94 U.S. attorneys’ offices around the country on how to build cases against crooked government officials — let alone prosecute new cases on its own.
To protect against politically motivated abuses, the DOJ’s Justice Manual has long required prosecutors in local U.S. attorneys’ offices to consult with the Public Integrity Section on any “federal criminal matter that involves alleged or suspected violations of federal or state campaign financing laws, federal patronage crimes, or corruption of the election process.”
Restoring balance to the economy
Democrats Got Something Really Big Done in New Mexico (video)
Perry Bacon, October 3, 2025 [The New Republic]
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham discusses how New Mexico will soon become the first state with universal free childcare and why the Democratic Party needs to look to states and governors for fresh ideas and strategies.
Creating new economic potential – science and technology
How Metrology Drives Innovation In Chip Production
John Oncea, August 28, 2025
Metrology is the science behind precise measurement, and its role in semiconductor manufacturing is increasingly vital as chips get smaller and more complex, powering our digital world….
Semiconductors are the backbone of modern electronics, giving life to computers, mobile phones, and countless other digital devices. As electronic devices grow progressively smaller and more complex, metrology stands at the heart of semiconductor manufacturing.
Accurate measurement becomes pivotal not just for the physical dimensions of components, but for predicting, monitoring, and ensuring quality throughout every stage of production. Today’s industry faces daunting challenges: manufacturing processes must control features at the nanometer scale and align many multilayered structures with atomic precision. Yield issues, increased costs, and limits in quality are direct consequences when measurement tools fall short of industry needs.
NIST’s CHIPS Metrology Program targets these issues by leveraging innovative measurement science, advanced simulation, and collaborative standards development. Initiatives like the Metrology Exchange to Innovate in Semiconductors (METIS) promote data sharing and interdisciplinary collaboration, helping manufacturers overcome emerging technical barriers….
[TW — Another example of how crucial government support is for the advance of science and technology and the development of industrial capacity. NIST is the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is part of the Department of Commerce. Prior to 1988, the NIST was known as the National Bureau of Standards. The duties and powers of this agency are explicitly stated Article 1, section 8, of the Constitution: “The Congress shall have power … To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures”. But it was not until 1901 that Congress created the National Bureau of Standards. I have to wonder what contortions the reactionary extremists on the Supreme Court today would resort to if Trump took a dislike to the NIST and decided to shut it down.]
Mercedes-Owned YASA Reveals a 737-HP Electric Motor That Weighs Just 29 Pounds
[Road & Track, via The Big Picture, October 03, 2025]
YASA: U.K. Company Leading The Electrified Performance Car Revolution
[Forbes, via The Big Picture, October 03, 2025]
The YASA name may not be familiar, but its electric motors are the secret sauce behind hybrid supercars including the Ferrari SF90 Stradale and 296 GTB, Lamborghini Revuelto and Temerario, McLaren Artura, and Mercedes-AMG CONCEPT GT.
Disrupting mainstream economics
Dougald Lamont. Oct 02, 2025
The paper is the latest of many that debunk academic theories of monetarism the old-fashioned way: by describing reality….
I’m therefore surprised and delighted to share paper, shared by a reader, that accurately describes how the Bank of Canada creates money – and how the rest of the money in the economy is created as well.
It’s refreshing in every way: a model of clear writing and clear thinking based in observing the actual process of money creation as it happens in Canada.
You can see it online here or just download it here
Economic questions: The J K Galbraith question
Richard Murphy, October 2 2025 [Funding the Future]
Galbraith skewered the idea that markets automatically meet needs. They meet wants that can pay. And, worse still, they manufacture wants through advertising, turning insecurity into desire. Meanwhile, genuine social needs — health, education, clean air, public spaces — languish because they are not profitable.
Jared Bernstein, October 3, 2025 [Washington Monthly]
Information age dystopia / surveillance state
Microsoft Is Abandoning Windows 10. Hackers Are Celebrating.
Whitney Curry Wimbish, Naomi Bethune October 2, 2025 [The American Prospect]
The company will stop supporting the OS on October 14. Advocacy groups warn this will leave up to 400 million computers vulnerable to hacks or in the dump….
The tech goliath valued at $3.8 trillion is ending support on personal computers for Windows 10, the second-most popular version of the operating system worldwide. This means that owners of devices that are too old to handle the free Windows 11 upgrade must make a choice. Businesses can pay Microsoft to extend support for Windows 10 for $61 per device, a cost that doubles each consecutive year for three years total. Individuals can pay $30 for security upgrades that are only scheduled to last for one year. Or everyone can bin their computers and buy a new one.
Tim Berners-Lee Invented the World Wide Web. Now He Wants to Save It
Julian Lucas, September 29, 2025 [The New Yorker]
In 1989, Sir Tim revolutionized the online world. Today, in the era of misinformation, addictive algorithms, and extractive monopolies, he thinks he can do it again.
The Case Against Generative AI
Edward Zitron, 29 Sept 2025
Faster Than Truth: Quantum-Enhanced AI and the Next Frontier of Information Warfare
[Propaganda in Focus, via Naked Capitalism 10-03-2025]
Collapse of independent news media
Only a Billionaire Could Look at Network TV News and Say: We Need More Bari Weiss
Eoin Higgins, October 3 2025 [The Intercept]
Billionaire David Ellison installed conservative ideologue Bari Weiss atop CBS News, dropping any pretense of independence at the network.
Climate and environmental crises
Four major Earth system components are losing stability
[Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, via Naked Capitalism 10-03-2025]
Four key parts of the Earth’s climate system are destabilising, according to a new study with contributions from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Researchers analysed the interconnections of four major tipping elements: the Greenland ice sheet, the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), the Amazon rainforest and the South American monsoon system. All four show signs of diminished resilience, raising the risk of abrupt and potentially irreversible changes.
How a Group of Students in the Pacific Islands Reshaped Global Climate Law
[New York Times, via The Big Picture, October 04, 2025]
They watched climate change ravage their home countries as rich, polluting nations did nothing. Then they had an idea.
Energy Dept. tells employees not to use words including ‘climate change’ and ‘green’
[NPR, via Clean Power Roundup, Sep 30, 2025
Analysis: Can U.S. offshore wind survive Trump?
[Windpower Monthly, via Clean Power Roundup, September 29, 2025]
Democrats’ political malpractice
A Winning Strategy? The DNC Tells Its Voters to F&#ck Off
Joe Wrote, Aug 30, 2025 [via Avedon’s Sideshow, 24 September 2025]
Why don’t people like us?’ The Democrats do not have a ‘young voter problem.’ Nor do they have a ‘Latino voter problem,’ a ‘working-class voter problem,’ or a ‘male voter problem.’ The Democratic Party’s poor performances with various demographics can be traced to an underlying cause: The Democrats have a Democrat problem. With exceptions, the party is composed of officials, staffers, pundits, donors, and politicians who do not believe in politics, at least not in the literal sense of the word. While most parties try to build support by turning their constituents’ wishes into policy, the Democrats take the opposite approach. The political objective is determined by wealthy party and media insiders, who then try to convince their constituents that the elite-decreed platform is in their best interest.
This was best illustrated in the concluding chapter of Abundance, which outlined a top-down political theory: the policies are decided by the donor class, and the job of Democrat-aligned media and politicians is to sell those policies to American voters.”
Trump Just Gave Democrats the Ideal Albatross to Hang Around His Neck
Michael Tomasky, October 3, 2025 [The New Republic]
Now that the president has admitted he’s a Project 2025 fan, he’s given the Democrats a huge target. Do they have the guts to hit it?
Lever Daily, Sep 29, 2025,
Under former President Joe Biden, roughly 13 million additional people — including 2.5 million children — fell into poverty, an increase that more than doubled the growth of poverty under Trump’s first presidency. Bidenomics was supposed to help working people recover, but by splitting the Build Back Better agenda into two bills, the Biden administration gave key holdouts — former Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (Ind.-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (Ind.-W.Va.) — the power to kill critical pandemic-era aid such as the expanded child tax credit.
Resistance
Judge William Young’s ruling against Rubio and Noem is a lesson for all in the Trump era
Chris Geidner, Oct 01, 2025 [LawDork]
U.S. District Judge William Young ruled on Tuesday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and their respective departments had violated the First Amendment and federal law by “deliberately and with purposeful aforethought” acting “to chill the rights to freedom of speech and peacefully to assemble” of noncitizens.
Summing up his reading of history and condemnation of the actions of the current leadership of the executive branch, Young made clear that — regardless of what is happening elsewhere — he would hold true to what he sees as his role in our system.
“The only Constitutional rights upon which we can depend are those we extend to the weakest and most reviled among us,“ Young wrote in Tuesday’s 161-page ruling against the Trump administration.
An 85-year-old Reagan appointee, Young called the case “perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court.” His decision setting forth his findings of fact and rulings of law — which was brought by the American Association of University Professors and Middle East Studies Association — more than bears that out.
Young does more in one decision than perhaps any public official has done this year to detail the specific methods President Donald Trump and the Trump administration use to act illegally and unconstitutionally, the many ways the other branches and outside institutions have capitulated to those acts, and the essential and powerful ways people — and the legal system — can push back.
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS
RUBIO, NOEM, LYONS, AND TRUMP (pdf)
The First Amendment (And A Court) Punch Back
Joyce Vance, Oct 1, 2025 [Civil Discourse]
Senior Judge William G. Young in Boston issued the scathing 161-page opinion in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio. The issue in the case was “whether non-citizens lawfully present here in [the] United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us.” Judge Young held that they do and that the First Amendment does not draw any distinction between the rights possessed in this regard by citizens and non-citizens. He wrote that Trump administration officials chilled free speech and peaceful assembly rights of non-citizens.
It’s Time to Fight Back Against Trump’s Fascist Regime (w/ Ralph Nader)
Chris Hedges, Sep 30, 2025
As the Trump administration’s repression increases by the day, Ralph Nader reminds us that we are not “nobodies,” and that together, with collective power, we can invoke serious change.
Conservative / Libertarian / (anti)Republican Drive to Civil War
Heather Cox Richardson, October 2, 2025 [Letters from an American]
Charlie Kirk Murder Mysteries Multiply
Kit Klarenberg, Sep 28, 2025 [Global Delinquents]
…The only vaguely substantive documentation implicating Tyler Robinson in the shooting is video footage of an individual leaping from the roof of a UVU building directly facing the central campus area where Kirk’s event was held, before making a run for it while lugging a backpack….
However, the clip isn’t proof the individual pictured was Robinson, or they were carrying a rifle. Even more suspiciously, this footage was captured by a static CCTV camera trained directly on the area from where Robinson supposedly targeted Kirk. It was thus perfectly positioned to record him arriving, setting up, assembling the rifle, calibrating its sights, taking the shot, disassembling and camouflaging his weapon, then starting his escape. Bizarrely, no images of this chain of far more incriminating and noteworthy events have emerged….
Dean Obeidallah, Sep 30
The Big Beautiful Bill has a SNAP Poison Pill
[Can We Still Govern?, via Naked Capitalism 10-02-2025]
There’s a poison pill in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”, which will leave millions of Americans hungry. Changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), colloquially known as food stamps, are projected to cause 4 million people to lose benefits—with 19 million more facing benefit cuts.
On average, SNAP comprises about one-quarter of beneficiaries’ household income–with 1 in every 2 children receiving these benefits before their 18th birthday—these cuts will hit hard. And ominously, the Trump Administration just eliminated a survey of SNAP beneficiaries that would tell us the impact on these families’ access to food….
The (anti)Federalist Society assault on the Constitution
The Corrupt Supreme Court Must Be Reformed: Dems Must Champion It
Josh Marshall, Sept 29, 2025 [Talking Points Memo]
Reforming the federal government after Trumpism will require certain and durable limits on executive power and rogue presidencies. It will require pruning the statute books of all those laws which make it at least plausible that presidents can declare the justification for emergency powers and then decide on their own what they are. Having presidents bound by the law and answerable to it has to be made a reality again. None of that’s possible as long as a corrupt Supreme Court is on hand to make up new justifications for striking them down.
There remains a lot of resistance to these very necessary reforms. But the last eight months have confirmed the necessity of these reforms for anyone with their eyes open. No new legislation can have real impact as long as the Court not only ignores the Constitution but willfully misinterprets the plain meaning of statutes or (as it increasingly is) makes de facto rulings without issuing opinions that provide explanation, justification or precedent. The responsibility for this dangerous set of circumstances rests entirely with the corruption of the current members.
It’s also something all law professors and people in the legal academy/judicial world generally need to reckon with. Over the last three or four years there’s been a growing number of people in that world who’ve been forced to reckon with the current majority’s corruption and the need for reform. But quite a few still persist in making excuses for the current corruption as though it were a matter of different judicial philosophies….
Civic republicanism
The Moral Stupefaction of the American Public
Joseph Margulies, September 29, 2025 [Boston Review]
Atop its other outrages and illegalities, the Trump administration has taken to murdering boatloads of presumptively innocent people on the open seas. They’ve done it three times now and promise to keep at it. At a recent rally in Michigan, Vice President J. D. Vance joked, “I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world.”
Having litigated for much of my career against executive overreach, I strongly suspect that, before the killings started, some lawyer in the now all-but-empty halls of the Justice Department drafted a dense, footnote-studded memo that purports not only to justify this killing but to establish its lawfulness. These memos surface whenever someone in the executive branch is poised to do something that everyone knows is illegal. Before acting, they commission a morally parched lawyer to draft a memo that says it’ll all be okay. That was the purpose of the infamous “torture memos” drafted by John Yoo for the Bush administration, for instance, which pretended to prove that strapping a person to an inclined board and flooding water up his nose and down his throat to bring him within sight of his own death is perfectly compatible with the law….
[Notes from the Circus, via Naked Capitalism 10-03-2025]
Americans are not peasants. We are citizens of a republic founded on the revolutionary proposition that ordinary people can govern themselves. This isn’t poetry or aspiration—it’s the foundational premise of the American project. And right now, a faction of tech oligarchs is betting everything on proving that premise wrong….
Liberals are catalysts to catastrophe, again
Yoav Litvin, 30 Sep 2025 [Al Jazeera, via Naked Capitalism 10-01-2025]
In their self-serving pursuit of maintaining the status quo, liberals continue to appease the right….
Kimmel is back on air, and the American liberal establishment has heaved a collective sigh of relief. Not because liberals and their Democratic Party have learned from the incident and used it as an opportunity to galvanise meaningful opposition to Trump’s authoritarian surge, but precisely the opposite – because it allows them to go back to their blissful slumber, ignore reality, cling to cognitive dissonance, denial, ahistorical wishful thinking, and the complicity that is integral to white privilege within a white supremacist order.
different clue
I recently met a petition-passer at the Farmers Market. He was gathering signatures for a particular office-seeker wannabe seeking to get on the primary ballot for Democratic Senator nomination in Michigan.
I asked if I could sign for more than one of the wannabe prmary runners. The rules say no. If you sign 2 separate petitions for 2 separate wannabes, both signatures cancel eachother out, like matter and antimatter. So one has to make a choice of which one to sign for, if any of them.
So I told the petition passer that I need to study all the wannabes very carefully. I will not sign for one that seems like it is a bipartisan cuck. I think “cuck” is a very good word worth borrowing from the Alt Right 4 Channers. They invented the word ” cuckservative” and ” conservacuck”, but mostly “cuckservative”.
Since most Democratic officeholders fetishize bipartisanship, we could say they are bipartisan, since they say so themselves. So I think it is fair to call them bipartisan cucks. And most Democrats are bipartisan cucks. One out of a hundred democrats might be monopartisan anticucks. If I see a primary-wannabe close enough to being a monopartisan anticuck, I will sign that one’s petition.
I don’t remember when Democratic officeholders first began fetishizing bipartisanship. I remember Senator Boren of Oklahoma was a loud and proud Bipartisanship fetishizer. He even refused to vote for legislation that would have passed the Senate if every Dem Senator had voted for it in a monopartisan fashion. He said it was of highest importance to write the kind of legislation which bunches of Republican Senators could support, thereby supporting the highest political principal which was bipartisanship. Senator Boren was an early Bipartisan Cuck Militant.
https://www.thebulltulsa.com/story/67b768f8ac6105ea566cc9b6/david-boren-key-policies-impact-on-oklahoma-politics
different clue
Since we don’t have an Open Thread this week, I will bring this here. ” My friend spotted this in Paris last week”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1nyy038/my_friend_spotted_this_in_paris_last_week/
this cute little public sculpture deserves to be plagiarized and replicated in its tens of thousands and put in prominent display all over highly-camera-covered parts of America.
different clue
Here’s a little item called: ” I told Charlie Kirk Jokes in the bible belt of Canada and they DID NOT like it ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/StandUpComedy/comments/1nyhk0p/i_told_charlie_kirk_jokes_in_the_bible_belt_of/
So they have a Bible Belt in Canada? What part of Canada, I wonder? Albertexas? Texalberta? Magaberta? Somewhere else?
different clue
Here is a photo of a note on a closed-up store . . . part of the “Claires” chain. Titled: ” [OC] The Claire’s in my town closed down and this is the note that’s posted outside”
The first photo is of the closed up store. The second photo is of the note itself, able to be read. Here is a telling little quote from the note itself . . . ” This Claire’s location has been permanently closed. The decision reflects both external pressures and internal restructuring. In recent months, repeated attacks of ridicule by radical left agitators have gone beyond mere criticism, escalating into a deliberate effort to destabilize our company — conduct we recognize as Domestic Economic Terrorism.”
Here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1nyb8jp/oc_the_claires_in_my_town_closed_down_and_this_is/#lightbox
Clearly this company needs to be extermicotted into irreversible liquidation-extinction.
Every dollar is a bullet on the field of economic combat.
NGG
Always enjoy reading Tony’s weekly update.
Just confirms things are worse than I thought.
KT Chong
China already has a global missile defense shield prototype in the field, tested just last week; unlike Trump’s “Golden Dome,” which is still a concept with major unresolved engineering and technical issues, China’s system is working and its specs surpass the U.S. idea that doesn’t exist yet.
See last week’s coverage: https://www.newsweek.com/china-may-have-beaten-us-to-golden-dome-homeland-defense-10815039
• Newsweek: China May Have Beaten US to ‘Golden Dome’ Homeland Defense (Oct 3, 2025):
• Asia Times: China’s missile shield outshining Trump’s Golden Dome (Oct 3, 2025): https://asiatimes.com/2025/10/chinas-missile-shield-outshining-trumps-golden-dome/
• South China Morning Post: China deploys prototype with planet‑wide coverage (Sep 30, 2025): https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3327224/china-fields-golden-dome-prototype
On YouTube:
• The Sirius Report: “GROUNDBREAKING: China Unveils First-Ever Global Defence System”
IMO the costs of Trump’s Golden Dome will spiral into the trillions, and the U.S. lacks the engineering and industrial capacity to pull it off—especially after Trump’s cuts to education and research.
KT Chong
Link to The Sirius Report: “GROUNDBREAKING: China Unveils First-Ever Global Defence System”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g5Cx6Zj0Mg
different clue
Little inflation report . . . about a year ago the Dollar Tree store went from being a “dollar store” to a “dollar-and-a-quarter” store.
Just lately it has become a “dollar-and-fifty-cent” store.
different clue
Here are two examples of the violence which the MagaTrump movement supports and practices.
” No network aired and condemned this
Country Club Thread”
https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/comments/1nzn698/no_network_aired_and_condemned_this/
and: ” House of South Carolina Judge Criticized by Trump Administration Set Ablaze”
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1nzf3kq/house_of_south_carolina_judge_criticized_by_trump/
different clue
Here is a satirical performance-commentary on commercial advertising culture. I think it is awfully well done.
” and everybody just lets it happen ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/1nztwly/and_everybody_just_lets_it_happen/
Sometimes the right satirical performance-commentary done the right way can have a political-economic impact.
different clue
Here’s a funny little sequence showing where cat got Stephen Miller’s tongue in mid-interview on CNN. And of course the interviewer was either too cuck to admit it or too dumm to recognize it. . . . and made an on-air diversionary excuse for it.
” Stephen Miller states that Trump has plenary authority, then immediately stops talking as if he’s realized what he just said ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1o0ks4e/stephen_miller_states_that_trump_has_plenary/
different clue
Here is an item from the antiwork subreddit illustrating a case of malicious compliance within a company’s workforce to company aggression against that workforce . It illustrates what kind of totally legal sabotooge can be carried out against certain targets in certain circumstances.
These methods can’t be used in every place at every time. But the spirit of malicious compliance and legal sabotooge can be learned, studied and internalized.
Learn it – Live it – Love it.
” They tracked our bathroom breaks. Now nobody talks to management about anything. ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/1o0jokd/they_tracked_our_bathroom_breaks_now_nobody_talks/
different clue
Here is a little tiktok video titled: ” Retired Army Sniper calls out Trump “.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CringeTikToks/comments/1o2jv0i/retired_army_sniper_calls_out_trump/
different clue
A few weeks ago a commenter derided Zoran Mamdani for suggesting a public grocery store for New York City ( maybe more than one).
Now I see an NDP candidate suggesting that very thing in Canada.
” Avi Lewis: “Canada needs Public Grocery Stores” ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/1o2ph92/avi_lewis_canada_needs_public_grocery_stores/