Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 19, 2025
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]
Are We the Nazis Now? How do we meet this moment?
Joyce Vance, Oct 13, 2025 [Civil Discourse]
It’s hard to watch. People being treated like they are less than human because of their perceived immigration status….
In early October, federal agents with Border Patrol, the FBI, and ATF arrested 37 people in a raid on a Chicago apartment building at 7500 S. South Shore Drive. They banged on residents’ doors overnight, according to a report in the Chicago Sun Times, “pulling men, women and children from their apartments, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said.”….
Earlier this month, at West Loop Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois, ICE was forced to release two sisters it pulled out of their car at a school pick up, because they have legal status under DACA. But that didn’t stop the masked agents, captured on video by a quick-thinking teacher, from surrounding the car and smashing its windows before dragging the two out. One of the sisters cried out her name and where she lived to bystanders, an apparent effort to prevent being “disappeared” into ICE custody….
In Portland, Oregon, on October 5, ICE agents threatened to arrest and kill an ambulance driver. The incident is documented by witness reports filed with the ambulance crew’s employer and its union by different individuals, as well as 911 calls, dispatch reports, and emergency communications. The ambulance was called to the ICE office to treat an injured protester, but agents refused to let the ambulance leave once the patient was loaded….
A video filmed in September that recently went viral shows ICE firing on protestors and hitting Presbyterian minister David Black in the head with a pepper ball. The minister, who was injured, is now suing. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin tweeted that the shooting was justified because….
There are now so many of these stories flooding the country, and they come with such rapidity, that it’s impossible to keep up with all of them. In other words, these incidents aren’t the exceptions. They aren’t unusual. And there’s every indication that they are tolerated, even encouraged, by Trump’s machine.
Trump promised he’d deport violent criminals. Instead, ICE is going after legal residents and terrorizing children. The message: if you’re an American citizen, don’t exercise your First Amendment rights unless you want to become a target too….
Leak: Feds Think Protests Hide Terrorism
Ken Klippenstein [via Naked Capitalism 10-15-2025]
WHY ARE US TROOPS OCCUPYING AMERICAN CITIES?
Seymour Hersh [via Naked Capitalism 10-16-2025]
…The Trump administration is playing another long game, or trying to, in the streets of US cities under Democratic Party governance, using existing presidential emergency powers to send National Guard, Army troops and ICE agents to hunt down and arrest suspected undocumented immigrants and detain and deport them, without the due process demanded by the Constitution. What’s happening now may be a trial run for the use of those forces to interfere on the behalf of the president and the Republican Party in states where the Democratic Party has a chance to win crucial seats in next fall’s Congressional elections. I’ve been told by someone with inside knowledge that planning for such action is now under way in the White House….
Ken Klippenstein [via Naked Capitalism 10-16-2025]
The FBI and the homeland security department are actively investigating “Antifa” individuals and organizations that the Trump administration has branded domestic terrorists. Actions so far include collecting intelligence on Antifa “affinity” groups, canvassing the FBI’s vast informant network for tips about Antifa, and scrutinizing financial records, two sources involved in the investigations tell me.
While major media organizations continue to downplay the crackdown and virtually ignore the underlying executive order and related national security directive NSPM-7 that are driving the new crusade, sources say that the investigations will likely rival in scope those conducted under the Biden administration on January 6 perpetrators.
“Lawsuits will undoubtedly follow, as will much belly-aching about the Trump team not following established procedures, but no one should doubt the orders that have come down from on high to destroy Antifa,” a senior career homeland security official told me….
It’s a Sign! — The Semiotics of Firing Artillery Over Protests
Jim Stewartson, Oct 18, 2025 [MindWar]
…The second sign was even bigger and more embarrassing. Pete Hegseth and JD Vance decided to attend a sudden, inexplicable event planned a few days ago at Camp Pendleton in Southern California for the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps—which is next month.
This event, which no one had heard of until last Wednesday, was upgraded to a live demonstration of military power for a White House production and scheduled for today—the day of the largest protests in American history.
To make this even more of a blatant sign, Hegseth deemed it necessary to fire live artillery over a major highway, through which 80,000 cars a day pass, an unheard of idea that drew deep alarm from Governor Newsom. The CHP shut down the freeway for four hours to accommodate this madness….
The symbolism of the military shutting down a major civilian artery on the whims of the “War Secretary”—on a day where millions were marching against his regime—by firing live rounds into a Democrat-controlled state is as symbolically blatant as it gets.
The federal government and the civilian leadership of the military is at war with anyone who doesn’t agree with their authoritarian takeover of the United States. They’d rather shoot artillery over the protests and accuse the participants of terrorism than listen to a single word that was said….
Stephen Miller’s radically bogus idea of “plenary authority”
[Public Notice, via Naked Capitalism 10-15-2025]
‘Textbook Authoritarianism’: Trump Aims IRS Criminal Division at Left-Leaning Groups, Donors
Jon Queally, Oct 16, 2025 [CommonDreams]
Trump Keeps Admitting That He Is Bought And Owned By The World’s Richest Israeli
Caitlin Johnstone [via defenddemocracy.press 10-14-2025]
Trump says Argentina assistance dependent on election results for ally Milei
[The Hill, via Naked Capitalism 10-15-2025]
Alec Karakatsanis [via Naked Capitalism 10-15-2025]
…Much more generally, on a variety of fronts, we are seeing the attempted wholesale conversion of the coercive power of the state into a tool for small, organized groups of people to command obedience (ordinary bullies, universities, schools, businesses, cops, etc.). As I wrote in the first essay of my book Usual Cruelty, The Punishment Bureaucracy (which you can read for free at the link), in some sense this is always how the legal system has functioned. But throughout my legal career, there have been checks on this power and an ability to use the system’s own need for legitimacy to force people in power to abide by some of their stated values. It was this battle—to get the reality of the legal system to match the stated values of the law or to highlight gross injustices and contradictions while trying—that offered some strategic and narrative power to the civil rights work we did.
When the need to create a veneer of legitimacy ends—or when people in power perceive it as ending—we enter a period of the total, corrupt weaponization of state power for vigilante purposes, which then can lead to wholesale repression through anticipatory regression into private spheres because any public articulation of decency is corruptly and publicly crushed….
Military Commander Overseeing Escalating Attacks Off Venezuela Coast Is Stepping Down, Officials Say
[New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 10-17-2025]
Jim Stewartson, Oct 17, 2025 [MindWar]
…Stephen Miller, Delusionist
In a press conference with the top leadership of federal law enforcement Wednesday, Trump promised to send paramilitary agents and National Guard into more U.S. cities and admitted “I didn’t get elected for what we’re doing. This is many, many steps above.”
By saying this out loud, Trump is acknowledging that he is no longer executing on what voters want, he is doing what he feels must be done, and more specifically, what the people around him want—in this case Stephen Miller, whose “truest feelings… might be going a little bit too far.”
“Every American deserves to live in a community where they’re not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted, or shot… I didn’t realize I was going to make this such a big factor in the admin–I didn’t really campaign–I campaigned on crime. But I never thought we’d go into every city and take a really safe city that we’ve all been living with the years and make them safe. And now it’s like a passion for me, and it’s a passion for the people behind me. So I didn’t get elected. I did get elected for crime, but I didn’t get elected for what we’re doing. This is many, many steps above. And I want to thank Stephen Miller… I’d love to have him come up and explain his true feelings. Maybe not his truest feelings. That might be going a little bit too far.” ….
Two-tiered Delusion System
There are no simple ways of diagnosing Donald Trump, much less diagnosing what’s wrong with America. However, it’s useful to understand the larger psychological mechanics that feed the spiral we’re in. One of those mechanics is a totalist system around Donald Trump. You can call it a cult, but it’s deeper than that.
Trump is a very psychologically vulnerable subject. He displays several observable risk factors for delusional or delusion-like thinking, including his malignant narcissism, ego-injury, and internal terror of Epstein, his age, his vascular problems, and his potential early dementia. When people like RFK Jr., Elon Musk, or Stephen Miller feed Trump misdated videos, or tell him scary stories about cities, he is more liable to be triggered emotionally and to believe what he’s told than the average person.
This kind of psychological manipulation effectively functions like a primary delusion: Trump is shown what he’s told is video of Portland on fire. Since he heard from the Mayor and Governor that everything is peaceful, this feels like a revelation. It sticks in his mind as something that needs an explanation. The explanation for the “fires” is already provided: “Antifa” is the secondary delusion that explains the primary delusion.
In this way, the Sacred Science of Trump—the doctrine that shall not be questioned—or as he named his own social media platform, “The Truth,” comes directly from delusions generated by Trump’s own aides. He is enclosed in a sealed, totalist system designed to feed himself stories that build on his personal mythology, his secondary delusional elaborations.
This loop—delusion, explanation, amplification—now defines the executive branch.
President Donald Trump claims that U.S. troops have engaged in hand-to-hand combat with young members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua on the streets of Washington, D.C. But Joint Task Force–District of Columbia, the umbrella organization for the military occupation of the nation’s capital, says it never happened.
Trump’s outlandish claim — that National Guard members beat child gang members — is one of numerous demonstrably false claims peddled by the president concerning the deployment of military troops, including that there is now “no crime” in the district. It’s part of a raft of lies Trump has used to paint America’s cities as war-torn wastelands and justify urban military occupations. These blatant falsehoods have increasingly drawn the ire of the federal judiciary.
“You saw it in Washington,” Trump announced in an address to hundreds of top military officers late last month. “We had gangs of Tren de Aragua, say 10, 12, 15 kids. And these military guys walk up to them, and they treat them with disrespect, and they just got pounded.” After twice more reiterating that U.S. troops “pounded” gang members, Trump claimed the suspects were “thrown into paddy wagons and taken back to their country.”
JTF–DC spokesperson Alexia Nal says that troops deployed on the streets of the capital have never engaged in combat with any suspected criminals. “Nope. We’re not allowed to,” she told The Intercept, stating that service members cannot put their hands on people. One defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called Trump’s claim “obvious bullshit.” Two more government officials laughed when The Intercept brought the president’s story to their attention. “Of course not. Not a chance,” one of them said when asked if there was any possibility that Trump’s account was based on a real incident….
Nicole Foy, Oct. 16, 2025 [propublica.org]
Strategic Political Economy
For Many, This Recession Will Feel Like a Depression
Charles Hughs Smith [via Naked Capitalism 10-13-2025]
[Issues in Science and Technology, via Naked Capitalism 10-14-2025]
…The primary means of distorting data is to lump all 135 million US households / 340 million residents into one bucket. In doing so, we magically make unprecedented wealth and income inequality disappear: look at the vast pool of cash sitting in money market funds, look at the trillions of home equity, 401K accounts, and so on: we’re rich, so what’s the worry?
But this is artifice: the vast majority of this wealth (68%, $113 trillion) is in the hands of 13.5 million households, the top 10%. The bottom 50%–170 million people–own 2.5% of the wealth–$4 trillion, a wafer-thin 3.5% of the wealth held by the top 10%.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal (April, 2025, WSJ.com, $1 Trillion of Wealth Was Created for the 19 Richest U.S. Households Last Year), 19 households own $2.6 trillion in net worth, the same as 110 million Americans.
The top 1% (3.4 million people) own 31% of all net worth ($52 trillion), more than the net worth of all those in the 50% to 90% segment (136 million people)….
Global power shift
Western executives who visit China are coming back terrified
[Telegraph, via Naked Capitalism 10-14-2025]
… “It’s the most humbling thing I’ve ever seen,” said Ford’s chief executive about his recent trip to China.
After visiting a string of factories, Jim Farley was left astonished by the technical innovations being packed into Chinese cars – from self-driving software to facial recognition.“Their cost and the quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West,” Farley warned in July….“We visited a dark factory producing some astronomical number of mobile phones,” recalls Greg Jackson, the boss of British energy supplier Octopus. “The process was so heavily automated that there were no workers on the manufacturing side, just a small number who were there to ensure the plant was working.“You get this sense of a change, where China’s competitiveness has gone from being about government subsidies and low wages to a tremendous number of highly skilled, educated engineers who are innovating like mad.”
Top Venture Capitalists tour China, declare Western energy firms “uninvestable”
Kevin Walmsley [via Naked Capitalism 10-16-2025]
Chinese Merchant Fleet Avoids Western Controlled Waters with First Shipment Through Russian Arctic
[Military Watch, via Naked Capitalism 10-16-2025]
China Deploys World’s First Unmanned Fighter Squadron: GJ-11 Stealth Jets Activated in Tibet
[Military Watch, via Naked Capitalism 10-12-2025]
GRAPH — Few industries in China depend on exports to United States
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 10-13-2025]
China tightens export controls on battery materials and equipment
[The Battery Chronicle, via Naked Capitalism 10-13-2025]
What makes the Xinjiang-Tibet mega railway China’s ‘project of the century’?
[South China Morning Post, Oct 18, 2025]
Construction is set to begin next month on a monumental railway linking Hotan in Xinjiang with Lhasa in Tibet – one of China’s most ambitious infrastructure projects to date.The 1,980km (1,230 miles) line has been dubbed one of the “projects of the century” for the extreme engineering challenges it presents and the massive investment required. Traversing mountain ranges, glaciers and permafrost zones at altitudes averaging above 4,500 metres (14,764 feet), it will connect the two autonomous regions in northwestern and southwestern China….
Total investment could reach 400 billion yuan (US$56.2 billion) – or about 200 million yuan (US$28.1 million) per kilometre – according to analysts at Citic Securities….
Gaza / Palestine / Israel
Shaun King, Oct 18, 2025
Younis Tirawi and Yaniv Cogan, Oct 12, 2025 [Drop Site News]
How Israel Completely Broke the Ceasefire in 72 Hours
Shaun King, Oct 14, 2025
They bombed and killed an entire family today. Drones are everywhere. They refused to open the Rafah crossing and won’t let almost anything inside of Gaza. It’s the scam we hoped it wouldn’t be.
Drop Site Daily, October 14, 2025
A Democrat Just Returned His AIPAC Money — and It’s a VERY Big Deal
Shaun King, Oct 16, 2025
For the first time I can remember, an American politician has publicly announced that he’s not only rejecting AIPAC’s money — but returning what he’s already taken.
Russia / Ukraine
US Revealed to Be Coordinating Ukrainian Deep-Strikes, as Trump Flirts With Tomahawks
[Simplicius, via Naked Capitalism 10-13-2025]
Felonomics
Nathan Tankus, 15 Oct 2025 [Notes on the Crises]
Russell Vought Shuts Down Another $11 Billion Worth of Projects in Blue Cities
Stephen Prager, October 17, 2025 [CommonDreams]
The administration had already paused more than $28 billion worth of infrastructure funding, virtually all to Democratic congressional districts.
The Shipping Mess, Part 1: Global fleets shift routes, raise costs, slow deliveries to US markets
Kevin Walmsley (Part 2) [via Naked Capitalism 10-13-2025]
Another POTUS 47 Firing—NMB This Time
Frank N. Wilner, October 16, 2025 [Railway Age]
National Mediation Board member Deirdre E. Hamilton, a Democrat, was fired Oct. 14 by POTUS 47, making her one of many legally questionable independent regulatory agency terminations by the POTUS. Hamilton’s departure leaves the three-member NMB with one Republican (Chairperson Loren E. Sweatt) and one Democrat (Linda Puchala)….
The NMB is an independent (from Executive Branch) federal regulatory agency that administers the 1926 Railway Labor Act (RLA), which governs labor relations in the airline and railroad industries. It was created in 1934 by amendment to the RLA and its members are nominated by the POTUS and confirmed by the Senate for three-year terms, with no limitation on the number that may be served. (STB, by contrast, limits members to two five-year terms.)….
Inside FDA, career staffers describe how political pressure is influencing their work
[STAT, via Naked Capitalism 10-16-2025]
The carnage of mainstream neoliberal economics
How the IMF and US helped loot and entrap Argentina with debt
Thomas Palley [via Naked Capitalism 10-14-2025]
Auto Loan Delinquencies Jump 50% as Car Prices Reach New Heights
[Bloomberg, via Naked Capitalism 10-18-2025]
The Used Car Market Is Imploding
[Jacobin, via Naked Capitalism 10-16-2025]
Restoring balance to the economy
The Corporate Power Reset That Makes Citizens United Irrelevant
[Center for American Progress, via The Lever, Oct 14, 2025,
… Citizens United held that government may not regulate a corporation’s right to spend money independently in elections. But the court did not say what a corporation is—it could not. That question lies beyond even the Supreme Court’s reach.
In American law, corporations are not born; they are built. Corporations are creatures of statute, not of nature. And for more than two centuries, the power to build them—to define their form, limits, and privileges—has belonged to the states and only to the states.
In the republic’s early years, states exercised that power with care. They granted charters on a case-by-case basis and drew corporate powers narrowly. That changed in the mid-1800s, when states began offering general incorporation by default, no longer paying close attention to the powers they were handing out. And that has been the status quo ever since.
However, the underlying authority to define and limit corporate powers never disappeared. It simply went quiet: unused, untested, and unmentioned—until now. This report names that authority, explains it, and shows how states can reclaim it to, in effect, undo Citizens United by executing a reset of their corporations’ powers. The sovereign authority to decide which powers states grant to the corporations they charter includes the authority to not grant their corporations the power to spend in politics…..
More than 31,000 California Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers begin 5-day strike
[KTLA, via Naked Capitalism 10-15-2025]
Steve Keen, Oct 12, 2025 [Building a New Economics]
The UK’s long term data is very informative here, because it highlights just how much the deregulation of bank lending created the housing unaffordability problem that afflicts average income earners today across the world, and particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries.
Creating new economic potential – science and technology
[Energy Reporters, via Clean Power Roundup, Oct 13, 2025]
…Developed by Pecos Wind Power, this turbine is notable for its 100-foot diameter and 14.5-meter blades. Though still in its developmental phase, the project signifies a shift towards enhanced performance and innovative design.…
The development of small to medium-sized wind turbines by Pecos Wind Power, supported by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Competitiveness Improvement Project (CIP), is a noteworthy effort to advance wind energy. Despite being smaller compared to towering turbines that extend over 300 feet, the Pecos Wind Power turbine holds substantial promise. This innovation is crucial as it addresses the need for effective energy capture in areas with lower wind speeds.
The 85-kilowatt turbine features blades measuring 47.5 feet each, allowing the rotor to cover a wider area. This design ensures energy capture even in lower wind environments, a critical factor for enhancing the turbine’s efficiency. Importantly, the smaller size aims to reduce costs and improve reliability, making wind power more accessible. By tackling the challenges of high initial costs and limited product availability, Pecos Wind Power seeks to make wind energy a viable option for rural America….
[TW: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory
is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Department of Energy and operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, a joint venture between MRIGlobal and Battelle.[3] Located in Golden, Colorado, NREL is home to the National Center for Photovoltaics, the National Bioenergy Center, and the National Wind Technology Center…. ]
Disrupting mainstream economics
[Relearning Economics, via Naked Capitalism 10-14-2025]
Disrupting mainstream politics
Jordan Zakarin, Oct 16, 2025 [Progress Report]
[Brief summaries of races against entrenched incumbunts — almost all in their 70s or older — in California CD-14, CD-07, CD-32, CD-34, Connecticut CD-01, Florida CD-20, Georgia CD-13, Hawaii CD-01, Indiana CD-07, Maryland CD-5, Massachusetts CD-1, Massachusetts CD-8, Michigan CD-13, and Tennessee CD-09.]
Information age dystopia / surveillance state
Four AI Policy Choices Policymakers Can’t Afford to Get Wrong
[War on the Rock, via Naked Capitalism 10-12-2025]
Over 50 Percent of the Internet Is Now AI Slop, New Data Finds
[Futurism, via Naked Capitalism 10-15-2025]
Collapse of independent news media
18 Oct 2025 [Finding Gravity]
This week’s Supreme Court oral arguments in Louisiana v Callais, which the court’s MAGA justices appear poised to use to eviscerate what’s left of the Voting Rights Act, got me thinking about Chief Justice John Roberts’ confirmation hearings in 2005 and about how badly America’s media elites misjudged not only Roberts but much more basic questions about how we should think about the Supreme Court. And, above all, about how they missed the defining reality of modern American politics: The Republican Party’s cruel authoritarianism.
John Roberts has been deeply hostile to the Voting Rights Act since his early-career work as a lawyer in the Reagan administration, when he wrote a series of memos about the VRA that led colleagues to describe him as a “zealot” with “fundamental suspicions” about the landmark civil rights law. Those memos were the basis for questions from Sen. Edward Kennedy and others during Roberts’ confirmation hearings, during which Roberts repeatedly proclaimed his respect for the Voting Rights Act and insisted the memos were merely the work of a low-level staffer who was just doing his job of articulating policy positions he had nothing to do with formulating. As Take Back the Court recounted this week, some saw through Roberts’ ruse, most notably the civil rights icon John Lewis, who testified before the Senate in opposition to Roberts’ nomination: ….
Climate and environmental crises
Earth’s Climate Has Passed Its First Irreversible Tipping Point and Entered a ‘New Reality’
[404 Media, via Naked Capitalism 10-13-2025]
U.S. regulators toss out rules requiring banks to prepare for climate change
[CNBC, via Naked Capitalism 10-17-2025]
Companies Paying Record Sums to Develop Geothermal Energy
Renata Carlos Daou, October 11, 2025 [Bloomberg, via Feedspot Weekly]
For the first time in years, the US federal government has leased every parcel of public land it has opened for geothermal development — and at record prices.
Average prices for public land leases for geothermal energy development soared by 282% this year to $127 per acre, driven by growing energy demand from data centers and President Donald Trump’s administration embracing the energy source. The record prices are major step up from $33 per-acre average last year, according to data from the US Bureau of Land Management, the agency that conducts the auctions….
Resistance
Do Not Comply: Resistance is Mounting Edition
Graig Meyer, Oct 12, 2025
[TW: Meyer is a senator in the North Carolina General Assembly]
…There’s one guy in Portland who is bringing me joy, inspiration, and determination. I’m loving all of the videos that Portlanders have made to ridicule Trump’s delusional lies about their city. The Portlandia references and videos of “war ravaged” scenes of tranquil beauty are fantastic. But nothing beats the Portland Frog….
Ridicule is a critically important part of resistance. Creating laughter in direct contrast to violence is a political art. As Alex Pearlman said in a righteously indignant video directed to Frog-haters: “They’re expecting us to dress like army dudes, so that they can claim it’s an insurrection!… So when I see someone in an inflatable green frog costume, and I see Federal agents paid with my tax dollars use too much force against someone standing there, yeah that radicalizes me a little more! That also radicalizes normies!” And Pearlman redirects the attention to what’s more serious. “We’re slowly activating everybody to realize, oh wow maybe pulling moms out of their cars and beating them in front of schools doesn’t bring down grocery prices. Oh look at that, maybe spending $100M on tanks so that they can block traffic doesn’t bring down home prices. Oh look at that, maybe rounding up two million people is only helping BlackRock’s stock price and not my own 401K.”
You’d think that the right would have gotten the power of ridicule after the Jimmy Kimmel victory. They haven’t, of course. And thankfully, ridicule is the perfect weapon to reveal the cruelty that they are now so quick to reveal. This week’s prime example may be MAGA’s transparently racist reaction to Bad Bunny being named as the halftime performer for the Super Bowl. The Daily Show’s Josh Johnson had a gut-busting unraveling of the freak out….
Moving from comforting to inspiring, my political man-crush of the week is on Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, because there is no politician in America doing better at speaking truth to power right now. He has moral clarity on everything from the power of mutli-issue organizing to calling out Trump’s anti-blackness. Johnson also is excellent at pivoting to back pocket economics, including this video turning Texans against their own Governor’s waste of money sending the National Guard to Chicago rather than raising Texas’s minimum wage. Johnson is willing to do more than just talk, creating a local executive order to protect public spaces and willing private businesses. And in doing so he creates an aspirational model in contrast to ICE violence. “Our school parking lots are not for ICE to load their weapons, they are for Chicagoans to drop their kids off to learn. Our libraries are not for ICE to prepare for a raid, they’re for Chicagoans to prepare and relax. Our public parks are not for ICE to set up checkpoints, they are for Chicagoans to play and enjoy.”
From Spark to Sustained Fire — How the No Kings Movement Can Reach the Tipping Point
Scot Nakagawa, Sep 15, 2025 [via Graig Meyer]
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson: “I pray for Trump”
I pray for Trump. His Soul. The insecurities that fuel his rage also motivate the lawlessness he’s currently directing at Chicago.
Nicole Carty, October 18 2025 [The Intercept]
…The administration has been working overtime in recent weeks to vilify and alienate its opposition, painting Democrats and left-leaning activists alike as violent extremists. With their media footholds and tight messaging discipline, they’ve had some success in painting a picture of a fictional, widespread antifa threat, which is already serving as a pretext for the Trump’s administration’s Justice Department to file terrorism charges against its foes.
But pictures are louder than words or soundbites. Even small-scale protests, like the inflatable frog demonstrations against ICE in Oregon, have resonated widely and effectively negated MAGA’s breathless portrayal of Portland as a city under siege by any forces other than the National Guard.
By making visible both the magnitude of opposition to MAGA’s authoritarianism and the everyday relatability of the Americans who are taking a righteous stand, the No Kings rallies pose a real PR problem for the extremist right. They puncture the narrative fictions that the MAGA movement has been working so hard to construct and undermine the credibility of their messengers. They also force GOP leaders into the awkward position of explaining why a large swath of the American public, from every walk of life are, supposedly “domestic terrorists.” ….
Conservative / Libertarian / (anti)Republican Drive to Civil War
POLITICO exposes what Young Republicans chat about when they think no one can hear them
Dartagnan, October 14, 2025 [Daily Kos]
‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat
Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, 10/14/2025 [Politico]
Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery….
Direct democracy on the line and on the move
Jordan Zakarin, Oct 12, 2025 [Progress Report]
Montana: Fed up with the growing number of hurdles and restrictions being imposed on the ballot initiative process by the state legislature, a citizens coalition called Montanans Decide is pursuing a constitutional amendment that would restore and safeguard the process.
The amendment would require that the process be “impartial, predictable, transparent and expeditious” and prohibit the government from supporting a competing (and often confusing) initiative. Organizers aim to qualify the amendment for the November 2026 ballot.
Missouri: Speaking of Republican efforts to obliterate direct democracy, the GOP’s proposed changes to Missouri’s constitutional amendment would be the absolute death knell for self-determination. Amendment 4 would require any proposed amendment to win a majority in each of the state’s seven Congressional districts, a new and unprecedented supermajority that would be impossible to attain anywhere, much less a state that is on the verge of being gerrymandered into a 6-1 GOP advantage.
Why so stringent? Under the proposed rules, the three progressive constitutional amendments that Missourians have approved over the past three election cycles — expanding Medicaid, legalizing marijuana, and protecting abortion rights — would have been dead on arrival. Luckily, voters have the opportunity to tell lawmakers to back off in November.
William J. Barber, II and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Oct 16, 2025 [Our Moral Moment]
…No one wants to be on the receiving end of this kind of dehumanizing language. Yet it proliferates in our public life not because “kids will be kids,” but because a political movement dedicated to the interests of an elite minority has invested in division. “Positive polarization” is what Pat Buchanan called this divide-and-conquer tactic when it was first imagined in the new political landscape that emerged following the Voting Rights Act and the Immigration and Naturalization Act of the 1960s.
For decades, sociologists have described these intentionally cultivated divisions as “culture wars.” But they are not inherent to culture. They have been cultivated, and Americans have been increasingly told that their religious, familial, and personal identity hang on choosing a “side.”….
The (anti)Federalist Society assault on the Constitution
The 2026 Election Is Being Decided at the Supreme Court
David Dayen October 16, 2025 [American Prospect]
A case heard Wednesday will go a long way to determining whether Republicans can gerrymander their way to a near-permanent House majority.
NGG
I always read Tony’s Weekly Wrap-up.
Just confirms how Gawd Awful this administration is.
I can’t decide which is worse, their cruelty, stupidity, or corruption.
Possibly a three way tie.
KT Chong
Does everyone know the reality TV game show Survivor in the U.S. and other countries? In nearly every season, there is always a player known as the “flipper” — someone who compulsively switches sides, backstabs allies, and flips on everyone else.
In international politics, India is that flipper, and everyone knows it can no longer be fully trusted.
In Survivor, constantly flipping back and forth is a high-risk, low-reward strategy. Flippers rarely win. In over 25 years and 48 U.S. seasons, flippers have won only three times — and in each case, they succeeded because they carefully managed perceptions, hiding their true nature from other players. India has already lost that advantage.
It is worth exploring how past Survivor winners dealt with flippers — there are some fascinating strategies that China has actually applied in its relations with India.
different clue
Here’s an article showing just how very right Ghislaine Maxwell has played her cards so far.
” Prison Staff Gagged, Inmate Vanished After Leaking Info on Ghislaine Maxwell Coverup, Insider Says”
October 20, 2025 12:37 pm Its from the Daily Boulder
https://dailyboulder.com/prison-staff-gagged-inmate-vanished-after-leaking-info-on-ghislaine-maxwell-coverup-insider-says/
One wonders if/when people will start asking the Speaker of the House:
” Hey, Grindr Mike! Are you in the Epstein Files? “
different clue
Here is an officeseeker wannabe who has been targeted by AIPAC with a well-funded primary challenger. So she is requesting counter-AIPAC donations.
” AIPAC is going after this candidate. Spread the word! ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/illinois/comments/1obzdgk/aipac_is_going_after_this_candidate_spread_the/
different clue
Here is an article about Stephen Miller praising the East Wing teardown and the TrumpAdmin generally.
” Rattled Miller Puts Up Hysterical Defense of White House Teardown ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1ofmqy0/rattled_miller_puts_up_hysterical_defense_of/
What is really valuable about this article is a couple of comments I saw in the thread which remind the reader that Trump is just the performing seal, providing entertainment and distraction. The animal handlers and the ringmasters are un-noticed and un-referred-to by the MSM. Here is a copy-paste of those couple of comments.
” It’s amazing how much these people can talk with two balls on their chins.
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Decker-the-Dude
•
8h ago
Trump is their fall guy at this point. He’s nothing more than an incredibly useful and charismatic puppet. We need to focus deeper than Trump
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sherlock-helms
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7h ago
I’ve said it a million times. Trump is nothing but a distraction. His handlers scheme in the background while Trump gets the media talking about the Gulf of America and invading Greenland. He’s so fucking stupid and dementia-ridden that he doesn’t even realize it. They pat him on the head and give him compliments and then laugh about it in the background. How many people in this country that don’t follow the news could tell you who Stephen Miller or Peter Thiel are? ”
I thought of a Samuel Johnson quote which could have just two words changed to account for the Stephen Miller phenomenon. Here is the quote:
“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” ― Samuel Johnson.
And here is my re-write: “He who makes a Nazi of himself gets rid of the pain of being a Jew.”
Someone should make that into huge billboards together with an iconic well-recognized photo of Hitler with Miller’s face put in place of where Hitler’s face would be. That should go onto tens of thousands of signs at No Kings rallies, and onto huge multi-story billboards wherever such can be rented, and projected onto the sides of buildings and etc. in such a way that Miller has the most chance of seeing it and getting triggered and melting down in public. It should be memespread all across the internet and maybe hacked onto Millers personal-official computer screens and etc.
different clue
And here is a video posting titled: ” ALERT! Trump ally Bannon reveals Trump THIRD TERM plan ” And here is the link.
https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/1ofpr3p/alert_trump_ally_bannon_reveals_trump_third_term/
Now, given the comment just above, and given what Bannon said long ago about “flooding the zone with shit” to keep the MSM distracted from actual TrumpAdmin actions; should we view this as an ‘actual plan’ being telegraphed? Or should we regard this as a Bright Shiny Squirrel-shit Object? If we have the energy and brainwidth, I suppose we could do some contingency thinking based on either possibility. Certainly Seal Team Trump would like to have their trained performing seal in office for another term if the Bipartisan Liberal Cuck Democrats and the Leo Supreme Shyster Court decide to allow and facilitate it. ( Unless the official military decided at that point to step in and overthrow it and announce an Emergency Interim Government of National Salvation and Constitutional Restoration).