Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 06, 2026
by Tony Wikrent
Don’t look away any longer – Solidarity with Hüseyin Doğru
[defenddemocracy.press, Aug 30, 2026 ]
Trump not violating any law
‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’
Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025
Mike Brock, Sep 03, 2026 [Notes from the Circus]
Pierre Damas Bel was twenty years old. He wanted to be a doctor. He was in JROTC. He graduated high school in May and started at Wright State University in Ohio a few weeks ago. On August 31, he called his father on a video call at 8:03 in the evening and said, “I’m not feeling okay mentally because of the bullying.” His father told him to come home so they could talk. Around eleven that night, police came to his father’s door and said Pierre had parked his car on the shoulder of an interstate in Springfield, Ohio, walked into oncoming traffic, and been hit by a tractor-trailer. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
He was wearing an ankle monitor. ICE had put it on his leg after summoning him to a mandatory in-person check-in. He had come to the United States as a child under Temporary Protected Status. His parents fled Haiti in 2024 because armed gangs were burning their neighborhood down. The family had a pending asylum case. In late July, the Trump administration terminated Haiti’s TPS designation, putting roughly 350,000 Haitians on notice that the United States government intended to deport them to a country whose capital the United States itself will not fly passenger aircraft into because it is too dangerous. The offer ICE made to the Haitians of Ohio was this: wear a monitor or accept $2,600 and a flight to Port-au-Prince. Pierre wore the monitor.
It was too heavy to play soccer in. It restricted him to a seventy-five-mile radius. It was visible under his clothes. When his JROTC unit distributed uniforms, Pierre did not receive one, and his father believes the omission was because of the device on his leg. Classmates saw it and taunted him. On Instagram in late July, before he died, Pierre wrote: “I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience.”
His father said Pierre felt like he was treated like an animal.
The Republican Party did this. Not “the system.” Not “policy.” Not “immigration debates.” The Republican Party, as a coordinated political organization, made a set of decisions that produced exactly this outcome at exactly this scale on exactly this timeline. They ran a Vice-Presidential candidate who stood on a debate stage and said Haitians in Springfield were eating pets. He said it knowing it was false. He said it because he wanted an atmosphere. He got the atmosphere. A twenty-year-old walked through that atmosphere with a monitor on his leg for the last few weeks of his life, in that same town, and now he is dead on the shoulder of an interstate….
Asawin Suebsaeng, Sep 03, 2026 [Zeteo]
However bad you think things must be in Springfield, Ohio, today, the reality on the ground is worse.
Even if you are looking on, as a distant observer, in disgust at recent headlines (including about the suicide of 20-year-old student Pierre Damas Bel), it is difficult to grasp the scale of what is happening in and around this small Midwest city, and to its Haitian population, their friends, and neighbors.
For years, Donald Trump and his party have waged a protracted campaign of racist lies, fear, and demagoguery on Springfield. This summer, that campaign culminated in the Trump administration’s ICE clampdown in the city, following President Trump’s destruction of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that once shielded the Haitian community. The crackdown – blessed by the Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority that this president cemented – is unlike anything else occurring now in Trump and JD Vance’s America.
The president and his allies are orchestrating horror and degradation all over the country. But in Springfield, the heightened level of fear is so widespread, and the state-imposed terror against a vulnerable minority so constant, that it is impossible to see this as anything but the Trump administration’s proof of concept for the president’s militarized vision of what America should be – a place where everyday people are afraid to go outside, in a republic of “law and order” that the federal government meticulously and arbitrarily constructs. It is the latest front in Trump and his party’s mission to codify MAGA’s brand of American racism and sadistic cruelty into law.
Pentagon secretly employs conservative influencers to promote Hegseth, attack critics
[Drop Site Daily, 08-30-2026]
The Pentagon has quietly installed several conservative military veterans with large online followings into government roles, including retired colonels Rob Maness, Kurt Schlichter, and Thomas Anderson, without disclosing their assignments, according to The Washington Post.
Maness, Schlichter, and Anderson have published columns and social media posts defending Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and attacking military critics without disclosing their Pentagon ties.
Maness and Schlichter, who have over 135,000 and nearly 620,000 X followers, respectively, hold active “.civ” government email addresses assigned to the office of Undersecretary of Defense Anthony Tata, though a Pentagon spokesman declined to say whether any are paid or detail their roles.
WSJ: Pentagon to take stake in Venezuelan oil venture: The Pentagon will reportedly receive a 35% stake in “North American Blue Energy Partners,” run by Alejandro Betancourt, a Venezuelan businessman close to Rodríguez who authorities have investigated after allegations of money laundering.
The stake will come through “penny warrants,” allowing Washington to acquire shares for a token price with little upfront spending. The U.S. could also buy 20% of the company’s future oil output at cost.
What Might Happen to Trump’s Ill-Gotten Gains
[The Atlantic, via Naked Capitalism 08-30-2026]
ICE arrests in San Francisco Bay Area area up nearly 70%, data shows
[ABC 7 Eyewitness News, via Naked Capitalism 08-30-2026]
A single signature by Trump can remove you from the internet
[Il Fatto Quotidiano, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Yesterday the Trump administration hit Autistici/Inventati, a European technology collective whose main activity is providing digital infrastructure, with a banking blockade with PayPal and Banca Etica closing its accounts.
[ProPublica, via Naked Capitalism 09-04-2026]
War on voting
Joyce Vance, Sep 01, 2026 [Civil Discourse]
War
U.S. military commanders call Iran war “unsustainable”
Drop Site Daily, September 1, 2026
Four senior U.S. commanders formally warned War Secretary Pete Hegseth that the prolonged Iran operation is unsustainable and is already weakening the military’s ability to confront threats elsewhere, including threats to the U.S. homeland, according to the Washington Post.
The objections appeared in a classified August 14 assessment covering the worldwide availability of U.S. forces and weapons.
Those involved in the warning include the Navy’s top admiral, Daryl Caudle, and the commanders of the European, Southern, and Indo-Pacific commands.
Caudle reportedly warned Hegseth that the Navy cannot maintain its current support for the war indefinitely, with barely one-quarter of the destroyer fleet reportedly ready to deploy.
The Pentagon attacked the publication of the classified information but did not deny that the commanders filed formal objections.
Letters from an American, August 31, 2026
Heather Cox Richardson, Sep 1, 2026
Alex Horton and Tara Copp of the Washington Post reported on Sunday, August 30, that military leaders are warning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that a plan to continue large-scale operations in Iran is unsustainable and is weakening their ability to protect U.S. interests in other places, including at home.
The warning is in the classified Secretary of Defense Orders Book of August 14 and is laid out by the heads of the Army, Navy, and Air Force and the four-star commanders who oversee U.S. operations in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Trump’s insistence that he must keep all options open, including the ability to launch major attacks, has forced more than 50,000 troops to be kept on alert for months. Plans to extend that alert made the Navy’s top admiral, along with leaders of the U.S. European Command, the U.S. Pacific Command and the U.S. Southern Command, register that they did not concur with those plans, although their disagreement does not mean they will not execute the order.
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle warned that the Navy, which has borne the brunt of operations against Iran, cannot sustain its current level of support for the war. Barely a quarter of the Navy’s destroyer fleet is currently able to deploy, while delays in maintenance are threatening the readiness of other ships….
Hegseth’s Pentagon Lurches off the Rails: Tom Nichols on the price of nominating a TV host who topped out as a National Guard major to run the Defense Department. (The Atlantic) see also Dan Driscoll’s Parting Shot: The Army secretary told Trump about problems in the Army and his friction with Hegseth, then resigned. (The Atlantic) see also The Generals Are Worried: A leak of a recent report suggests that even Hegseth loyalists can’t keep ignoring how depleted American reserves are. (Slate) , via The Big Picture, September 02, 2026]
[via The Big Picture, September 02, 2026]
The devastation of NSA Bahrain is a national security warning
Capt. John Cordle (ret.) [Military Times, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Trump
Deadnaming the Lake – How a country agrees to be embarrassed
Mike Brock, Aug 30, 2026 [Notes from the Circus]
The United States Department of State apologized for deadnaming a lake this week; no one made them do it, and no one has made them stop. It happened in the universe we all live in. It is all very stupid and masks dynamics in our society that are very dangerous. Dear reader, I endeavor to explain why that is the case….
Strategic Political Economy
[Reality-based Analysis Group, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
“How Congo’s stolen riches become your lawful cellphone
The Plutonomy—AI Edition—and the Coming Crisis
[Dollars & Sense, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Bottom 90% of New Yorkers’ Incomes Stagnate As Very Richest See 58% Gain Since COVID
[The City Reporter, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
The 2026 Auto Loan Bubble Just Burst: Millions of Americans Are Losing Their Cars
Rahaan Mazumder, September 1, 2026 [MotorBiscuit, via finance.yahoo.com]
…We are currently witnessing one of the largest waves of vehicle repossessions in modern automotive history. As we push through the back half of 2026, the data shows the crisis is rapidly accelerating….
According to a mid-2026 industry update from the legal analysts at Snell & Wilmer, total outstanding auto loan debt across the United States has swelled to an astronomical $1.67 trillion.
The sheer monthly burden of that debt is finally breaking the American consumer. Recent Q1 2026 data released by Edmunds reveals that the average monthly payment for a new financed vehicle has surged to a record high of $773. Experian backs this up, placing the average used car payment at an equally punishing $531 per month. For a significant portion of the country, dropping nearly a grand a month on a depreciating asset is completely unsustainable in the current economy.
When buyers can no longer stretch their budgets, the bank comes for the keys. Data from the financial analytics firm Prodigal reveals that a devastating 2.2 million vehicles were repossessed across the U.S. in 2025 alone, obliterating the previous year’s figures. The 2026 trajectory looks just as grim, with Experian reporting a steady year-over-year climb in 30-day and 60-day delinquency rates across all credit tiers.
Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the 2026 repo crisis is exactly why buyers are defaulting. It isn’t just about high interest rates; it’s about the “negative equity” death spiral.
During the pandemic-era buying frenzy, drivers drastically overpaid for vehicles. Now, those cars have rapidly depreciated, leaving drivers drastically “upside-down” on their loans—meaning they owe the bank far more than the vehicle is actually worth.
When these drivers try to trade in their cars today, they are forced to roll that massive deficit into their next auto loan. According to a grim July 2026 market report from Edmunds, the average negative equity rolled into a new loan hit a record-breaking $6,884 in Q2 2026. This toxic financial cycle virtually guarantees that buyers are trapped in a perpetual loop of unmanageable $700+ monthly payments until they eventually default….
Snowbird Technologies Demonstrates Expeditionary Manufacturing Capabilities During RIMPAC 2026
[Manufacturing Connected, Sep 2, 2026]
Snowbird Technologies successfully produced and machined a 316L stainless steel component aboard the USS Essex (LHD-2) during the Rim of the Pacific Exercise 2026 (RIMPAC 2026), demonstrating expeditionary manufacturing capabilities in an operational maritime environment.
As part of the Naval Postgraduate School’s Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education (CAMRE) distributed manufacturing experiment, Snowbird’s Samm Tech (Snowbird Additive Mobile Manufacturing Technology) system was deployed aboard USS Essex while underway from San Diego to Hawaii. During transit, the system additively manufactured components from 316L stainless steel using laser-wire directed energy deposition (DED) technology with nitrogen shielding gas before completing precision machining operations to achieve final part geometry and surface finish requirements.
The demonstration highlights Samm Tech’s ability to execute the complete manufacturing workflow at the point of need — additive manufacturing, machining and finishing — within a single ruggedized, containerized platform….
[TW: Why is this worth noting, and why place it in this section? Among the stories I covered in the 1980s-1990s was the simmering discontent arising from the immense damage inflicted on the USA industrial base by the Reagan ideology of free trade and free markets. Many of the national government programs that openly supported the industrial base were cut back or entirely eliminated. It’s interesting that some faction in the mic found a way to stash, hide, and protect a program in the Naval Postgraduate School. One of our public policy tragedies today is how the public has been prevented from knowing how almost all the technologies of the information age were created and supported by military research programs such as DARPA. Just as Reagan’s attack on the industrial base is now being manifested in the collapse of the ability to adequately support military deployments, Trump’s destruction of USA medical research will become increasingly clear as the consequences are manifested in the coming years and decades.]
Why the US Navy Can’t Build Its Own Warships Anymore (YouTube video)
[Engineering Unveiled, September 03, 2026]
Private Capital is Returning to the Maritime Industrial Base
[Maritime Executive, via thejackpot.blog, 3 Sep 2026]
“The United States is entering a multi-decade maritime industrial super cycle in which enduring strategic advantage will be determined not only by the sophistication of individual naval platforms, but by the nation’s ability to rapidly build, sustain, repair, regenerate, and scale maritime capability through a resilient, technologically advanced industrial base, according to an industry report released by the Aerospace, Defense & Government Services (ADGS) investment banking team at Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL).” And: “BGL Managing Director Meghan Welch: “The companies best positioned to create value will be those that combine differentiated technology or scarce qualifications with the operational ability to industrialize. In the next maritime cycle, innovation will matter, but industrialization will determine who wins.”
[Fortune, via Naked Capitalism 08-31-2026]
…The official unemployment is so low that Federal Reserve policymakers see it as a signal the economy is at or near full employment. Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh said as much during his speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Friday.
As a result, the Fed’s attention is now fixed on fighting inflation, instead of the other part of its dual mandate, namely supporting the labor market.
But the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity doesn’t have such a rosy view on the workforce. It has a True Rate of Unemployment that measures the “functionally unemployed,” who include the jobless, those involuntarily working part-time, and those earning a poverty wage.
That score saw its fourth consecutive increase in July, contrasting with the official jobless rate that has been steadily declining this year. The share of the labor market that’s functionally unemployed is now at 24.9% and has climbed 1.3 percentage points since March.
Similarly, LISEP’s measure of the percentage of the working-age population not functionally employed—including those who dropped out of the labor force—hit 53.8%, up 0.8 percentage points since the start of the year….
Global power shift
US urged to consider military strikes to stop China achieving AGI first
Vincent Chow, 4 Sep 2026 [South China Morning Post]
The United States should start preparing for scenarios where extreme measures must be taken to stop China from achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), according to a former White House official, including state-backed espionage and military strikes on Chinese data centres.Jacob Stokes, deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), said at an online event on Thursday that various US agencies, including the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency, should begin assessing what intelligence they need to justify taking such actions….
In a new CNAS report published last week, the former Obama administration national security staffer called for the US government to consider the feasibility of diplomatic, espionage, cyber and kinetic measures to prevent China from achieving AGI first.AGI is a hypothetical AI system that can achieve human levels of performance across a wide variety of tasks. The report, titled “Superpowers and AGI”, explores how the imminent arrival of AGI might affect US-China geopolitical competition.The US currently enjoys a months-long lead over China in frontier AI models, according to Epoch AI. However, China could make a “surprise technological breakthrough” that means it is close to achieving or achieves AGI first, Stokes wrote, citing China’s advances in areas such as robotics and other forms of “embodied AI”.If this were the case, the US government should consider extreme actions such as military strikes on the data centres that train and run the Chinese AGI system, Stokes wrote, including preventive strikes before China develops AGI….
Gaza / Palestine / Israel
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 09-03-2026]
Mel
@Villgecrazylady
The Jerusalem Post is now running editorials with ideas for how the Pentagon could recruit enough American soldiers to launch a ground invasion of Iran. They want to exploit the crippling debt young Americans are carrying by offering them a chance at forgiveness if they’re willing to go die for Israel in the Persian Gulf.
Economic enlistment for indebted military-age Americans
[Jerusalem Post, via thejackpot.blog, 4 Sep 2026]
“Estimates for a successful ground campaign against Iran’s 31 provincial commands and its Mosaic Defense Doctrine run between 750 thousand and 1.5 million American troops. The current active US Army stands at roughly 452 thousand. The math does not work, obviously.” More: “Based on American history, however, there is a path forward. Not conscription or a draft in a world war-era sense, but enlistment through a ‘debt forgiveness program.’ The average American aged 18 to 34 carries more than $40 thousand in non-mortgage debt across student loans, credit card balances, auto loans, and personal loans, with some estimates go as high as $100 thousand.” And: “This is the cohort the Pentagon needs. A federally administered debt-forgiveness enlistment program that fully discharges student loan, credit card, and loan balances after 24 or 36 months of service, and extends the GI Bill, would produce voluntary enlistment at scale.”
Israeli minister: Palestinians leaving is only ‘solution’ in Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel remains prepared to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza “by sea, by air, by every way possible,” describing the ethnic cleansing of the Strip as the “only solution.” Katz said Trump has not canceled the plan but “froze it” after pressure from Arab governments, while countries willing to receive Palestinians want U.S. backing. He added Israel expects a future “green light” to advance militarily and territorially if Hamas is deemed to have violated its commitments.
One of Trump’s two main Gaza advisers, Jared Kushner, made a similar threat after meeting Netanyahu last month, saying that if Hamas failed to decommission its weapons, the U.S. would back Israel resuming the war to “finish the job.”
These Generals Fought for Israel. Now They See ‘Jewish Terrorism’ as the Threat
[New York Times, via thejackpot.blog, 3 Sep 2026]
Russia / Ukraine
[Policy Tensor, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Oligarchy
Outrage in Malta as court acquits tycoon in investigative journalist murder case
[France24, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Felonomics
Jake Johnson, September 04, 2026 [CommonDreams]
GRAPH – Private construction: data centers vs. everything else
[Invictus chart using Census data via ChatGPT, via The Big Picture, September 03, 2026]
Trump demands all Canadian companies doing business with the US move to America ‘immediately’
[Independent, via Naked Capitalism 09-01-2026]
Political meddling at the Census Bureau damages the entire US statistical system
[Peterson Institute for International Economics, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Health care crisis
NPR spent 2 years tracking deaths from heat. We found a staggering hidden toll
[NPR, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Predatory finance
Private Equity Turned Apartments Into Profit Widgets—Then Tenants Paid the Price
Egberto [via Naked Capitalism 09-01-2026]
They’re not capitalists — they’re predatory criminals
Will the DOJ act on Epstein co-conspirators list issued by Massie?
[The Hill, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Leon Black defies subpoena to testify in Epstein inquiry and sues House panel
[NPR, via Naked Capitalism 09-04-2026]
Restoring balance to the economy
Monopoly Round-Up: Did America Just Set Up an FDA for Big Tech?
Matt Stoller, Aug 30, 2026 [BIG]
47 states settled with Meta over harms to kids. It’s not a strong settlement, but America now has the outlines of an FDA for big tech. Plus, rage on the ranch, record corporate profits, and more….
Before getting to that, I want to discuss the big story of the week, which is that Meta and 47 states settled a major case on alleged social media harm to children. I’ll get into the details, but what no one else seems to have noticed is that this deal basically sets up a Food and Drug Administration, for tech. And that’s a very important, even if the settlement itself is kind of lame….
Google skates: Another federal judge loses a game of peek-a-boo.
Cory Doctorow, September 5, 2026 [Pluralistic]
Rome wasn’t overthrown in a day. Oligarchies are stubborn, and by the time they’ve established and entrenched themselves, they have resources, power blocs and even mercenaries they can deploy to repel would-be dethroners.
The USA got its first antimonopoly law, the Sherman Act, in 1890, but it took 22 years before that law could be used to crush John D Rockefeller’s corrupt, sprawling empire. Senator John Sherman promoted his law as a way of preventing monopolies from emerging, warning the Senate that they would struggle to overthrow the “autocrats of trade” that monopolies created:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/20/we-should-not-endure-a-king/
The Senate passed his law and Harrison signed it, but then successive administrations left the Sherman Act to gather dust on a shelf as Rockefeller went on a spree, accumulating the kind of power that made him a true “autocrat of trade,” so powerful that he and the US government were practically evenly matched.
Allowing Rockefeller to create, expand and consolidate his monopoly power was a terrible tactical blunder, giving him decades in which he was able to loot America and its trading partners, pauperizing ordinary people and smashing anyone who got in his way. No one was willing to admit that Rockefeller was a threat to democracy and prosperity until he had amassed all that power, and once he had all that power, it took heroic effort to break him….
The Rockefeller blunder wasn’t a one-off. The Apple ][+ hit the shelves the same year Reagan hit the campaign trail, and the tech industry’s rise occurred simultaneously with the dismantling of competition law enforcement. Tech companies were the first “post-antitrust” industry, and it wasn’t until these companies became palpable, terrifying, undeniable, existential civilizational risks that we remembered that we had all these laws on the books that were designed to curb excessive corporate power….
Creating new economic potential – science and technology
The greatest living mathematician explains math from scratch
[Big Think, via Naked Capitalism 08-30-2026]
Vikings really did reach North America a thousand years ago — and now we know exactly when
[ZME Science, via Naked Capitalism 08-30-2026]
Africa set for solar installations record in 2026
[Semafor, via Naked Capitalism 08-30-2026]
Africa is set for a record year of solar installations, according to new analysis.
The continent is on track to install 17 gigawatts of solar in 2026, up 45% year-on-year, according to the global energy think tank Ember and the African Tech Futures Lab. If fulfilled, it would mark the third consecutive record year for African solar installations.
In a separate study, the International Renewable Energy Agency said off-grid renewable energy has the potential to play “a more central role” in climate adaptation across Francophone West Africa, while also plugging critical infrastructure gaps. IRENA said solutions such as solar mini-grids were “crucial for expanding access to dispersed and underserved populations” in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Senegal, where rural electrification rates can range from 2% to 10% in certain areas.
Inadequate energy and infrastructure investment has meant nearly 600 million people in Africa still lack access to electricity….
NY’s climate superfund law has been struck down. Is NJ’s bill now in trouble?
[Gothamist, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
New York’s landmark law compelling oil companies to pay for state efforts to address climate change has been struck down. And the ruling casts new doubt on a similar New Jersey bill that had been gaining momentum in Trenton….
The New York law would have charged fossil fuel companies up to $75 billion over 25 years, with that money meant for infrastructure projects to make the state more resilient to natural disasters. It was signed by Hochul at the end of 2024; the Trump administration, Republican attorneys general and industry groups sued to block the law almost immediately….
Disrupting mainstream economics
Why textbook economics is wrong about money
Steve Keen, August 31 2026
Information age dystopia / surveillance state
[photonicsonline.com, Sep 5, 2026]
Texas Police Used AI to Write Report About Using Flock to Search for Woman Who Had Abortion
[404 Media, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Google defeats US bid to force ad tech sale
[Reuters, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
David Dayen, September 3, 2026 [The American Prospect]
Sony Tells Courts Any ‘Reasonable Customer’ Knows Digital Purchases Are Actually Licenses
[TechDirt, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Climate and environmental crises
Gary’s Two-Week Blackout Is a Warning for America
[OilPrice, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Panama Canal Implements First Transit Restriction of 2026 Due to Drought
TeleSur, via Naked Capitalism 09-04-2026]
Democrats’ political malpractice
Centrist Democrats Are Trying to Throw the Michigan Race
Branko Marcetic [Jacobin, via thejackpot.blog, 2 Sep 2026]
Last week, a group of Michigan Democrats began circulating a letter announcing they would be voting for Rogers in November, because, in their words, ‘if El-Sayed were to win the general election in this important swing state, we fear the far left and anti-Jewish elements in the Democratic Party would become dominant, including in the imminent 2028 presidential race.’ That letter has 412 signatures as of the time of writing.” More: “Another pro-Israel Michigander who usually votes Democrat, Ann Arbor Rabbi Asher Lopatin, put it even more starkly in an op-ed for Israeli newspaper Haaretz. ‘Some will argue, as I personally do, that the best thing for the Democrats and the progressive cause, in the long run, is to show that anti-Israel candidates like El-Sayed can’t win, thus bringing the Democratic Party back to its more traditional and pro-Israel stance,’ he wrote. ‘A loss for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in November could save the Democratic Party from a hostile takeover ahead of the 2028 presidential election.’”
Imagining A Post-Trump Realignment
Brian Beutler, Sep 03, 2026 [offmessage.net]
I’d probably be in favor of Democrats abolishing the filibuster in 2027, but it’s a closer question than whether they should do it in 2029 (assuming they return to power with a trifecta).
My view is: Do it, get it out of the way, remove any doubt that you’ll get cold feet, or lose the decisive “nuclear option” vote come 2029.
There are other benefits, too: With the filibuster gone, Democrats could really make Donald Trump veto stuff. Senate Republicans wouldn’t be able to serve as fall guys for him. Iran war termination, Epstein files, restoring health care—veto, veto, veto, etc. etc.
Without the filibuster, Democrats would have much more control over the annual budget and a much easier time drawing the contrast they’re going to want to draw ahead of 2028: We just tried to do X, Y, Z and Trump vetoed all of it. If you want those things to become law, all we need is a Democratic president.
I’m agnostic about which of those things they should pass first. Probably something out of left field, like a bill codifying Roe v. Wade.
The objection, and it’s not a trivial one, is that most of the immediate benefit would be symbolic, but the filibuster would be gone forever. If Republicans somehow mounted a comeback in 2028, and reunified control of the government, Democrats would’ve done the hard part for them, and they’d be able to legislate freely without owning the power grab. In other words, there’s a strategic logic to keeping the filibuster in place until it’s time to strike.
All of this points to my overriding concern that Democrats come in with a considered oversight agenda, and begin hearings right away. There will be fights over documents and testimony, but they should have witnesses (Dan Driscoll? Alvin Holsey?) ready to testify. The attention they should seek is in the realm of accountability, not in the realm of various messaging bills the public will quickly forget.
As Michael notes, Trump will try to lock down as much as possible. His success will probably be tied to the election results—at least to some extent. If Democrats win a bigger landslide than they did in 2018, take both the House and Senate, strike fear into the institutional apparatus of the GOP, or the careerists and opportunists eyeing life after Trump, they might get more cooperation than we assume….
… Democrats could leave large components of the government unfunded until they secure Republican cooperation….
What the Hasan Piker Freakout Is Really About
[Ken Klippenstein, via Naked Capitalism 09-02-2026]
Democratic Voters Say They Want Change, But the Party Just Elevated More Hawks
[Truthout, via Naked Capitalism 09-04-2026]
33 Dems Help Pass House Bill That Would Strip Funds From Colleges That Boycott Israel
[Common Dreams, via Naked Capitalism 09-04-2026]
Resistance
“New York City’s Electoral Earthquake: How We Did It” [Democratic Left].
[Democratic Left, via thejackpot.blog, 3 Sep 2026]
“It’s often easy to get caught in the mindset of how do we come up with the perfect messaging to members to excite them or communicate the urgency. It’s never just one touch that makes a difference of why someone decides to canvass. I think the rallies like the one with Bernie Sanders did matter. But the thing that really broke through was giving it to people straight: These are the stakes, there is where we’re at, what we need. The first one was a little bit dire [although] I knew we could do it. There was a lot of urgency, so it was real. The first message was, “We’re not in a great place, turnout is low, we need to do what we do best, which is get out there and knock on doors.” The next message was that it was picking up, it’s a tie game right now, we have a real shot. The third round was about keeping that momentum going, saying, “Holy shit, I think we’re actually going to do this, keep fighting! Do you want to win by one point or 30 points?” We overperformed way more than we expected for all the campaigns.”
Conservative / Libertarian / (anti)Republican Drive to Civil War
Florida bans undocumented students from state universities
[South Florida Sun-Sentinel, via Drop Site Daily, September 4, 2026]
Florida’s Board of Governors voted unanimously to bar undocumented students from enrolling in state universities starting in the 2027-28 academic year, making Florida the largest state to enact such a ban and joining Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
The vote follows a June decision by the State Board of Education banning undocumented immigrants from Florida’s 28 state colleges and adult education programs, and comes after the state already ended in-state tuition waivers for these students.
At least 4,672 undocumented students were enrolled in state colleges in 2024-25, with an estimated 2,000 more at state universities.
Huge scandal exposes how USA uses criminals to manipulate elections in Latin America
Ben Norton, Aug 30, 2026 [defenddemocracy.press]
Far-right election meddling specialist Fernando Cerimedo was arrested for trying to assassinate his pregnant ex-girlfriend. Using bots, disinformation, fraud, he oversaw campaigns of Latin America’s right-wing, pro-US presidents, with deep links to Trump admin. By Latin America has been rocked by a major scandal that says everything about how politics works….
Fernando Cerimedo is originally from Argentina, but he has worked with the leaders of most right-wing governments in Latin America, and he is closely linked to the Donald Trump administration and far-right US politicians in Florida.
Cerimedo is a multi-millionaire specialist in election engineering. He has taken credit for putting multiple ultra-conservative presidents in power in Latin America — and he has made a fortune doing so.
None of this is organic. In fact, Cerimedo publicly thanked the man who served as the campaign manager for Trump in the 2020 presidential race, Brad Parscale, for giving him the technology he has used to manipulate elections all across the region.
This August, Cerimedo was arrested by Bolivian police after he hired hitmen to assassinate his pregnant ex-girlfriend, the well-known political activist and lawyer Nadia Beller.
No Actual Problem – Tyler Cowen grades the year
Mike Brock, Sep 04, 2026 [Notes from the Circus]
Tyler Cowen went on Prof G Markets this morning and spent an hour demonstrating the only kind of useful idiocy worth writing about: the kind with complete information.
The useful idiot in the old times was someone who was duped. That was the excusing condition. Tyler Cowen is not a man who is duped. What makes this interview worth your time is that he narrates the entire indictment himself, accurately, in the pleasant cadence of a man grading a quiz he wrote.
Asked about Trump’s promise to balance the budget, he is plain: “It was all lies to begin with. Anyone who believed it was a fool.” Asked whether economic policy has been driven by nativism bordering on racism, he does not hesitate: “Our immigration policy. Yes.” He describes the immigration agenda as something the president “outsourced” to Stephen Miller, whose project he summarizes as returning the country to “how we were culturally, ethnically, linguistically, in terms of religion, Christianity.” He calls the fiscal position a top-tier crisis — forty trillion in debt, “we’re in a very bad state,” “we’re going to suffer for that” — and states the national strategy in one sentence: “Our plan A is AI and we have no plan B.”
Then he grades the whole arrangement: “Overall, it’s still pretty awesome, I have to say. I know it sounds a little crazy. Can I give it a B+?” ….
The (anti)Federalist Society assault on the Constitution
How the Right Could Actually End Birthright Citizenship
Quinta Jurecic, August 31, 2026 [The Atlantic]
… Fortunately for Trump, a small group of right-leaning law professors busied themselves with the work of casting doubt on the question that judges in the lower courts—and, for more than 150 years, nearly every other expert—had found so clear. Some were up-front about their motivations. “My political predisposition was actually to think birthright citizenship is morally quite a complex issue and that the Trump position might be the right moral answer,” Ilan Wurman, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, explained in an interview on Moment of Truth, a podcast produced by a MAGA-aligned think tank. He co-wrote a New York Times op-ed in February 2025 and later published a law-review article. Both drew selectively from Anglo-American legal history to suggest that the words subject to the jurisdiction thereof might be read to mean “subject to America’s ‘social compact,’ ” whereby an individual gives up certain rights so that the state can guarantee others. People in the United States illegally haven’t entered into an “exchange of allegiance and protection,” Wurman argued, and therefore might not be guaranteed birthright citizenship for their children.
Scholarship proceeds through debate and contestation, but the convenient timing of this intervention and the patchiness of the historical work looked a great deal like an effort to sway the Court in Trump’s favor. Prior to Trump’s executive order, Wurman hadn’t published any academic work questioning the conventional understanding of birthright citizenship; he pressed forward with his op-ed, he said on the podcast, because he “wanted to move the Overton window.” Other scholars were appalled by his argument. Law, the CUNY professor, described the revisionist conclusions as “hogwash” that elide “mountains of scholarship on the other side.” Even fellow conservative originalists, who share Wurman’s approach to constitutional interpretation rooted in historical meaning, questioned his interpretation of subject to the jurisdiction thereof. Under common law and the public understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment at the time of the amendment’s drafting, they argued, subject to the jurisdiction thereof meant “subject to the law of”—which would include just about everyone on U.S. soil. “Aliens within the territory owe obedience to the law just like a natural-born citizen does,” the originalist law professor Keith Whittington wrote in a February 2026 paper. (Asked about his methodology, Wurman responded over email, “There is no single answer to the question of when sufficient historical data has been presented to make historical claims convincing.”)Yet the revisionist scholarship found a receptive audience among the conservative justices on the Court. During oral arguments in April, most of the justices seemed skeptical of, even hostile toward, Solicitor General D. John Sauer’s case against birthright citizenship. By the time the Court handed down its ruling at the end of June, however, only five—the three liberals, along with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett—found the executive order to be unconstitutional. Justice Clarence Thomas drew from what he termed a “groundswell of new scholarship” in his dissent. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, dissenting in part, likewise pointed to the debate on the question to suggest that “the constitutional issue is not straightforward.” He argued that Congress would need to rewrite existing law to create exceptions to birthright citizenship for “children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country.”Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, believes the revisionists’ rapid work helped sway several conservative justices. “Without that kind of sustained public offensive, I’m not sure that you have more than one or two people in the dissent,” he told me. Wurman seems to agree. “I think four votes on the Supreme Court for what was thought to be off-the-wall a year and a half ago is a huge victory,” he said in a taping of his own podcast shortly after the Court released its opinion.
Sophie Hurwitz, Sep 5, 2026] [Mother Jones]
Bill Blum, Aug 21, 2026 [LA Progressive]
Civic republicanism
“These landscapers are changing lives, one free mow at a time”
[Washington Post, via thejackpot.blog, 3 Sep 2026]
“Three years ago, Sean Stockman mowed a lawn in Detroit and it changed his life. Stockman, 44, was two decades into a stable corporate job with an automotive company. He noticed an out-of-control lawn in his neighborhood and decided to take it upon himself to mow it. ‘I thought it’d be relaxing for me, like a stress reliever from work,’ he says.” Fast forward: “it’s not all about views and followers. It’s about doing something meaningful for people in the creators’ communities. Some find their properties by crowdsourcing ― they ask followers to submit yards for consideration. Others simply knock on the front door and ask whether it would be okay to start trimming. Most of the out-of-control yards belong to people in need, and the mowers don’t charge a dime.” More: “ ‘This has all morphed from just cutting tall grass for the shock-and-awe video ― though I still do crazy yards ― into a reminder that people are good and they want to help each other,’ Stockman says. ‘I really want to focus on this idea of sustainability. I can come in and do all this work, and that’s no problem. I’ll reset your property. But how can we get you back on your feet?’” And: “Kevin Hansen, a 35-year-old who started mowing lawns for free in Tulsa six years ago, feels similarly. ‘A lot of people are struggling just to make ends meet. Lawn service is costly, and a regular push mower now costs more than $500. Sometimes it’s older people who are on a fixed income, or who are physically not capable of taking care of it.’”
Bonifacius. An essay upon the good, that is to be devised and designed, by those who desire to answer the great end of life, and to do good while they live. A book offered, first, in general, unto all Christians, in a personal capacity, or in a relative. Then more particularly, unto ministers, unto physicians, unto lawyers, unto scholemasters [sic], unto wealthy gentlemen, unto several sorts of officers, unto churches, and unto all societies of a religious character and intention. With humble proposals, of unexceptionable methods, to do good in the world.
There needs abundance to be done, that the Miseries of the World may have Remedies and Abatements provided for them; and that miserable people may be Relieved and Comforted. The world has according to the Computation of Some, above Seven hundred millions of people now Living in it. What an ample Field among all these, to Do Good upon! In a word, The Kingdom of God in the World, Calls for Innumerable Services from us. To Do SUCH THINGS is to Do Good. Those men Devise Good, who Shape any DEVICES to do Things of Such a Tendency; whether the Things be of a Spiritual Importance, or of a Temporal. You see, Sirs, the General matter, appearing as Yet, but as a Chaos, which is to be wrought upon. Oh! that the Good Spirit of God may now fall upon us, and carry on the Glorious work which lies before us! (pp. 20-21)
[TW: Benjamin Franklin wrote that “… the most acceptable service we render to [god] is doing good to his other children.” Franklin attested that he was greatly influenced by Boston minister Cotton Mather’s Bonifacius: Essays to Do Good. Mather advocated the establishment of voluntary associations to do good by benefiting society, and founded Associated Families, a community improvement group in Boston, which Franklin’s father joined. Franklin thus was following a model set by Mather, when Franklin later helped establish in Philadelphia such as the Library Company, the fire fighters association, the public hospital, and the American Philosophical Association, and what would become the University of Pennsylvania.
And for our Trump deranged times: “Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.“]
spud
Russia may well outgun us. but you have to have leadership that is willing to use what ever you have at your disposal, to make sure your country is not broken up and raped.
i really do not think russia nor china, really understands what they are up against.
and a military advantage is fleeting today. so it should not be wasted, and you should re-instate the fear of retaliation pronto.
—————
Putin has faced criticism for his perceived submissiveness in international meetings, with some media describing him as a “poodle” in relation to his interactions with leaders like Trump. This reflects a broader sentiment that he has been able to regain influence despite ongoing geopolitical tensions.
abcnews.com Voice of America
In recent international meetings, particularly during G20 summits, Vladimir Putin has been criticized for appearing submissive. This perception has led to media descriptions of him as a “poodle,” especially in relation to his interactions with leaders like Donald Trump. Such characterizations suggest that he may be overly eager to please or align with more dominant figures in the geopolitical landscape.
Media Reactions: European newspapers have often portrayed Trump as “weak” and a “stooge” for Putin, reflecting a broader narrative that questions the strength of U.S. leadership under Trump.
Geopolitical Dynamics: Despite these criticisms, Putin has managed to regain a degree of influence on the world stage, even amidst ongoing tensions related to Russia’s actions in Ukraine and other regions.
Summary of Key Points
Attribute Description
Media Description Putin referred to as a “poodle” in some outlets
Criticism Context Seen as submissive in meetings with leaders like Trump
Geopolitical Influence Despite criticism, Putin has regained some influence
This dynamic illustrates the complex interplay of power and perception in international relations, where appearances can significantly impact a leader’s standing on the global stage.
abcnews.com Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
different clue
Perhaps these driverless Tesla robocabs will be a sensitive spot by which to inflict pain on Musk if nobody rides in one, thereby bankrupting everyone who buys one and hopefully feeding up the ladder to Musk itself.
If Cybercab Makes So Much Money, Why Sell It Instead of Keeping All the Profits?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anticonsumption/comments/1w92h90/if_cybercab_makes_so_much_money_why_sell_it/
different clue
Parkrose Permaculture offers an interesting theory of why the TrumpAdmin and the Supreme Leo ShysterCourt are working to loosen gun regulations, reduce gun laws, and facilitate the further public aquisition of even more firearms of even more power.
Her theory is that, the TrumpAdmin and the Project 2025ers etc. are working to create conditions for a Civil War ( her phrase is ” manifest Civil War” )at some level within the US to keep Americans busy with eachother in order to preserve the TrumpAdmin’s undisturbed freedom of action against America and Americans in general.
They’re trying to start a Civil War. Don’t let them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XE42bC-zWag
How should we factor this into our thinking? If we don’t work to counter and undermine the Republicanfederate TrumpAdmin, we will not be able to weaken it and its supporters and owners fast enough to raise the chances of our own survival against them. But how do we do that in a consistently violence-outbreak-avoiding manner?
different clue
Well . . . this video shows a possible non-violent way to weaken the magaconomy by weakening its component bad-actor businesses, one by one by one. All non-violently and politely.
African-American Customer Told He CAN’T Sit Down?! This Business Just Went Full FAFO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFgR3khL7gM
And if counter-MAGA people in their thousands ( and in their millions and then tens of millions ideally) find and preferentially support members of the counter-magaconomy whenever that is possible, the the counter-magaconomy community might be better able overall to invest in its own survival; either by outnumbering, overcoming and defeating the magaculture all over America, or by pursuing its own Separate Survival in those parts of America where fortresses of Separate Survival can be built.
Weaken the hostiles, strengthen the friendlies, let the neutrals decide over time to join the hostiles or the friendlies. But always with a smile on our face and without any violent rhetoric.
david lamy
Captain John Cordle (USN, ret) wrote a heartfelt piece about the Iranians blasting the Fifth Fleet headquarters off the map. Naval (and other services) families, pets, and future prospects were left hanging in limbo. His concern was touching.
But there is an out-to-lunch component of his post: the idea that if only the headquarters had the air defense capabilities provided to Israel and Ukraine, then there would be less damage. It is shocking that a senior commander could believe in the fairy tail of US military missile defense.
I don’t know how the shock of how we’ve been had by the military industrial complex will manifest, but in any of the potential forms — it will not be pretty.
TM
Thank you for the links regarding the treatment of Haitian migrants in Springfield. An absolute travesty that we do not hear much about in the UK. I hope Pierre Damas Bel is the last to suffer, though I know he will not be. May he rest in peace.
different clue
It looks like Arab ( and a certain Turkish), Muslim, and White Leftist activists are going out of their way on some kind of crazy purpose to antagonise the Black community more and more and more, and turn the rift between the Left and the Black Community into an unbridgeable grand canyon. And are the Activists on the Left even paying attention to what Black content creators are saying about all this?
Here are two videos, one from an African re-videocaster of aggregated American content, and one from an American maker of original podcasts. These two people have a subscribership between them of several hundred thousand people. Does the Left want to create a hard separation between itself and that many Black people? Really?
Arab Muslim American Journalist Gets CALLED OUT For Alleged R@cist Remarks On LIVE TV & B🖤 Pe0ple 👉🏾
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76agftAN6l4
And here are two videos from TabithaSpeaksPolitics. Her site says she has 458K subscribers. That’s a lot of viewers. And how many of them send these videocasts on to other people they know to be watched by yet more people? Does the Left even think about this at all? Even the leastest littlest bit?
Ana Kasparian Steps In The Ring To Dehumanize Black People!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj3iFab92Yk
They Just Don’t Get It… There Is No Unity Until You Deal With Your Racism!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvPWRoBY1wU
If mere hatred was the only thing I felt for the Left, I would just watch the Left keep pouring gasoline on itself and lighting itself on fire and enjoy the flames. Believe it or not, I offer these links in the faint hope that one out of a thousand Leftists or maybe one out of every ten thousand Leftists will watch them and maybe think about doing better. Even though I am not even on the Left.
Because even though I am not on the Left myself, if we don’t even have a viable useful Left, then what are we even left with at all?
spud
different clue:
the people you speak of are not left. they are neo-liberals or worse.
“Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized that “shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” This highlights the importance of deep, meaningful engagement in the fight for justice rather than superficial support.
Goodreads University of Oregon”
FDR secured economic rights, and opened the door to end jim crow, Truman took a meat axe to jim crow, saved the new deal setting off the modern civil rights movement.
“Harry S. Truman protected and reinforced the New Deal reforms of his predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, during his presidency. He aimed to continue these policies while also introducing his own initiatives, such as the Fair Deal.
Miller Center University of Wisconsin-Madison”
Lenin said organize, organize, organize. its why he is so despised by everyone except the true left.
if you want to erase overt racism, you have to understand, to the the rich and powerful, you must stay divided so that you have no economic rights.
once you understand this, its much easier to stop what’s happening to minorities and others, then you are looking through the lens of the true left.
when i was a little boy, my father was transferred to new orleans, the company found us a home right across the border in mississippi.
wow, what a education for someone so young. only one tarred road in the town of about three thousand people. all the rest dirt
basically it was two towns, one for the blacks, one for the whites. once a week the football coaches and clergy would knock on doors, telling people to make sure they showed up at the friday night football game.
i was in a grocery store one day, and two people working it, i heard them say they were sick of no business, and just trying to get by. in stepped a black man, wad of cash in hand saying out loud, i got cash, the response, get out of here, no N#####s, then the guy left. can you imagine the hatred and stupidity of those idiots!
i was stunned, i asked my mother, he had money. she told me to be quite. in the 1970’s i learned the town got all of its roads paved. even in the black part.
so the left you hate, are not the left at all. they are europeon liberals, think of tony blair.
“Liberalism in Europe
Liberalism in Europe is a political movement that supports a broad tradition of individual liberties and constitutionally-limited and democratically accountable government. These European derivatives of classical liberalism are found in centrist movements and parties, as well as some parties on the centre-left and the centre-right. Most liberalism in Europe is conservative or classical whilst European social liberalism and progressivism is rooted in classical radicalism, a left-wing classical liberal idea…”
european liberals are more along the lines of the austrian school of economics, pure quackery.
american liberals today, are not classic american liberals, they are european in nature, think bill clinton.
American liberalism emerged during the American Enlightenment, influenced by Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke, emphasizing individual rights and freedom from tyranny. This philosophical foundation evolved significantly, particularly with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, which introduced a more active government role in social welfare.
ebsco.com University of Tennessee at Martin
Origins of American Liberalism
American liberalism has its roots in the American Enlightenment, a period during the 18th century that was heavily influenced by Enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke. This era emphasized key principles that shaped the foundation of liberal thought in America.
Individual Rights: The philosophy stressed the importance of personal liberties and the protection of individual rights.
Freedom from Tyranny: A significant focus was on liberation from oppressive governance, particularly in reaction to British rule.
Evolution of American Liberalism
The concept of liberalism in America underwent substantial transformation over time, especially during the 20th century.
Founding Fathers: Early American leaders like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison interpreted liberalism as a means to ensure freedom and rights for individuals against government overreach.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal: In the 1930s, liberalism shifted towards advocating for a more active government role in addressing social issues, marking a significant evolution from its original form. This period emphasized social welfare programs and economic intervention.
Planter of Trees
What does the Black activist community offer to a wider popular movement? Besides the threat of raising a shitstorm of countersignalling whenever they feel disrespected, I mean. Not to defend the Muslim contingent: they have form for racial insensitivity and that slur was utterly unnecessary, not to say politically damaging. Still, I am left with the image of civil rights activists militating against anti-genocide agitators over remarks by literally who.
“There will be no unity until…?” Better to simply announce, “There will be no unity” and leave it at that. A coalition of special interests risks an endless battle over an agenda that will never take shape let alone be executed, not with this kind of leadership.
What is the cure for such disorders? Leninism.
spud
he worked with people of all political stripes and won, the type the rich hate. organize, organize, organize.
but if its doable, it will take a long time. but the empire might implode first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Smalls
Christian Smalls (born July 4, 1988) is an American labor organizer and activist[1] known for his role in organizing Amazon workers in Staten Island, a borough in New York City. He is a co-founder and the former president of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) (2021–24).
different clue
@Spud,
The people I speak of are neoliberals, not Left? Really?
Kasparian, Uygur, Piker are neoliberals? The anti-blackness-based ” Free Palestine” activists which the Black content creators I bring here are neoliberals, not Left? Really?
They sure smell like Leftists to me. I can put my nose up to the screen and smell the Leftness. Are you telling me that what I am really smelling is neoliberalness?
Are the Black content creators also confusing neoliberals for Leftists?
different clue
The question sometimes comes up, what kind of hegemon will China be? Because it will be the next hegemon.
Here is a little video from a Security Forum being held in Seoul.
A Chinese military attaché handed Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro a note during a security forum in Seoul. He decided to read it aloud.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1wakivi/a_chinese_military_attach%C3%A9_handed_philippine/
different clue
I sometimes watch a podcaster called Steve Schmidt. He is a one-time-legacy Republican. He was a strategist for McCain, for example. For whatever it is worth, he was NeverTrumper before NeverTrumper was cool.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Schmidt
He shares my understanding of MAGA as being ” cancer” , ” filth”, an “abscess”, a “canker”, etc. which has to be purged, burned and excised and excorcised from out of America in every way and at every level. And he advises that the process of deMAGAfication has to begin with the destruction and removal of every physical trace of Trump’s presence, so that the MAGA filth have no monuments to rally around till they can try it again.
Here is his latest videocast.
The Democrats Are Going to Bury MAGA in November | Steve Schmidt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2N0dvGL9As
Why do I lack Schmidt’s faith in the non-subhuman non-cuck promise of the Democrats? Because of things like Secret Agent HakeeMAGA’s secret-deal meeting with Kushner. Because of things like this proposed-in-theory deal to let Trump quietly resign real soon in return for getting to keep and get away with everything.
Carville: The Secret Bombshell Deal to Get Trump Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2ftAZYuZew
Maybe Schmidt will see this newest Carville report and make videos condemning it and trying to make it too radioactive for the Secret Deal Democrats to go through with it.
He also has a naive faith, which I myself do not share, that the subhuman cuck Democrats also see the need for strict and rigid deMAGAfication in the terms in which he describes it. He does not see the Party Professional Democrats as being subhuman cucks. I do. I am willing to believe non-subhuman non-cuck behavior from individual Democrats if I see it shown consistently over a long enough time to make a material physical difference against the MAGA enemy. Perhaps also he is saying these things in the hope that enough of my fellow mere citizens hear them and support them that just enough subhuman cuck Democrats fear us mere citizens more than they worship
subhuman kumbayaloha cuckitude and the Prime ethical subhumanist Obama Directives of ” Look forward, not back” and ” When they go low, we go high”.
different clue
Things that make you go . . . hmmmm . . .
There is a Black ranch-owning family in Colorado which has been presented as being subjected to a several-years-running campaign of racial terror to drive them off their ranch. I have accepted that narrative.
Mr. Farming While Beige, who is a Black farmer in a Conservative White rural area, has finally felt compelled to express his doubts and suspicions over this whole thing. He makes some statements of fact, which, if they are actually factual, put this case in a whole new shade. So I am somewhat jumping back from the conclusion I jumped to.
Freedom Acres Ranch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj18w26cKUo
Live and sometimes learn . . . sometimes.
different clue
Here is a liberal talking head who claims to be a former Republican who offers some very disrespectful criticism of Speaker Grindr Mike Johnson. ( Disrespect which I share).
Have I jumped to a conclusion about Grindr Mike? Does anyone have some more nuanced information which would help me jump back from it?
Unless and until then, my feeling is that . . . given that Grindr Mike is probably a perfect expression of everything his District stands for . . . the proper response would be for people from outside his District to see if there are any famous businesses located in his District which people at large have heard of and maybe even buy from.
And if there are, those businesses should be boycotted till the people of his District are successfully economically tortured enough to where they give up and de-elect Grindr Mike.
He Is Truly STRUGGLING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y4AjzDDlog
different clue
Here’s an example of deceit-based business practices . . .
Netflix using egregious methods to keep subscriptions active
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/1wbxt3x/netflix_using_egregious_methods_to_keep/
different clue
Here is Gov. Pritzker of Illinois, giving a little speech about how the ” Republican Convention” will illustrate that the mainstream Republicanfederates are the Party of Jefferson Davis ( my re-interpretive phrasing).
“Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) on the speakers at the upcoming GOP midterm convention: “I’m done pretending that these self-dealing, racist, misogynist grifters are an aberration of the Republican Party. They are the mainstream of the Republican Party now.” ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/illinois/comments/1wbvxfv/illinois_gov_jb_pritzker_d_on_the_speakers_at_the/
I have every confidence that the puristocrats at Naked Capitalism would explain how both sides are the same.
different clue
I read that Mister Musk is so offended by a recently released documentary claiming that he “manipulated” the 2024 election that he is thinking of sueing the makers.
I hope all the right lawtrolls can actually ragebait him into actually filing such a suit. Then I believe there is something called “discovery” which he can be forced into, though I am not any kind of legally knowledgeable. If there is, then it would be “into the wood chipper for you, Mister Musk.”
Elon Musk Claims New Documentary Falsely Accuses Him of Manipulating 2024 Election, Threatens Legal Action
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1wckqkn/elon_musk_claims_new_documentary_falsely_accuses/
different clue
Well , the Grindr Old Party ( GOP) risks giving itself away at its convention in Dallas.
“Backlash Grows as Texas Republican Convention Flashes Hasan Piker Underwear Pic on Jumbotron: ‘They Want Him so Bad’ ”
https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1wcf4wn/backlash_grows_as_texas_republican_convention/
https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A2RRl_lXRaNqsQIAXsNXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwN1cy1lYXN0LTEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=you+tube+nelson+muntz+ha+ha&fr=sfp&turl=https%3A%2F%2Fup.yimg.com%2Fib%2Fth%2Fid%2FOVP.2BPfnSQLuDu_rL_-1c7IAQHgFo%3Fpid%3DApi%26w%3D296%26h%3D156%26c%3D7%26p%3D0%26rs%3D1%26qlt%3D95&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DeOifa1WrOnQ&tit=Nelson+Muntz+-+Ha+Ha&pos=01&vid=1d6dc30515c8edb84ef081b086a58dc6&sigr=zQq7fa6S0YNV&sigt=Xwft50QhppJj&sigi=d3XWyeBBlozV