No evidence for his claims isn’t a bug: it’s the point

My friend and debate partner wasn’t done with his debate. A week ago Saturday I wrote about an essay by Trenz Pruca about the life cycle of capitalism and that it ends oligarchy. My debate partner asked what is Pruca’s relationship to reality? On Wednesday I addressed that question by discussing Pruca’s sources. My debate partner agreed that Pruca is credible. But is he effective? What is he doing to achieve the reform he says is so urgently needed? My debate partner (yes, he’s still a friend) pulled in Daily Kos, my primary source of news, and Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect of New York City. What are they doing to achieve effective reform? I’m going to leave Mamdani out of the discussion. He hasn’t started his term of mayor yet and we don’t know how effective he will or won’t be. I am aware that my friend has a much stronger tie to NYC than I do so he might be right that Mamdani might be thwarted at every turn. And my friend might be surprised. Back to Kos and Pruca. Kos is a news service that supports a community and Pruca is one voice in that community. That leads to a basic question: How effective is a news service supposed to be in prompting change? Do we expect that effectiveness from the Detroit Free Press or the Sacramento Bee (just pulled that one out of thin air), or the Washington Post? Yes, some opinion sections of newspapers and online news sources, grab hold of an important idea and make a lot of noise about it, loud enough to get significant public and political attention. But their job is to report the news and to spread ideas through the readers. Daily Kos does that too. The site spreads ideas through its progressive readers, making all of us aware of the things progressives should know. Some of that is “preaching to the choir” and it is also making sure the choir knows all the songs and can accurately sing them when away from the choir loft. Another aspect is that several prominent Democrats are readers (or at least have accounts). Essays like Pruca’s might be read by lawmakers. Also Kos has an activist arm. Every day they send out an email about how the reader can do something for democracy or the progressive cause. That included donating to a cause or suggesting how a lawmaker could be contacted. I got them for a while, but decided they were just filling up my email inbox. Kos is more effective than a visitor to their website might see. Is my own blog supposed to be effective? I didn’t begin it that way. Back in 2004 I started sending blurbs of important LGBTQ news to family, starting with Massachusetts legalizing same sex marriage. In 2007 a relative suggested I switch to blogging. My focus has shifted from LGBTQ issues into the nasty things politicians are doing. Through it all my purpose has been to spread what I see as important ideas out into the world (yes, it is the world, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China are at the top of viewer countries at the moment and the US is a distant 5th). In my friend’s email he mentioned the Trust Busting that happened between 1904 and 1919. He mentioned it because I had said I didn’t know how the US got through the age of Robber Barons, a time similar to now. My friend suggested I search for Trust Busting. I did, and learned a lot about Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Howard Taft applying an anti-trust law to break up big corporations. They did it by bringing cases through the court system to a Supreme Court willing to apply the law against corporations. Yeah, today we have neither a president willing to take on that fight nor a Supreme Court willing to go against their billionaire friends. In my friend’s discussion he mentioned Roosevelt’s efforts were backed by newspapers of the day. I’m sure my friend was saying see, here are newspapers being effective. But the websites I read, and I read several, said nothing about the role of newspapers. I hope I’ve shown Kos is more effective than my friend can see. As for Pruca, does he need to be the one to turn his ideas into policy or law, or is stating the ideas plainly enough for him to do, letting more appropriate people to take up the ideas? Also, I don’t know what Pruca does when he’s not writing for Kos. From his bio, which I quoted before, he does interact with government officials about government policy. Perhaps he has explained these ideas to them, about as effective as he can be. As always, dear friend, I’m open to the debate continuing. One more Trenz Pruca essay. His question is: Why are we so reluctant to tax the rich? Adam Smith, working in the 18th century, warned that insufficiently taxing the rich jeopardized democracy. But it also noted we admire those who strive with unrelenting industry, even if what they strive for is hollow. Pruca thinks in the last decade (and I think all the way back to Reagan and his tax cuts) there has been a shift from wealth affecting tax policies at the margins to a deference to wealth shaping the tax agenda. The wealth are portrayed as persecuted victims – of taxation, of regulation, of journalists, and of democracy.

If the wealthy are victims, then taxing them is cruelty. If they are persecuted, then oversight is tyranny. If they are heroes of capitalism, then regulation is sabotage.

No, the wealthy are not victims. They are not persecuted. They are not heroes. The middle class identifies upward, awaiting their ascent. Taxing the rich feels like taxing their aspirations. Tax law feels like an attack on “success.” The nasty guy has promoted the shift from billionaires influencing tax policy to authoring it. The government becomes a service provider for wealth, to remove “burdens.” The IRS is an inconvenience, regulators become enemies, and public spending becomes a threat. Pruca concluded:

Taxation, regulation, oversight, and enforcement have all been reframed—not as civic obligations, but as moral trespasses. And in that transformation, the democratic project itself has been bent. The task before us is not merely raising taxes on the rich—though that remains necessary. It is dismantling the cultural machinery that convinces us that the wealthy are fragile, persecuted, and unimpeachable. Smith would tell us plainly that our sympathy, however understandable, is misplaced. The wealthy do not need our protection. Democracy does.

Last week I reported that several senators released a video reminding those in the military that rejecting illegal orders is their duty. One of those senators was Mark Kelly of Arizona. On Monday this week Oliver Willis of Kos reported that the Pentagon announced it is now investigating Kelly. That may include recalling him to active duty for a court-martial. In response Kelly said he won’t be silenced by bullies. A reminder who Kelly is:

Kelly served as a captain in the Navy and flew 39 combat missions in the first Iraq War. He then went on to a distinguished career as a NASA astronaut and was inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame before successfully running for Senate.

The rest of the post is a review of the case. On Tuesday Emily Singer of Kos reported that polls show the public is siding with Kelly. Yesterday Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit discussed the incident behind Kelly’s notice to the military and the recent revelation from the Washington Post. The incident was back on September 2, the first time the nasty guy used the military to strike a boat in the Caribbean. The nasty guy and his goons claimed the boat was carrying drugs to the US and the people on board were members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang of Venezuela. The nasty guy and his goons provided no evidence either of the drugs or the connection to the gang. Hartmann wrote:

If these men had truly been high–value cartel operatives, Trump would be parading names and photos across every rally stage in America. The silence tells its own story.

Since that first strike there have been “more than 20 other missile strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 80 people.” Now to the WaPo revelation. The first missile ripped the boat apart and set it burning. Two men clung to the wreckage.

They were unarmed. They were wounded. They were no threat to anyone. They were simply alive; inconveniently alive for a man who had allegedly already given the order that there be no survivors. And so, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the strike, the Special Operations commander overseeing the operation ordered a second missile. It hit the water and blew those two men apart.

Congress was told the second missile was to “remove a navigation hazard.” That’s an attempt to rewrite history. An order to kill wounded and unarmed survivors is defined by the Geneva Conventions as a war crime. Civilized states do not execute helpless people.

This, too, has been part of the authoritarian playbook since ancient times. Pick a foreign or criminal “other,” paint them as subhuman monsters, and then declare that the normal laws of war, morality, and basic decency no longer apply. ... The fact that the administration has produced no evidence for its claims isn’t a bug: it’s the point. When the government fabricates an omnipresent threat, it gives itself permission to kill whoever it wants.

These senators calling to disobey illegal orders makes sense. This was an illegal order. That the nasty guy called for their death also makes sense. The nasty guy (or at least his goons) know the order was illegal.

If Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody,” he must be removed and prosecuted. If U.S. commanders falsified reports to mislead Congress and the public, they must be held accountable. And if Donald Trump approved or encouraged these actions, then impeachment and criminal referral are not optional: they’re required to defend the rule of law. America doesn’t have many chances left to prove to the world, and to ourselves, that we still believe in the value of human life and the restraints of democratic power. This is one of them.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin called Hegseth the “Secretary of War Crimes.” Dworkin starts with an excerpt of that WaPo article, which I’ll let you read. In the comments Lady Haha posted a cartoon by Jeff Danzinger showing two generals talking:

First: OK... Here’s what the secretary wants you to do: Go through Mark Kelly’s records and find anything we can use to court-martial him. Understand? Second: Yes, General, but that sounds like an illegal order.

In the main body of the post Cliff Schechter of Blue Amp talked about the nasty guy’s theory of politics. I think Dworkin’s summary at the start of the quote is good enough, I’ll stick with that.

Trump's never been guided by ideology — only ego. His one rule's simple: flatter him, you’re in; don’t, you’re done. From Pence to Putin, it's the real theory that explains every move he's ever made.

After all that this next detail is a bit of a toss-off. Willis, working from a segment on NPR, reported that Hegseth has prepared a draft memo that would pull the Pentagon’s support form Scouting America, formerly known at the Boy Scouts. His reason is the group is “detrimental to national security.” That phrase is important because the law compels the Pentagon to support scouts unless there is a security risk. The reason behind this is that scouting has become too woke. They are now genderless (girls and gays can join) and they support diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys,” Hegseth’s memo alleges. He also argues that the scouts contribute to “gender confusion” and no longer “cultivate masculine values.”

If that memo becomes policy the military would no longer provide support for the National Jamboree and US military installations would be banned from hosting scout meeting. Many bases host the scouts because that’s a place of familiarity to boys whose parents move from base to base.

Racial inequality is a problem we don't want to fix

I finished the book The 1619 Project, a New Origin Story, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones. This started as a special edition of the New York Times Magazine published in 2019. It prompted such a response that the ideas of the magazine were expanded into this book, which was published in 2021. Those ideas are how slavery shaped and continues to shape most aspects of American history and life. The title comes from the year the first slave ship landed in America and sold its cargo to the colonists. Slavery began here before the Pilgrims landed, yet the full history of slavery and its effects on the nation are rarely told (I certainly didn’t learn it in school) and are rarely a part of our national sense of self. I highly recommend this book. This is an important part of our national history. It’s a story that can be wearying because the whole thing is about how black people tried to better themselves and white people beat them back. Again. And again. But keep at it. There are insights all along the way. The book is a series of essays by different authors about aspects of American life and how they are affected by our slavery past. In between are descriptions of historical incidents, about a paragraph or two long, paired with a poem or short story that elaborated on that incident. The essays of the book have been developed into lesson plans for schools. The title uses the word “Project” to say the work is ongoing. Additional books should be published, though searches online don’t show any yet. Here are some of the things I learned: About ten days ago I watched the first episode of Ken Burns’ American Revolution on PBS. Before watching I had read this book’s chapter on why the colonies split from Britain and saw the contrast between the book’s reasons and what was portrayed in the show. Our Declaration of Independence accused King George, that he “Excited domestic insurrections among us.” Those insurrections were slave insurrections. Britain had said slaves on British soil were free, in contrast to slaves on British colony soil. The colonists wanted to keep slavery. They were afraid their slaves would try to get to Britain or that Britain would outlaw slavery in the colonies. The PBS show says a big reason for the Revolutionary War was taxation without representation. This book say a big reason was to preserve slavery when the parent country had banned it. The US Constitution was written by enslavers. They wrote it in a way to avoid using the word “slave,” hiding their true meaning from the Europeans who helped win the war and would be looking over the document. Some of the ways the Constitution supports slavery are: Each state gets two senators (and states were then added one North, one South) to prevent the North from being able to ban slavery through democracy. Representation in the House was dependent on the number of slaves (though counted as three-fifths), which gave slave owners more power. And the Electoral College. In England the status of the child is the same as that of the father. In the colonies the status of the child is the same as the mother – if the mother is a slave the child is too. The enslaver can rape the enslaved, not be prosecuted, and be rewarded with another slave. This law is why there were other laws against black men having sex with white women. Black women were and are seen as hypersexual. Their consent for sex can be assumed and a charge of rape is meaningless. White planters across the south were highly frightened by the slave revolt in Haiti. That prompted the creation of slave patrols, which is where our Second Amendment comes from. There were many revolts on the mainland, justifying the patrols. After the war with the South in economic collapse whites were less afraid of being poor and more afraid of the inversion of the social hierarchy. They feared if blacks got into power (and during Reconstruction many did) they would do to whites what whites had done to them. This book talks a lot about the social hierarchy and how important its maintenance was to white people. Poor white people said my life may be miserable but at least I’m not them. Readers of this blog know that I talk a lot about the importance and evils of the hierarchy in life. In 1808 the US government banned the importation of more slaves. There was soon a thriving market of slaves between the Upper South that had extra slaves and the Deep South that needed more. Growing cotton was labor intensive. The invention of the cotton gin allowed the expansion of cotton plantations (frequently referred to as enforced labor camps). That prompted expansion into land held by Native nations. The government tried assimilation because farmers needed less land than hunters. The government taught the best way to farm, including using slaves to increase profits. Turning Natives into farmers wasn’t enough and they were forced out. Many on that Trail of Tears took their slaves with them. Many Native nations in Oklahoma sided with the Confederacy. Only now are Native nations dealing with the racism. American capitalism is based less on the cotton mills of the North and more on the cotton plantations of the South. This is where capitalism learned to pay labor as little as possible (preferably not at all). It is also where factories learned about efficiency and bookkeeping, to the oppression of slaves who didn’t keep up with increasing quotas. The Constitution, including the prized 14th Amendment, emphasizes the rights of owning property, much stronger rights than would be needed if property can’t flee or revolt. Corporations have seized on the primacy of property rights to bolster their position. The plantation was also where capitalism learned how to speculate, how to acquire wealth without work, that growth should be pursued at all costs. Before the Civil War many planters, and the South as a whole, became fabulously wealthy. The US labor movement faltered because, while white and black laborers had common goals, the white laborers refused to work with the black. We’re the only major democracy without a Labor Party. Neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution define “citizen.” It isn’t defined until the 14th Amendment. Before then black people demanded that definition and Congress kept fumbling. White people developed myths to describe black bodies as a way to justify enslaving them. Those myths still influence the medical care (or it’s lack) black receive today. A big myth is that black people feel less pain – a myth that allows the enslaver to feel no remorse after whipping his property. America doesn’t have universal health insurance because those in power want to make sure health insurance is not available to black people. The black church was and is a place controlled by black people. It was an early place to provide assistance to black people and where they developed their theology of liberation. That is why black churches were frequently burned. America loves black music. American music is heavily influenced by black musicians. The troubling history is the Minstrel show where white performers used blackface to perpetuate racial stereotypes. Many of Stephen Foster’s songs are Minstrel songs. Black performers could not appear in these shows unless they were disguised to appear to be white people in blackface and perpetuate the stereotypes. That influences today’s music through black performers accusing each other of not being black enough. America talks a lot about its racial progress. That is a myth, or more accurately, propaganda. Talk of racial progress has been around since before the Revolution. This talk is encouraged because it allows each generation to say racial inequality is not our problem. We’ve made progress, so we don’t have to do any more work on inequality. After the Civil War black people, now free, had nothing and very little institutional support. White people essentially said you’ve got your freedom now, whether you survive or not is up to you. We as a country may have achieved equality in rights and in voting (though there are active efforts to overturn both). But the country continually prevents working towards equality of wealth. Many measures of wealth inequality are presented. The barriers to wealth equality are so high there is no way black people can routinely overcome them on their own. Yet, not overcoming them is seen as a character flaw of the black person. Black people created so much wealth for the country yet were able to control or enjoy so little of it. In addition to slavery, there are many stories of a black person becoming rich (as in doing much better than poverty) and then being lynched for it. Which means now is way past time to enact reparations. We’ve done it before – see the Japanese after internment during WWII, and there are ways to do it now to reduce the inequality chasm. We can not be held responsible for the wrongs of our ancestors. But if we do not choose to do the right and necessary thing, that becomes our burden. Now go get a copy and read it. There is, of course, a great deal more than what I could mention here.

A gender transition is complicated. Detransitioning is too.

Sister, Niece, and I had a pleasant Thanksgiving afternoon together. Nothing exciting and nothing upsetting. On the way home I started a list of what I’m thankful for. I didn’t get very far – the distractions of the road took over. So I’m pleased that Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Daily Kos came up with a long list of what he’s thankful for. I’ll just say I agree with what he wrote and don’t have anything to add to his list. Orion Rummler, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos discussed transgender detransitioning and how that is driving the discussion of transgender policy. Yes, there are some transgender people who switch to their new gender, then regret their decision and work to switch back. The number of transgender adults in the use is estimated at 2.1 million, about 0.8%. The number of trans youth is estimated at 724,000. The number who detransition is hard to calculate, estimates vary widely, and experts agree the percentage is low. So a low percentage of a low percentage is a tiny number of people, maybe tens of thousands? (My guess with no data to back it up.) However, these people who detransitioned are sent to legislatures of states where they do not live to give their story, frequently overshadowing the residents of the state talking about how critical gender-affirming care is. Their testimony comes out on top because this sort of medical care is poorly understood by those who don’t need it, and because there is already a lot of people who malign such care. These detransitioners get a boost from the large number of anti-trans bills being considered across the country and from the nasty guy folks and the Heritage Foundation in their work to demonize transgender people. Being transgender is complicated. Going through a gender transition is complicated. Detransitioning is too. People do it for many reasons and at different times in their transitioning process. It may be from regret, but isn’t always. Taking hormones can worsen mental health or have other negative side effects. There can be complications from the surgery or from taking hormones. They may find life as a trans person, especially in a hostile environment, harder than feeling they’re in the wrong body. They may feel pressure from parents, spouses, and employers. They may feel they weren’t well informed about what being trans is all about. They may identify as trans even after detransitioning. There is likely more than one factor in the decision to detransition. That bit about not being well informed feels possible because so many trans people have to educate their doctors. Some doctors ask invasive questions, refuse treatment, or commit abuse. If they’re educating their doctors the doctors may be confusing one part of the LGBTQ community with another. Also, many parts of the LGBTQ community don’t understand trans and discriminate against trans people. Parents and politicians claim a trans person will “grow out” of being trans. Or that there are only two genders. Or that life as trans will be too hard (because society chooses to make it too hard).

For years, conservative politicians and pundits have accused teachers, Democrats and LGBTQ+ adults of indoctrinating or “grooming” children into being trans. That is not true. What is true is that Gen Z is more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ compared to any other generation — and new studies find that young people are defying long-held beliefs about gender and sexual orientation. They feel more flexible about their identities and don’t view them as fixed. ... As young Americans are transforming conventional ideas about gender, they are also shaping the future. Gender non-conformity is becoming more common. More young people are thinking about gender as a concept that is flexible across time, or as something that isn’t anchored in what it means to be male or female.

Over this past week the nasty guy has been pushing a Russia/Ukraine peace plan that heavily favors Russia. In last Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Anne Applebaum of The Atlantic. In the quote she mentions some of the things the US (not Ukraine) would get out of the deal, which might explain why the nasty guy is pushing it. Then this:

For a decade, Russia has been seeking to divide Europe and America, to undermine NATO and weaken the transatlantic alliance. This peace plan, if accepted, will achieve that goal. There is a long tradition of great powers in Europe making deals over the heads of smaller countries, leading to terrible suffering. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, with its secret protocols, brought us World War II. The Yalta agreement gave us the Cold War. The Witkoff-Dmitriev pact, if it holds, will fit right into that tradition.

In the comments of today’s roundup there are memes about the report that Envoy Steven Witkoff (mentioned above) called a Russian aide, suggesting Putin call and butter up the nasty guy, which is why last weekend’s peace proposal was so pro-Russia. That call has since been leaked. Here’s one of those memes, this one by Adam Cochran.

Wow, the leaked call logs show both that: - Witkoff committed treason by advising Russia how to get their way by outmaneuvering president Trump. And: - The ‘peace proposal’ was authored and sent by the Russians, meaning Vance, Rubio, and Witkoff have all lied about its origin!

I heard from NPR (alas, no link) that a presidential advisor going to a foreign leader and telling them “This is how you handle my boss,” is not a thing, or is not supposed to be a thing. That advisor is supposed to go to his boss and say, “This is how you handle that foreign leader.” One problem is Witkoff’s treason. Another is the nasty guy is so susceptible to such flattery. Also in the comments is a tweet by Applebaum linking to that article in The Atlantic. The text of the tweet is:

Steve Witkoff isn’t promoting peace. His interventions are helping Vladimir Putin and prolonging the war.

Further down in the comments is a cartoon posted by The Wolfpack (creator not named). It shows a doctor-instructor on the first day of med school pointing to a phrase on the chalkboard, “A patient cured is a customer lost.”

More money flows upward, faster, and with fewer speed bumps

My Sunday movie was an online handbell event. I originally thought it would only be of interest to handbell geeks. Then one of the people interviewed was Damian Kulash of the band OK Go. Why him? The band has played handbells to accompany at least a couple of their songs at live events. The two songs I know about are Return and Shoot the Moon and I found low-quality videos of them on YouTube. Kulash, in that 37 minute interview, said right off he and the band played with bad technique, which I saw was true. On saying that the interviewers invited him (and the band) to come to a handbell event where people would be happy to teach them better ways and show other things bells can do. Even though their technique was bad I saw in the videos the band could handle multiple bells and play syncopated rhythms while singing. Quite good! Here are the various interviews in that handbell event with Kulash’s interview a ways down the list. In my previous post I wrote about the life cycle of capitalism and that it ends in oligarchy. This was based on posts by Trenz Pruca on Daily Kos. My friend and debate partner responded with a private email. His friend side declared the post to be one of my best. Thank you, friend! Then his debate side asked, “But what is Pruca's relationship to reality?” Fair and important question. I was attracted to Pruca’s post because it added in details to what I already understand. So one way to determine Pruca’s reality is to test my own. How well have my 5,500 posts over the last 18 years (and I forgot to mark this blog’s birthday, which happened a week ago) described reality? That’s for the reader to answer. While I trust I have described reality well, saying I trust Pruca because his ideas align with my own describes a lot of conservatives, who are my opponents. In short, this is not good enough to affirm Pruca’s ideas. Pruca said he has his own blog, in addition to what he posed on Kos. I went to it and read the About page.

Trenz Pruca is the pseudonym for a retired attorney and businessman. During his career as an attorney he participated in the management of a large international law firm. He also consulted for a state legislature and drafted significant laws regarding land use and the environment. He has served as legal counsel and director of state agencies dealing with land use, planning and environmental protection. In addition, he has acted as Chairman of a state governmental authority responsible for the construction of one of the nation’s largest transportation projects. He has lectured and written widely about issues of law, economics, religion, land use, environmental protection and politics.

Which is rather evasive. If his posts are of good things why be anonymous? But I give few details about myself on my own blog. Pruca does give us a way to trust him and show he is anchored in reality. He provided sources for all four parts of his discussion. For example, the bottom of the first post lists historical books by 18th century economist Adam Smith. Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, 20th century economist John Maynard Keynes. For his life cycle of capitalism he references books by Giovanni Arrighi, Fernand Braudel, Immanuel Wallerstein, Hyman Minsky, Greta Kripper, and Thomas Piketty. Even more books are about corporate structure. With each book Pruca includes a link to where the book can be found online or to the publisher’s website. The other three parts have similar source lists. I hope that’s enough to see Pruca knows what he’s talking about and we can trust what he writes. With that I turn to another essay Pruca posted on Kos, this one about whether tax cuts for the rich created the Great Divergence. This is the “long, relentless widening of income and wealth inequality” that began with Reagan and Reaganomics. In 1980 the top income tax rate was 70%. Reagan cut it to 28%. It has moved up and down and is currently at 37%. Because most of the income of the wealthy comes from assets and not wage or salary income the important number is the effective tax rate. For the top 1% the 1979 rate of 37% dropped to 30% in 2019. For the bottom 20% refundable credits brought their 1979 rate of 8% to about 1% for 2019. Alas, Pruca doesn’t show the changes in effective tax rate for the middle class, saying only that they got squeezed. Yes, cutting tax rates increases inequality, though cutting taxes on capital gains has more of an effect that cutting income taxes. But so does capital mobility, decline of unions, emphasizing shareholders over workers, monopolization, and corporate capture of politicians. Another aspect is that while taxes were cut federal spending increased. The reasons for that were continued high defense spending, exploding health care costs, and the baby-boom generation claiming its Social Security and Medicare. Also there were fiscal interventions for pandemics, climate events, and geopolitical shocks, such as the Great Recession. And all that was financed through borrowing, which is now well over 100% GDP. The rich benefit from the extra borrowing (they receive the interest the government pays). And the middle class pays through higher taxes and reduced public services. Add to that the actions of the nasty guy part 2, where a major goal is to shift public wealth into private hands, especially loyal hands. His particular actions mean “More money flows upward, faster, and with fewer speed bumps.” Add to that the gutting of IRS oversight, which is a tax cut for the rich without legislation. We have shifted from the passive Great Divergence to the much more active Great Extraction. That leads to weakening worker power, undermining democratic checks and balances, deepening polarization, and tying wealth to state favor instead of market competition. Fiscal policy is both a reward and weapon. Taxes become optional for the rich and powerful and compulsory for everyone else. “Empires Don’t Fall Because the Tax Rate Is Wrong—They Fall Because the Social Contract Breaks.” And the Great Extraction becomes the Great Unraveling. Again, Pruca provides sources. Some items in the news: An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the MAGA flamethrower who spoke out for releasing the Epstein file for which the nasty guy called her a traitor, has announced she will resign from the House on January 5. Her departure is causing quite a bit of consternation in the House. Another AP article reports the criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James have been dismissed. The US District judge said the prosecutor who brought the case, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally hired, so any actions she took must be thrown out. Oliver Willis of Kos reported that the Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE – has been shut down, eight months ahead of its scheduled end. It’s quiet demise was quite different than its start that had figurative trumpets blazing. DOGE did not save the government trillions, more likely cost it millions to billions. But no one kept accurate tally. And DOGE was good at lying. There are no mourners. Lisa Needham of Kos reported a week ago that the Texas redistricting effort was ruled illegal. The new maps were to increase the gerrymandering so that Republicans would get five more House seats in next year’s election. The US District Court in El Paso said the new maps are a racial gerrymander, which is illegal (at least until the Supreme Court hears the appeal or runs it through the shadow docket). The evidence for the redistricting being racially motivated is that the majority nonwhite Democratic districts were changed and the majority white Democratic districts were not. The California redistricting effort recently approved by voters does not say it is dependent on the Texas case. There is no surprise that Republicans have taken that result to court. So how will the Supremes approve the Texas gerrymander and not the California gerrymander? That’s another indication the ruling will come through the shadow docket, where explanations are not provided. wellbillyboy posted a cartoon by Drew Sheneman. An elephant at complains to the bartender.

Moral bankruptcy is a wild ride. One day you’re voting for Reagan and smaller government, the next you’re condoning pedophilia and pretending vaccines don’t work.

In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Indrees Kahloon of The Atlantic discussing Republicans showing why the consternation of Greene’s resignation is possible:

The reality that Donald Trump’s presidency will end in January 2029 is already making Republicans restless. Normally, Trump angers, exhausts, and eventually prevails over elected Republicans—not vice versa. Just this week, though, rebellious Republicans forced the release of the so-called Epstein files in defiance of Trump, who had spent months trying to suppress them before abruptly reversing course. Plenty of other cracks are showing too: Staunch allies of the president are mouthing critiques that would have been unfathomable a year ago. These disputes are the prelude to an ugly battle over the post-Trump Republican Party.

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post discussing the House vote to release the Epstein files

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) had joined Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) to introduce the bill in July and then lead the signature-gathering exercise to force a vote. Massie said in an interview that his own party’s leadership in the House has ceded too much to Trump. “Basically, Mike Johnson has handed the keys to the House of Representatives to the president, and we took the keys back this week,” Massie said. “They weren’t driving very well, and we were able. We didn’t crash the car. We got it right to the destination.”

Benjamin Strick on Bluesky tweeted:

X rolled out a new feature overnight showing where accounts are based. This network of “Trump-supporting independent women” that claimed to be “real Americans” are based in Thailand. The photos [of examples] were stolen from European models & posts pushed pro-Trump lines while targeting Islam and LGBTQ people.

Jay in Kyiv added:

How much of MAGA twitter is being run out of Russian troll farms in Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Thailand? Today's revelations Likely put it around half. They're now quickly changing their stated locations to US.

In the comments Nikki Reale responded to a tweet by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas complaining about Biden’s inaction on immigration. The tweet and response are a couple year’s old, but Reale’s conclusion still holds.

Here’s why we don’t have immigration reform: 1. In 2023 Democrats passed a bi-partisan immigration reform bill in the Senate. 2. House Republicans REFUSED to allow the bill to even be debated. 3. Obama asked Republicans to propose THEIR OWN immigration bill. 4. Republicans REFUSED. 5. Then Republicans demanded Obama do something about illegal immigration! 6. So Obama used his executive authority to enact some immigration reforms. 7. Republicans were outraged and called Obama a tyrant for doing exactly what they asked him to do. Republicans don’t really want reform. They want a problem to scare you with!

In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup are a few memes commenting on the revelation that many bot farms influencing the right aren’t in the US. A meme posted by thisjoshsmith:

Genuinely shocked at how many are just now discovering that MAGA is a psyop designed by Russia and grown in foreign bot farms before finally being perpetrated by some of the biggest loser cucks the world has ever known. Like, y’all really thought that this s--- was legitimate? It took 10 years and Elon displaying the location on Twitter accounts for you to figure it out? Welcome to the resistance, I guess?

And a meme by the_pesky_liberals

All the final pieces are falling into place this week: MAGA was never a grassroots American movement. It was a foreign-influence, billionaire-funded psychological operation that hollowed out a major political party and compromised U.S. foreign policy – and we’re only now seeing the full extent because the walls are starting to crack.

Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow! I hope your day is pleasant. I’ll spend the day with Sister and Niece. And I won’t eat one of the Recession Recipes mentioned in a cartoon by Brian McFadden. One idea is mash potatoes sculpted to look like a turkey and covered in brown gravy. Another is:

Means Test Meal Cook an inadequate amount of food. Have guests complete forms to see who qualifies to eat it. Serves 1, maybe.

The evil brother that is corporate law

Trenz Pruca of the Daily Kos community discussed capitalism and democracy in four posts. Sources are included in each post. In the first he described the life cycle of capitalism. Stage 1 is production and competition featuring small firms. There are inventors and hungry upstarts. Stage 2 is consolidation in which firms swallow competitors and acquire political power. Stage 3 is financialization in which speculation replaces production, which becomes optional. Finance is sacred. Factories collapse and no one notices. A bank sneezes and Congress has billions in bailout. Stage 4 is oligarchic management in which wealth concentrates and the state guarantees elite losses and protects elite profits. What Adam Smith praised was stage 1. He would be appalled at stages 3 and 4. It is a historical pattern that Venice, Netherlands, and Britain followed. Corporations are not capitalism. They were invented to encourage risk through limited liability. Ownership is diffuse among passive shareholders leaving decisions to executives, fund managers, and lobbyists. The value shifts from product to stock price. More money can be made trading assets than producing goods. Capitalism isn’t broken, but complete. There are ways out of this, but they will be painful. Capitalism is a brand. It describes itself as stage 1 so as to protect the wealth that accumulates in stage 4. In the second part Pruca describes a way out, which is democratic socialism. First we have to get an accurate view of socialism, beyond what Republicans say it is so they can discredit it. Democratic socialism is practiced in the Scandinavian countries. It keeps markets, private firms, and competition. It adds, universal services, strong worker power, government that regulates capitalism, public or cooperative ownership of essential sectors, and political equity so government can’t be bought. Democracy is the steering wheel to capitalism or can be seen as capitalism with guardrails. This creates broad ownership rather than concentrated. Businesses can fail without wrecking society. There are strong unions and collective bargaining. There is confusion because people often confuse “capitalism” with “big business” and “socialism” with “government doing everything.” Pruca wrote:

The defining difference between late-stage capitalism and democratic socialism is not markets. It is power. Who controls the surplus? Who sets the rules? Who captures the gains? Who bears the risks? Who writes the laws? Who funds the political class? Who can be allowed to fail without destroying society? Late-stage capitalism answers: capital. Democratic socialism answers: citizens. Everything else follows.

Oligarchy is not fate. In the third part Pruca sorts through definitions. Some people describe stage 1 as capitalism, others describe stage 4 and use the same term. The two groups talk past each other and the rich and policymakers exploit the confusion. We need to define capitalism not as a fixed idea, but a historical lifecycle system. That allows us to criticize capitalism without rejecting markets. If capitalism is a fixed idea than taxing capital is attacking capitalism. Regulations, union rights, and anti-corruption laws are then socialism. But if capitalism is a historical system that can degrade into oligarchy then taxing capital, regulation, and all the rest are maintenance, keeping the system for eating itself.

Capitalism does not just create wealth. It creates the conditions by which wealth governs unless democratically constrained. ... If capitalism is seen as historically self-transforming, reform becomes essential to prevent decay.

Democratic socialism does not mean the government owns everything and there is bureaucratic central planning. That’s state socialism, which is different. Democratic socialism prizes the democracy and provides the guardrails to capitalism. We’re used to thinking about state socialism because of WWII and Cold War language. We’re used to socialism being a synonym for authoritarianism. We’re taught capitalism is freedom, regulation as socialism, and equality as tyranny. In summary: Capitalism is a historical system and will evolve into oligarchy unless democracy intervenes. Policy depends on accurate definitions and descriptions and America’s political paralysis is a result of linguistic confusion (which is made worse by those in power). We can’t get a better system until we accurately describe this one. In the fourth part Pruca clarifies the problem isn’t corporations, it is the evil brother that is corporate law. Corporations derive their power not from capitalism but from law. Georgetown historian Carroll Quigley argued:

Without public control over corporate personhood, corporate lifespan, and corporate liability, no society can remain fair, democratic, or functional.

Early American corporations were not all powerful. They were:

granted charters sparingly, limited to specific purposes, barred from owning other corporations, subject to periodic re-approval, restricted in asset accumulation, constrained in stock issuance, and limited in voting rights so no shareholder could dominate.

These rules were pro-democracy. The idea of corporate personhood does not appear in a law or court opinion. It does appear as a headnote by a court reporter in 1886. States had a race to the bottom and Delaware won that race. I had read elsewhere that corporations went to various state legislatures, no doubt with money and promise of jobs, asking them to loosen state corporate laws. That’s why most corporations are registered in Delaware and the state as a separate corporate judicial system. This is another example of the actions of the social hierarchy. Get a bit wealthier than others and one has money to meddle in politics to make wealth accumulation a bit easier. A bit more wealth, a bit more meddling. The cycle can continue. Back to Pruca. That meddling meant corporations became immortal. No limit on purpose or consolidation, no obligation to the public. They switched from being economic tools to sovereign entities. But capitalism can work just fine with all the smaller corporations. With the immortal corporations...

attempts to raise wages are blunted by corporate pressure, attempts to regulate are captured by corporate lobbyists, attempts to tax are negotiated like hostage situations, and attempts to provide public goods are undermined by private interests.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has introduced the Accountable Capitalism Act. Its components. Corporations with more than $1 billion in revenue need a federal charter. It must consider the interests of not just stakeholders, but workers, customers and communities. At least 40% of board seats are elected by employees. There are limits on political spending (I would prefer none). Executives can be held accountable. Other ideas out there: Corporate personhood leads to corruption. Anti-trust is a tool to preserve democracy. Democracy can’t exist with private empires. Liability rules should scale to corporate impact. One corporation can’t own another. Transparency in risk, taxes, and supply chains. Quigley said:

The danger isn’t “the market” — it’s the corporation that has stepped outside both market discipline and democratic authority.

Pruca says that corporations must be subject to national review because corporations operate nationally and internationally, states don’t have the capacity to regulate them, and a corporate failure can crash the economy. The question isn’t whether capitalism is good or bad. It is: Who rules whom? Pruca’s answer:

Any institution that enjoys the privileges of personhood, immortality, limited liability, and political power must be subject to the nation’s democratic authority, No exceptions. ... Wealth, power, and economic activity must operate within democratic boundaries, not outside them.

As I wrote all that I got to be thinking of the Robber Barons of the late 1800s. They sound like late-stage capitalism. I don’t remember, if I learned at all, how they were defeated.

The vote was 427-1

This topic has been in the news all week, but only today have I caught up enough in my reading to discuss it. On Monday Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported:

President Donald Trump fired off an angry Truth Social post on Sunday in which he said Republicans should vote for the House bill that would force him to release the Epstein files, yet continued to maintain that the files are a "hoax"—his favorite term for an issue that makes him look bad.

This switch comes after months of pressuring Congressional Republicans to not release the files. I heard over the week several commentators ask why doesn’t the nasty guy just tell his Department of Justice to release the files? Does he want a way to record which Republicans voted for release so he knows who to target? Alex Samuels of Kos wonders why Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to rebrand herself. She has been a stalwart MAGA flamethrower over the years she’s been in the House. Samuels provides many examples. But then she called for the Epstein file release and the nasty guy called her a traitor. Since then she has apologized for her previous nasty comments. She says she won’t use harsh language again now that she knows how damaging it can be. Samuels concluded:

Whether Greene is actually breaking from MAGA or simply navigating a particularly messy public rupture remains an open question. What’s clearer is that the man who once empowered her is now targeting her—and Greene is discovering that stepping away from Trumpism can be far more dangerous than embracing it.

Kos of Kos also looks at Greene’s change of heart and came to a different conclusion.

More importantly, we’re once again watching a conservative discover a moral principle only after it landed directly on her own head. This is the defining pattern of modern conservatism: Empathy arrives only when the pain becomes personal. ... In the end, Greene finally found the right answer: dial down the hate, tone down the threats, stop treating politics like a blood sport. But she arrived there due to the only reason her party’s movement ever changes—because it finally hurt her. Empathy wasn’t the revelation. Self-preservation was.

On Tuesday Singer reported:

The House on Tuesday finally voted to force President Donald Trump to release the Epstein files—the culmination of a monthslong effort by Democrats and a handful of Republican lawmakers who want the public to see the evidence the government had on now-deceased accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The vote was 427-1, with Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana voting against it, after Trump reluctantly dropped his opposition to the legislation and gave his blessing to his GOP minions to vote yes.

That tally means that Speaker Mike Johnson, after keeping the House closed for two months to prevent a vote, voted for it.

However, Johnson on Tuesday said that while he was going to vote for the bill, he is hopeful the Senate will amend the legislation that passes in order to allow the Trump administration to continue to hold back documents or evidence that would implicate anyone in Epstein's crimes.

This guy needs a spine transplant immediately! This Associated Press article posted on Kos is a good summary of where things stood as of late Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday Singer reported the Senate passed the bill without revisions. I was a bit surprised that Singer didn’t mention how the Senate passed the bill. So I turned to NPR. Later Tuesday afternoon host Scott Detrow talked to reporter Claudia Grisales. Here’s a bit of what Grisales said:

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got unanimous consent to pass the bill automatically after the House sends it over.

Which sounds like as soon as the House officially turned the bill over to the Senate they responded with “We declare it passed.” I don’t know exactly how that works but it means nobody in the Senate felt the bill had to go through committees, have hearings, have a chance to be amended, or even have a formal vote. Nobody wanted to hold it up. All of them wanted it out of the Senate’s hands as quickly as possible. And Johnson’s wish the Senate would save him from himself and from the nasty guy was ignored. On Wednesday Singer reported:

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday refused to commit to releasing all of the Epstein files, giving a cagey answer that suggests it may be a long time before we ever see the documents related to the accused child sex trafficker.

An AP article posted on Wednesday evening reported the nasty guy has signed. The article also pointed out that he could have released the files months ago. And as he announced he had signed he blamed Democrats. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included some late night commentary that explains the situation quite well:

"Donald Trump lost his months-long battle to stop the release of the Epstein files on Tuesday, when Congress passed a bill forcing the Justice Department to make them public. So now Trump's doing a 180: he says he'll sign the bill that forces him to release the files that he could've released on his own but wouldn't, thus requiring a bill to force him to do the thing he didn’t want to do, which he will now be forced to do because of the bill he was against that he will now sign." —Seth Meyers

I’ve seen lots of speculation on various ways Bondi could avoid releasing the files. One of them is withholding files (or certain files) because they are a part of an ongoing investigation. Conveniently, just before the nasty guy changed his mind on releasing the files he asked Bondi to investigate which Democrats are in the files. There are ways Bondi could comply with the law but still not release all the details. One that I heard was to hire a company that could scrub the document. I also heard that enough DoJ lawyers have seen the files they will know if something is missing. The victims, increasingly stepping forward, will also verify it’s all there. Bondi has 30 days from Wednesday. Keep your popcorn popping. The show isn’t over. I’ve heard the sentiment: I don’t care if Democrats are in the files. If they are, they should go down too. That’s quite the contrast to Republicans trying to protect themselves and each other. Democrat Sen. Chris Murphy said to CNN when he was asked if he was concerned if Democrats might be implicated in the files.

So what? I mean, yeah, I'm sure that there are Democrats in those files, there are Republicans in those files, there are, you know, Wall Street executives who have no political affiliation. What we want is to understand who was involved in this. I mean, I don't think the president's so selfless that he was, you know, stopping the release of these files for so long because he was protecting his friends. I just think it stands to reason that he's very much connected to this scandal, and we may or may not know the extent of that, because it could be that the president is going to try to find a way to redact any information connected to him from those files, but to me, it just doesn't matter—the political affiliation. The law’s the law. They need to release the files.

Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

During a NewsNation segment on Monday, Mark Epstein said that his brother, Jeffrey Epstein, “had dirt” on President Donald Trump, alleging that the FBI is involved in a cover-up. During disgraced former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s show, Mark discussed the controversy surrounding his brother. “He didn’t tell me what he knew, but Jeffrey definitely had dirt on Trump,” he said. “You could see in the emails, Trump could deny it all he wants, but it’s pretty clear everything Trump says is a lie.”

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Mychael Schnell:

A House vibe check from @SpeakerJohnson: "I would like us to get back to normal Congress, it’s just no one knows what that looks like anymore." "There’s never a dull moment around here, is there." And members have only been back for 2 weeks since the shutdown...

Ben Jacobs responded:

This is actually an understated issue with Congress. There are less than 30 members who have served in a Congress that passed all 12 appropriations bills on time and a vast majority (including Mike Johnson!) have no experience of the House before Trump.

Jonathan Larson of Blue Amp wrote about a complicated scenario involving far right Venezuelan expatriates and Sidney Powell, the “Kraken” of the 2020 Big Lie. I think this complication comes down to these people feeding info to the nasty guy, info that has been refuted by intelligence agencies. The info is what is pushing the nasty guy towards war with Venezuela. The funding of these expatriates is also looking mighty sketchy. In the comments are several interesting memes most posted by exlrrp. The first few are based on two senators, one of them Mark Kelly, reminding soldiers they have a duty to ignore illegal orders. In response the nasty guy called for their arrest and execution. Mark Kelly is a former Navy combat pilot ant astronaut.

[Press secretary Karoline] Leavitt: They are encouraging service members not to follow lawful orders! Reporter: They’re talking about illegal orders. Leavitt: They’re suggesting the president has given illegal orders, which he has not. Every single order given is lawful.

Greg Sargent responded:

Keep doing this Dems. Make the White House keep denying that Trump is giving the military illegal orders. Force a big debate over it. Because there are strong grounds for believing that Trump *actually is* giving illegal orders, particularly with the boat bombings.

ChrisTheBarMan added:

Using the military to police U.S. cities? Not legal... Using the military to commit murder by destroying boats in international waters? Not legal... These are just two examples of illegal orders.

A meme from The Resistance:

Dear MAGA, please help us make sense of something: Why would Trump and his administration object to soldiers being reminded by lawmakers “not to obey ILLEGAL orders” ... unless Trump and members of his regime plan on issuing illegal orders to them? And why would he call for their arrest and execution?

Heard on Fox News:

Stephen Miller: It is insurrection, plainly, directly without question... These lawmakers should honestly resign in disgrace, and never return to public office again, for even daring to think, let alone say these words and say them proudly.

A response from Melanie D’arrigo:

If Republicans are upset that Democrats are telling the military to refuse illegal orders, then Republicans are admitting that they are asking the military to break the law. Republicans are telling on themselves.

Skyleigh Uhrich added:

This is the law. Passed down from our Founding Fathers, to ensure our military upholds its oath to the Constitution – not a king. You should buff up on the Uniformed Code of Military Justice Stephen. It’s a soldier’s duty to disobey an unlawful order.

A meme from Josh Rogin (yeah, I’m quoting him):

Trump spends two days with a dictator who kills all political dissidents and suddenly suggests he can do the same thing.

In honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance (which was yesterday) Liberal Jane posted a few memes. One of them:

Trans people are not the reason your life sucks.

And toonerman posted a cartoon of the result of a young Michelangelo building a snowman. It’s a nice takeoff on his creation of Adam.

How can one be a good citizen of a bad state?

Kos of Daily Kos has a thought experiment. What would have happened if Democrats didn’t cave on the government shutdown? The core Democrat demand was a restoration of Affordable Care Act subsidies. So suppose Republicans agreed and the subsidies were restored. Rural American, those most reliant on the subsidies, would not notice that Democrats protected them. These people would hear the nasty guy protected them or would remain oblivious. They would not notice their own party tried to take the subsidies away. Democrats would not get the credit. But with Democrats caving rural Americans lose health care at the start of the midterm campaign. They will much more likely blame Republicans. These rural voters probably won’t flip their vote to Democrat. But they may stay home, giving Democrats a half vote. And that might be enough. Democrats caving again and reinforcing their weak brand may just improve their chances next year. A bit of two week old news: An Associated Press article posted on Kos reports that Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House, will not seek reelection. A year from now she will end a career in Congress of almost 40 years. Some of her signature bills: The Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank financial reforms after the Great Recession, the repeal of the military Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Of course, there is lots more to her career. More than two weeks ago Max Burns of Kos reported on the meeting between the nasty guy and Premier Xi of China. The short version is that Xi made the nasty guy feel like he won the contest while Xi won all the goodies. The trade deal they negotiated includes the US selling the best AI chips to China in exchange for a pledge that China would buy US soybeans. Cybersecurity experts warn China’s easy access to AI tech will make US companies competing in global markets harder. World position will depend on who controls AI. There were other issues, loosening China’s hold on rare earth elements critical to a lot of tech and restricting the flow of fentanyl. On these also China came out on top. Well, maybe the nasty guy knew he didn’t win. His language seemed to acknowledge that China set the terms of the negotiation. Did the nasty guy fumble so much because chip maker Nvidia wanted access to the huge China market? So this was a case of Nvidia profits against American security and prominence. Burns describes Nvidia as having a friend in the Oval Office. How much Nvidia “donated” to the nasty guy is not recorded. In the pundit roundup for Kos from 11 days ago, Chitown Kev quoted M. Gessen of the New York Times:

When your country pursues abhorrent policies, when the face it turns to the world is the face of a monster, what does that say about you? In my experience, it is strikingly easy to shrug off one’s responsibility for the country where one pays taxes, contributes to the public conversation and, at least nominally, has the right to vote, if that country is the United States. It seems one can just say “Not in my name” and continue to enjoy the wealth and the freedom of movement one’s citizenship confers. But as this country builds more cages for immigrants, deploys military force against civilians in city after city, regularly commits murder on the high seas and systematically destroys its own democratic institutions, that may change. It should change. What does one do then? How can one be a good citizen of a bad state? [...] “In a free society, all are involved in what some are doing,” said Abraham Joshua Heschel, an American rabbi who opposed the Vietnam War and participated in the civil rights movement. “Some are guilty; all are responsible.”

Eric Reinhart, in an essay for AlJazeera:

In a society where every sphere of life has been subordinated to the logic of accumulation – where medicine, education and even care itself are governed by profit – the exposure of corruption does not generate collective moral renewal. It confirms what everyone suspects: that there is no ethical order left to defend. The result is a form of political paralysis. We can name corruption but cannot act against it, because doing so would require dismantling the very system we’ve been trained to believe is inevitable and upon which our nation, as we know it, is built. Liberal responses to corruption falter for the same reason. They appeal to morality – to decency, fairness, honesty – without confronting the fact that these values have been emptied of institutional substance and stable cultural ground. The right, meanwhile, has learned to weaponise this emptiness. Trump’s genius lies in his capacity to turn corruption into spectacle, to make its shamelessness feel for many like authenticity and its violence like freedom. His followers recognise, rightly, that corruption pervades elite life; what they mistake is the source of it. They see decadence in bureaucrats, not billionaires; in migrants, not monopolies.

In last Saturday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted the Courier news site which posted they have put all 20,000 files of the latest Epstein release online into a searchable database. This huge batch came from the Epstein estate as a result of a subpoena and released by Democrats. They’re separate from the Department of Justice files that have been the battle in Congress. I’ll discuss all that when I get to it in my reading. I’m still a few days behind. Peter Hamby of Puck discussed the way Gen Z men voted. They narrowly went for the nasty guy in 2024, but went massively for Democrats in the recent election.

“With young men in ’24, Trump and MAGA influencers spoke more directly to their concerns, and [young men] were more likely to think he would have a positive impact on their lives,” said John Della Volpe, the director of the Harvard Youth Poll and C.E.O. of SocialSphere, which studies youth voting patterns. The perception was that Trump “listened better than Democrats.” But the lesson of last week was that Trump seemed more interested in his new ballroom than the cost of housing. “He is not as in touch with these young voters as he was when he was campaigning,” Della Volpe told me. “Democrats were the ones listening and connecting the dots.”

So much for all those hot takes a year ago about what Gen Z men are like. In the comments The Wolfpack posted a meme. I’ll quote only part of it.

Why Trump for Prison? Treason, Collusion, Conspiracy, Obstruction of Justice, Inciting Violence, Racketeering, Sexual Assault, ... Bribery, Intimidation, ... Organizing Hate Crimes, Witness Tampering, Tax Evasion, Breach of Contract, Money Laundering, Using Office of President for Personal Profit

Wolfpack also posted a meme looking like the cover of TIME magazine. It shows nasty guy supporters facing a branch in the path. The title: “The time has come.” Over one path, “Admit you were conned.” Over the other, “Support a pedophile.” In the comments on Monday’s roundup toonerman posted a cartoon with a lot of text of a rant. It’s long and familiar. Also included are the words of toonerman’s conscience dog, which I’ll repeat:

It’s how all authoritarians do it. When they take care of the “others,” they find different “others” to scapegoat. They won’t run out of others, and everyone that isn’t them could easily become an other, even if you own a red hat.

A meme posted by exlrrp comes after the subject was called a “traitor” by the nasty guy.

Marjorie Taylor Greene has been an enemy to the left for years, and she hasn’t had to be afraid. She’s been an enemy to the right for one day, and she has to fear for her life. We are NOT the same.

Scott Horton posted a cartoon by Drew Sheneman. At a grocery checkout a guy in a MAGA shirt is talking to the worker who is bagging his groceries. Behind her the screen showing the bill has a lot of dollar signs. He says, “No, No... I don’t think you understand, the president said groceries were cheap now.” Captain Frogbert posted this meme:

A Democrat will feed 100 people for fear that one of them might starve. A Republican will starve 100 people for fear that one of them might not deserve being fed. Republicans are evil to the bone.

My thought: There is no such thing as not deserving to be fed. A tweet by Kyle Cheney:

BREAKING: President Trump has pardoned Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn and dozens of false GOP electors and other key figures involved in his effort to overturn the 2020 election results, per pardon attorney Ed Martin.

And a response from Sarah Longwell:

“Anyone who helps me try to steal an election gets a pardon” is perhaps the most corrupt thing to happen in American history. That “conservatives” have simply accepted this as the price of admission is the greatest moral and intellectual humiliation.

Policy: drive liberals to anger, then mock them

My Sunday movie was Episode 1 of American Revolution by Ken Burns. I haven’t watched episodes 2-4 and probably won’t get to 5 and 6 unless I can find a way to stream them over the next several weeks. I’ll have to check whether PBS allows non-members to stream their shows. This episode covers 1754 to 1775. The story starts with the Seven Year War (French and Indian War) in 1754. It was actually a global war. These were George Washington’s first battles. He was part of the British military and those battles convinced him the British could be defeated. This was at a time the people still thought of themselves as British. The mainland (rather than the Caribbean) colonies were quite diverse. People came from various European countries in addition to England. There were also African slaves and indigenous people. How could such diversity be united into one country? The greater the percent of slaves in a colony, the more prosperous it was. Caribbean colonies were quite prosperous. New England colonies were not. England paid more attention to the Caribbean. Those who came to the American colonies were people who wanted their own plot of land. They did not want to work for the local aristocracy. There was a continuing demand for more land but the only available land was controlled by the natives. That meant violence. To reduce that violence Britain said no spreading beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Colonists said nope. Britain sent troops to enforce their edict. But the British government, having fought four wars (or maybe that was wars on four continents?), was deeply in debt. They decided the colonies should pay for the troops – the troops that prevented them from spreading west. Thus the Stamp Act. And that created the idea of no taxation without representation. Most of the episode is about the government in London enacting more ways to bring its colonies under control and the colonists rejecting them and becoming more united in their rejection. Then came Lexington and Concord, the first deaths, and the British retreat. Before then each colony had its own relationship with London, some rejecting the meddling and calling for defiance and others enjoying profitable relations they wanted to continue. But Lexington and Concord prompted a more unified view that the political links to England needed to be severed. I am impressed with the large range of artwork the series used to illustrate the scenes. Of course most of it I hadn’t seen before. I was amused at the painting of the young George Washington. I appreciate the show talked about the contradiction between colonists described themselves as slaves to England while having African slaves in their homes. I’ll have more to say about that when I finish the book I’m reading and about a third of the way through. When the nasty guy reclaimed the Oval Office Niece told me she wanted to get out of the country, though she doesn’t feel she is ready to support herself through such a drastic changes. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reported:

A recent Gallup poll found that 40% of U.S. women aged 15 to 44 said that they would move to another country permanently if given the opportunity—a jump of 10% since 2014. This increase seems to be exclusive to the United States, with other countries reporting fairly consistent numbers between 20% and 30%.

The nasty guy in the Oval Office is not the only reason, though a big one. There is a general sense the US is becoming increasingly unfriendly to women, and has been since about 2016. In the last year both in Britain and Canada there has been an increase in the Americans applying for citizenship. Americans living outside considering renouncing citizenship has jumped from 30% to 49%. Reasons for the desire to leave are restrictions on abortion and reproductive rights, the cost of giving birth is going up (as health insurance is getting much more expensive), and masculinity is getting more toxic. Dan Gearino, in an article for Inside Climate News posted on Kos, reported there are some things people on the left and right agree on. One is a “skepticism of entrenched power and a desire to dismantle systems that they think have ceased to serve everyday people.” And that includes increasing distrust for data centers.

Much of the discussion is about data centers, which are often large developments used to support cloud computing or artificial intelligence. But the underlying issues are broader, touching on the power of tech companies. For people who live near proposed data centers, there is an additional sense of powerlessness, which Inside Climate News has documented across the country, including the backlash to a plan for a huge data center in Bessemer, Alabama. “It’s about big tech,” Olson said. “To steal Bernie’s words, [it’s about] these big tech oligarchs that are calling all the shots at every single level of government right now.”

Gearino included poll results showing that for most things more people (and in some areas many more people) believe AI makes things worse and not better. The problem could be lessened if those wanting to build data centers talk about local benefits. The locals already hear about the high use of water and the likelihood of electrical bills going up. Companies are not working to alleviate those concerns. As for the benefits, some experts ask are there any? As part of the series on Explaining the Right Oliver Willis of Kos discusses how Republicans became shameless hypocrites. An example of them being hypocrites goes back to the 1990s when Speaker Newt Gingrich was portraying Republicans as the party of “family values” during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal while Gingrich was cheating on his wife as she fought cancer and eventually married his mistress. Of course, there are a lot of more recent examples.

For years, conservatives have made the concept of “owning the libs” central to their political ideology. The idea is to engage in behavior and use rhetoric that supposedly makes liberals angry, driving them to exhibit this anger, which conservatives then mock. Even if their behavior doesn’t provoke a tantrum, conservatives have elevated this brand of mockery above nearly everything else, including policy and ideology. This has resulted in the right, including right-wing media like Fox News, becoming fixated on “culture war” issues.

Since Gingrich was “owning the libs” his own infidelity got a pass.

This creates a permission structure on the right where Republicans are allowed to be contradictory, as long as a liberal somewhere is purportedly mad about it. But this kind of posture has a limit.

The limit is that it works great with other Republicans or MAGAs. It doesn’t work for anyone else and voters who aren’t Republicans are quite willing to throw them out of office. Emily Singer of Kos lists reasons why Democrats won the shutdown. I’ll let you read her explanations. Democrats brought health care to the forefront. Polls showed voters blamed Republicans more than Democrats. The nasty guy’s approval fell dramatically, going from -12 to -16. The shutdown gave Democrats a ton of campaign material for next year’s midterms, such as the nasty guy’s Great Gatsby party, which widely polled as inappropriate spending. On Sunday’s All Things Considered on NPR host Sacha Pfeiffer and St. Louis Public Radio reporter Hiba Ahmad discussed the tornado that hit St. Louis last May and toured some of the damage that is still quite evident six months later. Then they turned it into a discussion of the nasty guy’s desire to turn FEMA over to the states. They talked to Mayor Cara Spencer, who summarized the reason to keep FEMA national:

My argument would be that, as a nation, we would be better off, more efficient and certainly more effective if we centralize and share the resources and expertise across the nation for very unusual events, rather than saddling every single municipal government to being able to respond to what may or may not happen in the lifetime of each of those cities.

The article mentions Enright Ave of St. Louis as one that was hit hard by the tornado. There were other places hit harder, but the article doesn’t explain their location. I went looking at Enright Ave. through Google Street View and found something fascinating. Start on the avenue just east of Union Blvd. Google Maps say they rolled down the street in May 2025. The houses look to be in great shape. Then take a step east and the images are of July 2025. A lot of homes are damaged – windows gone or boarded up, walls and roofs missing and some covered in blue tarps, stacks of salvaged bricks, and piles of trash. This allows a person to compare a few houses before and after and to see the destruction on down the street. I then wondered, did the Google Street View people do this intentionally? If so, thank you. Yeah, this is the view of the street in July, six to eight weeks after the tornado. The NPR article says the street isn’t much different six months later. And that’s because the nasty guy and his desire to oppress those not in his billionaire class.

Don't fight with violence, but with love and humor

The nasty guy has said he needs to send National Guard troops into Portland because it is “war ravaged.” The local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office is under siege and needs protection from “coordinated assault by violent groups.” So a team from ProPublica reviewed the situation and wrote about what they found in an article posted on Daily Kos. They reviewed arrest records, reports by the Portland Police Bureau, sworn testimony from local and federal official, and 700 video clips posted by protesters and counter protesters. What they found: There was no coordinated assault. There were clashes between police and protesters. But after their peak in June they became more infrequent. Federal officers used force inappropriately, even aggressively, and were described as instigating chaos. They were sometimes violent without any violent provocations. Their conclusion comes down to this: If the nasty guy is using particular incidents to justify his invasion and claiming they are so violent he has to bring in the National Guard why were there so few arrests? The nasty guy’s order to send in the troops is tied up in court. Of course, the article has a lot more detail. Yeah, this is old news by now, so I’ll just briefly mention it. Former vice president Dick Cheney has died. He was 84. Oliver Willis of Kos gives some of the highlights, the big one was being the front man for pushing the weapons of mass destruction claim (ultimately shown false) that got America into the Iraq war.

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 ultimately killed at least 200,000 Iraqi civilians and 4,492 American soldiers, with an additional 32,292 service members wounded. The war cost the American people at least $728 billion and further destabilized the Middle East in ways that still reverberate today.

Glad he’s gone. Seems appropriate to balance that with this: Alisa Chang of NPR spoke to Sean Ono Lennon about his documentary about his parents One to One: John and Yoko. I hope by now you’ve been able to thread all the names together, even though John was murdered 45 years ago. While the whole discussion is interesting there is one bit worth mentioning. A lot of what John and Yoko did was to promote peace. And one thing John said, his guiding principle, was that you can’t fight the man with violence because violence is his language, it’s what he understands. But what the man can’t deal with is love and humor. An Associated Press article on Kos reported the last penny has been struck at the US Mint in Philadelphia. They are still legal but no more will be made. The reason why no more will be made is that pennies cost nearly 4 cents to make. Besides, most of them are cast aside or collected. The nickel costs nearly 14 cents to make, so maybe it is next? The dime costs less than 6 cents to make and the quarter nearly 15 cents. The penny was first minted in 1793, when it could be used to buy a biscuit, a candle, or a piece of candy. It can’t do any of that now. In Thursday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman discussing he nasty guy’s lies.

Voters do sometimes believe lies, but not the kind of lies Trump is telling. Voters can sometimes be convinced, falsely, that bad things are happening to other people, even when they themselves are doing OK. Many Americans who don’t live in Chicago probably believe administration claims that the city, which just had its safest summer since the 1960s, is a war zone. But telling people that things are great when their personal experience says otherwise is different. Are violent mobs overrunning Portland? If you watch Fox News, you might believe that. Are groceries “way down,” as Trump keeps insisting? Anyone who does their own food shopping — even Republicans — knows that this isn’t true.

Victor Mather of the New York Times wrote an ode to the penny.

The final pennies were minted on Wednesday afternoon in Philadelphia. Top Treasury officials were on hand for its final journey. No last words were recorded. In its heyday, the penny had immense cultural impact. It was the going rate for thoughts. It was a symbol of frugality, saved and/or earned. It could sometimes be pretty and other times arrive from heaven. And how many ideas would never have come to light without a penny dropping? [...] The American penny was born in 1793 in Philadelphia. Its parent was Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury, who was the chief author of the Coinage Act, which birthed the penny and its siblings. [...] As the penny entered its long decline, it more and more frequently found itself casually tossed into a jar in someone’s home or ignominiously dropped in a “Take a Penny” tray at retailers. Calls grew for it to be euthanized, citing its obsolescence. In the end, President Trump signed its death warrant in February.

Bill Berkowitz of the Kos community wrote about Reverend Dr. Caleb J. Lines, the pastor at University Christian Church in San Diego, California, who is creating a series of videos called “MAGA vs. Jesus” which use Bible verses to rebuke MAGA talking points. The most popular video has over 5.5 million views. It discusses abortion, cancel culture, the need for manly men, and “fake news.” Berkowitz wrote:

Over the years, conservative Christian preachers and political activists have weaponized The Bible to enrage their followers, engage them in political campaigns and supporting candidates, while at the same time, building personal financial empires. They frequently use the Bible as a political tool, selectively highlighting verses that reinforce their cultural grievances or policy goals while ignoring the broader context of scripture. Immigration, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, and public education are recast not as policy debates but as spiritual warfare, with dissenters portrayed as enemies of God. As The Daily Dot’s Rachel Kiley noted “The Bible contains so much, with various translations and interpretations, that cherry-picking verses can bring people to just about any conclusion.”

An example of Lines’ arguments:

In one video, refuting the notion that “real Christians support Trump,” Rev. Lines cites 1 John 4:20: “Those who say they love God but hate their neighbor are lying.” “You cannot follow Jesus Christ while actively supporting politicians or policies that hurt your neighbor. You know, like cutting their food aid or their healthcare,” he says.

I followed a link to look at a couple of those videos, including the one with 5.5 million views. On manly men Lines quotes the verse that says in Jesus there is neither male nor female. On the MAGA claim of protecting Christian power the Bible says God’s power is made perfect in weakness. Christianity isn’t about power. Besides these claims of protecting power are about protecting the power of those already powerful. The Bible isn’t about winning or losing, it is about standing with those society is taking advantage of.

Roving bands of stochastic terrorists who enjoy harming immigrants

I’ve collected a few articles on the nasty guy’s use of the National Guard and military to round up immigrants and in the last few weeks haven’t had time to mention them. On October 10 Lisa Needham of Daily Kos began a post:

The Trump administration is desperate to hide any record of state violence—all the way down to the identities of its federal agents. The Chicago Sun-Times has identified four unmarked cars carrying federal agents—three of which had no license plates and one with only a back plate. Illinois law requires both front and back plates, with no exceptions for law enforcement or, in this case, roving bands of stochastic terrorists who enjoy harming immigrants. But according to Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, that’s definitely nothing to be worried about.

On October 25 J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos starts with ICE agents storming through Santa Ana, California. Mayor Valerie Amezcua asked the police chief whether they could do anything to rein in agents, even if to ban masks. The answer: a “resounding no.” Also, complaining to the Department of Homeland Security will accomplish nothing.

Since then, Amezcua, 58, said she has reluctantly accepted the reality: There are virtually no limits on what federal agents can do to achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of mass deportations. Santa Ana has proven to be a template for much larger raids and even more violent arrests in Chicago and elsewhere. “It’s almost like he tries it out in this county and says, ‘It worked there, so now let me send them there,’” Amezcua said.

National security officials have said ICE...

has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force. The transformation, the officials say, unfolded rapidly and in plain sight. Trump’s DHS appointees swiftly dismantled civil rights guardrails, encouraged agents to wear masks, threatened groups and state governments that stood in their way, and then made so many arrests that the influx overwhelmed lawyers trying to defend immigrants taken out of state or out of the country.

Turning thus unruly force against citizens will happen in time. On Thursday, October 30 Oliver Willis of Kos reported the Pentagon was ordered to prepare over 23,500 NG troops for deployment in American cities. They are to be ready to counter purported civil unrest by the start of the year. These NG troops won’t be doing the usual response to severe weather or terrorist attacks. And troops that normally do such vital work will be shifted to crowd control. These troops are to handle “purported” unrest because the nasty guy has falsely described peaceful protests as the actions of terrorists. He has admitted he intends to use the Insurrection Act to get around the need for Congressional approval. Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner has decried these deployments as “un-American” and causing an increasing distrust in the military while dividing the country. The nasty guy justifies his actions based on misleading images on Fox News and on lies about increasing crime, which has been decreasing before he started these deployments. Also on October 30 Needham reported:

According to 404 Media, ICE is using a facial recognition app to identify people, including citizens. Videos show ICE agents stopping random kids on bikes and people in cars and, if they don’t have or refuse to provide identification, they point their little cellphones at them to scan their faces. ... This sounds a lot like ICE now has the power to stop anyone they want for no particular reason and demand they submit to biometric screening to prove they’re a citizen. And if they aren’t, they’re presumably arrested. You’ll note in this grand plan that there’s nothing about the probable cause ICE has to stop people with this high-tech version of “papers, please.” Indeed, it looks a lot like ICE simply profiles people and then subjects them to a search. Because that’s exactly what scanning your face after detaining you is: a search.

Yeah, that violates the Fourth Amendment that says searches are supposed to be based on reasonable suspicion, but in September the Supreme Court permitted racial profiling. The administration is also throwing money at other tech companies that are just as racist as the nasty guy to come up with better surveillance software. Presumably it is to surveil people who might be undocumented, but could be used against all of us. On November 1 Jeremy Lindenfeld, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos told the story of Juan Ramón González who has lived in Pasadena, California for 3 decades. He is undocumented, his wife has a Green Card, and his children are citizens. But after watching stories of ICE agents on TV grabbing day laborers he thought they looked like kidnappings. He became afraid to leave the neighborhood, which meant not working. The dread kept him up at night. After a heart attack, he decided the best thing for himself was to self-deport, even though that meant leaving his family. He held a goodbye party with friends and family, and the next day had his daughter drive him across the border. Along the way he was fearful he would be nabbed before he got there. Once in Tijuana he got a flight to the province he left decades ago – a place the nasty guy administration says is too dangerous for Americans due to widespread violence from cartels and gangs. But he no longer fears ICE agents will abduct him. On November 7 Needham reported DHE will no longer use the software that saves text messages in compliance with the Federal Records Act and Freedom of Information Act.

So weird that this issue has cropped up at the agency most inclined to refuse to provide any information at all about what its people are doing. It was probably inevitable that the same bunch that thinks federal agents should run around masked, armed, and with no visible ID would also eschew keeping any records about it.

On November 6 Needham discussed how much the nasty guy administration respects and protects religion, especially conservative Christians. But that appears to be another con job. First bit of evidence: American Catholic Bishops, a rather conservative bunch, are criticizing the administration for refusing to give detained immigrants access to religious services. Even the new American pope said their treatment of immigrants is inhumane. In response, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who is Catholic and reported to pray with her staff before giving briefings, pushed back against the pope and blamed Biden. Second bit of evidence: At least two pastors in liturgical clothes have been hit with pepper balls while protesting ICE action. On November 3 Emily Singer of Kos reported that the nasty guy hosted a “Great Gatsby” Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The party was held hours before he shut down food benefits to more than 40 million low-income Americans. This is yet another tone-deaf action by the nasty guy. It is a gift to Democrats, who can add photos of the party to their photos of the White House bathroom renovation and the demolition of the East Wing. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary, including this bit from Seth Meyers:

President Trump hosted a Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago. And, look, there's a lot you can say about this. It's tacky. It's tone-deaf when SNAP benefits are set to expire. But also, let's not ignore there's no way he’s read The Great Gatsby.

In the comments of Tuesday’s pundit roundup for Kos Nick Anderson posted a cartoon about a couple about to check their Affordable Care Act premium increase. He asks, “Ready?” She responds that she is – she has a firm hold on the paddles of a defibrillator. Liberal Jane posted a meme: “English is a language, not a way to measure someone’s intelligence.”