by now you’ve seen the photos of the East Wing deconstruction. See also Jonathan Last:

The stated policy of every Democrat seeking the presidency should be that the first thing they will do is demolish the Trump ballroom and restore the East Wing of the White House and the White House grounds to their pre-Trump state.

I assume “White House grounds” would include the Kennedy-era landscape design of the Rose Garden. The original plans must be stored somewhere.

And of course, Trump had promised that the White House itself would not be disturbed. He lies about everything.

Trump’s new ballroom was originally billed as a $100 million project but has since ballooned into a $250 million behemoth that will dwarf the existing structures.

The original East Wing, which has existed in its current form since 1942, is 12,000 square feet, while the residence is 50,000 square feet.

The demolition work comes despite Trump insisting during an executive order signing in July that his ballroom renovations wouldn’t “interfere with the current building.”

“It won’t be. It’ll be near it, but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of. It’s my favorite, It’s my favorite place,” Trump said.

That same month, however, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “the necessary construction will take place” to “modernize” the East Wing.

Trump also wants to build some monstrosity of a European-style arc de triomphe to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary. One story I saw said it would be near the Lincoln Memorial (oh, please, no). But now I’m reading it’s to be planted somewhere in Arlington, in or near the National Cemetery. I don’t like that, either.

Along with restoring the White House and grounds as they were, I’d like some future Congress to pass a law saying that presidents cannot do any remodeling or re-landscaping of the White House and grounds without getting approval from somebody. Maybe a lot of somebodies.  Let presidents redecorate to their heart’s content, but big projects need to go through an extensive vetting and approval process, which includes making public precisely where all the money for the project is coming from. Trump insists his ballroom is being paid for by private funds, but the donors need to be on the public record.

And it also hasn’t seemed to occur to Trump that pushing big and unnecessary building projects while people are losing their food assistance and health insurance because Republicans say we can’t afford it is not a good look.

See also Trump Is Using ‘Classical Architecture’ as ‘A Dog Whistle for White Nationalists’ by Layla A. Jones at TPM.

All this building has also fueled speculation that Trump really doesn’t plan to leave the White House in 2029.

Speaking of Trump’s gawdawful judgment in building projects, see Paul Krugman, Donald Trump Has Lost Touch With Reality.

He really does seem to believe that Portland is “war-ravaged,” that Chicago is full of “beautiful Black women in MAGA hats” begging him to stop crime, that China is going to cave to his trade demands, that gasoline is $1.99 a gallon, that he will lower drug prices by 500%, and much more.

Do read the whole thing. It’s very good.

I’m still basking in the glow of yesterday’s very successful No King’s Day. I still haven’t seen any news stories about violence, even minor, at any of the protests. I never would have believed that 7 million lefties would all follow directions at the same time.

I’ve seen lots of comments about the number of older people showing up for these events. Most of us are veterans of the Vietnam era antiwar movement, I suspect. We were much younger then, of course. But I believe the presence of so many grandparents is helping to keep things calm and generally wholesome.

There’s also a lot of anger at the New York Times today for giving No Kings less prominent coverage than they gave the Charlie Kirk memorial. Aggravating, but not surprising. This is a long-standing pattern.

Speaking of the New York Times — which at least hasn’t lost all its good writers like the Washington Post — Chris Hayes has an op ed in today’s edition that’s worth reading. In a nutshell, he’s saying the Democrats’ core problem — most of the time, anyway — isn’t their message. The problem is too many voters never hear their message. And this is something I’ve been saying since I started writing this blog back in 2002. But the nature of the problem has changed.

My original gripe: In the 1990s and 2000s the problem was that the Right had built a formidable mass media infrastructure. At the time it was mostly Fox News and right-wing talk radio. But they had a means to deliver right-wing propaganda — much of it generated by the Heritage Foundation and similar rightie think tanks — directly to vast audiences. And the “mainstream” media was cautiously full of both siderism, which tended to reinforce the propaganda even if it didn’t exactly repeat it. So especially in rural areas with fewer media choices there was no one explaining what the Democratic Party was doing. People literally only heard from the Right side of the political spectrum. Talk radio isn’t what it used to be, but today right-wing influencers have taken up the slack. And mainstream media is still too full of both siderism.

Chris Hayes doesn’t go back that far, but instead talks about the way television advertising is no longer THE way to get out a campaign message. “If you had enough money to buy ads, you could reach the voters you wanted to reach, and the problem was simply getting enough money,” Hayes writes. However, “That world no longer exists. TV viewership has declined, and audiences have fractured. Money cannot buy attention as reliably or directly as it once did.”

The Harris-Walz campaign was too cautious and relied too much on the old playbook. Inexplicably, they didn’t even make good use of Tim Walz. Walz has said the campaign was too risk-averse. Hayes says the Dems worry too much about negative attention. They’re afraid that one flubbed statement will bury their chances. So that limits who they are willing to talk to.

Democratic operatives and candidates need to stop being scared of their own shadows and internalize the notion that attention is good, that even negative attention might redound to their benefit and that the public is so easily distracted that no one is going to hold supposed gaffes against them the way people once might have.

Especially in the new media world, the Dems need candidates who know how to use media to talk directly to voters (like Zohran Mamdani). Instead of the “safe,” centrist, anodyne candidates Chuck Schumer likes to recruit (who tend to lose), the Dems need candidates who are naturally good at getting attention and talking to people. Charisma doesn’t hurt. Being able to raise money is still important, but it’s not the be-all and end-all of campaigns that it used to be. And that’s a good thing.

For another good read, see The Depth of MAGA’s Moral Collapse by George Packer at The Atlantic. Gift article. Just read it.

In other news — The Guardian reports that Gaza’s civil defense agency said a series of Israeli air strikes across the territory killed at least 33 people on Sunday, updating an earlier toll of 21. So much for Trump’s peace plan.

Update: Over the past several hours, three things happened. I’m not sure in what order. Trump/Hegseth had another random boat bombed, killing three men. This is the seventh known such boat. This was done on Friday but announced today. The boat is from  The men killed were Colombians. Hegseth claimed they were part of a Colombian rebel group and smuggling drugs. Of course, the evidence went down with the ship.

I swear, I’d bet money they’re bombing the boats just because Trump or Hegseth or Miller or all of them get off on watching it on video.

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro called Trump a murderer. I’d say that’s accurate. Then Trump threw one of his temper tantrums and called Petro an “illegal drug dealer” and says he will stop all aid and subsidies going into Colombia.

Aso, WaPo is reporting that in order to get Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to accept Trump deportees into his prison, Bukele wanted the return of nine MS-13 gang leaders in U.S. custody. But it turns out that some of those gang members had been informants under the protection of the U.S. government. Well, so much for protection. Read about it at Emptywheel.

Just letting you know I’m about to leave for a local No Kings Rally. I don’t expect it to be a big rally, but it’s the one I can get to. I’ll report after I get back. If I don’t get back, maybe call ICE to see where they stashed me. 🙂

Update — they didn’t get me. I had a lovely afternoon in a nearby park on the Hudson River waterfront. The organizers had expected about 400 people but at least twice that many showed up. It was a multi-generational and multi-racial crowd.

Some local officials gave rah-rah speeches. There also was some poetry and music. There were a few costumes. Someone in a Gingerbread Man blow up costume carried a sign saying NO ICEing. We also had a banana and a pickle. A public official from Sleepy Hollow came dressed as a witch. (They’re into Halloween in Sleepy Hollow. The High School football team are the Sleepy Hollow Horsemen, and their team mascot is the Headless Horseman. a costumed rider on a black horse.)

I tried to take some pictures, but most of them aren’t that good. This is probably the best one.

There was much cheering of the Constitution and booing of Trump and our Rep, Mike Lawler. The mood generally was optimistic. Nobody misbehaved. It went very well.

I understand the crowds around the country were huge. They’re saying 7 million participants. And I found this on Bluesky:

I haven’t yet seen reports of misbehaviors. The Guardian reports that Fox news is still trying to tie No Kings to George Soros and the “global intifada.” but Republicans have mostly been quiet today.

I saw the Politico story about the disgusting Young Republican group chat a couple of days ago, and I thought, tell me something I don’t already know. But the story has legs. And if Vance thought his “boys will be boys” excuse would calm things down, it hasn’t. Julianne McShane writes at Mother Jones:

On an episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Wednesday, Vance dismissed the messages as representing only the immaturity of “kids,” arguing that they were getting far too much attention.

“By focusing on what kids are saying in a group chat—grow up! I’m sorry,” Vance said. “Focus on the real issues. Don’t focus on what kids say in group chats.”

One problem with this defense? The people in the group chat aren’t “kids.” By scanning public records and media reports, Mother Jones determined the ages of eight of the 11 participants in the chat: They appear to range from 24 to 35.

I say Vance was inadvertently admitting to something true — that MAGA men are arrested adolescents, no matter how old they are. And MAGA men are running the Republican party.

Nor were these just a bunch of random righties. This was a Young Republican chat. Several of the participants had staff jobs with Republican elected officials. One was a bleeping Vermont state senator. 

I was taken with this part:

“If your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word,” Giunta wrote.

Charming. Peter Giunta was chief of staff to New York state Assemblymember Mike Reilly. I understand he was fired this week. But it seems to me that, if nothing else, the Trump Administration is doing a bang-up job demonstrating that White men can be as incompetent as anybody else.

Seriously, what this demonstrates is that MAGA “conservatism” is not a political ideology but a psychological profile. These people are weirdly disinterested in policy except for policy in service to their psychological issues — marginalizing the poor, minorities, and women who are not properly under their control. See The Symbolic Politics of Status in the MAGA Movement by a couple of academic nerds. Really, it all fits — the obsession with immigrants, often coming from people who are first or second generation Americans themselves (like Trump and Miller). The obsession with enforcing a weirdly un-Christian version of Christianity at a time when people are losing interest in organized religion. The disenfranchisement of minorities, the control of women’s bodies, the dismantling of the social safety net to provide more money for the rich. This is coming from people who, deep down, are terrified of a changing and diverse world. All this locker-room talk is false bravado masking their fears.

And maybe that’s what’s going on with fascists wherever they are.

Jill Filipovic:

Many of the participants in this group chat are older than the recent college grads who staffed up DOGE and dismantled the federal government. Many of them are older and certainly in greater positions of power and influence than the random people making rude comments on social media in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder — but when it came to those people, Vance and the broader right argued they should face serious consequences, from losing their jobs to being expelled from school to being refused visas to the US to being deported.

There are two issue here. One is that the MAGA right has a legitimate Nazi problem. The second is that the MAGA right believes there are two standards: The ultra-permissive one that applies to them and their followers within which there are zero consequences for even the worst behavior, and the far stricter one that applies to liberals or any other perceived political opponents. And they’re willing to use the full force of government to punish their opponents and create maximal permissiveness for themselves.

This goes beyond speech. The most obvious and egregious example at the moment might be Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar who was under FBI investigation for accepting a bag filled with $50,000 in cash in what seemed to be a bribery scheme… until Trump came into power and his FBI suddenly dropped the investigation. In the meantime, the administration has pursued mortgage fraud and other trumped-up cases against Democratic leaders, calling in unqualified ideologues who have never tried a single criminal case because the evidence is so thin the normal attorneys at DOJ won’t try to prosecute.

A lot of this is old-fashioned corruption on steroids, of course. But behind that is an assumption of entitlement — we can do this because of who we are. It’s just not okay for other people to do it, because they are less worthy. And we worthy people are afraid of them.

Ted Cruz just introduced legislation targeting the upcoming No Kings protests, which he claims “may well turn into riots” and says are possibly funded by George Soros, the perpetual bogeyman to authoritarian regimes across the globe. Never mind that the Jan. 6 protests claiming the election was stolen from Trump actually did turn into a riot that injured and killed several people, and those who committed acts of serious violence were pardoned by the president and cheered as heroes by his followers. This is not both sides doing the same thing. This is one side acting far more egregiously, and then bringing the full power of the state down on its opponents for doing far less.

A whole lot is riding on the midterms. If the Dems fail to take back Congress next year, the nation as we knew it may effectively be dead.

Boys being boys.

Here’s an attention grabber — Why China Can Collapse the U.S. With One Decree. It’s by David Dayen at The American Prospect, so I’m inclined to take it seriously,

When Donald Trump reacted to China’s export restrictions on rare earth minerals—a group of 17 chemical elements used in almost all electronics—by threatening a new 100 percent tariff on Chinese goods, Wall Street investors who had yawned at most of his erratic announcements for six months finally took notice. It was the same stock-tanking pressure that led Trump to climb down from his Liberation Day tariffs; sure enough, by Sunday, the TACO (Trump always chickens out) vibes started kicking in.

“I have a great relationship with President Xi … he’s a great leader for their country, and I think we’ll get it set,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on the way to Israel. “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!” he exclaimed on Truth Social. Next thing you know he’ll be apologizing in Mandarin like John Cena.

Here’s an explanation of the John Cena reference if you’re like me and didn’t get it.

Holding the president of the United States on a tight leash is certainly a lucrative asset. But investors should probably be more wary of the situation. America has made an unusually directional economic bet that is at this moment totally dependent on Chinese rare earth exports. The circumstances that brought us here long predate Trump and are rooted in decades-long failures to retain our technological know-how and channel it into industrial production. It’s never too late for a wake-up call, but the country is in a terribly vulnerable position where China can snap its fingers and snuff out the only thing propping up our economy.

Our economy is currently being propped up by what’s looking like an AI bubble. “Close to half of the gain in gross domestic product this year will come from data center construction, and around 80 percent of stock market gains are attributable to a handful of AI-heavy tech companies,” Dayan writes. And then he goes on to describe how we got here. This is the accumulation of a lot of business and government decisions going back many decades. But now that business karma is getting ripe we’ve got a perfect moron in charge of our economy to steer us through the crisis.

Paul Krugman has a post up about technology bubbles that’s partly hidden behind a paywall. But here’s another article that explains what Krugman wrote.

In his newsletter on Monday, Krugman said that Trump’s tariff announcements six months ago were “a massive betrayal of the world’s trust,” noting that previous tariff reductions were achieved “through many rounds of international negotiations, in which the U.S. and other nations solemnly agreed not to backtrack.”

Krugman said Trump now appears surprised that other countries are retaliating, referring to China’s new export controls on rare earths, which include several vital inputs for U.S. industry.

Reacting to the administration’s hypocrisy on the matter, Krugman said, “Gosh. Aggressive unilateral trade action is a ‘moral disgrace.’ Who knew?”

Krugman said that there is “one big difference” between the trade strategies of the two countries, and it is that, unlike the U.S., “the Chinese appear to know what they’re doing.”

China has us by the boy parts, thanks to Trump.

See also Robert Reich, Beware the Oligarchs’ Two Bubbles. The two bubbles in this case are AI and crypto. Regarding AI, Reich notes that the big players all seem to be way over-leveraged. They’re tottering on the edge, so to speak.

Frankly, I don’t care which giant corporations or ultra-wealthy investors strike it big and which lose their shirts.

I worry about the economy as a whole, about working families who could lose their jobs and savings. The losses when the AI bubble bursts could ricochet across America.

Trump has put David Sacks, co-founder of an AI company and, of course, a fierce Trump loyalist, in charge of AI and cryptocurrencies. So far, Sacks has killed any restrictions and regulations that might stand in the way of either.

The Trump regime has been opening the doors for trillions of dollars in pension funds to be invested in crypto, AI, venture capital, and private equity. Even 401(k) plans have joined the flood.

There are times when being poor seems almost an advantage. But collectively we are in a terribly precarious place right now. If you have investments you might want to check for vulnerabilities. A bit later, Reich continues,

The flood of money into these two opaque industries — AI and crypto — has propped up the U.S. stock market and, indirectly, the U.S. economy.

AI and crypto have created the illusion that all is well with the economy — even as Trump has taken a wrecking ball to it: raising tariffs everywhere, threatening China with a 100 percent tariff, sending federal troops into American cities, imprisoning or deporting thousands of immigrants, firing thousands of federal workers, and presiding over the closure of the U.S. government.

When the AI and crypto bubbles burst, we’ll likely see the damage Trump’s wrecking ball has done.

I fear millions of average Americans will feel the consequences — losing their savings and jobs.

See also Jared Bernstein and Ryan Cummings in the New York Times, Warning: Our Stock Market Is Looking Like a Bubble. (Gift article.) While they throw in disclaimers about how maybe AI is not a bubble, they go on to say it has all the hallmarks of one.

I just hope the bubbles burst sooner rather than later. At least it could destroy most of what is left of Trump’s support.

All this technology data-center building is also putting huge demands on our water and power resources that I doubt we can afford. Reich says that crypto is basically a Ponzi scheme, and I am inclined to believe him. AI may very well have useful business and other applications, but large parts of it currently are just being used to generate slop turning up on social media. At the very least it’s going to have to be tightly regulated at some point.

On another note, last night Letitia James spoke at a rally for Zohran Mamdani. In any match between James and Trump, I’d put money on James.

Update:

Trump says he’s being called “the greatest president of them all. Does that include Washington and Lincoln? Yes it does.”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM

Of course.

Trump, 79, appears to have forgotten that he was president on Jan 6, 2021

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— J. Emory Parker ???? (@jaspar.bsky.social) October 12, 2025 at 10:35 AM

Trump seems to be struggling with linear time. It’s dementia, I tell you.

A lot has happened the last couple of days. They indicted Letitia James, as expected. See The Justice Department’s Dangerously Weak Case Against Letitia James by Molly Roberts at Lawfare. This is the most detailed explanation of what’s going on with the DoJ and James I’ve seen. The indictment alleges that James violated a mortgage rider on a property she purchased in Virginia. But per Molly Roberts the rider doesn’t appear to apply to her actual mortgage.

See also Kilmar Abrego’s court victory could end Trump’s reign of retaliation by Nick Akerman at The Hill. A Memphis federal district court judge has decided that — in response to Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss for vindictive and selective prosecution — he is entitled to discovery and an evidentiary court hearing. And this could have an impact on Trump’s vindictive cases against Comey, James, and everyone else on his list he hasn’t gotten to yet.

Then after days of threatening the wholesale firing of federal employees in response to the shutdown — which never made any sense, but whatever — the Regime really truly started laying people off. No fooling this time. There was a mass firing of CDC employees. And then this morning the headlines are telling us that a lot of the people just fired have been re-hired already. Just like like last spring, when Elon Musk and his Lost Boys were merrily decimating government agencies they knew nothing about. Oh, you mean those people we fired actually did essential things? Who knew?

A few days ago the White House was saying that federal workers wouldn’t get back pay for days they didn’t work during the shutdown. That went over so badly even Republicans in Congress spoke out against it. So if they do fire people and claim “Democrats are making us do this,” will that work any better? Especially when it looks just like what they did very openly last spring, when there was no shutdown? The Regime is now saying a lot of workers got the “you’re fired” email by mistake, because of a “coding error.” It still looks like incompetence.

And I take it that Trump realized not paying the troops was not working for them, and Trump called for paying the troops. But Mike Johnson still isn’t calling the House back, to protect Trump from release of the Epstein files.

On to the military occupation of Portland and Chicago. Here’s the latest from war-ravaged Portland:

Oh, the humanity.

In Chicago, about three days ago a federal judge put a temporary restraining order on bringing troops into Illinois. Then yesterday a federal appeals court said the Trump administration cannot deploy the National Guard in Illinois. The administration can federalize the Guard, and the Guard already in Illinois don’t have to go home. But they cannot be deployed. So what did those Texas Guard troops do in Chicago today? AI tells me the U.S. Northern Command confirmed they are “conducting planning and training” but not operations. Your tax dollars not at work.

In repones to all this, Trump says he is “considering” invoking the Insurrection Act.” Courts could block that also, I understand.

Remember this famous photo of George W. Bush being told about the September 11 attacks? And let us not forget that Bush spent most of the rest of that day flying in circles in Air Force One while arguing on the phone with a bunkered Dick Cheney about coming back to D.C.

So get this image of Trump being told there was agreement to part of his cease-fire deal in Gaza. This was taken during some Oval Office event where there were press with cameras present. Was this staged, or what?

I understand the Nobel Peace Prize winner for 2025 is supposed to be announced tomorrow. Let’s hope the committee has better judgment than to give it to Trump.

As ever, when trying to understand anything regarding Israel and the region thereabouts, I turn to Juan Cole. He’s hopeful that at least there may be a cease fire and aid can reach the people of Gaza. But beyond that he doesn’t appear to expect much.

The Trump peace plan has resulted in an agreement between Hamas and Israel to pause fighting and exchange prisoners. Other points in the plan, including an Israeli troop withdrawal and the laying down of arms by Hamas, appear still to be being negotiated, which is to say that we are hardly out of the woods. The Israeli government agreed to a phased withdrawal from the entire West Bank in 1993, and over 30 years later Israeli cabinet members are talking about simply annexing the entire territory and expelling its indigenous Palestinians.

And let us not forget that Hamas and Israel agreed to a hostage exchange and cease fire deal nine bleeping months ago, while Joe Biden was still president. In brief, Israel broke the deal.

According to PBS, the event in which the staged photo was taken was a roundtable on Antifa. Seriously. See Holly Baxter at the Independent (UK), Trump just hosted an ‘Antifa roundtable’ at the White House … it was so much worse than you’re imagining.

Around noon, a press release appeared on the official White House website, quoting numerous anonymous Portland residents, including a “man,” a “woman,” and a “business owner,” all of whom absolutely want the National Guard to storm their city. “I kind of support it 110%” is an actual quote.

But that was just the appetizer. At 3 p.m., the televised meeting began. And boy, was there a lot of meat.

Held at the table of “independent journalists” (far-right activists) and moderated by Donald Trump, it opened with a statement by the president that “paid anarchists” want to “destroy our country,” followed by bizarre, conspiracy-laden claims that anti-Trump protesters have signs made of expensive paper “with beautiful wooden handles” that therefore must have been printed in the basements of secretive organizations, and that “we have a lot of records already, a lot of surprises, a lot of bad surprises” in store for the people who align themselves with anti-fascism.

And by the way, he noted, “we got rid of free speech” because flag-burning is bad.

Do read the whole thing. It’s hysterical. They’re seriously pretending that Antifa is a real organization. Note:

Not to be outdone, in came Jack Posobiec, one of the right’s weirdest hangers-on, who is perhaps most famous for the time he spread the “Pizzagate” theory and then got removed from the pizzeria in question by police for filming a child’s birthday party. Running with the major theme of the hour — that Antifa is definitely, certainly, really real despite all evidence to the contrary, and that everybody needs to stop saying it’s not real — Posobiec made a startling claim: Antifa is so clearly real that it “has been going on for almost 100 years … going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany.”

Um, people protesting the rise of the Nazis were the bad guys? But yeah, some time in this mess with the right-wing media goons all around, Marco Rubio trotted in and fake informed Trump that part of his cease fire plan had been accepted.

Yes, the Trump Administration is best understood as the biggest and most badass reality teevee show ever! Because it ain’t a government in any normal sense of the word.

Speaking of not governing, check out some of these headline news stories about the ongoing shutdown:

Axios: Mike Johnson faces growing internal revolt over shutdown

CNN: ‘Everyone’s just getting destroyed’: MTG calls on Johnson to bring House back to DC and rails on GOP handling of health care If you read this one, you’ll see that MTG’s own message is pretty inconsistent also. She hates the ACA and thinks the subsidies are just driving up the deficit but wants the subsidies to be restored because otherwise everybody’s health care costs are going to go up.

And at The Hill, see my rep Mike Lawler get into a screaming match with Hakeem Jeffries. Great television, as Trump might say.

And speaking of overreach, here’s a bit of overreach that’s been underreported (TPM).

A grand jury Tuesday night declined to indict two protesters in the Chicago area accused of assaulting law enforcement, the latest in a shocking string of failures by the Trump Department of Justice. 

Securing grand jury indictments is usually nearly automatic; only the prosecutors get to present evidence, and the bar is much lower for indicting someone than proving their guilt. But the Trump administration, in its eagerness to crack down on protesters resistant to its brutality, has now been rebuffed by grand juries in Illinois, Washington D.C. and California. 

The official ICE account had crowed about the Chicago-area protesters’ arrests online, promising that they’d be “held accountable” and that “we will not be deterred.” 

You can read more about it at Bloomberg Law.

At the Bulwark, Jonathan Last referred to the situation in Chicago as the “Chicago Rubicon.”

I don’t like sending out “emergency” newsletters, but I’ve had my eye on the situation in Chicago all day and tonight Texas National Guard troops arrived on Illinois soil, in defiance of the wishes of the Illinois governor and the Illinois National Guard’s adjutant general.

This moment has elevated the crisis so that it is no longer just a conflict between the federal government and a state, but between two states. We now have armed soldiers from the state of Texas eagerly volunteered by their governor to impose the president’s will on the citizens of Illinois.

I don’t want to be alarmist, but this is an emergency. It is incumbent on us to name the thing we are seeing and be unflinching as we describe it.

Do read the whole Bulwark post, because it describes how the people of Chicago have been assaulted and terrorized by ICE and Customs and Border agents.  And I say “terrorized” is the correct word. At this point these federal agents are nothing but state-sponsored terrorists pursing a political agenda. DHS has released a statement “debunking” what they call “Governor Pritzker’s Lies” — i.e., events widely reported by many eyewitnesses and news media. But DHS is just making claims with no proof. All those terrified children who were zip tied and taken from their parents were Tren de Aragua, apparently. And something blatantly unconstitutional doesn’t become okay on Kristi Gnome’s say so.

We also might ask that if all this federalization of Guard is about some “migrant crisis,” how much sense does it make to send Texas Guard to Illinois? I thought the border was in Texas?

And Trump called for Governor Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Johnson to be jailed. For what? Presidents aren’t supposed to say things like that, you know. Trump just can’t tolerate disagreement. The closest thing I could find to a previous president actually prosecuting political enemies was when the Wilson Administration prosecuted Eugene Debs for making an anti-war speech in 1918. Debs had been a candidate for president on the Socialist Party of America ticket, although not in 2016.

But then there’s the shutdown. The most positive thing I’ve read today is The Shutdown, Zombie Politics and How Trump Stumbled Into Not Being All-Powerful by Josh Marshall. He says the Democrats are “winning” the shutdown, as much as one can say a shutdown is “won.”

But the clearest sign is on the core issue on which Democrats are making their fight: health care. As Jon Cohn notes, Democrats are winning this part of the fight hands down. The most eye-popping sign of that is that even Marjorie Taylor Greene has now endorsed their position on Obamacare subsidies. And it’s not just that. Republicans seem to have essentially no position on the merits of the health care question other than yelling about the shutdown itself. The extension of Obamacare subsidies extension is so popular that Trump himself has now twice gone off the handle and said he wants to cut a deal extending them or providing more health care coverage only to be reined in by White House staff or congressional Republicans.

The Trump Administration has been threatening for days to just fire a lot of federal employees. But they haven’t. And then there were headlines about how the White House had decided that furloughed employees weren’t entitled to back pay. And I’m thinking, does the White House believe this helps their side of the argument? On what planet?

At MSNBC, Hayes Brown points out that the terrible things the White House is blaming on Democrats are terrible things that Republicans have long wanted to do. Like shrink the workforce or let food aid run out. See also Paul Waldman, Trump Is Not Very Good at This.

I assume you say some of the video clips of Pam Bondi testifying to the Senate yesterday. Clearly, Bondi is sunk in lies and corruption up to her mascara. See Steve Benen for some highlights. See also this video for a review of all the questions Bondi refused to answer.

“This is supposed to be an oversight hearing” — Schiff helpfully ticks through all of the incriminating questions — and there are many of them — that Bondi refused to answer during today’s hearing

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 7, 2025 at 1:29 PM

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the current legal restrictions on federalizing National Guard. It’s confusing. Beginning with the first Militia Acts in 1792, presidents required permission of a state governor or legislature to federalize the state militias “in times of invasion.” Also,

…  in case of an insurrection in any state, against the government thereof, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, on application of the legislature of such state, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) to call forth such number of the militia of any other state or states, as may be applied for, or as he may judge sufficient to suppress such insurrection.

The first actual federalizing of state militias was to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, in 1794.  The militias were officially organized into the National Guard in 1916, but there have been a lot of additions to federal code about the Guard since then.

Fortunately I found a handy-dandy guide that cleared a lot of things up for me. Clip and save this for future reference.

Presidents can use Guard without a governor’s consent in cases of insurrection or if federal law enforcement is being obstructed. This requires applying the Insurrection Act Presidents can also use 10 U.S. Code § 12406. But that code says

… the President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws. Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States or, in the case of the District of Columbia, through the commanding general of the National Guard of the District of Columbia.

So the President can’t cut governors out of the loop with the 10 U.S Code thing. Governors can use Guard without being limited by Posse Comitatus, so if a governor is the one issuing the orders it’s kind of a work-around to Posse Comitatus under limited circumstances,

But it’s pretty clear that under current federal code, a President can’t just federalize Guard and send them anywhere to enforce laws or put down a domestic disturbance without the permissions of governors and/or applying the Insurrection Act. There’s no question Trump has not been following the law.

As I wrote yesterday, Trump was blocked by a federal judge from ordering Oregon Guard into Portland to put down imaginary riots. So yesterday Trump ordered California and Texas Guard to Portland to put down the imaginary riots. And the governors of Oregon and California were not consulted and do not approve. (I haven’t heard from Texas.) Last night the same judge blocked Trump from deploying anybody’s Guard in Oregon, period.

Steve Benen has a good run-down of the mess, here. Some of the California Guard are in Portland, and they’ve surely heard that a judge said they aren’t supposed to be there. Needless to say, this isn’t fair to the Guard, or to Portland. The Guard should just hang out in coffeeshops until they get a ride home.

The other issue is whether Trump really believes that Portland is under siege and burning down, or if he’s just claiming it is because he wants to start trouble. If it’s the former, it’s a serious sign of dementia. If it’s the latter, that’s not good either, of course.

In other news — the Supreme Court refused to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. Now Trump will have to do it.

Update: Robert Reich, The Mad King’s Television

This was yesterday:

On Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut in Portland temporarily blocked the Pentagon from sending 200 Oregon National Guard members to protect an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland from protests.

She rejected the Pentagon’s claims that Portland faced a “danger of rebellion,” and said “the president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” a week after Trump told military leaders that he planned to punish “dangerous” cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York by using them as military training grounds to combat “a war within.”

Note that Judge Immergut is a Trump appointee. The DoJ went through some maneuvers to get her to hear the Pentagon’s suit. So Trump didn’t deploy the Oregon Guard. He deployed the California Guard. Without Governor Newsom’s permission.

President Donald Trump sent 300 California National Guard troops to Oregon on Sunday, defying a court order blocking him from deploying Oregon’s own National Guard to patrol Portland in an ongoing White House campaign targeting Democratic cities.

Governor Newsom isn’t happy. He issued this statement:

In response to a federal court order that blocked his attempt to federalize the Oregon National Guard, President Trump is deploying 300 California National Guard personnel into Oregon. They are on their way there now. This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power. The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words — ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents.

This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power. The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens. We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States.

Needless to say, this is nuts. If Trump genuinely believes that “Antifa” has Portland under siege, that’s nuts. If he knows better and just to exercise power over a Blue city, that’s also nuts, and reckless, and illegal.

More tomorrow. See also Welcome to Portland, Where Trump’s Fever Dream Is America’s New Nightmare by Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone.