A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive, will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence [against] foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.
- James Madison, quoted by Judge Karin Immergut
This week’s featured posts are “The Silence of the Generals“ and “Trump Comes for Chicago“.
Ongoing stories
- Trump’s assault on American democracy. Chicago and perhaps Portland are now under attack.
- Climate change. Pope Leo spoke out reaffirming his predecessor’s opposition to climate change, saying that it should not be a divisive issue.
- Gaza. A new peace plan is on the table. Is this any more likely to take hold than the previous ones?
- Ukraine. I’m hearing very little news about advances on the ground in either direction. It seems for now to be mainly a drone war.
This week’s developments
The Trump/Hegseth Quantico speeches
Before the meeting of 800 admirals and generals called to Virginia, speculation was rampant about what it was for. Now that it has happened, we’re still wondering what it was for. I try to unravel it in one of the featured posts.
and the war against blue cities
This week, Blackhawk helicopters attacked an apartment building on Chicago’s south shore. The reality is just as crazy as it sounds. This is the topic of the other featured post.
I forgot to mention this in that post: The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland wrote a long on-the-scene account of the protests against ICE in Chicago, including a long interview with congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh.
and the government shut-down
It’s been a week and neither side is budging. I’m not sure what resolves this eventually, or how long it might take. Trump needs to preserve his authoritarian narrative -- that you can’t resist him successfully, and if you try you’ll be punished. But it’s also hard to see how Democrats can give in without some kind of concession.
For what it’s worth, the public seems to be blaming Republicans more than Democrats: 39% blame the Republicans more, 30% Democrats more, and 31% both sides equally.
This is a situation where Trump-being-Trump works against his own interests. A number of congressional Republicans think they had a more persuasive blame-the-Democrats message: Let’s get a clean continuing resolution for a couple months while we work out the details, and not try to fight for policy changes yet.
But Trump keeps acting like a perpetrator rather than a victim. He wants to use the shutdown to fire more federal workers. He’s trolling Democratic leaders in insulting ways. He’s illegally using government websites and even out-of-office messages to make his political points.
Democrats, meanwhile, have a pretty good ask: Subsidies for ObamaCare healthcare policies are ending, and they want to get them re-funded. So they’re fighting to keep healthcare costs down for millions of Americans, including many Trump voters.
and Gaza
Trump put forward a peace proposal with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which Hamas gave qualified agreement to. Trump pounced on this as a win, making it hard for Netanyahu to back out.
I’m skeptical, though The New Yorker’s Ruth Margalit is less so: She considers it possible that the first step -- release of Hamas’ remaining hostages in exchange for a ceasefire and release of about 2000 of Israel’s Palestinian prisoners -- may go forward.
and you also might be interested in ...
I saw a weird report this morning: Google is handicapping searches asking whether Trump has symptoms of dementia. I tried it myself this morning, and sure enough: There’s no AI summary, and it’s not clear I’m getting stuff the search ought to find.
Speculation about Trump’s mental health has been ramping up lately for a number of reasons. His 70-minute ramble to the generals (see the featured post) was more muddled than usual, and he seemed tired. Governor Pritzker has raised the possibility that Trump’s bizarre posts about Portland and Chicago are demented. A judge Trump appointed himself said that his claims were “untethered to the facts“.
And why would Google need to put its thumb on the scale?
Henry Kissinger once lampooned Argentina’s strategic significance by calling it “a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica”. Argentina’s economy (the 23rd largest in the world, just behind Belgium) is also not particularly important. But the Trump administration is willing to risk $20 billion of taxpayer money to shore up Argentina just before a major election.
Why? The current president Javier Milei, is a Trump flatterer and a mini-Trump himself. And like Trump, he is very unpopular.
Milei earned many admirers on the right for undertaking a blitz of free-market reforms. Those included slashing government subsidies and regulations, in addition to thinning public sector ranks by 50,000 employees. In return, Trump has referred to Milei as his “favorite president” and offered an endorsement for his re-election.
Also, some well-connected hedge funds have interests in Argentina.
“Donald Trump gets a two-fer here,” [Senator Elizabeth] Warren said. “He gets to bail out his political ally in Argentina, who is very unpopular and in big trouble, and his treasury secretary apparently gets to help his hedge fund buddies.”
Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittifciation” to explain what has happened to all major internet platforms and services, such as Facebook and Twitter: They draw an audience by providing a convenient service, but then become profitable by abusing that audience after it gets locked in.
In this Guardian article, Doctorow explains in detail the enshittifcation of Amazon, which ensnared not just consumers, but the merchants who provide the products Amazon sells. He explains why the market itself will never fix Amazon, and how it has become impervious to individual action. Only regulation can solve the problem.
The path to a better Amazon doesn’t lie through consumer activism, or appeals to the its conscience. ... Systemic problems have systemic solutions, not individual ones. You can’t shop your way out of a monopoly.
and let’s close with something festive
If you’re not finding a lot to dance about these days, maybe you should look at this collection of the 20 greatest dance routines.
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