Source: CounterPunch
by John W Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead
“Masked gunmen. Tasers. Tear gas. Pepper spray. Unmarked vehicles. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Racial profiling. Children traumatized. Families terrorized. Journalists targeted. Citizens detained. Disabled individuals, minors, the elderly, pregnant women, military veterans — snatched off the streets. Private property destroyed. This is not a war zone. This is what now passes for law-and-order policing by ICE agents in Trump’s America—and it is not making America safer or greater. What began as an agency tasked with enforcing immigration law has metastasized into a domestic terror force. … Make no mistake: this is not how a constitutional republic operates. It is how a dictatorship behaves when it decides the rule of law — in this case, the Bill of Rights — is optional.” (10/17/25)
“The first ‘No Kings’ rally, I wrote then, was largely a Democratic ‘campaign event for the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election. Those of who oppose Trump but aren’t Democrats came along for the ride. Our support was co-opted whether we liked it or not.’ If anything, the second event took on an even more ‘vote — and by the way, vote Democrat’ tone. Despite the increased and welcome focus on Trump’s foreign military misadventures and domestic martial law moves, there was still plenty of ‘Yes Kings’ signage and sloganeering. One speaker, believe it or not, even devoted a minute or two to praising Joe Biden’s (and before him, Donald Trump’s) COVID-19 monarchical pretensions and decrying the ‘No Kings’ protesters of that era … many of whom, unfortunately, reverted to their own prior ‘Yes Kings’ advocacy on January 20, 2025.” (10/19/25)
“Christianity is back and it’s more violent than ever. I speak of course of the late capitalist tent house revival of Christian Nationalism amongst the decaying ruins of Washington DC. Using the demonic, Caligula-esque Emperador Trump like a pedophilic battering ram, a bunch of millenarian lunatics with a barely literate interpretation of the Bible have found themselves in the highest echelons of political influence in this country and their vulgar reach can be felt throughout the decidedly big government and hyper-interventionist policies of MAGA 2.0, from the transgender genocide to the Zionist reinvention of the Middle East. But there’s a catch and it’s one likely to catch up with the Evangelical set with a vengeance far sooner than later.” (10/18/25)
“I could feel the panic attack set in the second the suggestion was made. ‘Would you go cover the No Kings protests on the 18th?’ my editor asked, reasonably enough. My heart started pounding, my palms sweating. ‘I’d rather slit my wrists,’ I wrote back. Because in my head, 25 years had vanished. I was back in Caracas, in 2000, planning to go to the very first pro-democracy, anti-Chávez protests, and things were about to go very wrong indeed. It wasn’t quite the first time. Reading American news these days, everything feels like a flashback. Or a callback.” (10/18/25)
“Government shutdowns might look irrational, but they follow a familiar script. When political types gain more from the standoff than the solution, collisions become routine.” (10/17/25)
“Now nine months into his second term, President Donald Trump may be setting a new norm in law enforcement. Under his watch, prosecutors in the U.S. Justice Department have indicted three people who Mr. Trump believes have done him wrong: former FBI Director James Comey, current New York Attorney General Letitia James, and, on Thursday, his former national security adviser, John Bolton. The courts may yet declare all three to be not guilty of charges against them. Yet the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct, such as for vindictiveness, has supercharged efforts to reset the norms of integrity (that is, pursuing justice over ‘winning’) that most prosecutors have honored for decades. For now, much of that norm-resetting is at the state level, where millions of felonies and misdemeanors are handled each year by more than 2,300 prosecutor’s offices.” (10/17/25)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“An old post by Steve Landsburg offered three examples of actions by one person that another objected to but that did no physical damage. He asked whether the psychic cost to the objector should be considered relevant to public policy, whether the answer was the same for all three and, if not, why not. The first of the three was someone reading pornography and someone else being upset by the knowledge that pornography was being read. The third was someone raping an unconscious victim in a way that did no physical harm. Why, Steve asked, do we have different reactions to those cases and is the difference justified? Discussing reactions to the post with my daughter, I commented that the people who were angry about it, mostly online, struck me as either stupid or evil.” (10/17/25)
“Remember the kids of Generation Z? You know — that notorious cohort of entitled, lazy, and apathetic people that Boomers so love to mock? Over the past two years, members of Gen Z across Asia, Africa, and Latin America have been taking to the streets, covertly organizing revolutions and dethroning entrenched rulers. Quite a few of those involved in the uprisings have paid with their lives — another indicator that these events are worth taking seriously. … Some observers might dismiss this new wave of activism as irrelevant to the future of established democracies. But such complacency might be ill-advised. If this new revolutionary movement has demonstrated anything, it’s that no one should underestimate its infectiousness.” (10/17/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Last year I banged out an angry rant about the way Israel supporters would yell ‘release the hostages!’ at anyone who talked about the latest massacre of Palestinian civilians, saying Hamas was to blame for the killing because of their refusal to release the Israeli captives, and that it would all stop once the hostages are free. I’m remembering that essay today because the hostages are free, but the massacres are continuing. On Friday Israel reportedly blew up a vehicle carrying a Palestinian family of eleven people, including seven children. The IDF gave its usual excuse for the massacre: the civilians were deemed to have crossed an invisible line into a forbidden zone which made the Israeli soldiers feel unsafe. They did this exact same thing constantly during the last ‘ceasefire’ as well.” (10/18/25)
“In the early 20th century, America was buzzing with Progressive Era reforms aimed at taming the excesses of industrialization. One landmark was the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, hailed as a victory for consumer safety. It banned poisonous ingredients in food and drink, required accurate labeling, and cracked down on imitations. But when it came to whiskey, was it truly about protecting the public from deadly adulterants? Or was it a classic case of dirty politics, where special interests use government power to disadvantage competitors?” (10/17/25)
