“By now, the U.S. Supreme Court surely must see that it made a horrendous mistake last year when it ruled that presidents are above the law. The court’s conservative majority should admit its error and fix it. Their decision in Trump v. United States was naïve at best. More likely, the court bought into the right wing’s confusion about the difference between a unitary president and a dictator. Either way, the ruling put the Constitution and the rule of law into the hands of a president who willfully abuses both. It was an especially reckless act when President Trump was seeking the presidency again. … he was clearly running for office to escape trials and jail time for dozens of additional alleged crimes. Trump ran on a platform of personal retribution rather than public service. Once in office, he wasted no time proving how ill-advised the court’s decision was.” (11/17/25)
“Coordinated weekend protests in Mexico’s capital and other cities were organized through social media tools popular among young people around the world. But labeling them ‘Gen Z protests’ (akin to recent ones in Asia and Africa) would miss the significance of this movement and this moment for all Mexicans. In fact, the estimated 17,000 citizens who marched in Mexico City on Saturday represented a cross section of Mexican society. The multigenerational march was sparked by outrage over the recent killings of Carlos Manzó, a popular, tough-on-crime mayor, and Bernardo Bravo, head of a citrus growers’ association. Spontaneous demonstrations first broke out in the two men’s home state of Michoacán, which has been mired in cartel-linked violence for years. ‘This reaction, organic and honest, fed up with the security situation … is something new,’ David Mora, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told CNN.” (11/17/25)
“How should we understand the character of the American political present? Are we living through the radical transformation of American democracy into a competitive (or even uncompetitive) authoritarian system? Or are we merely experiencing the fulfillment of longstanding antiliberal and anti-democratic trends in American politics in general and the Republican Party in particular? Or do we merely find ourselves at a rare (but nonetheless democratically legitimate) moment of rapid constitutional evolution to the right after nearly a century of consistently leftward shifts?” (11/17/25)
“Humanity is just now hitting its stride, or at least we’re threatening to. We approached it before World War I, then suffered through a long, ugly period. More recently our leading edges have started to push through the thorns and weeds, and there’s a reasonable chance that we’ll make it this time. But even if this attempt fails, one of the generations that follows us will make it. Post-primate society is coming; it’s only a question of when. This is certain because the development of mankind, of the human race, has been nothing short of spectacular. We have risen so fast that any other conclusion must stand upon gloominess and depression. The long-term record is clear.” (11/17/25)
“The roughly 42 million Americans who rely on food stamps did not receive their November 1 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits as the government shutdown dragged on. The missed payments came just as the holiday season began, leaving many families struggling to put food on the table. Lines at food banks backed up traffic across the country. The Trump administration defied federal court orders to restore full funding to the program before the Supreme Court’s conservative majority temporarily green-lit the freeze. The White House even tried to claw back funding from states that had already distributed it to hungry families. Lawmakers have now negotiated an end to the shutdown. But the threat to the nation’s primary nutrition assistance program, SNAP, is far from over. As the government reopens, millions will still lose access to food assistance starting almost immediately.” (11/17/25)
“The natural home for this work is a biomedical journal. There is zero chance, however, that a paper would be accepted by any conventional journal. Why? Because the results are earthshaking, as stated in the title. This post is technical, but the preamble is not. For the non-academic reader, the preamble will serve two purposes: 1) to share an interesting story about the evolution of this work; 2) to give a simple summary of what I found. So, stay with me at least through this section.” (11/17/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Came across an old Hampton Institute tweet: ‘If you don’t like being exploited (employee, tenant), then become the exploiter (boss/owner, landlord) is the capitalist mindset that has been drilled into all of us since we were kids. The real solution is to end exploitation (capitalism) altogether.’ You run into this sort of argument all the time when interacting with capitalism supporters. If people can’t make enough money to get by then they should get better-paying jobs. If people don’t like getting kicked around by an abusive status quo then they should climb their way into a socioeconomic strata that isn’t getting kicked around as much. If someone doesn’t like being the nail then they should become the hammer. They deflect criticisms of the abusive system by babbling about what people can do as individuals to be less abused personally.” (11/17/25)
“Obtaining a judgment against the federal government under [the Federal Tort Claims Act] is difficult in virtually every circumstance, and [Michael] Flynn’s case is deeply flawed. So why is the Trump administration so eager to settle? Following his prosecution, Flynn ingratiated himself with Trump by being an outspoken proponent of the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. … By all appearances, as a reward for his loyalty, the Trump administration is poised to pay Flynn millions of taxpayer dollars to resolve a case that, at present, he cannot even convince a court to consider on the merits. Trump is also seeking a large settlement from the federal government. Like Flynn, Trump argues that he was subjected to malicious prosecution during the Russia investigation. He also argues that his privacy rights were violated during a search of Mar-a-lago in 2022. But Trump is seeking a much larger payout of $230 million.” (11/17/25)
“It occurs to me that ‘giving birth to the future’ isn’t simply a metaphor. I say this as I continue wrestling with infinity — that is to say, working on the book project I began a decade ago: a book about creating peace. My exploration into all this goes beyond politics, global or otherwise. There are countless ways that humanity needs to change and, indeed, is changing. For instance: ‘For much of the 20th century, the childbirth process in this country didn’t invite a lot of active participation from parents. Mothers in labor were given heavy doses of drugs, and fathers were banished to waiting rooms.’ So wrote David Colker in the Los Angeles Times in 2015, shortly after the death of Elisabeth Bing (at age at 100!), the German-born woman who cofounded Lamaze International in 1960 and helped profoundly change the way we birth the future.” (11/17/25)
“Seizing the means of production requires control of not only private businesses, natural resources, and factories, but human bodies and minds.” (11/17/25)
