
"Trump's Blueprint to Crush the Left Draws from Decades of Counterterrorism Policy: Trump's NSPM-7 is a pivotal policy endangering free expression in the United States. [...] It was in this atmosphere that the Trump White House issued two pivotal policies for the future of free expression in the United States. On the evening of September 22, Trump signed an executive order designating 'Antifa' as a 'domestic terrorist organization.' Antifa is short for 'anti-fascist.' It refers to an ideology. Although there may be groups that would classify their beliefs as 'anti-fascist,' there is no singular or central 'Antifa' organization. Nevertheless, on some parts of the right, the mythical Antifa has started to play the role of boogeyman formerly reserved for the Communist Party. Whereas Communists were argued to be the hidden driving force behind everything from Civil Rights to peace activism, the nonexistent Antifa is now fingered as the secret, sinister mover of domestic protest—and the legally dubious move of declaring Antifa a domestic terrorist organization has become a major rallying point on the right."
The suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, and his restoration, was a great opportunity for Matt Stoller to talk about media monopolization and what to do about it, so he had a good natter with David Dayen on the Prospect Weekly Roundup, where they discussed his article at Big, "On Jimmy Kimmel: It's Time to Destroy the Censorship Machine and Repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1996: In 1996, Bill Clinton set the stage for what Donald Trump is doing now by creating a censorship machine of consolidated media, broadband, and tech firms. It's time to break it apart. [...] The second problem is that the tools exist for Trump to engage in a coercive censorship regime because Bill Clinton and a Newt Gingrich-led Republican Congress helped consolidate the media with the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which supercharged a wave of media and telecom consolidation kicked off by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. As More Perfect Union noted, 'In 1983, 50 companies controlled 90% of the U.S. media market. That number is now down to 5.' If the ability to wield power over content exists, it will likely be purposed, and Trump isn't the first one to do it."
"Citizens Unlimited: The Inside Plan To Deliver Citizens United 2.0: The Trump Justice Department is reversing the federal government's Supreme Court defense of longstanding campaign finance laws and is now urging justices to strike down some of the last remaining limits on election spending."
Local Portland station KATU decided to illustrate how "war ravaged" Portland is to justify Trump's invasion, so they set up a 24-hour webcam outside ICE HQ
"Recognition of Palestine is a repeat of the West's Oslo 'peace' fraud: Britain's Keir Starmer is already pulling the rug from under his own grudging declaration. The only hope of change is of the unintended consequences variety." The "state" Starmer is talking about is the same one Israel has "offered" and Palestinians have rejected for decades — one with no sovereignty, no right to self-defense, no contiguous lands, and no control of their air apace, borders, or water. Bantustans within Israel's control.
Hamas has a question: "Senior Hamas Leader Mousa Abu Marzouk on Trump's Gaza Plan and the Future of Hamas [...] 'President Trump said 25,000 members of Qassam were killed,' he said, adding that this number is equivalent to public estimates of the total size of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing. 'Israel also recently announced that most of Hamas's military capabilities were destroyed—they said 90% of Hamas's capabilities were wiped out. So if they destroyed 90% of Hamas's military capabilities and killed most of Qassam's fighters, as President Trump says, whose weapons are you going to disarm and where are the weapons you claim you'll remove when you already destroyed them?'"
Like Atrios says, "The idea that widespread voter fraud could exist, let alone does, understandably persists in the minds of people likely doing it." "MAGA's Top 'Voter Fraud' Watchdog Votes in a Swing State. He Doesn't Live There. A long paper trail shows that Jack Posobiec votes in one state and lives in another.
Drop Site News has a story on how the Mamdani campaign is handling media smears that try to paint him as some kind of anti-Jewish activist, "Inside Zohran Mamdani's Campaign [...] Andrew Epstein, Zohran's communications director during the primary, vividly recalls his reaction to Politico's Holocaust smear. 'I said, "Wtf?" and started firing off texts and emails,' explained Andrew, who is in his late thirties and lives near Zohran in Astoria. Along with Mamdani's then-political director Julian Gerson and the campaign's media strategist Morris Katz, Andrew is Jewish."
"What the general election campaigns against Larry Krasner and Zohran Mamdani say about the Democratic Party [...] 'The reason Larry Krasner won is because the people like his policies,' Gavio said, pointing to Krasner's embrace of criminal justice reform and his attacks on Trump. 'What moderates who are running in the general election are basically saying to the Democratic base is: We don't support these policies that you support.'
"Elon Musk's SpaceX Took Money Directly From Chinese Investors, Company Insider Testifies: The newly unsealed testimony marks the first time direct Chinese investment in the company has been disclosed, raising new questions about foreign ownership interests in one of America's most important military contractors." The very idea that any part of your country's defense should be in the hands of an internationally-owned company is insane. (And that goes for your water supply, too, dammit.)
David Loftus has been back on his beat of trying to disabuse people of the myth that Portland was burned to the ground during the BLM police riots, and he thought the issue was improving in search results, but then he had a terrible realization. "The Age of AI = No Right Answer."
Imagine my surprise at seeing the very first sentence in an MSN article: "British historian explains why he was 'shaken every day' during US visit: Feminist Avedon Carol, a Maryland native who has lived in London for many years, once commented that the United States has an even closer relationship with the UK than it has with its neighbor to the north, Canada. UK media, from the BBC to the Times of London, typically cover U.S. politics extensively — and British historian Timothy Garton Ash explains why he is so worried about the U.S. in a Guardian column published on September 16." (Via Ansible.)
RIP: "Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, dies aged 91: [...] The Jane Goodall Institute announced that she had died of natural causes while in California as part of a US speaking tour. 'Dr Goodall's discoveries as an ethologist revolutionised science,' the statement read. 'She was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world.' Born in London in 1934, Goodall began researching free-living chimpanzees in Tanzania in 1960. In 1977 she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which works to protect the species and supports youth projects aimed at benefiting animals and the environment."
RIP: "Moody Blues singer and bassist John Lodge dies aged 82 [...] Lodge, who was born in Birmingham, played on some of the group's best-known songs including 'Nights in White Satin', 'Question' and 'Isn't Life Strange'. [...] 'John peacefully slipped away surrounded by his loved ones and the sounds of the Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly. We will forever miss his love, smile, kindness and his absolute and never-ending support.'"
RIP: "Diane Keaton, Oscar-winning star of Annie Hall and The Godfather, dies aged 79." I remember when the whole gang went to see Annie Hall together and for months we were quoting it. And of course, that iconic Marshall McLuhan moment.
Radley Balko has started posting a series on how a brave informant exposed widespread police malfeasance in, "Collateral Damage: In 2006, a 92-year-old Atlanta woman was gunned down in her own home by police during a drug raid. The police initially claimed the woman was a marijuana dealer who fired a gun at them. The story might have ended there. But an informant bravely came forward to set the record straight. Subsequent investigations and reports revealed that the police had raided the wrong home, killed an innocent woman, then planted marijuana in her basement to cover up their mistake. In the ensuing months, we'd learn that the Atlanta Police Department's narcotics unit routinely conducted mistaken raids on terrified people. The problem was driven by perverse federal, state, and local financial incentives that pushed cops to take shortcuts in procuring warrants for drug raids in order to boost their arrest and seizure statistics. Most of those incentives are still in place today. The raids haven't stopped. And neither have the deaths."
"The Myth of the Campus Snowflake: The students I encounter as a university president aren't afraid of free speech—quite the contrary. [...] Critics of universities might counter that, even if true episodes of campus censorship are rare, what matters is that students are afraid to express themselves. In making that claim, however, they rely on poorly constructed polls, typically produced by advocacy groups, that paint a misleadingly dismal picture of student attitudes toward free speech. For example, a common question asks students whether they feel comfortable expressing their opinion about controversial topics. 'Comfort,' however, is the wrong metric for judging a free-speech climate. Speaking up is often hard, especially in a setting where professors and peers may challenge your viewpoint. Justice Louis Brandeis, one of the great figures in the history of American free speech, wrote in Whitney v. California that the Constitution's First Amendment presupposes a 'courageous, self-reliant' people. The point of college should be to build that courage, and to teach the skills that enable people to listen to and learn from one another. That should feel uncomfortable."
The right wing can build its own youth movement because they're more willing to pay their youths. It's a little different on the other side. "The Right-Wing Millennial Machine: Conservatives are building an army of fired-up young people. How? By offering them salaries. After he graduated from college, it took Nathan two years, three unpaid internships and six bartending and retail jobs before he got his first paid gig in progressive politics. His employer was a small, millennial-focused outreach nonprofit, and his job was to supervise four interns — young kids, fresh out of school, working the same day job/night job, 80-hour-a-week cycle he had just exited. Nathan, who wouldn't give his real name out of fear of retaliation, asked his boss if he could start paying the interns. 'I didn't think I was going to get them federal minimum wage — that's impossible in Washington,' he said. 'But at least they could get a stipend.' His boss refused, without offering much of a case for why they couldn't afford to pay them." If only George Soros was half of what they say he is.
The American Prospect doesn't usually do this kind of thing, but they have a piece up called "Why Winning Is Bad for Democrats" by Anonymous Democratic Consultant: "Oh, you want life to get better now, do you? Do you even understand politics?"
The Moody Blues, "I'm Just A Singer (In A Rock And Roll Band)"