unraveling

31.Oct.2025

The Unpopulist

Rebecca Solnit's Meditations on an Emergency, from June 28 this year: "An Existential Threat to the Rule of Law" (Some Notes on the Supreme Court and the War on Immigrants) It came back to the fore when she found herself pull-quoted and reposted the repost, with "I forget where I said this, but I definitely said it earlier this year and someone dressed it up. Say boo to a fascist today." I tracked it down (assisted by TH!RD ACT which had reposted her full entry back in the day).

She was writing in high summer, extolling the glorious sunlight, and the "beautiful, pleasant, and positive things" unfolding. But.

"And underneath and around and looming over everything is something not just new but unprecedented: the war from within waged with venom and recklessness by the Trumpists, the dismantling of the rule of the law, the attacks on our rights and protections, on public lands and nature, and the corruption of the parts of the federal government that aren't undermined or dismantled."

One of the hottest scandals of that moment was "the Supreme Court’s monumentally disastrous decision in Trump v. CASA (more commonly known as 'the birthright citizenship case')." Legal expert and Nation columnist Elie Mystal said the legal upshot of that decision "is chaos. Utter legal chaos."

"In its ruling[], the court’s usual six monarchists granted Donald Trump’s request to reexamine various nationwide injunctions preventing Trump and Stephen Miller from implementing their plans to revoke birthright citizenship to any American who doesn’t happen to be white. With the legal sleight of hand so beloved by the Roberts Court, the ruling doesn’t actually allow Trump to end birthright citizenship. It just makes it incredibly difficult for courts to stop him from ending birthright citizenship.... Once you read the fine print, it becomes clear that this decision is a historic, five-alarm catastrophe."

Back in late June, 5 months into the +rump presidency, Stephen Miller had already whipped ICE into a frenzy of countless outrages to terrorize the American people he and his boss don't care for, and the first big No Kings rallies had just happened. Polls were already "showing that the Trump regime and its measures, including the current attacks on immigrants are deeply unpopular." And then the parenthetical which we now pull and make bold-face:

[S]omething obvious but maybe worth saying again is authoritarians have to be authoritarian because what they're doing is unpopular; the will of the people has to be suppressed for them to impose their agenda, and the Trump Administration is becoming increasingly unpopular with the public."

In case you haven't kept up with the news for a day or two:

• Our National Guard "citizen soldiers" are set to become a "quick reaction force" for anticipated rioting. (Rioting that CPB, ICE et al. will be doing their best to trigger.)
• In Mango Mussolini's recent jet talk, he spit out the Overton Window to say the Insurrection Act means "I’d be allowed to do whatever I want." (And of course, he can declare "INSURRECTION!" and no judges can stop him. It's a real shame he wasn't available on January 6, 2021.)
• Political appointees Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, SecDef Pete "warfighter" Hegseth, and SecState Marco Rubio have moved onto military bases.

All perfectly normal. This is fine.

30.Oct.2025

More for your authoritarianism reading list

It's pretty bleak here of late, and I'm sorry about that, but these are the times we're in. James Greenberg, on Constructing 1984: The Enemy Within and the Authoritarian Surveillance State. I appreciate his ability to frame his (reasonably-sized) thought pieces with an opening graf:

"When I first read Orwell’s 1984 as a teenager, I took it as science fiction—a dark fable about a distant future. Later, I came to see it as prophecy, a warning about the dangers of surveillance, propaganda, and authoritarianism. Today, it reads like journalism. Big Brother, doublethink, and thoughtcrime are not literary inventions—they have become operational logics of governance, embedded in the way data is collected, dissent is policed, and loyalty is measured....

"The stakes are no longer abstract. Our democracy will not survive if dissent is equated with treason, if citizenship is conditional, if every protester is a suspect."

Thom Hartmann poses the existential question: Is the Algorithm the Single Greatest Threat to Humanity at this Moment? "Algorithms are not tuned for what is best for society. They don’t follow the rules that hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution have built into our cultures, religions & political systems..." One datum for consideration:

"An MIT study finds that lies presented as news travel six times faster across social media than truths."

Or as the 5 September 1820 Portland Gazette had it, "Falsehood will fly from Maine to Georgia, while truth is pulling her boots on." Even tighter, Jonathan Swift, in 1710: “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”

Reifying "The Algorithm" rankles a bit for me, as an old bit-biter and hobby botanist. Life is an algorithm, you know. But his point about the surveillance-industrial state leveraging algorithms for control and profit poisoning the meme pool is well-taken. We're tricked into spreading information garbage as we willingly submit to "means of behavior modification" (as Shoshana Zuboff named it, in her 2019 book).

Finally (for the moment :-), Robert Hubbell, on how Trump’s unhinged ravings threaten global peace. He's campaigning for the "Noble" with lawless killing of civilians in international waters, and whoops we're in a new nuclear arms race. (Aside from that, Hubbell is one of the more upbeat commentators I'm following. His "good news" includes +rump's poll numbers sinking deeper into the swamp, and SCOTUS refusing to shadow docket the National Guard into Chicago.)

"The 2024 presidential election was extraordinarily close. Many congressional races were decided by several hundred or several thousand votes. While today’s polls are not predictive of the outcomes in 2026, they give us reason to be hopeful despite the daily deluge of outrage from the Trump administration.

"The trendlines are in our favor. We must not quit. We must not relent. Indeed, we must redouble our efforts. But we can do so with the knowledge that we have seized the momentum and have every reason to be hopeful about the future."

The cruelty is the point

Yesterday, from Popular Information: Choosing to let kids go hungry. The USDA issued guidance on September 30, on the verge of the Republican-controlled congressional admission of failure to budget, insisting that

"Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown."

They changed that tune a week or so ago, to "contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits." There was a memo, headed with a Hatch Act violation, blaming, you know.

"Due to Congressional Democrats’ refusal to pass a clean continuing resolution (CR), approximately 42 million individuals will not receive their SNAP benefits come November 1st."

ICYMTM, they now have a big (VERY big!) "alert" on their home page, with a vaguely excrement-colored background and risible lies about Senate Democrats being to blame for everything. That's after the "carrot" of "just give in, then we can negotiate" didn't budge the opposition to spiking the health care insurance subsidies that millions of Americans depend on. As part of the supposedly "clean CR" that the House passed before it went on forced recess.

That's right above the footer text over a blue sky background that says "We are here for you". Not to put too fine a point on it, PI notes that "all of these claims [in the shit-banner] are false."

Among the substack blogs I subscribe to (with too many posts unread in my email inbox), James Greenberg's September 5 edition makes the same point in a related vein ("the machinery of deportation"): Cruelty as Policy.

"Cruelty has become a governing tool. That is the stark fact of American immigration policy today. What was once described as enforcement has hardened into ritualized acts of suffering, staged to teach whole communities a lesson. These are not mistakes or excesses. They are the point....

"The trauma radiates outward. Families lose income overnight. Children develop nightmares and stop attending school. Communities learn to hide in plain sight. I have heard these stories too many times to dismiss them as side effects. They are the intended outcome. Cruelty is meant to destabilize everyday life, to turn the ordinary acts of working, studying, or seeking care into sites of danger....

"Anthropology teaches that societies reveal themselves in how they draw boundaries of belonging. Political ecology shows how those boundaries are enforced through space, labor, and institutions. What we see now is a civic ecosystem pushed toward collapse. Due process, sanctuary, and trust — the conditions that sustain democracy — are stripped away. Like an environment degraded past its tipping point, a democracy that governs through fear cannot regenerate. It decays into something else entirely."

Fast forward with Heather Cox Richardson's latest Letter from an American, day 29 of the shutdown (yesterday), as air traffic controllers get their first "zero" paycheck, Mike Johnson keeping the House dead in the water, the acting director of the now-Orwellian "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau" declares (by "rule") preventing states from requiring credit reporting companies from excluding medical debt on your credit report.

While our president wanders around Asia, brags about his "IQ" score (that's a tiger, elephant, giraffe, right?) and guess who isn't going without a paycheck?

"[L]aw enforcement agents from ICE are still getting their paychecks, including overtime, thanks to the injection of an extra $75 billion into ICE’s budget from July’s budget reconciliation bill. Nonetheless, ICE is claiming the shutdown means it no longer has any legal obligation to permit congressional oversight visits to its detention facilities."

Our judicial system continues to struggle to keep up as much as the rest of us do, but there's an occasional ray of light. Before the last item on the "Department of War's" growing dossier of war crimes (and Senate Democrats being shut out of Pentagon briefings about the killings), HCR details U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis taking Greg Bovino, a Border Patrol sector chief who has been overseeing the agency’s operations in Los Angeles and Chicago to task, over her October 9 temporary restraining order prohibiting the use of flash-bang grenades, tear gas, pepper-spray and other “less-lethal” weapons and tactics against journalists, peaceful protesters, and religious leaders in and around Chicago. Bovino himself got in a little action, "throwing what seemed to be a tear gas canister at protesters without warning." (He said he'd been hit with a rock in the head.)

"When Bovino told Ellis he does not wear a body camera and has not been trained in their use, she ordered him to get one by Friday and undergo training, reminding him that the camera would enable him to back up claims like the rock-throwing incident.

"Bovino promised to abide by the TRO. Ellis ordered him to submit to the court all the reports and all the body camera footage of use of force incidents in and around Chicago by Friday. She also ordered Bovino to come to her court every day at 6:00 p.m. to keep her informed of agents’ actions."

26.Oct.2025

Don't stop believin'

From Lauren Jackson's latest "Believing" newsletter on the NYT, after the report that polls are ticking up on the "gaining influence" of religion in American life (not necessarily a good thing), we read that Pew Research reported "most people now have a positive view of religion." The story went on, and under the heading A sense of victimization, this:

"That reminded me of a data point we see a lot in political polls: When Republicans and Democrats are asked if they feel their party is winning or losing, both overwhelmingly say their party is losing. That can’t be true, as one party objectively has to be doing better in both elections and polling. Still, people express a deep sense of peril and even victimization."

And this:

"The idea of “spiritual warfare” is all over conservative social media. Some charismatic Christians believe that America is at war against unseen evil forces."

Magical thinking is easier than realism, it seems. Heather Cox Richardson's Oct. 24 Letter from an American describes the current regime's work to undo the New Deal, included Canada's ad running during the World Series (go Blue Jays!), using our Saint Reagan's very words to poke the bear:

“High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars,” Reagan said in both the speech and the advertisement. “The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less and less competition. So, soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens: Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.”

In other words, the trajectory we're on, as far as we know. (The +rump team is using "shutdown" as an excuse to not do the things they don't want to, including publishing accurate economic statistics. The latest inflation report said it's up to 3% "and the White House says it will likely not release October inflation report because of the government shutdown.") There will of course be "truthing," using ALL CAPITAL LETTERS to multiply the truthiness. You know, like “THE UNITED STATES IS WEALTHY, POWERFUL, AND NATIONALLY SECURE AGAIN, ALL BECAUSE OF TARIFFS!” So weird, given the fact that tariffs are a tax paid by consumers, as in "us."

A Facebook conversation with a family member on the other side of the political spectrum has been on my mind recently, started (by him) celebrating how the new regime has made "law and order" better, at least, and I was like whaaaa now? From that same HCR letter, emphasis added:

Trump appears to want the world to conform to his ideology in foreign affairs as well as in the domestic sphere, claiming the ultimate power over life and death without regard to the rule of law. When a reporter asked him yesterday why he didn’t ask Congress for a declaration of war against those South American drug cartels he claims are at war with the United States, Trump answered:

“Well, I don’t think we’re gonna necessarily ask for a declaration of war, I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. OK? We’re going to kill them. You know? They’re going to be, like dead. OK?”

And those huge, nationwide No Kings rallies a week ago are eating at him. Characteristically, all his whinging complaints are based on fake news.

“Crowds were not big at all” he said, but they were HUGE. More than 10,000 in Boise, Idaho, where we were. Claimed the signs were “all made professionally in a printing shop," which most of what we saw were not. People want to express themselves, and they have a lot to say. "Some guy is paying for all that stuff... These people are going crazy, they’re going crazy ‘cause they’re getting paid." Ha ha, no. But yes, we hear your projection, sir.

23.Oct.2025

Stephen Miller's terrorism comes to Wilder, Idaho

Idaho News 6, KIVI TV has first-person accounts and video from the "Homeland Security" rodeo in Canyon County. A weird potpourri of law enforcement and ICE descended on what started as "a typical Sunday with friends at the track to watch horse races."

Then they came for all the brown people. With a helicopter, surplus military vehicles, all that hardware they've been itching to use, at least one guy playing cavalry (black-hatted Canyon County Sheriff Kieren Donahue), ICE, DEA, FBI, POLICE, "METRO POLICE," at least one kitted and masked fellow with SHERIFF on his chest. Canyon County's population is about a quarter million. Wilder's is less then 2,000.

The Idaho Press reports that the FBI—who had warrants for five guys—"invited 200 law enforcement personnel from several agencies including the CCSO, CPD and ICE. Who participated in various ways while "ICE detained approximately 400 civilians and arrested 105 individuals based on their residential status."

There seems to be some dispute about who should get credit for the jamboree? The Governor weighed in... what a cluster. But this happened, to mother of three (and US citizen, not that that actually matters) Anabel Romero, who was freaking out about being roughed up: one "agent" can be heard to say "I will blow your f*****g head off."

Update:
Another first-person take, John Carter's public post on Facebook, today:

"[M]y company was working security for the event. Yes we were zip tied. We were questioned about where we were born. Yes horse racing was legal. No there was no animal fighting. The illegal activity was alleged betting/gambling on the horse races.

"To my knowledge there was no animal fighting and it was never at the horse racing events. No not everyone was involved. This was a family event.

"My property was seized, my firearms and those of my team. We have not gotten anything back. We were not given receipts for our property. My sxs was hit on the side and scraped and now barely shifts.

"Yes children were cuffed including my daughter."

Welcome to AI slop-fueled Bizarro World

We watched the Newshour segment on so-called artificial intelligence supercharging confusion and spreading misleading information and it's so easy pretty much anybody can do it. The teaser called it a deep dive into the world of "AI slop."

The current apotheosis must be our worst and most reviled president's response to the millions of people who turned out to last Saturday's No Kings rallies in big cities and small towns across the country (and some around the world). One or more of his capable minions cocked up Cadet Bonespurs in an F-35, with a crown, and his oxygen mask down on his chin (vanity, thy name is Plump), dropping a load of excrement on America, and especially some chosen critic of his.

In other words, a general status update of the second coming of +rump, tuned to keep the always-online crowd distracted from the economic fallout of the random trade war, the homeland insecurity attacks on brown people, the still-buried Epstein files, the "Department of War" murder at sea now spread to the Pacific Ocean, and the Congress not only self-neutered, but closed, in service to the coiffed clown. In any comment section near you, look for the MAGAs clucking about how fully owned "the libs" are now.

But wait! There's more! There must be more, to feed the bottomless pit of need of a man with no friends and no end of sycophants. You heard about the Big, Beautiful, Ballroom that #47 plans to tack on to the side of the White House? The one about which he said in July, “It’ll be near it but not touching [the East Wing] and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of"? Here is what his "total respect" looks like in October:

The "move fast and break things" mantra of Silicon Valley tech bros playing with computers and remote controls has been amended to "move fast, break things, start a civil war, kill people." Aren't there, ah, laws against this, or at least some regulations? Isn't there, idk, a National Capital Planning Commission that has to approve construction and major renovations to government buildings in the Washington area?

There is! it has a chairman, Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary and one of Trump’s top aides, conveniently. Last month, at the commission’s September meeting, he said, absurdly, "the agency does not have jurisdiction over demolition or site preparation work for buildings on federal property."

“What we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build.”

So his boss can tear down (and shit upon) as much of Washington D.C. as he feels like.

21.Oct.2025

Feeling lucky?

You know the old saw: just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Thom Hartmann's Oct. 17 column (pre-No Kings Day) updates that. If it looks like coup, and quacks like a coup in the +rump administration, it probably is one. ICYMI the underqualified Fox News host with a drinking problem getting appointed as Secretary of Defense and strutting in front of the gathered flag officers about "war fighting" and telling his boss that they should use American cities as "training grounds." (Hello, San Diego!) From When Loyalty Becomes Law: Is Our Military Already in on a Coup?:

"Judge Advocate Generals (JAGs), are the institutional safeguard against unlawful orders: they advise commanders on rules of engagement, the Geneva Conventions, and the limits of presidential authority.

"When an administration starts purging them, we’re not looking at a routine personnel shuffle. We’re seeing the careful dismantling of the guardrails that prevent America’s military from being weaponized against the American people."

Not that shooting live artillery over I-5 in southern California "in celebration" was more than colossal stupidity (and good on California's Governor for closing the busy freeway in an abundance of caution), but closer to our home, the FBI and ICE combined to terrorize hundreds of people in Wilder, Idaho, on the way to arresting five people for suspected illegal betting.

“ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division was present as part of the broader federal team to process individuals who were found to have potential immigration violations during the course of the investigation,” FBI Salt Lake City Public Affairs Officer Sandra Yi Barker wrote in an email Monday. “Their presence was limited to that specific federal responsibility and was separate from the criminal gambling investigation being led by the FBI.”

Nikki Ramirez-Smith, founder of Ramirez-Smith Law in Nampa, who was present at the horse race when the raid began:

“We do have credible information that the children were zip-tied and tied up, and so the children were detained as well. It appears that everyone that was there was detained, U.S. citizen or not.”

And ICE was shooting rubber bullets at the understandably restive crowd. Some unknown number of people still detained "have been processed through Boise and taken to Elmore County Jail in Mountain Home," which is two counties and 80 miles away from Wilder.

The FBI has been on the case since 2023, apparently, with "a total of 36 wagers were identified in the investigation from 2023 to 2025, amounting to $17,000," by Boise Weekly's report.

As compared to the American Gaming Association's estimate that the commercial casino sector and tribal gaming in the US "generated close to $115 billion in gaming revenue in 2024." (Idaho is not one of the 38 states plus Washington D.C. in the legal "gaming" venues they tabulate.)

"Last year, more than half of American adults participated in some form of gambling and 45 percent visited a casino property."

So, the Federal Bureau of Investigation stepped into Idaho to crack down on a racket that is around 0.000015% of the market, give or take. And to give ICE an opportunity for indiscriminate terror.

The Idaho Press story covering yesterday's protest at the Canyon County administration building includes a counterprotestor's point of view that this is perfectly normal, nothing to see here, move along. No, not about the FBI collaring suspected gambling criminals, but the ICEcapades.

"While [Dawson Murray] said it was normal for a human to be fearful in the face of a mass detainment action as was the case in Wilder, there has to be an understanding that these actions are taken to maintain the safety of the officers involved.

”These officers are putting their lives at risk,” Murray said. “... so of course they need to make sure that they control the situation as much as possible.”

Update:
Nicole Ramirez gave her unfiltered response to what happened, on Facebook. A brief excerpt of her 700+ word post:

"This was a family event, similar to an American Rodeo, and the police department knew that. They have food vendors, toy vendors, etc. They knew a number of children would be there because they claim to have had [confidential informants] in there, and they made no effort to protect those children. Instead they ziptied children. Some children report that they were tied with string. These were teenagers and little kids. Windows were broken in cars with glass shattering on young children. Some of their parents were shot with rubber bullets. Let me remind you that little kids don’t know what rubber bullets are. They thought their parents were killed(shot with real guns). This was a horrendous and reckless display of force at an event that was nearly all hispanic. In my career I have years of experience in criminal defense and I have never seen anything like this even in large scale drug busts.

20.Oct.2025

Fox & Friends Weekend

Since I don't tune in, ever, I have to rely on relayed messages, such as this one on FB, from Feminist News. (I respond with a lozenge of emoji, choose from the basic "Like" and Love, Care, Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry; I really want to combine two or three, and the Puke emoji needs to be added, don't you think? Does it make you a little more likeable to click "Like"? Or loving, caring, jovial, amazed, despondent, or angry to click those things?) "But I digress."

This past weekend, maybe while No Kings protests or their after-parties were still going on, LIVE (the screen shot says) on F&FW, the three second-tier hosts sat in with fresh-out-of-prison George Santos, the felonious fabulator and former Republican congressman sentenced to 7 years, for his admitted deceiving donors, and stealing the identities of nearly a dozen people, including his family members, to fund his campaign. As part of the plea deal, he agreed to pay more than $half a million in penalties.

He had his prison sentence (and fines and restitution) commuted by our most Fatuous Fabulator (professional courtesy, obvs), after serving less than 3 months of his sentence. Even more contrite than at his sentencing, he pleaded to mFF directly, with "an appeal to your sense of justice and humanity—the same qualities that have inspired millions of Americans to believe in you." But...

"This man lied about everything from being Jewish to his mom dying on 9/11. Stole money from a disabled vet’s dog. Got induced on 23 federal charges. He’s the 10th Republican congressman to receive a pardon or clemency from Trump."

At least he did get booted from the House of Representatives? The Fox & Friends team congratulated him on getting out of prison.

"He was convicted of creating a phony charity for disabled veterans and using the funds as his own personal slush fund. He ruined the lives of multiple military veterans. Took all of their savings. Never apologized or paid them back."

17.Oct.2025

War on Drugs 3.0

Remember that campaign "joke" when Donald Trump said "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters"? It was January 23, 2016, back when a lot of people and I thought his candidacy was a bad-taste joke.

The joke is definitely on us here in +rump 2.0, with Cadet Bonespurs appointing Major Pullups to lead what they're now calling the "Department of War." (Congress hasn't agreed to the name change, but does it matter?)

Air strikes from our military have now attacked six boats in the Caribbean (by this administration's own proud count), murdering 27 people with no evidence provided beyond hallucination about "drugs" and "drugs kill people." The War on Drugs was declared by Richard Nixon, in 1971, 9 years before Pete Hegseth was born, and we're now having straight-up War Crimes in its execution. The Wikipedia entry includes this, before jumping to the present day:

“In June 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy released a critical report, declaring: "The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world." In 2023, the UN high commissioner for human rights stated that "decades of punitive, 'war on drugs' strategies had failed to prevent an increasing range and quantity of substances from being produced and consumed." That year, the annual US federal drug war budget reached $39 billion, with cumulative spending since 1971 estimated at $1 trillion.”

Admiral Alvin Holsey, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, is stepping down—early—after 37 years of service in uniform. He has not publicly stated his motivation, but the NYT reports that "one current and one former U.S. official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said that Adm. Holsey had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats." (It's certainly no coincidence that Holsey is Black; the Do"W" purge of leadership who don't look enough like Hegseth is ongoing.)

Congressman Adam Smith of Washington State, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee talked with Greg Sargent in the Daily Blast podcast (transcript on The New Republic). Smith said that it is the Southern Commander's "ultimate decision on whether or not to fire a shot like that," and "prior to Trump becoming president, no combatant commander that I’ve ever dealt with has resigned in the middle of their term."

"Look, ever since Trump became president, one of the big questions in my world of the Department of Defense is: what do you do if you’re given an illegal order? And the military, you know, has steadfastly said, we serve the Constitution, we will not carry out illegal orders.

"The orders to blow up those six boats, in my view and in the views of most legal scholars, are absolutely illegal. It is an extrajudicial killing. There is no possible Article II justification for that, and there has been no congressional authorization for the use of force....

"[W]e have seen the president seize more and more unilateral power without any checks and balances on it. And then part of the way he does that is to try to convince the people of this country that it’s normal—this is what people do all the time, nothing to see here, it’s not any different. And that’s just a lie in many instances."

The Congressman said it's part of "how we're creeping toward an authoritarian government and seeing, really, the end of our constitutional republic."

"I mean, certainly now we have Speaker Johnson shutting down Congress. You know, we’ve been shut down for three weeks—no intention of bringing us back. We have been in session during every single previous shutdown."

All due respect to Rep. Smith, this is not a "creep" toward an authoritarian government; we have hurtled into authoritarianism. As he describes:

"Smith: Yeah and also understand the other connection, as you’ve seen the stories about Trump authorizing CIA action in Venezuela. I have no independent confirmation of that other than what I’ve read in the media. And as you see the rhetoric from him ramp up about the Maduro regime in Venezuela, is this really about stopping drugs or is he engaged in a regime change effort in Venezuela, which certainly hasn’t been approved of by Congress and certainly doesn’t fall under the Article II designation. Trump has mused about how now maybe they may be hitting targets on land within Venezuela. So he is asserting the unilateral right to start a war with Venezuela....

"[I]n Chicago, most blatantly, they are literally stopping people on the street and demanding their papers. If they don’t have them—frequently citizens, legal residents—are being detained by your United States federal government without any probable cause, articulable suspicion, or any measure, just because they showed up and they want to say it.

"They are violating our rights individually, and then Trump is asserting his right to use the United States military in any way that he sees fit—certainly in the Caribbean, but also right here in the United States of America. He’s trying to send them to Portland, trying to send them to Chicago.

"How far are we away from President Trump deciding to use the U.S. military to do a kinetic strike on people within the U.S. because he sees them as a threat, by whatever definition he wants to throw out there?"

Not very far.

16.Oct.2025

And speaking of Chicago

Trump ICE Raids Take Horrific Turn in Chicago.

On Tuesday, masked members of the paramilitary wing of the MAGA movement—otherwise known as the federal agents carrying out Trump’s immigration raids—broadened their operations in Chicago. The result: more violence, more tumult, more Americans ferociously at one another’s throats. Exactly as President Trump and Stephen Miller intend.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that these federal agents undertook a dangerous car chase through a residential neighborhood, drawing onlookers, which prompted agents to deploy tear gas and smoke grenades. Though protesters may have thrown things, the response was extraordinary: The paper posted startling photos of heavily armed ICE agents pointing weapons in locals’ faces. And a dozen Chicago cops were “overcome by tear gas,” per the Sun-Times, after showing up to “deescalate tensions between protesters and federal agents.” Translation: They were standing between Americans and Trump’s security forces.

As if what ICE is actually doing weren't enough, the White House is using antisocial media to amplify confusion. Bill McCarthy, for AFP USA: White House's Chicago 'chaos' video uses footage from other cities. Claiming to show "immigration agents responding to the "mess" in Chicago," to justify deploying troops against Americans, "the video is littered with outdated footage highlighting drug busts, arrests and deportation raids in other states, including Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Nebraska."

While +rumpian antisocial media spreads the mashed-up lies, the supposedly presidential accusations are candid projection of our current reality. Rewriting Bizarro World to our current status:

The US is a mess. You have an incompetent president. Grossly incompetent. You have a president that refuses to admit he has problems. Everybody knows how bad it is. Some of the worst people on Earth. They need help badly. The US desperately needs help. We don't want to lose our democratic republic.

Anything else? There's more, from made-up stories about D.C., made magically "crime free" thanks to Mr. Fix-it deploying the national guard (four and a half years late). Trump Fabricates Story of Hand-to-Hand Combat Between Troops and Child Gangsters in D.C. JTF–DC spokesperson Alexia Nal: “Nope. We’re not allowed to.” (Unlike ICE, eh.) One defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity: “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."

Who's assaulting who?

(Spoiler alert: you already know.) One of our best friends plays trumpet in Portland's Unpresidented Brass Band, made newly famous by the stumbling cruelty of ICE goons, executing Stephen Miller strategy, sowing chaos to reap any moment they can deem "violent" to advance their civil war to promote fascism.

It's what Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation referred to as "the second American Revolution" on Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast a year ago July (guest-hosted, because Bannon had just started serving time for his Contempt of Congress conviction). Back in the good old days, before +rump-II. Infamously, Roberts said:

"In spite of all this nonsense from the left, we are going to win. We're in the process of taking this country back," Roberts said. "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless, if the left allows it to be."

In the genteel terms of our present Congress, that translates to "just give in to all our demands, and then we can 'negotiate' with you." In the meantime, the parts of the government our burgeoning dictator and his lieutenants don't like are shut down, some people "furloughed" out of work, others coerced to work without pay, which may or may not be provided when (if!) the government ever "opens" again.

The Heritage Foundation/Project 2025/Russell Vought "vision" includes "an action plan to dismantle ... 'the deep state,'" by removing civil service employment protections that "have been in place for 135 years [to] make the civil servants at all levels of the federal government easier to fire and replace with Republican loyalists." Followed by

"eliminating the Department of Education, reducing the scope of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, rolling back renewable-energy programs to create a regulatory environment that favors the fossil fuel industry, limiting mail-order abortion pills, and removing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring policies from federal programs."

He didn't mention deploying the US military and quasi-military to random cities of the president's choosing to incite violence, but here we are.

I was thinking The Unpresidented Brass Band is more like the revolutionary fife and drum corps than anything from our first Civil War, but I checked the Library of Congress (currently shut down, still live online, with a red banner Notice of the shutdown, but no Hatch Act-violating political blame announcement) to see The Civil War Bands, which starts with this, puckishly:

"If ever there was a hope or danger of the demise of brass bands, the outbreak of war decisively cancelled or at least postponed the possibility."

The "wearing of flamboyant costumes" is mentioned, from early in the war. Later, the hope that a 68-piece band "will probably incite the men to heroic deeds if loyal men can need any new stimulus in such a time as this."

The current band in question's primary costume element is bananas, but they show up in true motley Portland fashion. The music is good, the vibe is mellow, and the idea that a mother of a 3-year old playing clarinet is guilty of assault of Miller's thugs would be laughable were it not for the power of the government to inflict pain without accountability.

"Who’s assaulting who is the real question?” said Oriana Korol's dad. “She was on the sidewalk playing music when the federal officers just bumrushed the band.”

The good news is, it will not be possible to cook up a jury that would convict her of what they're accusing. The bad news is, she's already spent three nights in jail, in part, it sounds like, because she refused to waive her Miranda rights.

Un-presidented brass band at city hall in Portland tonight celebrating the release of their clarinet player from federal custody

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— Tim Dickinson (@timdickinson.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 10:08 PM

15.Oct.2025

Speaking of vindictive prosecution

Not-so-dapper Don kind of spilled the beans with his anti-social "truth" blurt that read like a personal message to the Attorney General of the United States (who he assumes is his attorney general, with no pushback from her), that whoops, he made public. The Sept. 20 message said INDICT COMEY, SCHIFF, and JAMES NOW, if not quite so directly. (There was name calling to do, for one.) And, not just falsely, but weirdly, "Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot." It's, ah, nice to be liked? (How would he know?)

Liz Dye gives us the rundown on the Comey case, "so far," on Public Notice, with former Fort Lauderdale insurance defense lawyer Halligan, who's "never prosecuted a criminal case and isn’t even licensed to practice law in Virginia" and her crack team from North Carolian [sic]. (I would think the correct spelling is North Carolyin'.) Shorter?

"Halligan’s appointment as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) may not even be legal, meaning that the indictment is a legal nullity … which may actually be the least embarrassing outcome here for the Justice Department."

Do tell

The long-running "weaponization of government" show from Republicans who are utterly silent about the abuses of power by the +rump administration is beyond threadbare. Josh "fleeing" Hawley claiming "the FBI tapped my phone" is either a lie, or a call for an explanation about the (implied) "order from a federal judge in compliance with the strict requirements of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968" that would have permitted a wiretap. As opposed to the constitutionally unprotected calling information of who called whom, and when, that is routinely part of investigations.

Now comes Jim "Gym" Jordan, a man who knows something about avoiding accountability while weaponizing a government position against others, at a time when the president is directing the Department of Justice to indict his enemies (with little or no evidence against them), and employing our military in extra-judicial killing, hell-bent on proving that "the Biden-Harris Justice Department weaponized federal law enforcement." And casually implying that former Special Counsel Jack Smith office is guility of "prosecutorial misconduct and constitutional abuses."

Former US Attorney Joyce Vance tells us that Jack Smith speaks ahead of a possible "closed door" meeting of the House Judiciary Committee. Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, "with his sarcasm font on full blast,"

congratulated Jordan for also “demand[ing] the release of Smith’s full report, and all accompanying records, from his investigation into Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents and obstruction of justice at Mar-a-Lago” after “an extraordinary years-long MAGA cover-up has deprived the American public of the opportunity to read this special counsel report that the taxpayers paid for.” Republicans, of course, have not. This is not about a commitment to transparency. This is not about being the party of law and order. It’s certainly not about following the rule of law.

14.Oct.2025

"Agitators and terrorists"

Our quisling mis-Speaker who claims to be working "24/7" while he's keeping the House in recess (and the Epstein files in the dark by avoiding swearing in new member Adelita Grijalva) is spouting the party line on this Saturday's No Kings protest. He called it "this 'hate America' rally," tagging it with "antifa," "pro-Hamas," and "Marxist," "an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes."

Say what you will about Mike Johnson and his capacity for facile prevarication, he can't rise to the energy of our discount Goebbels, Stephen "Wormtongue" Miller, who's pushing terrorists as the main line. Greg Sargent's DAILY BLAST podcast guest, Jill Lawrence, cuts to the chase:

"The problem here is that people like Johnson and the Republicans in Congress aren’t doing their jobs. They’re not putting any checks and balances on the president, and they’re not upholding American values or even American constitutional rights."

If the Republicans sound worried... "I think they should be worried, because nothing they’re doing is popular." The blunderbuss of retribution supposedly aimed at "blue" states is producing collateral damage to ample "red" folk, and yes, "red" states, too.

Lawrence's piece in The Bulwark: Trump’s Abuses of Power Show We Didn’t Learn Much From the Nixon Era; "That failure is implicit in nearly every frame of a new documentary," Becoming Katharine Graham.

The bigger-than-ever presidential scandal that would have led to Nixon's impeachment, conviction, and removal was blunted by Nixon's resignation. Now we have a president with a stack of crimes that make Watergate look like a third-rate burglary, but a quisling party that can't get up off their prayer rugs as they bow, and bow, and bow to the source of depravity.

"There were not enough Democrats in the Senate to convict Nixon at an impeachment trial, but there were going to be 85 out of 100 votes to convict him. We didn’t pay enough attention when it was happening.

"There were a lot of people who weren’t born when it was happening the first time—they never knew about it, they never lived through it. And so now, you know, we have depended on good character in presidents for a couple of centuries, and it hasn’t always worked out very well. And now we’re in a situation where it’s not working out at all, and it may be the end of the republic as we know it."

See you at the peaceful protest on Saturday!

9.Oct.2025

The Gulf of Retribution

It's a widening gyre. Under Robert Hubbell's good-advice headline today (The First Law of Resisting Bullies: “Never Back Down”), this, my emphasis added:

"On Wednesday, Trump said the governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago should be jailed for refusing to support ICE’s brutal invasion of American cities. On the same day, Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Americans deemed to be members of “Antifa” would be dealt with using the “same approach” as Venezuelan boats allegedly smuggling drugs into America. For context, the occupants of those boats have been killed by the US military without charges or trial, and without regard to the fact that the US law does not provide the death penalty for drug smuggling.

Nor do we have any statutes providing the death penalty for being "deemed" a member of a bogeyman non-organization. But +rump and his minions are not letting the law get in their way, much. More from Hubbell, emphasis added because my hair is on fire:

"Objectively, the threats are depraved, lunatic, anti-democratic, and possibly criminal. The calls by the president and the Attorney General to jail and/or kill public officials and citizens perceived to be political opponents are unprecedented, not only in the history of the United States but in the modern history of nearly every Western democracy.

"Standing alone, those threats justify the invocation of the 25th Amendment on the grounds that the president is mentally incapable of performing the duties of the presidency. And if he is mentally capable of doing so, he should be impeached, convicted, and removed from office."

6.Oct.2025

Trump's civil war has begun

On July 1, 2024, the right-wing extremists of the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have absolute immunity—absolute! immunity!—for acts as president "committed within their core constitutional purview, at least at least presumptive immunity for official acts within the outer perimeter of their official responsibility, and no immunity for unofficial acts" as Wikipedia summarizes it. That effectively kiboshed his accountability for inciting the violent insurrection attempted on January 6, 2021, and, sickeningly paved the way for his re-election last November. (Never mind that neither the president's "core purview" or "outer perimeter of official responsibility" encompasses lawlessness, insurrection, or theft of documents. Just making it arguable was enough to run out the clock.)

Also on July 1, 2024, three days after Stephen K. Bannon's legal fight to avoid accountability for his 2021 contempt of congress ended with the Supreme Court refusing to intervene and overturn the 2022 jury verdict, Steve Bannon reported to the low-level security Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury CT to serve a four-month sentence.

On July 2, former congressman Dave Brat (the guy who primaried House Majority Leader Eric Cantor out of his seat in 2014), guest-hosted Bannon's Real America's Voice "War Room" podcast, sitting in front of religious and Bannon icons with a little bitty US flag thrown in. Brat's guest was Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, who confidently predicted that Trump would win, declared "we're in the process of taking this country back," and celebrated the SCOTUS immunity decision (because of how much he loves the Constitution).

Brat asked Roberts to tell us what they were doing "to protect the rule of law, and to protect individuals in this great country," and extolled Roberts as "no better man, a Christian friend," and "a fierce follower of the Constitution."

After calling up the ghost of Alexander Hamilton and Federalist No. 70, and "the importance of a vigorous executive," Roberts cited "the radical left" "that has taken over our institutions." They're "apoplectic" now, he said, "because our side is winning."

"And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

"Right on, thank you brother," Brat said before going to a commercial break. Fun fact about in that synopsis of Federalist No. 70; the unitary executive was as opposed to the trinitarian idea that was under discussion in 1787. Part of Hamilton's winning argument was that "one strong leader would be more decisive and accountable." He did not envision the feckless Republican Party of 2020 and 2021, unfortunately.

Steve Benen heard Roberts' "cryptic threat" loud and clear, and wrote about it the next day, with a reminder about the Heritage Foundation's history, and current initiatives. With links from the original:

Who’s responsible for the radical Project 2025 agenda? The Heritage Foundation.

Who’s “pre-screening the ideologies” of thousands of people in the hopes of installing “a pre-vetted, pro-Trump army of up to 54,000 loyalists” across the federal government? The Heritage Foundation.

Who’s funding an apparent blacklist of federal government workers who might stand in the way of a MAGA agenda? The Heritage Foundation.

Fast forward 15 months and sample our headlines: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Says Federal Agents Are Trying to Make Chicago a ‘War Zone’. And, for the rule of law side, A judge blocked the Trump administration from deploying national guard troops to Oregon. (First Oregon's own National Guard, and then, last night, Sunday, "the National Guard of any state or the District of Columbia" to the state of Oregon, after Trump-Hegseth-Miller tried to do an end run with 200 previously comandeered members of California's National Guard.

In Robert B. Hubbell's Sunday Comments blog post, he quotes from Trump-appointed Judge Karin J. Immergut's initial decision, blocking the ONG deployment:

This case involves the intersection of three of the most fundamental principles in our constitutional democracy.

• The first concerns the relationship between the federal government and the states.
• The second concerns the relationship between the United States armed forces and domestic law enforcement.
• The third concerns the proper role of the judicial branch in ensuring that the executive branch complies with the laws and limitations imposed by the legislative branch.

Whether we choose to follow what the Constitution mandates with respect to these three relationships goes to the heart of what it means to live under the rule of law in the United States....

With all due deference for the president's "determination" that he “is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States,” there are facts on the ground. And "The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts," Judge Immergut wrote.

"[Our longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach] boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.

Heather Cox Richardson's Sunday edition gets to the court-case part of the invasion of Portland in more detail, and last week's despicable quasi-military attack on an apartment building in Chicago, but starts with the Minnesota Star Tribune's report of a Signal chat "clearly visible to bystanders" at a funeral. Top advisors to Wormtongue Stephen Miller, and WarfightingSec Hegadeath "were discussing a plan to deploy the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army to Portland."

"President Donald J. Trump had apparently not signed off on the plan. [Hegseth's advisor] Weaver told [Miller's deputy] Salisbury that Defense Secretary Hegseth wanted Trump to give him a clear order to send troops into Portland. “Between you and I, I think Pete just wants the top cover from the boss if anything goes sideways with the troops there,” Weaver wrote.

Yeah, sending paratroops into Portland, what could go wrong? Miller's putting out jumbo Al Haig "I am in control here" energy, without the experience, chestful of medals, or any kind of stature to back it up, let alone the good sense to walk back an overstatement later). He sounds more and more like the closet Führer in a bad WWII remake every day.

3.Oct.2025

Deep in the political persecution weeds

A Note About the Comey Case from Joyce Vance includes a screen shot of the transcript betweeen the magistrate judge ("THE COURT") and the Trump loyalist Lindsey Halligan, a former insurance lawyer, with no prosecutorial experience, who is now the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The indictment was a command performance by Dear Leader, requiring at least 3 people to be fired, and lacking specificity as to what the supposed crime was. And it was presented in a "confusing" manner. Two documents (with the same case number): one that appeared to be a "failure to concur in an indictment," looking like it referred to all three counts; and the other with just two counts.

MS HALLIGAN: So I only reviewed the one with the two counts... I did not see the other one. I don't know where that came from.

THE COURT: You didn't see it?

MS HALLIGAN: I did not see that one.

...

THE COURT: It has your signature on it.

When you're done with her Civil Discourse blog post, take the jump to her piece for the Brennan Center of Justice, Comey Indictment Shows Danger of Subservient Prosecutors.

2.Oct.2025

Peak creepy

That still image of Utah's Senator Mike Lee, saying "Russ Vought has been dreaming about this moment since puberty," omg. Then the Mike Johnson stand-up routine.

MIKE LEE: Russ Vought has been dreaming about this moment since puberty MIKE JOHNSON: Russ Vought does not enjoy this responsibility

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 2, 2025 at 9:07 AM

Fascism in full flower

Today's top headline in the NYT capsulates our Zeitgeist: White House Uses Shutdown to Maximize Pain and Punish Political Foes. What else would we expect from a malignant narcissist devoid of empathy?

"The Trump administration took steps on Wednesday to maximize the pain of the government shutdown, halting billions of dollars in funds for Democratic-led states while readying a plan to lay off potentially droves of civil servants imminently.

"The moves by the White House appeared both unprecedented and punitive, underscoring the risks of a fiscal stalemate that had no end in sight. It also evinced how President Trump might try to leverage the government-wide closure to achieve his agenda, slash the budget and exact revenge on his political enemies."

It's a race between stupidity and pettiness, spearheaded by Russell Vought, implementing the Project 2025 attack on the federal government government.

"Soon after government funding lapsed, the Trump administration suspended all news broadcasts from Voice of America and furloughed all of its journalists, a break with past practice in funding lapses. The closure came two days after a judge reinstated about 500 of the broadcaster’s employees."

Having declared by E.O. that "Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government," and so a brand new category of "domestic terrorist organization," it's easy-peasy to treat all opposition as terrorism, Stephen Miller's fever dream to advance white nationalism.

In case the Executive Order didn't cover everything, there's a Presidential Memorandum, NSPM-7 with the catchy title "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence." [Spoiler alert: organized political opposition will be met by organized political violence.] "Anti-fascism" is the all-purpose bogeyman, and a national Joint Terrorism Task Force is the vehicle, reporting to "the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor."

That is to say, Stephen Miller will decide which of "any group or entity" recommended by the the attorney general will be branded a "domestic terrorist association," and thus targeted by state violence and retribution.

They don't have to come right out and say that yes, the Trump administration is a fascist regime, and since l'État, c'est lui, anti-Trumpism is anti-fascism is terrorism. James Greenberg, on The Criminalization of Language, my emphasis added:

"The Trump administration’s quiet campaign to reclassify language as incitement marks a shift not just in policy, but in the architecture of democracy itself. Words that once named injustice, identity, or ecological harm are now flagged as ideological triggers. The terrain of speech is being redrawn, and with it, the boundaries of civic life.

"This isn’t a debate about tone. It is about the redefinition of what language is allowed. Internal memos instruct federal agencies to flag terms like “transgender rights,” “systemic racism,” and “climate crisis” as provocations. Grant proposals are rejected for using banned phrases. Web pages are rewritten to erase ideological markers. Scientific research is constrained by semantic boundaries. The shift is not rhetorical—it is operational."

1.Oct.2025

Unhappy New Year

It's the start of the new fiscal year for our federal government, and thanks to ever-more-polarized major parties ongoing contention, and the tireless efforts of the grand old Party of Sabotage, Looting and Authoritarianism, we're in "shutdown." What does it mean? Why did it happen? What's next? Both sides will point at the Other. How "Team Giffords" summarized:

"Earlier this morning, Donald Trump and Republicans shut down the government. Why? Because they want to jack up healthcare costs for millions of Americans to give tax breaks for their billionaire friends."

Anticipating the inevitable "no, it was the Democrats who did it," please note that "Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Republicans own this shutdown."

Although if I were summarizing, I'd say Stephen Miller and Russ Vought control the White House, and their puppet Donald Trump tells the feckless Republican leaders of Congress what tune to sing, but ok.

Thom Hartmann has the most pressing question of the day: Is America Sleepwalking Into The Dictator’s Playbook? Five moves:

— First, they identify an internal enemy to blame for social ills...
— Second, they turn security forces inward...
— Third, they criminalize dissent and protest...
— Fourth, they intimidate or capture the press and punish truth-telling...
— Fifth, they seize control of independent institutions like universities, law firms, or the civil service to eliminate any professional standards that interfere with Dear Leader’s will.

And amalgamating historians and political scientists' research "on how democracies die," a list of ingredients:

— Deny or rewrite election results to delegitimize democracy itself.
— Declare political opponents enemies of the state.
— Turn independent institutions like the Department of Justice, the civil service, and the military into personal tools.
— Flood the public square with lies so thoroughly (Steve Bannon proudly called it “flooding the zone with shit”) that reality itself becomes negotiable.
— Tolerate or celebrate political violence on behalf of the dictator, and demonize violence against his followers and mouthpieces as sedition and treason.
— Demand personal loyalty instead of constitutional duty.
— Invoke a mythic past and promise national rebirth if only the strongman is given total sovereignty.
— Use his office to rapidly enrich himself and his family while creating a patronage network of loyalists who owe their fortunes to him.

"Unitary Executive" sounds so much more genteel than dictator, but it adds up the same. The dream turned out to be a nightmare that we are now living. It's an ugly scene. Shawn McCreesh, reporting from Washington yesterday: Trump Gave the Military’s Brass a Rehashed Speech. Until Minute 44.

"It was a speech unlike any other and just like every other.... pretty much the same things he talked about a day earlier while standing next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the State Dining Room at the White House, which were the same things he talked about at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service in Arizona, which were the same things he talked about at Windsor Castle and at Chequers in England."

Except for this:

[T]he president recounted a conversation with his defense secretary: “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

raveling

Tom von Alten