Saturday, the government shutdown started to bite in a much more serious way: SNAP benefits for 42 million Americans failed to appear as scheduled, and the open enrollment period for 2026 ObamaCare policies started without the federal subsidies that made those policies affordable for 22 million Americans. Suddenly, it’s not just politicians finger-pointing at other politicians; it’s millions of households wondering how they’re going to afford necessities.
One featured post will describe what’s going on there, and with the shutdown in general. That still needs some work, and probably won’t be out until 10 EST or later. But I already have a second post written about Trump’s possible plans for a third term. Right now, his latest word is that a third term isn’t possible; but the idea has risen and fallen so many times that I’m sure it will be back at some point. So I thought I’d address how it might or might not work. That should be out shortly.
That still leaves the weekly summary a lot to cover: the destruction of the White House to make room for the Epstein Ballroom; tomorrow’s elections in New York City, Virginia, and New Jersey; Trump’s demand that his own Justice Department pay him $230 million; the Senate’s attempt to end Trump’s tariffs just as the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments about their legality; the NYT laying out the case for calling the Trump regime autocratic; and a few other things. That should be out by maybe noon or 1.
Trump’s assault on American democracy. The American People pushed back a little this week. That’s the subject of the featured post.
Climate change. Lots of statistics get thrown around about climate change, but the most important one is the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere. In 2024, atmospheric CO2 jumped by a record 3.5 parts per million, to reach a record 424 ppm.
Ukraine. Over the last few weeks, Trump did what he does so often: floated an idea to support Ukraine (by supplying it with long-range Tomahawk missiles), got a lot of positive headlines for it, but then backed down after talking to Vladimir Putin. Now he’s planning to meet Putin in Budapest, a move that supports not just Putin, but Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán, Putin’s only ally in the EU. Trump likes to appear independent of Putin, but remains incapable of standing up to him.
This week’s developments
This week’s theme: resisting the regime
That’s the topic of the featured post, which covers the No Kings rallies, the revolt of the Pentagon press corps, universities refusing to sign Trump’s compact, Democrats standing firm on the budget, and an appeals court ruling keeping troops out of Chicago.
Yesterday the NYT published the most clueless article I’ve seen in some while: “It’s 2025, and Democrats Are Still Running Against Trump“. Apparently, we’re supposed to ignore the fascist takeover that’s happening and talk about more normal political issues.
I also love the idea that we should take advice from “a veteran Republican admaker and political strategist” who says “If I were running a Democratic campaign, I would be attempting to broaden my coalition beyond a visceral hatred of Trump”.
Maybe seeing democracy collapsing before their very eyes can change the minds of previously uncommitted voters. Anti-Trump might become a very broad coalition indeed.
and voting rights
John Roberts has been chipping away at the Voting Rights Act for years, enabling a great many voter suppression laws in red states. Now he seems ready to finish the job.
Basically, Roberts wants every government action to be color-blind. That sounds good if you don’t think about it too hard. But when generations of racism has created a problem, how do you address that problem without mentioning race?
Wednesday, the Court heard arguments in Louisiana v Callais, and the issue in question is whether states can engage in racial gerrymandering — the only kind of gerrymandering that current interpretations of the law bans.
Not only is this the kind of thing Roberts has wanted to do his whole career, it might have the side benefit of making it virtually impossible for Democrats to recapture the House in 2026, or maybe ever. An analysis in the NYT says that in some scenarios, Democrats would have to win the national popular vote by 5% or more in order to get a majority of House seats.
and the shutdown
Republicans are claiming that Democrats just didn’t want to fold before the No Kings rallies, but that they will now that the rallies are over. I’m not seeing it.
At stake here is the narrative of Trump’s invincibility: If he has to offer a concession, even a popular one, then resistance is productive. If Democrats cave without getting anything, then they’re useless.
A local TV station suggests five dates that are pressure points for the shutdown: three paycheck dates, the open-enrollment starting date for the ObamaCare exchanges (November 1), and Thanksgiving, when millions of Americans will try to travel and air-traffic controllers would still be working without pay.
I hear a lot of speculation of the form: “They’ll have to resolve this by X, because otherwise this painful thing will happen.” But which side does the pain move? Either Trump makes a concession or he doesn’t, so there’s no obvious compromise on that.
The only way out I see is for Republicans to nuke the filibuster in the Senate. Then they can run over Democrats without giving up anything.
and the Navy murdering Venezuelan fishermen
From the beginning, I’ve been appalled by the policy of blowing up boats in the Caribbean because someone suspects they might be carrying drugs. Appalled, but also puzzled: What’s the point here? Even if the suspicions are true, drug smuggling is not a capital offense, and the people on the boats have been denied due process, or any kind of process at all. The boats could have been stopped by the Coast Guard and the drugs confiscated. And boats from Venezuela are not the main avenue for drug smuggling anyway. So who is better off because the boats are destroyed and the people on it dead?
Well, it seems like the officer in charge has some of the same doubts. Admiral Alvin Holsey, the head of the U.S. Southern Command that oversees operations in the Caribbean, quit his job one year into a three-year assignment, and will retire after a 37-year career.
The strike, which President Donald Trump confirmed Friday, was the sixth known strike on a boat allegedly involved in drug trafficking. But it appeared to mark the first time an attack had not killed everyone on board.
The detention marks the first time that the Trump administration’s military campaign targeting drug traffickers has resulted in the US holding prisoners, and it sets up a complicated legal and policy situation for the administration. … The men held by the US Navy could hypothetically petition the courts to rule on the legality of their detention in what’s known as a habeas corpus claim, Finucane noted — a pathway followed by a number of detainees in the past that could reveal more information about the Trump administration’s secretive legal rationale for the strikes.
We may also finally find out what evidence the regime has that these boats are smuggling drugs. It’s a serious question whether these are actually drug smugglers, or just fishermen in the wrong place.
and you also might be interested in …
Montana has come up with a creative proposal to get corporate money out of politics. Prior to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, governments controlled corporate contributions directly, by passing campaign-finance laws. Jay Kuo:
The High Court’s decision rested on the notion that corporations, long defined as “legal persons,” are entitled to First Amendment protections just like actual people. Therefore, they held, it is a violation of their “freedom of speech” to put restrictions on what their money can say and do, even in politics.
We know what happened next. Big corporations, through super PACs and outside groups, flooded the system, drowning out individuals’ voices. And there seemed no way to stop it, short of a constitutional amendment that would allow limits on corporate political spending.
Just this summer, a federal court citing Citizens United struck down a Maine law that limited contributions to political action committees to $5,000 per donor, whether that donor was an individual or a corporation.
But a new idea is being pushed in Montana: Even if corporations are people, they are still defined by the state that incorporates them, and only have the powers their charters give them. Organizers hope to have a ballot initiative in 2026 that revises Montana’s corporate code to take away corporations’ power to contribute to political campaigns. Further, it would allow corporations incorporated in other states to have only the same powers as Montana corporations when they operate in Montana.
Unless the Supreme Court comes up with some new oligarchic doctrine knocking this down, other states could imitate it.
Vox’ Ian Milhiser lists the five safeguards we used to have against rogue government agencies like ICE, and how the Supreme Court has blocked them.
Is anyone really surprised to discover that when Young Republicans chat among themselves, the conversation turns racist and fascist?
One more reason why Pete Hegseth should never have been allowed anywhere near the SecDef office: He OK’d a plan to celebrate the birthday of the Marine Corps by firing live artillery shells over Interstate 5 in California.
Trump commuted the 7-year prison sentence of former congressman George Santos. There has never been any question about Santos’ guilt, so I can only surmise two justifications: (1) Trump doesn’t think Trump supporters should be punished for committing crimes. (2) Being a fraudster himself, Trump identifies with fraudsters.
Vox’ Bryan Walsh writes an optimistic piece about cities becoming more bike-able. Grist has an article on the same topic.
and let’s close with something unique
I don’t normally do much sports coverage, but it’s worth noting that in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, Shohei Ohtani produced what is probably the greatest single-game performance in the history of baseball. Ohtani pitched six scoreless innings and hit three home runs in a 5-1 victory that sent the LA Dodgers to the World Series.
The only player comparable to Ohtani, Babe Ruth, had two 3-homer games in his career and also had scoreless pitching starts in the post-season, but never both in the same game.
The No Kings rallies were the most obvious signs of resistance to Trump’s authoritarian rule, but congressional Democrats, Pentagon reporters, major universities, and an appeals court also refused to cave to him.
Saturday I had a choice to make: attend the No Kings rally where I live in Bedford, Mass., or go to the much bigger rally in Boston, which stood a chance of making national news. I opted for the local rally. At one point I counted over 500 people in attendance before I lost count. I would guess there were 600 or more. That’s in a town of about 14,000, at a rally that probably didn’t draw a lot of out-of-town people because all the surrounding towns had their own No Kings rallies.
The independent Strength In Numbers website estimated that 5.2 million people participated nationwide, and possibly as many as 8.2 million.
Our estimate is based on reports from local officials, local organizers, and attendees, and suggests the count from organizers — who report 7 million participants nationwide — may be a bit optimistic (but is not impossible). Still, regardless of whether the precise number is 5, 6, 7, or 8 million, Saturday’s events are very likely the biggest single-day protest event since 1970, surpassing even the 2017 Women’s March demonstrations against Trump.
The largest rallies were in blue states, with 320K in New York City and 225K in Chicago, but 20K came out in Austin, Texas and 10K in Boise, Idaho. No Kings was truly a national event.
The regime’s response. The organizers could hardly have asked for a better response from the Trump administration, because the regime’s disdain and even hatred for these millions of Americans only served to underline everything the rally speakers were saying.
Trump himself posted an AI-generated video on his Truth Social account, in which a crowned Trump flies a fighter jet labeled “King Trump” and drops sewage onto protesters in what appears to be New York. VP Vance posted a video to BlueSky in which Trump dons a crown and a robe, and brandishes a sword while Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneel and bow to him. White House spokesman responded to the protests with “Who cares?“
Leaders of democratic countries don’t act like this.
Presidents are, of course, within their rights to put their own spin on events. Trump might legitimately doubt whether these millions of people accurately represent the country, or even postulate a “silent majority” as Richard Nixon did a few years before he had to leave office in disgrace. Even if the majority of the country has turned against Trump — as the polls show — he is not obligated to agree with the People or change his unpopular policies.
But when large numbers of their citizens take to the streets in nonviolent protest — even Fox News had to admit that “there were no reports of violence or arrests at the afternoon rallies” — leaders of democracies don’t respond with a lordly “Who cares?” or publicize their fantasies of dropping shit on the dissenters. But would-be dictators might, because they don’t serve the People; the People are supposed to serve them.
It’s nearly impossible to imagine any Democratic president showing similar hostility to peaceful conservative protesters. (The January 6 protests, recall, included a violent takeover of the Capitol and sending over 100 police to the hospital. The subsequent arrests and trials were basic law enforcement, not persecution.) The moments conservatives point to as evidence of Democratic disdain — Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” and Obama’s “clinging to guns or religion” — don’t really hold up if you look at the full context, which included considerable empathy for Trump voters.
For example, Clinton put “half” of Trump voters in her basket of deplorables.
But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.
The closest genuine analogy from recent years is the Tea Party protests against President Obama, which were much smaller than No Kings. Paul Waldman has numbers:
The Tea Party’s biggest distributed event was on tax day 2009, with 750 modestly attended protests. No Kings had 2,600. Its biggest single gathering was on 9/12/09 in DC, with somewhere between 75K and a few 100K participants.
Nonetheless, Obama had a delicate response to the Tea Party: The protests represented a “noble” American tradition of “healthy skepticism about government” as well as a noble tradition of “saying that government should pay its way”. But he engaged the ideas of the Tea Party, challenging them to specify how they would close the deficit.
The challenge, I think, for the tea party movement is to identify specifically what would you do. It’s not enough just to say, get control of spending. I think it’s important for you to say, I’m willing to cut veterans’ benefits, or I’m willing to cut Medicare or Social Security benefits, or I’m willing to see these taxes go up.
It is impossible to imagine Trump or Vance or Speaker Johnson or just about any Republican leader showing that level of respect for Americans who disagree with what they’re doing. We are “terrorists” or “pro-Hamas” or some other ridiculous thing. They can’t even admit that Americans don’t like seeing soldiers patrolling their streets, or American citizens being harassed because of their accents or the color of their skin.
In their fascist worldview, Trump IS America, so any dissent against Trump is un-American.
Resistance from the Pentagon press corps. No Kings wasn’t the only example of Americans refusing to bend their knees to the Mad King.
Nearly the entire Pentagon press corps cleaned out their desks and turned in their access passes Wednesday rather than submit to Pete Hegseth’s new attempt to control their coverage of his department.
News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.
Even several Trump-supporting outlets, like Fox News, Newsmax, and The Wall Street Journal, have given up their Pentagon access.
“What they’re really doing, they want to spoon-feed information to the journalist, and that would be their story. That’s not journalism,” said Jack Keane, a retired U.S. Army general and Fox News analyst, said on Hegseth’s former network.
Yahoo News reported that the “hundreds” of credentialed Pentagon reporters had been reduced to 15. The Washington Post identified who they represent:
The list of signatories included four reporters from right-wing outlets: one from the website the Federalist, one from the Epoch Times newspaper, and two from the cable network One America News.
“The rest,” the WaPo says, “are freelancers, independent or work for media outfits based overseas.”
(Even Epoch Times’ Pentagon reporter resigned after his bosses signed the agreement. “I can no longer reconcile my role with the direction the paper has chosen, including its increasing willingness to promote partisan materials, publish demonstrably false information, & manipulate the reporting of its ground staff to shape the worldview of our readers.”)
Resistance in Congress. The government shutdown is now in entering its fourth week, with no end in sight. Democrats are holding out for a popular concession: They want long-term funding for the subsidies that make policies on the ObamaCare exchanges affordable. If those subsidies lapse on November 1, as they are currently scheduled to do, millions of Americans — many of them represented in Congress by Republicans — will see their health insurance premiums skyrocket.
But Trump’s myth of invincibility will be damaged if he makes any concessions at all, so Republicans are refusing to negotiate. So far the only offer on the table is that the Senate will hold a vote on the ObamaCare subsidies after Democrats vote for a continuing resolution to reopen the government.
This vote, of course, will just be a gesture, a chance for Democrats to vote for something that ultimately fails. It will help no one pay for health insurance.
The House, meanwhile, is still out of session. This has the added plum for Speaker Johnson that he doesn’t have to swear in Adelita Grijalva who won a special election weeks ago. Grijalva would be the 218th signature on the petition to vote on releasing the Epstein files, which Johnson does not want to do. (You have to wonder what in the files could be so bad for Trump that he’s willing to go through this.)
Republicans are predicting Democrats are about to fold, but I see no sign of it. They have a popular position and the public is mostly agreeing with them. Rather than offer Democrats anything substantive, the regime is upping the threat level, as authoritarians are wont to do.
Resistance from universities. Today is the deadline for nine universities to sign a compact with the Trump administration, submitting to regime-dictated policy changes in exchange for favorable decisions on federal funding.
The Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education was sent on Oct. 1 to nine colleges — both private and public — and would require schools to bar transgender people from using restrooms or playing in sports that align with their gender identities, freeze tuition for five years, limit international student enrollment, and require standardized tests for admissions, among other things.
Of the original nine schools that received the document, as of Sunday night, six had indicated they are not planning on signing.
MIT was the first to refuse, followed by Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Southern California.
On Friday, the White House held a virtual meeting with colleges that hadn’t yet sent rejection notices, including the University of Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin, Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia. Three additional schools were also invited: Arizona State University, Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Kansas, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Subsequent to that meeting, Virginia and Dartmouth announced they wouldn’t be signing. No universities have signed.
Resistance in court. A three-judge panel from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals — including one Trump appointee — unanimously upheld a lower-court order blocking the regime from deploying National Guard troops in Illinois.
The case hinges on whether the regime’s claims of “rebellion” or of being “unable to execute the laws of the United States” are credible. The district court found that they were not credible, and the appeals court found no errors in that assessment that they needed to correct.
Political opposition is not rebellion. A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows. Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest.
This weekend was an encouraging one for Americans who want Trump’s bid for absolute power to fail. Something like 5 or 10 million of us turned out for No Kings rallies on Saturday, but that wasn’t the whole story. Democrats in Congress held firm, refusing to be railroaded into giving Trump what he wants with no negotiations or compromises. More universities turned down his demands for concessions in exchange for federal funding. Pentagon reporters turned in their credentials rather than consent to be mouthpieces for Pete Hegseth. An appeals court refused to let Trump deploy troops in Chicago.
All in all, the narrative that Trump can’t be resisted got interrupted this week. That doesn’t mean everything turns around from here, but it is a good sign. I’ll summarize in a featured post “The Resistance Stiffens”, which should post between 10 and 11 EDT.
The weekly summary will cover the failing ceasefire in Gaza, Trump backtracking once again on helping Ukraine, the Supreme Court looking ready to kill of the Voting Rights Act once and for all, a big leap in CO2, and a plan to get corporate money out of politics without a constitutional amendment. That should post a little after noon.
Just over a year ago, President Joe Biden had proposed a similar deal to the one pitched by Trump, to no avail. Did Trump succeed by pressuring Netanyahu in a way that his predecessor refused to do? Or did Israel simply degrade Hamas so badly that the terrorist group had no choice but to agree? Both factors seem to have played a role. Did Arab countries sway Hamas, or did the monarchies push Trump to change his stance? Both, again, seem to have been factors, according to our conversations with 10 officials from the United States, Israel, Arab nations, and Europe, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing talks. Now the question is whether the swap of hostages for prisoners unfolds as planned, and whether this week’s diplomatic success will amount to anything more than a blip in the fighting.
and the ongoing invasion of Chicago
The semi-comic superhero Peacemaker once said: “I made a vow to have peace. No matter how many people I have to kill to get it.” Trump’s ICE raids and National Guard deployments are similar: He would have us believe that he is dead set on stopping crime, no matter how many laws he has to break to do it. And if armed men have to drag you and your family out of your home in the middle of the night and zip-tie you all in the back of a van in order to keep you safe, Trump’s people are up to the job.
Here are just a few of the cases I ran into this week:
In Chicago, ICE shot a Presbyterian pastor the head with a pepper ball. ICE agents shot from the roof of their building. The pastor was among nonviolent protesters in the street.
A Delaware domestic violence victim with protected status and no criminal record was taken from her home in front of her children and flown to ICE’s Louisiana concentration camp, where she was held for nearly a month before relatives and the Delaware attorney general were able to find her and negotiate her release.
A 13-year-old boy got arrested by police in Everett, Massachusetts. His mother was called to pick him up, but before she could get there ICE had wisked him away to Virginia. “The teen and his family, who are Brazilian nationals, have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, [immigration lawyer Andrew] Lattarulo said.”
And this: “Doctors at Adventist Health White Memorial hospital in Boyle Heights told LAist that hospital administrators are allowing federal immigration agents to interfere in medical decisions and block doctors from properly treating detainees who need emergency care.”
I believe I could find large numbers of similar abuses if I looked harder. There is a crime wave in our cities, but it’s not immigrants: It’s ICE agents who pay no attention to the legal limits on their actions.
The big news this week mainly happened in court. The question to be resolved is how much deference courts owe a president who is either lying or completely deranged.
The laws that allow the President to federalize National Guard units and deploy them to American cities are all based on the existence of certain conditions, like “invasion” by a foreign nation, “rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States”, or “the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States”.
Ordinarily, if it’s anything like a close call, courts defer to a president’s judgment about whether such conditions exist. But if a president can make stuff up, then the conditions might as well not be in the law at all. If that’s what Congress intended, the law should just say, “The President can take command of the National Guard whenever he wants.”
Obviously, the law doesn’t say that, so there is some limit to the deference a president is owed. Just as obviously, when Trump described Portland as “war ravaged”, he passed that limit. His claims about Chicago are only somewhat more credible.
What Trump intends to do with the troops is also a factor. If the problem he intends to address is “crime” rather than rebellion or insurrection, that is better in one way and worse in another. All cities have crime, so he is at least not delusional when he refers to crime as a problem. But Posse Comitatus and other laws put firm limits on the conditions under which National Guard or regular military units can participate in law enforcement (which has long been a state and local responsibility). So he can call up units, but it’s hard to see what they can do (legally) to solve a crime problem.
Here’s where things stand at the moment. In Portland, a federal district judge barred Trump from sending National Guard troops — either Oregon’s or some other state’s — to Portland. However, a three-judge appeals court panel reviewing the matter has two Trump appointees, and they seemed skeptical of the lower-court’s order. Portland’s Channel 6 anticipates that Trump will be allowed to deploy the guard to protect ICE offices and other federal buildings, but not to do any law enforcement.
A Chicago-based federal appeals court has allowed National Guard troops (including 200 from Texas) to remain under federal control in Illinois, but not to deploy to Chicago.
This escalation of violence is targeted and intentional and premeditated. The Trump administration is following a playbook: cause chaos, create fear and confusion, make it seem like peaceful protestors are a mob, by firing gas pellets and teargas canisters at them. Why? To create the pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act, so that he can send military troops to our city. He wants to justify and normalize the presence of armed soldiers under his direct command.
Crowds that have gathered daily and nightly outside the immigration facility in Oregon’s largest city in recent days have embraced the absurd, donning inflatable frog, unicorn, axolotl and banana costumes as they face off with federal law enforcement who often deploy teargas and pepper balls.
Sunday, there was a naked bike ride to protest against troops deploying into the city. See the closing for more Portlandish absurdity.
and the shutdown
There is essentially no progress to report. Democrats are refusing to approve a continuing resolution unless it addresses Obamacare subsidies, which are lapsing and will cause huge increases in many families’ health insurance premiums. Republicans are refusing any concessions, even though many of them realize their own constituents are being hurt.
This week the regime announced that it was using the excuse of the government shutdown to fire more federal workers. About 4600 were let go in all, which doesn’t sound like a lot compared to the size of the federal government. But certain areas were hit particularly hard: about 100 were fired from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Because, it’s not like substance abuse is a problem in America.
THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6. If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed big apologies. What a SCAM – DO SOMETHING!!! President DJT
Anybody see the problem? January 6 happened at the end of the first Trump administration. There was no “Biden FBI”. Did Trump forget he was president then?
Under the deal, AstraZeneca agreed to sell its drugs to Medicaid, the health insurance program for lower-income Americans, at about the same prices that it offers to wealthy countries in Europe.
As with all Trump announcements, we’ll have to wait and see whether this agreement has any actual effect. But I will guarantee you one thing: It won’t have the effect Trump promised. Here’s what he said:
Now drug prices are going to be going down 100 percent, 400 percent, 600 percent, 1,000 percent, in some cases. … And as an example, one particular drug that’s hot, very hot, 654 percent, on inhalers, COPD and asthma, as well as certain diabetics medications. They’re going to be averaging about 654 percent reduction in price.
If math isn’t your strong suit, let me interpret: Suppose a pill costs $1. A 100% price cut means that AstraZeneca gives you the pill for nothing. 1000% of $1 is $10. So a price reduction of 1000% means AstraZeneca will pay you $9 to take the pill. A 654% reduction means they’ll pay you $5.54. Do you really believe that’s going to happen?
This wasn’t a slip of the tongue or a teleprompter screw-up. At the 5:20 mark in the White House video, the camera pulls back enough that you can see a poster on an easel. The poster claims that some drug has a 654% price reduction.
This raises two issues:
Does Trump’s brain really work so badly these days that he believes price reductions over 100% are possible? (Seth Meyers would say yes.)
Think about the number of people who had to be involved in producing that poster and setting it up. None of them had the courage to push back and tell the Mad King “This doesn’t make any sense.”
And finally, let’s look at the credulous press coverage Trump gets. The WaPo article on this event doesn’t mention his laughable claims. The NYT mentions this dementia symptom in the 7th paragraph of its article:
He spoke of delivering seemingly impossible price reductions, such as a “654 percent discount” on Bevespi Aerosphere, an AstraZeneca inhaler for patients with respiratory problems.
Seemingly impossible? Compare this to the wall-to-wall coverage Biden would get whenever he flubbed something.
During the week that the Special Counsel’s report came out, we examined the top 20 articles on the Times’ landing page every four hours. In that time, they published 26 unique articles about Biden’s age, of which 1 of them explored the possibility that Trump’s age was of equal or more concern.
Now, Trump outright babbles and the WaPo ignores it while the NYT tells us he seems to have made a mistake. Apparently the NYT believes it is a matter of opinion whether drug prices are going down more than 100%.
and you also might be interested in …
Don’t forget the No Kings protests on Saturday. There’s bound to be one in your area. You may not feel like you can do much to stop the Trump regime. But you can at least do this.
After a few months of relative peace, the trade war with China has restarted. China is restricting exports of rare-earth metals that are used in a wide variety of electronic devices. Trump is threatening 100% tariffs on imports from China. Investment markets crashed on Friday and have recovered somewhat today.
A new report says that the Earth’s coral reefs are at a tipping point and have entered into a period of “long-term decline”.
The report from scientists and conservationists warns the world is also “on the brink” of reaching other tipping points, including the dieback of the Amazon, the collapse of major ocean currents and the loss of ice sheets.
Back in May, Trump added a carrot to the stick he brandishes against undocumented immigrants: If they would self-deport, the US would fly them to any other country for free, and also give them an “exit bonus” cash payment. ProPublica followed up with immigrants who tried to take advantage of this offer. For many, it hasn’t worked out the way Trump described.
Upon his arrival, he planted a majestic cross in a mighty act of devotion, dedicating the land to God and setting in motion America’s proud birthright of faith. … Guided by steadfast prayer and unwavering fortitude and resolve, Columbus’s journey carried thousands of years of wisdom, philosophy, reason, and culture across the Atlantic into the Americas — paving the way for the ultimate triumph of Western civilization less than three centuries later on July 4, 1776.
Isn’t it weird that the Native Americans aren’t more grateful for the “thousands of years of wisdom, philosophy, reason, and culture” Columbus brought to them?
and let’s close with something relevant
OK, normally the closing is supposed to get your mind off the news. But the most amusing video I’ve seen this week is this animated music video of Portland’s dancing frogs.
Pam Bondi’s disrespect of the Senate is only one example of a larger principle.
If you watched Pam Bondi’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, you saw a number of things:
an embarrassing performance aimed at impressing Donald Trump rather than the Senate or the American people.
several damaging confessions implicit in her refusal to answer simple questions.
an unprecedented level of disrespect for elected officials, and for Congress’ constitutional duty to oversee the Executive branch.
But if you took a step back, there was also something larger to see: an example of one of the key principles of fascism.
Previous American administrations, and democratic governments elsewhere in the world, have sometimes had contentious relationships with opposition parties or with the press. But I can think of no other example where those relationships devolved into such open hostility and disrespect as Bondi showed to Democratic senators, or as Trump regularly shows to the press.
The reason for this is simple and goes to the heart of the democratic project: Each of the three — the President, Congress, and the press — represents the People in a different way. Yes, the People elect the President, but they also elect representatives to Congress. And by choosing who they read or watch or otherwise pay attention to, the People informally anoint journalists to raise questions they are unable to raise themselves.
Previous administrations have understood this. So while their officials and spokespeople might banter with Congress or the press, while they might dodge some questions, spin their way out of others, and sometimes launch into long filibustering answers that made questioners give up, there was always some minimum level of decorum. To berate the questioners or insult them also insulted the American People that they represent.
But fascist regimes work according to a different principle: The Leader exists in a state of mystical identity with the Nation and its People. Guardian columnist and Princeton professor Jan-Werner Müller saw the writing on the wall after Trump’s first inaugural in 2017:
All populists oppose “the people” to a corrupt, self-serving elite the way Trump did. But not everyone who criticizes the powerful is a populist. What really distinguishes the populist is his claim that he and only he represents the real people. As Trump explained, because he now controls the executive, the people control the government. By implication, all opposition is illegitimate – if you oppose Trump, you oppose the people.
In particular, no one can adversarially question the Leader on behalf of the People, because the Leader IS the People.
This mindset is very obvious when Trump holds a press conference, and nearly as obvious when his press secretary Karoline Leavitt does: In the regime’s mind, the reporters represent no one but themselves. Trump is doing them a favor to speak to them at all, and that privilege can be revoked for the most trivial of reasons (as when AP got thrown out of the Oval Office press pool for refusing to accede to Trump’s demand to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico).
The same principle was at work in Bondi’s testimony. Previous department heads have shown at least a nominal respect for the congressional committees tasked with overseeing them, for the simple reason that the senators and representatives are elected officials and the department heads are not.
But Bondi’s performance took place inside a very different frame. Democratic senators like Dick Durbin or Sheldon Whitehouse may have gone through the technical procedure we call “elections”, but they do not in any way represent the People. Bondi directly represents Donald Trump himself, and Trump IS the People. So respect should flow from the senators to her, and not the other way around. (The Republican senators in the room seemed to understand this.)
This attitude was unfortunate for the People, because Democrats on the Committee actually did a good job asking questions that I think a lot of Americans would like to hear answered:
Those pictures of topless young women sitting on Trump’s lap — the ones Michael Wolfe says Jeffrey Epstein kept in a safe — did the FBI find them or not?
Why did Bondi tell Fox News that the Epstein client list was on her desk for review, and then soon afterwards say that no such list exists?
Trump supporters may see those as “gotcha” questions, but that depends on what the answers are. If Bondi could simply say “No such pictures have been found and we have no reason to believe any exist”, or “Our office was ready to indict Comey before the Truth Social post”, or “The story about agents flagging Trump’s name in the Epstein files is false” — where’s the gotcha? She might have followed any of those answers with “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clear that up.”
In other words: If Bondi had good answers to those questions, Republicans should have asked them. But she didn’t and they didn’t.
Instead of answers, Bondi came armed with a binder of opposition research, so that whenever a senator posed a difficult question, she could counterattack with an accusation. She attacked several Democratic senators for taking money from an Epstein associate, or of not caring about corruption when Biden was president; called Adam Schiff a “failed lawyer” who should apologize to Trump; accused Dick Durbin of not caring about the safety of Illinois, and so on.
Some of her attacks were taken from the fever-swamps of Fox News and may or may not have any basis in reality. But beyond that, they did nothing to answer those excellent questions.
Probably the only person who enjoyed this performance was Donald Trump, who always loves to see his people insult his enemies. (Rick Wilson compared Bondi’s testimony to a faked orgasm: “loud, theatrical, sweaty, and meant to trick just one man into keeping her around by flattering his ego.”) But any smart Republican had to realize that it did their cause no good: By dodging the questions, Bondi all but admitted that the only true answers are bad: Trump is in the Epstein files, the photos do exist, Comey’s prosecution was motivated by Trump’s malice rather than evidence of wrongdoing, Homan kept the money, and so on.
I mean, if somebody accuses you of something and you can say “no”, don’t you say “no”? You can get all offended and angry about it in your next sentence, but you do say “no”.
Bondi, who was under oath and subject to lying-to-Congress charges should the Department of Justice ever start enforcing the law again, did not say “no”.
Speaker Mike Johnson and other congressional Republicans have provided another example of the fascist identification of the Leader with the Nation. They refer to the No Kings protests planned for October 18 as “hate America” rallies. In their fascist worldview, Trump is America. You can’t protest against Trump unless you hate America.
Trump’s security memorandum projects his friends’ behavior onto his enemies.
Executive Order NPSM-7 got past my attention when it was first released on September 25. Seeking to exploit MAGA’s horror at Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the memo paints rising political violence as purely a problem for the Left (when the vast majority of political violence for years has been on the Right). And it sees this left-wing violence as the result of a vast, well-funded conspiracy.
This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns of targeted intimidation, radicalization, threats, and violence designed to silence opposing speech, limit political activity, change or direct policy outcomes, and prevent the functioning of a democratic society.
The sad thing here is that while there are occasional large-scale acts of political violence (like January 6), most examples of political violence against either Republicans (like Charlie Kirk) or Democrats (like Melissa Hortman) don’t require funding or manpower. The country is awash in guns, and you can train yourself to be a sniper without drawing much attention. But Republicans don’t want to do anything to curb guns, so they need another explanation.
Fortunately, they have one: NPSM-7’s conspiratorial vision builds on the longstanding right-wing fantasy that somebody (George Soros?) is paying people to protest against Trump. It makes perfect sense: Since everyone loves Trump, the large crowds that protest against him must be artificially generated. (For the record: Neither I nor anybody I know has ever received a payment for participating in anti-Trump protests. Even more telling: Nobody ever sends me emails trying to raise money to pay other protesters.) And once you have such a covert funding network, using it to promote violence — at least to a certain kind of mind — is an obvious next step.
The memo calls for federal law enforcement agencies to investigate these conspiracies and disrupt their plots before they result in violent acts. (So far, so good. If somebody had spotted Tyler Robinson sooner and taken his guns away, Kirk might still be alive. Ditto for Vance Luther Boelter and Hortman.) But it also calls to investigate
institutional and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations, that are responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct described in subsections (a) and (b) of this section.
Since there are no such institutions and individuals, this section’s only conceivable result would be harassing investigations and show-trial indictments like the ones against James Comey and Letitia James. The IRS is also instructed to get involved in the harassment of Trump’s political opponents:
The Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (Commissioner) shall take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism. In addition, where applicable, the Commissioner shall ensure that the Internal Revenue Service refers such organizations, and the employees and officers of such organizations, to the Department of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution.
I have to wonder how “indirect” such financing can be and still trigger an investigation or indictment. Suppose there is one violent act during an otherwise peaceful protest, but 100 protesters get arrested. If the ACLU steps in to defend them in court, are they “indirectly” funding the single act of violence?
But even more interesting (to me, at least) is this section, which is clear projection. Trump knows his people are doing these things, so he imagines his enemies are too. (I have added links to make the projection clearer.)
These campaigns often begin by isolating and dehumanizing specific targets to justify murder or other violent action against them. They do so through a variety of fora, including anonymous chat forums, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions. These campaigns then escalate to organized doxing, where the private or identifying information of their targets (such as home addresses, phone numbers, or other personal information) is exposed to the public with the explicit intent of encouraging others to harass, intimidate, or violently assault them. As in the case of several ICE agents in Los Angeles being doxed, the goal of these campaigns can be to obstruct the operations of the Federal Government as well as aid and abet criminal activity the Federal Government is lawfully pursuing. These campaigns are coordinated and perpetrated by actors who have developed a comprehensive strategy to achieve specific policy goals through radicalization and violent intimidation.
I can only chuckle as I imagine a left-wing network with a “comprehensive strategy to achieve specific policy goals”. If only there were one!
In the meantime, Trump will continue to be frightened by his reflection in the mirror. I wish I could think of some way to use that against him.
Once again, the government shutdown is failing to make it to the top of my list. It continues and I don’t yet see how it ends, so there’s not a lot you need to know about it.
The Gaza peace plan hasn’t fallen apart yet, and actual hostages have even been released, so it deserves attention. But I have no insight into it, so I’ll have to link to somebody else’s view.
The two featured posts this week are both Trump-centered, and I apologize in advance for that. The first looks at National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NPSM-7), which directs the government to go after some vast left-wing conspiracy that exists mainly in Trump’s mind. But it does provide justification to investigate Democratic funders like George Soros, and maybe even create show-trials around them. The interesting thing to me, though, is the amount of projection here: Trump is imagining that his enemies are doing what he knows his friends are doing. That post is just about done and should go out shortly.
The second featured post takes a step back from AG Pam Bondi’s unprecedented disrespect for the Senate in her testimony on Tuesday, and relates it to a general principle of the fascist mindset: the mystical identification of the Leader with the People. Ordinarily, a cabinet member treats a congressional committee with respect, because Congress was elected by the People and cabinet members were not. But to a fascist mindset, someone chosen by the Leader is closer to the People than any elected official, because the Leader IS the People. “Only Trump Represents the People” should be out around 10 EDT.
That leaves the weekly summary to provide that Gaza peace link, as well as covering the shutdown, the war against Chicago, new evidence of Trump’s dementia, the upcoming No Kings protests, and a few other things. I’ll try to have that out by noon.
A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive, will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence [against] foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.
Trump’s assault on American democracy. Chicago and perhaps Portland are now under attack.
Climate change.Pope Leo spoke out reaffirming his predecessor’s opposition to climate change, saying that it should not be a divisive issue.
Gaza. A new peace plan is on the table. Is this any more likely to take hold than the previous ones?
Ukraine. I’m hearing very little news about advances on the ground in either direction. It seems for now to be mainly a drone war.
This week’s developments
The Trump/Hegseth Quantico speeches
Before the meeting of 800 admirals and generals called to Virginia, speculation was rampant about what it was for. Now that it has happened, we’re still wondering what it was for. I try to unravel it in one of the featured posts.
and the war against blue cities
This week, Blackhawk helicopters attacked an apartment building on Chicago’s south shore. The reality is just as crazy as it sounds. This is the topic of the other featured post.
I forgot to mention this in that post: The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland wrote a long on-the-scene account of the protests against ICE in Chicago, including a long interview with congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh.
and the government shut-down
It’s been a week and neither side is budging. I’m not sure what resolves this eventually, or how long it might take. Trump needs to preserve his authoritarian narrative — that you can’t resist him successfully, and if you try you’ll be punished. But it’s also hard to see how Democrats can give in without some kind of concession.
For what it’s worth, the public seems to be blaming Republicans more than Democrats: 39% blame the Republicans more, 30% Democrats more, and 31% both sides equally.
This is a situation where Trump-being-Trump works against his own interests. A number of congressional Republicans think they had a more persuasive blame-the-Democrats message: Let’s get a clean continuing resolution for a couple months while we work out the details, and not try to fight for policy changes yet.
But Trump keeps acting like a perpetrator rather than a victim. He wants to use the shutdown to fire more federal workers. He’s trolling Democratic leaders in insulting ways. He’s illegally using government websites and even out-of-office messages to make his political points.
Democrats, meanwhile, have a pretty good ask: Subsidies for ObamaCare healthcare policies are ending, and they want to get them re-funded. So they’re fighting to keep healthcare costs down for millions of Americans, including many Trump voters.
and Gaza
Trump put forward a peace proposal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which Hamas gave qualified agreement to. Trump pounced on this as a win, making it hard for Netanyahu to back out.
I’m skeptical, though The New Yorker’s Ruth Margalit is less so: She considers it possible that the first step — release of Hamas’ remaining hostages in exchange for a ceasefire and release of about 2000 of Israel’s Palestinian prisoners — may go forward.
Speculation about Trump’s mental health has been ramping up lately for a number of reasons. His 70-minute ramble to the generals (see the featured post) was more muddled than usual, and he seemed tired. Governor Pritzker has raised the possibility that Trump’s bizarre posts about Portland and Chicago are demented. A judge Trump appointed himself said that his claims were “untethered to the facts“.
And why would Google need to put its thumb on the scale?
Henry Kissinger once lampooned Argentina’s strategic significance by calling it “a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica”. Argentina’s economy (the 23rd largest in the world, just behind Belgium) is also not particularly important. But the Trump administration is willing to risk $20 billion of taxpayer money to shore up Argentina just before a major election.
Why? The current president Javier Milei, is a Trump flatterer and a mini-Trump himself. And like Trump, he is very unpopular.
Milei earned many admirers on the right for undertaking a blitz of free-market reforms. Those included slashing government subsidies and regulations, in addition to thinning public sector ranks by 50,000 employees. In return, Trump has referred to Milei as his “favorite president” and offered an endorsement for his re-election.
Also, some well-connected hedge funds have interests in Argentina.
“Donald Trump gets a two-fer here,” [Senator Elizabeth] Warren said. “He gets to bail out his political ally in Argentina, who is very unpopular and in big trouble, and his treasury secretary apparently gets to help his hedge fund buddies.”
Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittifciation” to explain what has happened to all major internet platforms and services, such as Facebook and Twitter: They draw an audience by providing a convenient service, but then become profitable by abusing that audience after it gets locked in.
In this Guardian article, Doctorow explains in detail the enshittifcation of Amazon, which ensnared not just consumers, but the merchants who provide the products Amazon sells. He explains why the market itself will never fix Amazon, and how it has become impervious to individual action. Only regulation can solve the problem.
The path to a better Amazon doesn’t lie through consumer activism, or appeals to the its conscience. … Systemic problems have systemic solutions, not individual ones. You can’t shop your way out of a monopoly.
and let’s close with something festive
If you’re not finding a lot to dance about these days, maybe you should look at this collection of the 20 greatest dance routines.
I went to graduate school in Chicago during the 80s and lived there for six years. I’ve been back many times since and marveled at how much safer the city is today than 40-50 years ago. Then, I had a car stolen and two bicycles. My future wife was accosted on a sidewalk, and managed to push her attacker away. But in recent years, I have walked anywhere I wanted, including a number of places I would not have dared in the 80s, despite being younger, fitter, and less cautious then.
One neighborhood I stayed away from then, perhaps foolishly, was the Hispanic area on the near South Side. But a few years ago, I went to the National Museum of Mexican Art on 19th Street. A lovely middle-class neighborhood has grown up in that area, and the museum itself is wonderful. These days, Mexican-American can be just another Chicago ethnicity, like Italian-American or Irish-American.
There is, of course, still crime in Chicago (as there is not just in every city, but in small towns as well), and places I would not want to go at night. But in every measurable way, the city is much safer now. You can see that if you take the famous Architecture Boat Tour on the Chicago River. The gentrification of downtown began in the 1970s with the Marina Towers, which were built to be a fortress against the rest of Chicago: You could park your car and even moor your boat without exposing yourself to the public. But as the decades went by, the buildings became more and more open to the city, built to highlight the public riverwalk. From the river, you can see the record of the gradual unfolding of Chicagoans’ confidence.
So I have taken it personally when Trump has repeatedly smeared Chicago as a crime-ridden hellhole. And in particular, I object to his scapegoating of Hispanic immigrants as some kind of vermin to be eliminated.
I have to wonder what troops can do that other federal agents aren’t already doing. Agents from ICE, the Border Patrol, the FBI, BATF, and DHS have been wearing military fatigues, sporting heavy weapons, and conducting military-style attacks.
Federal agents rappelled from Black Hawk helicopters. Dozens of others, their faces hidden behind masks, arrived in moving trucks. In total, 300 officers stormed a South Side apartment building that Department of Homeland Security officials say harbored criminals.
Maybe, maybe not. But the building also contained US citizens and families with children.
Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women and children from their apartments, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said. Agents approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story building, and U.S. citizens were among those detained for hours.
… The feds also claimed the South Shore neighborhood was “a location known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates,” but DHS gave no evidence to support the assertion, and authorities did not confirm that any of the people arrested were members of the Venezuelan gang.
Rodrick Johnson, 67, is one of many residents who were detained by federal agents during the South Shore raid. A U.S. citizen, he said agents broke through his door and dragged him out in zip ties.
Johnson said he was left tied up outside the building for nearly three hours before agents finally let him go.
Many of the residents were said to be Venezuelan. I wonder if the regime would be similarly brutal in a White neighborhood.
Last Sunday, though, masked agents in military style dress marched through some of the most upscale and touristy parts of the city, not far from where you’d board that boat tour I mentioned.
Agents, some masked, walked north on Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park toward the Wrigley Building. They then walked down Wacker Drive near Trump Tower, while some headed to the Riverwalk. They then made their way to River North.
The point here could only have been intimidation. They were not pursuing criminals or making arrests. Governor Pritzker has it right:
One thing is clear: none of what Trump is doing is making Illinois safer. This is not about fighting crime or about public safety. This is about sowing fear and intimidation and division among Americans.
Portland. Yesterday’s announcement sounded like a classic good-news/bad-news joke: Trump was pulling the last 300 federalized California National Guard troops out of Los Angeles … so that he could send them to Portland. He had previously tried to federalize Oregon National Guard troops to invade Portland, but a federal judge he appointed himselfblocked that plan with a temporary restraining order in response to a lawsuit from Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, the mayor of Portland, and numerous other state and local officials.
Judge Karin Immergut observed that in an earlier case (concerning Los Angeles) the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had overturned a similar restraining order because courts owe “a great deal of deference” to a president’s judgment that conditions on the ground justify his decision to deploy National Guard troops. Specifically, that the federal government is unable to execute the laws with less extraordinary forces.
But Immergut contrasted the relatively peaceful situation of Portland (where the most serious protests had happened in June, but by September had faded to predominantly nonviolent protests drawing 20-50 people per day) with the more serious situation in LA prior to the president’s declaration.
Here, this Court concludes that the President did not have a “colorable basis” to invoke § 12406(3) to federalize the National Guard because the situation on the ground belied an inability of federal law enforcement officers to execute federal law. The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.
In a hearing Sunday night, Judge Immergut asked a Trump administration attorney: “How could bringing in federalised national guard from California not be in direct contravention of the [decision] I issued yesterday?”
She extended her order to block the Trump regime from deploying any National Guard troops to Portland.
I’m encouraged by the fact that an appointee from Trump’s first term sees the law this way. I hope some similarly-minded judge gets the Chicago case.
The Weekly Sift 