The Continuing Debacle

“An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.”– Baudelaire

How Trump began his masterpiece of doublespeak to the leadership of the American military, summoned to Quantico, Virginia, this week:

"We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling downstairs every day – every day, the guy’s falling downstairs – and I said, that’s not our president. We can’t have it. I’m very careful, you know, when I walk downstairs, I walk…very…slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just, try not to fall, ‘cause it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen, and it became a part of their legacy, you know. Walk nice and easy. You don’t have to set any records. Be cool! Be cool when you walk down, but don’t…don’t bop down the stairs. The one thing with Obama…I had zero respect for him as a president, but he would bop down those stairs, I’ve never seen…da-da-da-da-teh-deh-bop-bop…I’ve never seen…he would go down those stairs, bop-bop, he wouldn’t hold on, he’d go down those stairs, I said, it’s great! I wouldn’t want to do it. I guess I could do it, but eventually, bad things are gonna happen, and it only takes one. A year ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. This country was going to hell. We had nothing."

Trump told the generals, he wants the military to occupy Chicago because Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is “stupid” and didn’t make his own money (neither did Trump, but he lost a lot of his dad’s):

"I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. Not National Guard, but our military. Because we’re going into Chicago very soon. That’s a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor. Stupid. They threw him out of his family business; he was so stupid. I know the family. But he becomes governor. He’s got money. Not money that he made. But he ran for governor, and he won and now he criticizes us all over."

As loco as this rationale sounds, it’s probably a more substantial casus belli than they have for droning Venezuelan fishing boats in the Caribbean. Trump told the stone-faced military brass that the enemy they need to start focusing on is the “enemy within.”

"Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control."

Generals gathered at Quantico for lectures by Trump and Hegseth. (Screengrab Fox News.)

The president wasn’t pleased by their stoic reaction to his declaration of war on American cities: "I never walked into a room so silent before…If you want to applaud you applaud. You can do anything you want. If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. There goes your rank and there goes your future."

Hegseth: “As history teaches us, the only people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to defend it. That’s why pacifism is so naive and dangerous.” Return to your tomb, Prince of Peace! Put down your pen, Count Tolstoy! Stand aside, Mr. Gandhi!

Trump, who can’t help bragging about the secrets he knows, lets one slip during his harangue of the generals about sending two nuclear attack submarines to the Russian coast:

"We were a little bit threatened by Russia recently, and I sent a submarine, a nuclear submarine, the most lethal weapon ever made. Number one: you can’t detect it. We’re 25 years ahead of Russia and China in submarines. Russia’s actually second in submarines. China’s third. But you know, they’re coming up, they’re coming up. They’re lower in nuclear, too, but in five years they’ll be equal. They’re coming up, they’re coming up. But you don’t have to be that good with nuclear. You could be one-twentieth of what you have now and would still do that damage that would be, you know, that would be so horrendous. But I announced that based on his [Putin aide’s] mention of nuclear, and it was really a stupid person that works for him who mentioned the word nuclear, I moved a submarine or two, I won’t say about the two, over to the coast of Russia. Just to be careful, because we can’t let people throw around that word. I call it the N-word. There are two N-words and you can’t use either of them. You can’t use either of them. And, frankly, if it does get to be used, we have more of them than anybody else. We have better. We have newer. But it’s something I don’t even want to think about. But once somebody mentions it, that submarine started there immediately. It’s just lurking, but I’m sure we weren’t going to have to use it. But it’s amazing. It undetectable. Totally…Ours is. Theirs isn’t. Thier’s is totally detectable. We can detect them easily. We go right to the spot. But we have genius apparatus that doesn’t allow detection. It doesn’t allow detection at all, by anybody. Above water or below water. Just incredible. We’re way ahead of everybody."

Hegseth: “It is tiring to look out and see fat troops, likewise unexpected to see fat generals leading command, it is a bad look. Bad and not who we are.” If Hegseth gets tired just looking at his hefty troops and their leaders, is he really in that great of shape? And what about the Commander in Chief?

When Ralph Nader campaigned on “cutting fat” from the Pentagon, he was referring to the budget, and big-ticket weapons systems like SDI and the F-35, not the waistlines of generals.

Hey Pete, what’s the ideal fighting weight for a drone operator?

If Napoleon’s troops had been fatter, more of them might have survived the winter retreat from Moscow. Something for Pistol-whipped Pete to contemplate as they approve long-distance strikes on Russia.

WSJ: “Trump considering lifting restrictions on use of US-made long-range weapons for Ukraine to strike inside Russia.” The Trump faithful must be suffering from ideological whiplash. Just as they’d learned all of the pro-Russia arguments by rote, he proposes doing things to Russia even Biden and Victoria Nuland wouldn’t have done.

Hegseth: “We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits, ensuring future war fighters are forged. Yes, they can shark attack and toss bunks, swear, and yes, they can put their hands on recruits.”

from Full Metal Jacket.

Hegseth to the generals and admirals at Quantico: “You see, the Ivy League faculty lounges will never understand us, and that’s okay. Because they could never do what you do. The media will mischaracterize us, and that’s okay. Because deep down they know the reason they can do what they do is you.” (Hegseth has degrees from Princeton and Harvard.)

Gillian Branstetter: “It’s impossible to separate Hegseth’s vision of ‘warrior culture’ from his storied history of violence against women, fundamentalist faith in the patriarchy, and his own pathetic insecurities. His own mother has said as much.”

Trump on Portland: “It looks like a war zone… Unless they are playing false tapes, this looks like WW II. The place is burning down. You must be kidding. This place is a nightmare. It’s one of the worst. It’s brutal.”

One would think the manufactured “evidence” to justify the US military invading an American city would be higher than the standard Bush set for invading Iraq, but, no, all they’ve got are five-year old videos shot by the Proud Boys and rightwing media prankster Andy Ngo…

Thelma Johnson: “I’ll tell you how bad Portland is, I went downtown to get my usual ‘Sanctuary Lake’ scented candles, but they were out, so I had to get ‘Rosemary & Sage’ instead. I’m 83 years old, I don’t have time for this.”

Will Trump’s troops pull down Raymond Kasky’s statue of Portlandia (our version of Saddam) when the “liberation” of Portland has achieved “mission accomplished” status?

Portlandia by Raymond Kasky. (Screengrab from KGW)

George Stephanopoulos: “Do you believe it’s appropriate to use American cities as training for the U.S. military, calling those people in the American city as the enemy within?”

House Speaker Mike Johnson: “I’m not going to comment on your characterization of what the President said.”

CNN: “Some people took issue with the president saying his directive for Secretary Hegseth was that American cities should be used as training grounds for the military for future wars. Did you take issue with that?”

Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): “I don’t think he’s actually meaning that our cities are going to be training grounds.”

CNN: “Why do you think he didn’t mean that? Because he said this could be an issue for the people in this room.”

Turner: “I think he doesn’t mean in the manner in which you said it.”

CNN: (Quotes Trump) “I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military. Not National Guard, but our military.”

Turner: “It’s a common theme of his.”

Joe Scarborough: “When the law forbids the military from being used for crime prevention, do you have any concern about the president talking about using the military to fight ‘the enemy within’ and use cities as a training ground?”

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI): “Again, what is so unfortunate is that we’re even having this conversation–”

Scarborough: “I’m just asking you a simple question. Do you support the military being used for crime control in American cities?”

McClain: “Do I like it? No, I don’t. But at some point, people have to follow the law.”

Scarborough: “Back to the question — do you support the military engaging in crime control?”

McClain: “What I care about is safety.”

Jimmy Kimmel: “I love the idea that Donald Trump is lecturing these guys on fitness. Listen up, generals, the Pillsbury Dough President wants you to do Pilates. If you get so fat you start breaking escalators, you are unfit to serve in the military.”

 -Jeffrey St. Clair

CounterPunch

"Alarming rhetoric 'comes right out of the fascism playbook'"

 

Donald Trump told hundreds of senior military commanders Tuesday that the country is “under invasion from within” and that they should use American cities as “training grounds” to target domestic “enemies”—remarks that drew warnings of encroaching fascism as the president expands his invasion and occupation of US communities.

Speaking to nearly 800 US generals and admirals stationed around the world who were summoned to Quantico, Virginia by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for a highly unusual assembly, Trump told military leaders they would be used against the American people.

‘No Trump! No Troops!’ Thousands March in Chicago as President Threatens ‘War’

ICE Operation ‘Midway Blitz’ Underway as Authoritarian Trump Targets Chicago

“They’re vicious people that we have to fight,” the president said, referring in this case to critical journalists, whom he called “sleazebags.”

“Just like you have to fight vicious people, mine are a different kind of vicious,” he added.

Trump then said that cities “run by the radical left Democrats... San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles” are “very unsafe places, and we’re gonna straighten them out one by one. And this is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room,” he continued. “This is a war too. It’s a war from within.”

Referring to Hegseth, Trump said, “and I told Pete, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”

Responding to this, Naureen Shah, director of government affairs at the ACLU’s Equality Division, told Common Dreams that when Trump said, “the enemy within,” he meant “those who disagree with him.”

“We don’t need to spell out how dangerous the president’s message is, but here goes: Military troops must not police us, let alone be used as a tool to suppress the president’s critics,” Shah said. “In cities across the country, the president’s federal deployments are already creating conflict where there is none and instilling profound fear in people who are simply trying to live their lives and exercise their constitutional rights. Our country and democracy deserve far better than this.”

Trump also said during his Tuesday speech that “only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia while America is under invasion from within,” a false assertion given US imperialism and colonization, first in the Americas and then around the globe.

“We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms—at least when they’re wearing a uniform you can take them out; these people don’t have uniforms,” Trump said. “But we are under invasion from within; we’re stopping it very quickly.”

He then turned his attention to “radical left lunatics, that are brilliant people but dumb as hell when it comes to common sense,” falsely accusing the previous administration of opening US borders to Venezuelans after that country’s government “emptied its prison population into our country.”

In another lie, Trump said that “Washington, DC was the most unsafe, the most dangerous city in the United States of America, and to a large extent, beyond.” The president claimed that “we took out 1,700 career criminals” during his recently launched takeover of DC—almost certainly another false statement given that more than 80% of arrests made in the capital were for misdemeanor offenses, many of them immigration-related.

Trump said US troops are “following in a great and storied military tradition” of presidents who have deployed military forces against “domestic” enemies.

“Today, I want to thank every service member from general to private who’s helped secure the nation’s capital and make America safe for the American people,” he said, adding in another blatant lie that “we haven’t had a crime in Washington in so long.”

“We’re going into Chicago very soon,” he said, although Operation Midway Blitz is already underway in the city.

“How about Portland?” he asked, adding in a comment utterly divorced from reality that the laconic Oregon city “looks like a war zone.” Trump ordered troops to invade Portland despite the city ranking 72nd in violent crime in the US, according to FBI data.

In an apparent moment of doubt, Trump asked during a Sunday NBC News interview, “Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening?”

Recounting how Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek asked Trump to not deploy federal forces to Portland, Trump said during Tuesday’s speech that “unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down.”

Amid small-scale protests in Portland over Trump’s authoritarian Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown, Fox News aired a report conflating video footage from 2020 protests against the police murder of George Floyd with the recent images. Anti-ICE protesters have burned an American flag and set small street fires in Portland, but no structures have been burned down.

Trump also said that any anti-ICE protesters who throw objects at federal vehicles or agents can be met with unlimited force. “You get out of that car, and you can do whatever the hell you want to do,” the president said.

Critics swiftly pushed back on Trump’s suggestion of using American cities as military “training grounds.” Congressman Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a former Marine Corps combat veteran who served multiple tours during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, said on the social media site X that “today’s speeches by Trump and Hegseth were weak portrayals of ‘leadership’ by two small, insecure men.”

“US cities should never be ‘training grounds’ for the military,” Moulton added. “There is no ‘enemy from within.’ The reputational and operational damage being done to our military will take years to undo.” The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State said on social media, “This is authoritarian, unconstitutional, and a direct threat to our democracy.”

Chris Rilling, a former senior official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said on X: “Trump should be impeached for this statement alone. Period.”

Some legal experts noted that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits use of the military for domestic law enforcement.

Leaders of the Not Above the Law Coalition—which includes progressive groups such as Public Citizen, MoveOn, and Stand-Up America—called Trump’s remarks “deeply un-American.”

“This dangerous rhetoric delivered during an unprecedented gathering reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of our military’s purpose and the people it serves,” the coalition co-chairs said. “Make no mistake: This isn’t about public safety—it’s about turning our own military into a force to be used against Trump’s perceived political opponents or anyone who questions his administration.”

“Americans cannot stay silent when our leaders express plans to use our military against us,” they added. “We must reject any attempt to normalize this outrageous and unlawful directive.”

Observers abroad also expressed shock at Trump’s remarks.

“In Trump’s speech today, Trump mentioned something very dangerous: using US cities (Democrat-run, I bet) as US troops training ground,” said José Antonio Salcedo, a professor at University of Porto in Portugal. “This is definitely contrary to the US Constitution.”

“It comes right out of the fascism playbook that Project 2025 and its fringe lunatic authors have been advocating and planning,” he added. “Wake up, people, the US is fast approaching a point of no return.”

-Brett Wilkins, Common Dreams

Plastics Pose "Urgent Threat" to Children’s Lifelong Health

 

A sweeping new review warns that chemicals in common plastics pose serious and lasting health risks to children, from before birth through adulthood. Published Sept. 21 in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health medical journal, the study examined hundreds of studies involving pregnant women, babies and children. 

Researchers found that plastic additives such as phthalates, bisphenols and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) can disrupt hormones, trigger inflammation and affect brain development, increasing lifelong risks of chronic conditions such as obesity, infertility, asthma, diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

“Our findings point to plastic’s role in the early origins of many chronic diseases that reverberate into adolescence and adulthood,” said lead author Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a professor at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. 

“If we want kids to stay healthy and live longer, then we need to get serious about limiting the use of these materials.”

The report comes amid growing global attention to the relationship of plastics and health, including a recent expert meeting in New York on plastics and human health, as well as the launch of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics, an independent global monitoring effort. It also follows stalled negotiations on the United Nations’ Global Plastics Treaty, primarily due to pressure from the oil industry and U.S. opposition to production limits.

“We need to get serious about limiting the use of these materials.”

Researchers say health risks stretch across the plastic life cycle — from production to disposal. Plastics contain more than 16,000 chemicals, including phthalates, bisphenols (including BPAs), and PFAS (“forever chemicals”), which make plastic more flexible or rigid or more resistant to heat or water. When used, heated or treated (often with ultra-processed foods), they release microplastics (tiny plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in size) and even smaller pieces called nanoparticles.

A recent U.K. study found plastic particles in every hot and cold beverage tested, while researchers for the first time detected nanoparticles in vegetables, underscoring how plastic pollution seeps into the food chain. Microscopic particles have also been found in our blood, bones, brains and organ systems, ranging from reproductive to respiratory, with new research showing how nano-plastics can even disrupt energy metabolism in brain cells.

Trasande and colleagues call evidence for the adverse effects of plastic on children’s health “robust and rapidly accumulating.” In the U.S. alone, they estimate $250 billion in annual health costs from childhood disease and disability linked to plastic chemicals.

A considerable amount of research from multiple studies has shown that phthalates may contribute to preterm birth, the researchers note. Other studies link phthalates, bisphenols and PFAS exposure to higher risks of gestational diabetes and blood sugar problems during pregnancy. “The fact that in-utero PFAS exposure has also been associated with childhood obesity is not surprising,” the researchers said.

Phthalates and bisphenols may also interfere with brain development in the womb by disrupting thyroid or sex hormones, they say. Brain imaging has also revealed significant changes in both structure and function. In an extensive Dutch study, phthalate exposure was linked to reduced brain gray matter, which partially explained decreases in childhood IQ.

The findings are especially complex for pediatric medicine, where plastics have long been indispensable in treating various health conditions, the new study notes. Premature infants depend on plastic ventilators and feeding tubes. Children of all ages with asthma rely on nebulizers with plastic parts to manage their condition. Pill packaging, masks, dialysis machines and protective equipment also rely on plastic components.

At the same time, researchers note that health care systems contribute to the problem through widespread use of non-essential plastics. Phthalates, for example, are commonly found in infusion tubing, blood bags and other flexible plastic devices. Yet safer alternatives exist.

Studies show that substituting phthalate-free devices in neonatal intensive care units reduces exposure. Likewise, hospitals that switched to bisphenol A-free equipment in maternity and pediatric wards documented measurable declines in exposure for patients and staff, Trasande and his co-authors said.

“The health consequences are particularly grave for populations in low-income regions across the globe.”

“We do not impugn the essential uses of plastic for human life. However, the proliferation of non-essential plastic in the environment is increasing prenatal, childhood, and adolescent exposures, with multiple and serious effects reverberating into adulthood,” they said. “The health consequences are particularly grave for populations in low-income regions across the globe, driving disparities in health.”

Calling for systemic reform, the authors argue that current risk assessments fall short of protecting children and fail to consider the effects of newer chemicals. Many countries also lack reliable exposure data, making it impossible to track risks or improvements.

They urge child health providers to support stricter regulation of nonessential plastics, hazard-based criteria to limit chemicals like phthalates and PFAS, along with bans on single-use plastics and endocrine disruptors. 

Regulatory action could be “the most potent and greatest leveler,” the researchers said: “The burden of proof of safety should be firmly placed on manufacturers rather than youth.”

 Study: Plastics Pose ‘Urgent Threat’ to Children’s Lifelong Health - Truthdig

The Murdering of Journalists

I was scheduled to give a talk at the National Press Club of Australia on October 20 called “The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists.” It was to focus on the amplification of Israeli lies in the press, which most reporters know are lies, betraying Palestinian colleagues who are slandered, targeted and killed by Israel.     But, perhaps inadvertently proving my point, the chief executive of the press club, Maurice Reilly, cancelled the event. The announcement of my talk disappeared from the web site. Reilly said “that in the interest of balancing out our program we will withdraw our offer.” The Israeli Ambassador, retired Lt. Colonel Amir Maimon, who spent 14 years in the Israeli military, is reportedly being considered to speak. It is true that I know only one side of the picture from the seven years I spent covering Gaza. I was on the receiving end of Israeli attacks, including being bombed by its air force and fired upon by its snipers, one of whom killed a young man a few feet away from me at the Netzarim Junction. We lifted him up, each person taking hold of an arm or a leg and lumbered up the road as his body swayed like a heavy sack.  I saw small boys baited and shot by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis. The soldiers swore at the boys in Arabic over the loudspeakers of their armored jeep. The boys, about 10 years old, then threw stones at an Israeli vehicle and the soldiers opened fire, killing some, wounding others. I was present more than once as Israeli troops shot Palestinian children. Such incidents, in the Israeli lexicon, become children caught in crossfire. I was in Gaza when F-16 attack jets bombed overcrowded hovels in Gaza City. I saw the corpses of the victims, including children. This became a surgical strike on a bomb-making factory. I have watched Israel demolish homes and entire apartment blocks to create wide buffer zones between the Palestinians and the Israeli troops that ring Gaza. I have interviewed the destitute and homeless families, some camped out in crude shelters erected in the rubble.  The destruction becomes the demolition of the homes of terrorists. I have stood in the gutted remains of schools as well as medical clinics and mosques and counted the bodies. I have heard Israel claim that errant rockets or mortar fire from the Palestinians caused these and other deaths, or that the buildings were being used as arms depots or launching sites. I, along with every other reporter I know who has worked in Gaza, including the over 278 Palestinians journalists and media workers who have been killed by Israel since the start of the genocide, many in targeted assassinations, have reported a reality in Gaza that bears no resemblance to how it is portrayed by Israeli politicians, its military and many media outlets that serve as Israel’s echo chamber. Lt. Colonel Maimon can obviously, if he chooses, enlighten us about the artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender” and how it selects people, along with their families, in Gaza for assassination. He can explain how Israel determines the quotas of civilian dead, how soldiers are permitted to kill as many as 20 civilians in order to target a Palestinian fighter and hundreds for a Hamas commander.  He can let us know why Israel continues the mass slaughter when an internal Israeli intelligence database indicates that at least 83 percent of Palestinians killed are civilians. He can tell us how Palestinian civilians are abducted, dressed in Israeli army uniforms, have their hands tied, and are then forced to walk as human shields in front of Israeli troops into buildings and underground tunnels that are potentially booby-trapped. He can explain how the special unit called the “Legitimization Cell” carries out propaganda campaigns to portray Palestinian journalists as Hamas operatives to justify their assassinations. He can detail the targeting, bombing and controlled demolitions that have damaged or destroyed 97 percent of Gaza’s educational system, including every university and nearly all its hospitals. He can explain how, after Israel blocked all humanitarian aid on March 2 to starve the Palestinians in Gaza, Israeli officials set up the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to lure emaciated and malnourished Palestinians to four aid hubs in the south — aid hubs with little food and which Human Rights Watch calls “death traps” and Doctors Without Borders calls “orchestrated killing.”  These hubs, open only an hour, usually at 2:00 am, ensure a chaotic scramble for scraps of food. Israeli soldiers, along with U.S. mercenaries, who include members of the Infidels Motorcycle Club, a self-professed anti-“radical jihadist” biker group that counts members with Crusader tattoos among its ranks, fire live rounds into the crowds killing over 1,400 Palestinians and injuring thousands more in and around the hubs since May.  He can lay out the plans for the concentration camps in southern Gaza and the efforts to ultimately expel the Palestinians from Gaza and repopulate it with Jewish colonists. He can explain why Israel abandoned its own hostages, why it fired on vehicles headed into the Gaza strip on October 7 carrying Israeli captives and why it used Hellfire missiles to obliterate the Erez Crossing installation when it was seized by Palestinian fighters knowing that dozens of Israeli soldiers were inside. If Lt. Colonel Maimon spoke with this honesty and candor, we could call this balance. It would fill in a side of the equation I glimpse from the outside. It would complete the circle. It would match truth with truth. But Lt. Colonel Maimon, I see from his past statements, will spew out the mendacious narratives used by Israel to justify genocide — Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields, it operates command centers in hospitals, it sexually assaulted Israeli women on October 7 and beheaded babies.  He will make the spurious claim that Israel “has the right to defend itself,” ignoring the fact that Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups, which lack an air force, mechanized units, artillery, a navy, fleets of militarized drones and missiles, pose no existential threat to Israel. More important, he will not address Israel’s flagrant violation of international law by occupying and settling colonists on Palestinian land and carrying out a livestreamed genocide. This is not balance, unless we accept a world where truth is balanced by lies. It is an abandonment of the fundamental mission of journalists — to hold power accountable. But most egregiously, it is a terrible betrayal of our colleagues in Gaza who have been killed for chronicling the daily savagery in Gaza, for doing their job. No doubt, the corporate sponsors and wealthy donors of the press club are pleased. No doubt, the club is able to slither away from its journalistic integrity. No doubt, it is spared the attacks that would come from allowing me to speak. But please, have the decency to remove the word press from your club. The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

"We had no shortage of undaunted defenders of democracy this week. In three locations, Americans stepped forward to protect the Constitution and uphold democratic norms"

In one of the most damning opinions I have ever read, Ronald Reagan appointee U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston held that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and their subordinates “acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target non-citizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech.” 

He meticulously dissected their gross First Amendment violations, denounced this administration’s attack on dissent, and made a moving plea for Americans to care about our precious rights and liberties.

A sample of what Young wrote about Donald Trump:

He meets dissent from his orders in those other two branches by demonizing and disparaging the speakers, sometimes descending to personal vitriol.

Dissent elsewhere among our people is likewise disfavored, often in colorful scurrilous terms. All this the First Amendment capaciously and emphatically allows. When he drifts off into calling people “traitors” and condemning them for “treason,” however, he reveals an ignorance of the crime and the special burden of proof it requires. More important, such speech is not protected by the First Amendment; it is defamatory. In his official capacity as President, however, President Trump enjoys broad immunity from any civil liability.

Young also excoriated Trump for his retribution campaign against political enemies. “Where things run off the rails for him is his fixation with ‘retribution.’ ‘I am your retribution,’ he thundered famously while on the campaign trail.” He then enumerated instances in which courts have intervened to protect law firms, the media, and universities.

Young ended with an ominous question:

I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected. Is he correct?

This opinion is bound to stand the test of time as a magnificent indictment of Trump and defense of the First Amendment. If only the Supreme Court MAGA justices were as clear-eyed and committed to defense of the Constitution as Judge Young.

---

Judge Young was not the only heroic figure this week. Hundreds of our top military officers (unnecessarily dragged away from posts around the world to Quantico, Va. at the cost of $6M to taxpayers) illustrated their loyalty to the Constitution. They remained stone-faced and refused to applaud during the most cringeworthy addresses ever delivered by a secretary of defense and a commander in chief.

Trump and his unqualified, clownish Secretary of Defense (who strutted around the stage issuing vulgar pronouncements and silly cliches) grossly underestimated the integrity of our top brass. As the New York Times reported, “The military officers assembled in the room listened silently. It is likely, though, that at least some of them were seething at his suggestion that their collective failure to enforce basic standards had caused, or even contributed to, the military’s failings in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Some likely left more convinced than ever that Trump is nuts and Hegseth is a joke.

Military leaders who have attained such high rank and put in decades of service could not help but be repulsed by Trump’s vile suggestion that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” Hearing the president declare that “America is under invasion from within…no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in any ways because they don’t wear uniforms” would deeply disgust senior officers steeped in Constitutional norms and a sense of duty. Some previously may not have fully grasped the depth of their civilian leaders’ moral, intellectual, and temperamental unfitness.

Although Hegseth and Trump disgraced themselves, uniformed military leadership did us proud. Now, however, they must navigate the next 3-plus years without endangering national security and violating their constitutional oaths. (Frankly, in a functioning democracy, Trump would be carted away under the 25^th Amendment, and Hegseth would be compelled to resign.)

---

Meanwhile, another band of undaunted democracy advocates rose to the occasion in Portland, Oregon. Local and state politicians, faith groups, community organizers, and unions had prepared for Trump’s military occupation, which he has telegraphed for months. Civil society and political leaders came out in unison to oppose the invasion of federal forces. They blanketed social media with lovely scenes of their peaceful city and mocked the notion their city was “war ravaged.”

An umbrella community group Protect Oregon kept the public informed and put out a uniform message. “Any takeover of any community in Oregon is an abuse of power, a gross federal overreach, and a misuse of the military,” its website explained. “People across the state and the political spectrum are coming together to peacefully oppose politically motivated attacks on our communities.” It also helped organize a peaceful demonstration on Sunday away from the ICE facility.

Most important, within hours of Trump’s announcement, state and local authorities filed a lawsuit (set for hearing today) spelling out why the deployment is illegal and unconstitutional. “While Congress has delegated a portion of that power to the Executive, it carefully limited the President’s authority to exert control over a state’s National Guard—the modern term for the militia—to specific circumstances,” the complaint stated. “And for over a century and a half, Congress has expressly forbidden federal military interference in civilian law enforcement.” It continued: “Defendants have trampled on these principles by federalizing members of the Oregon National Guard for deployment in Portland, Oregon, to participate in civilian law enforcement.”

It was a magnificent “whole of society” response to authoritarian bullying. Trump looked unhinged and clueless. In one of the most revelatory comments he has ever made, Trump asked, “Am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening?” Well, if he is watching footage of disturbances from five year ago running on MAGA media, he sure is.

---

All told, from a courtroom in Boston to an auditorium in Quantico to Portland, undaunted, unbowed, and unapologetic patriots took up the fight to preserve democracy. We take confidence in knowing that while MAGA fanatics plot to destroy the republic, much larger legions of courageous, principled, and astute pro-democracy voices remain loud and determined.

The Contrarian is reader-supported. Kindly consider joining our lively community and help us fight back in the court of law and court of public opinion by becoming a subscriber.

 

 

Why Democrats Didn't Cave on Healthcare Tax Credits

 

The House Democrats' calculator is a useful tool to show just how urgent a tax credit fix is to American families.

 

Here is a handy tool from congressional Democrats to calculate how much Trump’s attack on healthcare coverage would cost you:

A typical family of four making $125,000 would see their health care costs increase

by $7,700 on average.

A 60-year-old couple making $80,000 would see their health care costs increase by

$17,500 on average.

A family of four making $64,000 would see their health care costs increase by

$2,600 on average.

Health insurance companies are setting rates now for open enrollment that will begin within week for coverage for 2026, so getting the tax credit extended is urgent.

More explicit samples from the calculator include:

In Texas, a 60-year-old couple earning $82,800 a year would see premiums rise by $18,454, or 275%.

In Maine, a family of four earning $64,000 a year would see premiums rise by $2,571, or 187%.

In Iowa, a family of four earning $129,800 would see premiums rise by $6,208, or 57%.

In North Carolina, a 60-year-old couple earning $82,800 a year would see premiums rise by $22,447, or 339%.

In Ohio, a family of four earning $129,800 would see premiums rise by $6,278, or 58%.

This is unacceptable. If they go through with this, livelihoods will be overhauled and lives will be lost. These are the type of reckless changes that motivate us to protest.

---

 

The Contrarian

The Contrarian is reader-supported. To receive new posts, enable our work, help with litigation efforts, and keep this opposition movement alive and engaged, please consider joining the fight by becoming a paid subscriber.

 

The Roberts' Court

 

October 6 is the first Monday of the month. It is the traditional start of the U.S. Supreme Court term. It is also the twentieth year with John Roberts as Chief Justice. While American democracy faces many challenges—economic inequality, racial divisions, and rampant polarization—another corrosive force too often overlooked sits at the very top of the judicial hierarchy. The Roberts Court may be the most aggressively anti-democratic Supreme Court in U.S. history.

By design the Court is inherently insulated from democracy. Justices are unelected, serve for life, and wield the power to strike down laws passed by elected representatives. The Constitution envisions this insulation as a safeguard: the Court should resist majoritarian pressures and protect vulnerable minorities. 

In United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 US. 144 (1938), the famous footnote four laid out this vision of the judiciary as the guardian of political participation, tasked with keeping the channels of democratic change open. However, under Roberts, the Court has abandoned this role. Instead of defending democracy, the Court has shut doors, tilted the playing field, and entrench power in the hands of the wealthy, white, and well-connected.

Consider the record. Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008), upheld Indiana’s strict voter ID law. The state could not point to a single example of the voter fraud it claimed to be preventing. What the law did was burden poor, elderly, and minority voters—those least likely to have government-issued identification. With this decision, the Roberts Court put its seal of approval on voter suppression, encouraging states to pass laws that systematically exclude inconvenient voters. Far from protecting the right to vote, the Court became an accomplice in undermining it.

Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013), was a body blow to voting rights. The Court gutted the preclearance regime of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most effective civil rights tools in American history. Roberts claimed the formula was outdated, ignoring the ongoing evidence of racial discrimination in voting. Within hours, states rolled out new restrictions: voter ID laws, polling place closures, and voter purges. The Court unleashed a wave of suppression that disproportionately targeted minority communities. This was not colorblind constitutionalism; it was willful blindness to racism in the political system.

Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee, 594 U.S. 647 (2021), continued the demolition of the Voting Rights Act. By upholding Arizona’s restrictive voting laws and adopting a narrow test for discrimination claims, the Court all but neutered Section 2 of the Act. Even laws with obvious racial disparities now stand a better chance of surviving. Roberts and his majority did not just interpret the statute narrowly; they rewrote its purpose, leaving voters of color with diminished protection.

In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), the Roberts Court struck down restrictions on corporate and union spending in elections. By equating money with speech, the Court created a plutocrat’s playground. Elections became less about ideas and more about dollars. Super PACs, dark money groups, and billionaires now dominate the airwaves, drowning out the voices of ordinary citizens. This was not judicial restraint; it was judicial activism of the worst kind—an activist Court rewriting the rules of democracy to empower corporations and the wealthy few.

The attack continued in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, 564 U.S. 721 (2011). Roberts himself wrote the opinion striking down Arizona’s system of matching funds for publicly financed candidates. This was a program designed to reduce corruption and give ordinary citizens a fair shot against entrenched money. By invalidating it, the Court told states they could not even experiment with reforms to clean up politics. The message was unmistakable: the Roberts Court is not a neutral umpire but a battering ram against any effort to curb the power of money in politics.

Meanwhile, McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, 572 U.S. 185 (2014), doubled down on the assault on campaign finance. By striking down aggregate contribution limits, the Court opened another pipeline for the wealthy to buy influence. Combined with Citizens United, the result is an electoral system increasingly controlled by the donor class. For Roberts and his colleagues, the problem was not that money distorts democracy, but that wealthy donors weren’t free enough to spend more.

The Court then washed its hands of partisan gerrymandering in Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U.S. 684 (2019). By declaring the issue nonjusticiable, the Court effectively gave politicians a green light to draw maps that lock in their own power such as they are doing in Texas and other states. Gerrymanders now allow minority parties to dominate legislatures and insulate themselves from electoral accountability. Roberts’s claim that courts lack a standard to judge gerrymandering was disingenuous. Standards had been proposed; the Court simply lacked the will. By abdicating, it entrenched minority rule and undermined representative democracy.

In Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP, 591 U.S. ___, 140 S. Ct. 2019 (2020), the Court weakened Congress’s ability to investigate the president. Oversight is a cornerstone of checks and balances, yet the Roberts Court imposed a burdensome test that made it far harder to obtain crucial information. In effect, it shielded presidential misconduct from scrutiny, tilting power further toward the executive.

In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. ___ (2024), the Court toppled Chevron deference, stripping federal agencies of their ability to reasonably interpret ambiguous statutes. This was a long-standing conservative goal, and Roberts delivered. The decision shifts policymaking away from agencies answerable to elected officials and hands it to unelected judges. The result is paralysis in regulation and a judiciary empowered to thwart democratic governance in environmental protection, labor standards, and consumer rights.

Perhaps most alarming, Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. ___ (2024), granted sweeping presidential immunity for “official acts.” This decision elevates the president above the law, a status the Constitution never contemplated. If the president cannot be held criminally accountable for abusing power, democracy itself is at risk. By insulating the office from accountability, Roberts and his Court invited authoritarianism.

Finally, Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. ___ (2025), curtailed federal courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions. In the context of an executive order limiting birthright citizenship, the Court limited remedies to only the named plaintiffs. The broader public, even if equally harmed, received no immediate protection. This ruling stripped the judiciary of one of its most effective tools for checking executive overreach, making it harder to stop unconstitutional actions before they spread nationwide.

The pattern is unmistakable. The Roberts Court has dismantled campaign finance protections, gutted voting rights, legitimized gerrymandering, weakened congressional oversight, kneecapped the administrative state, and placed the president above the law. Far from defending democracy, it has been one of its most consistent adversaries. Every chance the Roberts Court has had to come to the aid of democracy and limiting abuses of power, it has turned away.

This is not judicial modesty. This is not principled restraint. It is a project: to entrench minority rule, empower moneyed interests, and protect executive power from accountability. John Roberts, who once sold himself as an umpire calling balls and strikes, has instead led a team of partisan players rewriting the rulebook of American democracy to favor the wealthy, the powerful, and the entrenched.

As the Court begins its twenty-first year under Roberts’s leadership, the outlook is grim. Those who once hoped the Supreme Court would serve as the final firewall against authoritarianism must confront the reality that the Roberts Court has been an accelerant of democratic decline. God help this honorable Court and American Democracy—because under John Roberts, it has done little to help democracy itself.

David Schultz is a professor of political science at Hamline University. He is the author of Presidential Swing States:  Why Only Ten Matter.  -CounterPunch