"unusual" "unclear"

Given Trump's deepening commitment to fighting an "enemy within," I'm sometimes thinking best case is more of this cheap posture: He declares a war zone where there is none, sends troops to strut, declares himself victor in a week and nominates himself for a Nobel Prize. Life continues.

3.8% raise. Transferring staggering resources from most vulnerable to "most lethal." Not, like Reagan, for imperial fantasy. He wants to buy loyalty for domestic enforcers. The boomerang raise.

The Great Spiritzing.

Continuing my perplexing-even-to-myself practice of looking for still frames of masked agents in vids to edit. Distillations. From body cam footage of an agent about to arrest Newark’s mayor on political orders from Deputy AG. Or maybe it’s 28 Days Later.

NEW: Rachel Maddow drops unseen bodycam footage of feds coordinating the arrest of Newark Mayor Baraka. I REPEAT: the feds ordered his arrest even though he wasn’t breaking any laws. Federal agent: “We are arresting the mayor right now per the Deputy Attorney General of the United States.”

Immigration experts warn the Trump administration is trying to keep a DACA recipient in detention so her protected status expires.

New: four million people could be forced to leave public housing and other federally assisted housing under new plans from the Trump administration, according to experts who reviewed drafts of two unpublished rules obtained by @propublica.org.

Journalist and co-founder of Unraveled Press Raven Geary was one of several members of the press shot with crowd-control munitions while reporting outside an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, on Friday: pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incident...

Pritzker: "People of Illinois, we need your help. Get our your cell phones, record and narrate what you see. Put it on social media. Peacefully ask for badge numbers and identification. Speak up for your neighbors. We need to let the world know that this is happening and that we won't stand for it."

I want to make a joke about one of her points of evidence of violent revolution is fact that protesters brought snacks, but, also, this news isn’t very funny. Step by fucking step fascism walks toward a whole level of bad from even the stink we’re living in now.

On the other hand there’s this

Tony Blair out there giving Stephen Miller some actual competition for slimiest figure in public life

Energy Dept. adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

Also of note in that amazing bike messenger video are ICE's dumb hats.

The Benny Hill version

Since someone took care of that already, here's Curb Your Fascism

Can someone with minimal tech skills please add Benny Hill music to this keystone kkops episode?

Scanning a friend’s shelves, I have a really obnoxious get-rich app idea free for the taking: an app that lets you run your camera over your bookshelves & digitizes your library—which wld be cool—& then reveals to you your closest matches in your area, which wld be gross but irresistible.

Breaking Away

Anyone know if a copy of this training can be found anywhere? Can also reach out to me off the record, via signal: sandhya_.96 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Rightwing violence. And his politics, inasmuch as any are evident, appear incoherent. And possibly mentally ill. All can be true at once.

Targeted attack on a dockside restaurant in North Carolina. Three dead. Suspect a former Marine sniper in Iraq and Haiti who tried to sue the US govt for “genocide against straight men by the LGBQT community.” Flags at half mast? Endless op-eds? Victims’ faces on coins? www.cnn.com/2025/09/28/u...

Look at these agents marching in step-by-step. Don’t fall into their rhythm. It may be tempting to say, “I know this story already.” But we don’t, because it’s advancing everyday. It’s moving. Reporters & everyday people are risking freedom to cover it. Let’s read the words.

Funny because it’s sad, sad because it’s funny

Local news is still frontline. A1 Sunday Hartford (CT) Courant & Springfield (MA) Republican feature stories on Kirk-related assault on free speech on their state higher ed systems. No, it’s not radical critique; but it’s local news, and that’s part of the struggle, too.

This is a bot, a troll, or a fool, who is putting people he or it drags into conversation at needless & useless risk, deliberately or delusionally

Losing does not mean the struggle shouldn’t be waged, and losing doesn’t mean sacrificing the humanity of the marginalized. This isn’t difficult, and yet.

The point of recognizing that the main power we have is speaking as much as possible with precision & accuracy is to set us free from calculation: the BS that ranges from online performativity & machismo to spin to the fundamental violations of human solidarity urged by the consultant class.

This is looking really bad (the arrest, not Roberts).

"Democracy dies if prominent black writers don't frame their arguments around appeasing white voters in Wisconsin," or "Democracy dies unless liberal writers praise radical, hateful conservative activists" is the subtext. And it's worth thinking through who makes these kinds of arguments and why.

Since Trump is hawking snake oil med beds, check out this heartbreaking story by @elisaslow.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2024/07/28/u...

Just reposted various bits of dire news, but we all must sleep well to fight the good fight tomorrow and tomorrow, so here's something else that happened today. Variations occur everyday, in fact. The weather never stays home.

Can you get there for tomorrow? 😉

[as the SS executioner slips a piano wire noose around my neck] let’s talk permitting reform

I have approximately zero following on this app, sharing in the hopes it can get in front of the right person. A man I went to college with’s wife was kidnapped by ICE at a green card hearing, and he’s trying to find a reporter who will speak to him about the situation

Can I go there?

It is a measure of the fascism of the moment that I’m reposting a Cato Institute dude. Solidarity, friend, against armed men who’d call other human beings animals.

With alt text:

NEW — Video posted to social media shows Unraveled Press co-founder Steve Held being detained by federal agents outside the Broadview immigration facility earlier this evening. A collection of Chicago newsrooms is calling for his immediate release. thetriibe.com/2025/09/chic...

Sounds like a writer I wish I’d known.

This! I think the opposite of fascism isn’t “normal,” it’s taking joy in weirdness

Taken just a few minutes ago outside the ICE facility in Portland that Trump claims is under siege. My message to Donald Trump is this: we don’t need you here. Stay the hell out of our city.

I made a rhetorical mistake here by using Newsom/Pritzker as model for forms of political speech, leading commentators to debate those men’s merits. I meant this thread to raise question of earnestness in response to state violence & its escalation.

As you think about how to respond to Portland news, maybe think about dif between rhetoric of Newsom & Pritzker. Newsom mirrored; Pritzker spoke clearly about just how dangerous the moment it is. Do you want to be glib? My argument is that the main agency we have now is precision of language. 1/

“Fascism isn’t an argument, it’s an expression of power that sets terms at its own convenience.”

So Portland is Poland

I'm re-upping an old post in light of deployment of troops w/ authorization for "full force" to Portland. Here's Hegseth talking about Portland in his 2024 book, where he elsewhere describes such cities as enemy territory. slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/the-pentag...

Sending troops with "full force" orders to Portland isn't a distraction. It is opening a literal front line. I was never a boxer, but I'm pretty sure that when you're on your heels you don't scoff and tell yourself, "other dude's flailing." You read the ring, and strategize.

Sit down for breakfast but because I have Truth alerts on my phone--professional hazard on the fascism beat--I learn five minutes after the fact that Trump is sending troops to Portland with authorization for "full force." Not a drill, friends.