FBI Director Kash Patel

Subscribe now

President Trump's budget request to Congress contains the largest counterterrorism spending increase in years — and buried inside it is a new FBI-led center dedicated to “proactively” hunting Americans the government classifies as so-called domestic terrorists.

The new center and funding boost represent the implementation of Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), the sweeping federal order I’ve been covering since it was signed last September.

Though public opposition to ICE succeeded at forcing the administration to back down in Minnesota — even firing both Kristi Noem and Gregory Bovino — the FBI is doubling down its domestic terrorism obsession.

Now, Trump’s budget request reveals, the FBI runs a dedicated “NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center”; with personnel from 10 federal agencies, it is busy “proactively” identifying domestic terrorists motivated by any of the following beliefs:

“anti-Americanism,”

“anti-capitalism,”

“anti-Christianity,”

“support for the overthrow of the U.S. Government,”

“extremism on migration,”

extremism on “race,”

extremism on “gender,”

“Hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,”

Hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on “religion,” and

Hostility towards those who hold traditional views on “morality.”

Graphic depicting FBI budget request

In other words, if your political views are practically anything other than MAGA, you’re on notice, courtesy of the FBI.

The new center combats these supposed threats “by integrating intelligence, operational support, and financial analysis,” the budget request says.

Its creation appears to be inspired by the murder of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk — an event that reportedly precipitated the formulation of NSPM-7 in the first place — according to the budget request, which alludes to “heinous assassinations” having “dramatically increased.”

The budget request also singles out social media as some kind of breeding ground for domestic terrorism, saying:

“Domestic terrorists exploit a variety of popular social media platforms, smaller websites with targeted audiences, and encrypted chat applications. They use these platforms to recruit new adherents, plan and rally support for in-person actions, and disseminate materials encouraging radicalization and mobilization to violence.”

Good thing millions of law-abiding Americans don’t use those!

In his testimony to Congress, FBI Director Kash Patel said that he would investigate every single person on the Discord channels used by accused killer Tyler Robinson. But leaked screenshots of those same Discord chats that I obtained, as well as interviews I conducted with its participants, made clear that these chats were about gaming, not politics.

This was far from Patel’s only overreach. Shortly after Kirk’s death, he announced the Bureau was investigating “the possibility of accomplices,” vowing to run down all “theories and questions” about outside involvement — including a possible foreign nexus.

Patel would later conclude that there was no evidence for any of it, but by then, baseless theories about an Israeli government role in Kirk’s death had proliferated across social media. Joe Kent, Trump’s National Counterterrorism Center director until his resignation last month, reportedly tried to investigate these claims while in government, and has since echoed them publicly.

Maybe these guys should’ve taken their own advice about the perils of social media.

It’s hard to overstate how much the FBI is focusing of domestic terrorism under Patel and the Trump administration. Yet the media have barely covered NSPM-7, let alone the FBI shift.

Shortly after Kirk’s death, FBI Director Kash Patel testified to Congress that he was overseeing a 300 percent increase in domestic terrorism investigations.

And in the first months of the administration, the FBI replaced the 9/11-inspired Terrorist Screening Center with the “Threat Screening Center.” As I reported at the time, the new mission broadened the scope to include “all national security threats,” which ostensibly was expanded to accommodate increased focus on transnational criminal organizations. Now the threat screening center oversees multiple terrorist watchlists that separate international terrorists, transnational criminals, and purely domestic “threats.”

Then there’s the fact that the FBI’s domestic terrorism watchlist is growing, as I reported last year.

Again, all of these developments have yielded virtually zero media attention.

The public might have won the battle of Minneapolis, but the White House hasn’t given up on its domestic terrorism fixation, even after virtually every official has walked back claims that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were “domestic terrorists.”

Subscribe if you’re wondering what “extremism on migration” even means

Leave a comment

Share

— Edited by William M. Arkin

From Ken Klippenstein via this RSS feed

13th Marine Expeditionary Unit

Subscribe now

If you watch or read the media, you would think that a “ground invasion” of Iran is “imminent” — either to land on Kharg Island, a five-mile speck that processes 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports, or to take some coastal strip adjacent to the Strait of Hormuz.

It is not imminent and not even inevitable.

Military sources tell me that for weeks, the Pentagon has exaggerated the readiness and potency of the Marines, setting in motion a media frenzy that is part stupidity, part disinformation to spook Tehran, and part manipulation to please Donald Trump.

“We got two Marine expeditionary units sailing to this island [Kharg],” Sen. Lindsey Graham told Fox News Sunday. “We did Iwo Jima. We can do this.”

Sounds scary, right? Here’s the reality.

On March 13, headlines blared that the “three-ship” USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, carrying the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, was ordered from Japan to the Middle East. Over the next week, news outlets across the globe literally tracked the supposed 2,200 Marines making their way moving west through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean.

In actuality, one of the three ships, the USS San Diego, never left Japan and is still there. And the other two ships, carrying just 1,500 fighters, are sitting at Diego Garcia, roughly 4,260 kilometers from Iran’s coastline.

And that second Marine Expeditionary Unit? Contrary to some reporting that said that the USS Boxer Group left Hawaii on March 19, it departed San Diego. It will have to cover approximately 22,200 kilometers to reach the region and wouldn’t be able to arrive until mid-April at the earliest. Navy sources in San Diego say it is still unclear to the unit itself whether it is headed for the Gulf or just moving to the Pacific to cover the departing Tripoli group.

Not exactly imminent!

And yet here’s NPR, implying an ominous military buildup:

“Between 2,000 and 3,000 U.S. Army paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division have received written orders to deploy to the Middle East … The deployment, combined with two Marine Expeditionary Units already moving toward the Persian Gulf, could bring 6,000 to 8,000 U.S. ground troops into close proximity to Iran.”

CBS went even further, linking the 82nd Airborne explicitly to the “Iran war.”

CBS headline

The 82nd is just a light infantry battalion. The idea that we’re going to parachute the 82nd for a ground invasion is absurd. We didn’t even do that at the height of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, when a good part of the entire U.S. Army was poised to strike Saddam. (And the 82nd made a near-identical movement in January 2020 after the assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani.)

The 82nd has a quick reaction brigade to serve exactly as a “ready unit” to quickly deploy anywhere in the world, but CENTCOM sources tell me that with the majority of the brigade is in training in Louisiana and the battalion ‘on its way’ is going to perform a force protection role in the interim, waiting for you know who to decide to do something stupid.

Then there’s the “increase” in U.S. forces constantly being referred to, as if ground troops are building up in the Gulf or more and more aircraft are constantly flowing. But the truth is that almost all of what has augmented the forward deployed forces are maintenance, ordnance, and logistics to sustain a bombing campaign that started as a quick strike and is now extended to a weeks-long campaign for who knows how long.

That augmentation, if you believe the news media, includes a “Third Aircraft Carrier” on its way. “Third US aircraft carrier heads to region as Trump signals long war with Iran and demand for surrender,” YNet news reports.

There is a third carrier that is potentially ready, the USS George H.W. Bush, which could go to the Gulf, especially to relieve the exhausted USS Abraham Lincoln, which is well overdue for rotation, but it is sitting in Virginia, with a liberal leave policy over Easter Week.

And even a second carrier? The USS Gerald Ford — the carrier that’s been bombing Iran from the Mediterranean Sea, has been in port at Souda Bay on Crete in Greece this week, not for combat operations but because it suffered a significant non-combat fire that originated in the ship’s laundry spaces. The blaze rendered more than 100 berthing spaces unusable and displaced several hundred sailors. The Ford isn’t projecting power toward Iran; it’s getting its laundry room repaired.

If you squint, an invasion seems inevitable. But look closer at the actual state of each force being cited, and a very different picture emerges. How is it possible, for instance, that every news organization from the New York Times on down, can report three ships leaving Japan with the Tripoli group when there were only two? Secrecy. Sloppiness. Sops.

With Trump in charge, one never knows. But even if there were a ground operation against Kharg Island, it would most likely involve Army Rangers and special operations forces, Green Berets and Navy SEALs — not some conventional ground assault à la Normandy. The idea of the U.S. Marines storming the beaches while the 82nd Airborne drops on parachutes from above is a cable news fever dream.

This frenzy echoes the panic after Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro was arrested in January, when breathless coverage of military movements convinced many that a conventional U.S. intervention was hours away. It wasn’t.

The panic has even reached active-duty service members, several of whom have contacted me worried they were heading into ground combat.

It also reminds me of another media freakout Iran’s mining of the strait of Hormuz, giving the impression that Tehran had mined the entire passage. It later became clear that Iran either hadn’t mined anything at all or had only planted a few as a signal.

Which is what all of this is about, signaling to Iran. From the beginning of the bombing, signaling that the U.S. is serious this time, that the enemy will be given no quarter, etc. Then came the Marine and then the 82nd Airborne, and a third aircraft carrier, and threats of hell and damnation coming from the mouths of Trump and Hegseth.

It’s the White House’s prerogative to scare the shit out of the Iranian government. But does the media need to do that to the public?

Subscribe if you’re sick of scaremongering disguised as news

Leave a comment

Share

— Edited by William M. Arkin

From Ken Klippenstein via this RSS feed

Senator Lindsey Graham discussing the Iran war

I’ll be covering the Iran war extensively, subscribe so you don’t miss any updates

The White House refuses to call its war in Iran a war, instead labeling it “major combat operations” — a maneuver to keep Congress out of the picture. And believe it or not, Congress is going along with it.

Setting aside the absurdity of the question of if killing a head of state is an act of war, there’s a deadly serious question here: what even is war anymore? Does last month’s killing of a Mexican cartel leader like El Mencho count? Or how about the kidnapping of Venezuelan ruler Nicolas Maduro the month before? The U.S. has gotten extremely decapitation operations like these, as I’ve written; so good that it’s going to become a standard instrument of statecraft very soon. It’s a more important time than ever to decide what counts as war and who gets to wage it.

Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie, to their credit, have introduced a war powers resolution designed to reassert the constitutional authority of Congress over a declaration of war. But despite the profound evolution of warfare in the past decade alone, much of the rest of Congress seems little interested in updating the definition.

"I don't know if this is technically a war,” Senator Lindsay Graham said of the un-war in Iran on Meet the Press on Sunday.

Graham, it turns out, was repeating White House talking points circulated to Republican members of Congress instructing them to push back on the question, “Is the U.S. at war with Iran?” by instead calling it “major combat operations against Iran…”

White House talking points circulated to Congress (red lines added for emphasis)

The messaging strategy devolved into farce today when Senator Markwayne Mullen insisted, “We haven’t declared war,” shortly after saying, “This is war.”

“I misspoke,” Mullen said when a reporter pointed out the contradiction.

But it is not just Trump loyalists who are playing word games. Democrats also have a hard time calling this what it is, with the party’s top officials using terms like “Military attack,” “military operation,” “military assault,” and the like.

Sen. Chuck Schumer says the strikes are “risking wider conflict”; Rep. Hakeem Jeffries says the operation has “brought us to the brink of a possible war.” Comments like these imply we aren’t already at war.

“Donald Trump has launched a large-scale military operation against Iran,” Mark Kelly of Arizona also flubs, he a retired Navy Captain who is otherwise willing to go to war with Hegseth to protect his honor.

So the question remains: What even is war in 2026? It’s a vital question that needs to be resolved.

First, it needs to be resolved because the public has been completely cut out of any involvement in the debate. It has been sold a bill of goods over the past decade that has conditioned them to think that ground armies (e.g. “boots on the ground”) and tanks slogging their way forward a la World War II is the only thing that qualifies as war. Thus today everyday war — what my editor calls ‘perpetual war’—persists without interference. The steady state remains untouched and is always there making the “decision” to go to war moot. Syria, Yemen, Somalia and more, mostly it just happens and few even notice.

Second, we need to make the 1973 War Powers Resolution more relevant to today. From Bill Clinton to Trump, successive presidents have used a variety of euphemisms – “air campaign,” “combat operations,” “kinetic military action,” “overseas combat operations,” “operations other than war,” “discrete strikes”—to avoid Congressional control over their use of the US military.

There are the very few members of Congress who have boldly labeled the Iran war a war, but their arguments also need to be updated for today’s decapitation realities and the nature of the majority of American conflicts.

“Gambling with American lives,” Bernie warns, an admonition that is questionable in an airpower-only conflict. The war will result in “increased instability in an already dangerous world,” Sanders adds. Wars of this sort that rely on air power just don’t pose as much risk to American service members as wars of the past. That isn’t an argument for the war, but for honesty about why this style of war has become so attractive to the decision makers.

Bernie finishes with his signature appeal:

“The people of our country, no matter what their political persuasion, do not want endless war. They want decent-paying jobs, and health care and housing that they can afford. They want their kids to have an excellent education.”

We’ll never get to the country Bernie imagines—one that invests in its people instead of its wars—if we don’t tackle the war machine itself. Not when the bombs start falling, but every day.

Because, again, something has fundamentally changed. The U.S. can now remove heads of state with terrifying ease, involving minimal troops, minimal risk, and minimal public awareness. That capability isn’t going away—it’s going to become routine. And a Congress that can’t even bring itself to call a war a war has no chance of governing the quieter, permanent killing that defines American power now.

The War Powers Resolution was written for a world where war had a beginning. We don’t live in that world anymore.

Subscribe if you know war when you see it

Leave a comment

Share

— Edited by William M. Arkin

From Ken Klippenstein via this RSS feed

Friends,

Trump and Netanyahu’s attack on Iran is premised on a gossamer web of assumptions and inferences.

Trump says Iran has enough nuclear material to build a bomb within days, will soon have long-range missiles capable of hitting the United States, and plans an attack. But he has offered no evidence. Most experts say he’s wrong.

Here’s the real reason for this war. Trump wants it to divert Americans’ attention from everything that’s gone to shit on his watch: the economy, ICE’s cruel raids and murders, the crisis in public health as exemplified by the measles epidemic, our loss of friends and allies around the world, his boundless corruption, and his increasing unpopularity as shown in plummeting polls.

Oh, and there are the Epstein files, rapidly closing in on the man whose history of sexual assaults and braggadocio make his complicity highly likely.

Benjamin Netanyahu is also using this war as a giant diversion. He doesn’t want the world to dwell on the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.

As former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wrote recently, “A violent and criminal effort is underway to ethnically cleanse territories in the West Bank. Gangs of armed settlers persecute, harm, wound and even kill Palestinians living there.”

Like Trump, Netanyahu has been trampling constitutional rights — seeking a judicial coup to eliminate the separation of powers, purging Israel’s independent attorney general of his powers, trying to dismiss his own corruption trial, and politicizing appointments to what had been a neutral civil service.

Trump and Netanyahu are using the same authoritarian playbook.

A big part of that playbook is war. War takes over the news. War blots out criticism. War divides a nation’s people, subjecting those against it to being called unpatriotic. War grants leaders all sorts of emergency powers. War consumes everything else.

We mustn’t let this war do so.

I finally watched a tape of Trump’s State of the Union address (I couldn’t bring myself to watch it at the time). It was even more horrendous than I’d imagined.

What stood out for me was all the important problems Trump didn’t mention, as if they didn’t exist. Climate change. Widening inequality. Monopolies driving up prices. Declining real incomes. The growing scourges of poverty — homelessness, hunger, disease, and violence — in America and around the world. Unregulated AI.

If and when he ever mentions them, he calls them “hoaxes.”

Instead, he’s worsened all of them — helping fossil fuels while killing off wind and solar, eviscerating antitrust enforcement and letting monopolies consume entire industries, giving the rich more tax cuts while cutting back Medicaid and food stamps, destroying USAID and discouraging lifesaving vaccines while letting measles run rampant.

And he’s trying to divert attention to fake problems — non-Americans voting in elections (they don’t), Greenland and Venezuela (they pose no threat), “disloyal” Americans who criticize him or judges who try to hold him accountable (thank goodness they’re still trying).

And now, the biggest diversion of all: full-scale war in the Middle East.

Hopefully, the casualties will be limited. Hopefully, Americans will see through this. Hopefully, this will strengthen the resistance to Trump. Hopefully, it will lead to an even greater landslide victory for Democrats and independents in the midterm elections — if Trump allows midterm elections.

Please remain hopeful. Don’t give in to war fever. Stay strong. Be safe. Hug your loved ones.

Share

From Robert Reich via this RSS feed

Subscribe now

Nobody knows if we’re going to war with Iran, including Donald Trump, but the frenzied media coverage leaves the impression it’s already been decided.

The message of the coverage is clear: It doesn’t really matter what the public thinks; it has no role to play in the decision; and it is too ignorant to understand the issue anyway.

The public unfortunately seems to be going along with this story, which is particularly tragic given the triumph of activism we’ve observed of late in both ICE and Epstein. Again, no decision has yet been made about Iran!

It’s worth considering who benefits from this false impression of an inevitable march to war. First, there’s Donald Trump, who gets to be cast as the author of reality. Then there’s the military, whose much-reported “preparations” serve as a TV commercial for the only real inevitability here: their request for billions more in tax dollars. The media gets its views and its clicks by scaring shit out of everyone. The expert class gets to weigh in and sound sober and authoritative while basically saying nothing. And Congress gets to act out their own theater of authority, hemming and hawing about abstract questions of policies, procedure and legality—but never the basic question of whether this is good or bad, smart or stupid.

Even the Iranian regime benefits because they are allowed to increase control and repression in the face of “war.” But the public, of Iran or America? Not so much.

The barrage of media coverage says almost nothing about what has actually happened. Practically every headline is peppered with qualifiers like “potential” and “possible.” Yesterday, the New York Times reported that Trump “considers” a second, later strike, should the first potential strike he is also considering does not achieve its desired effect.

Some recent illustrations of the absurdity of this news cycle:

MSNBC host Ana Cabrera warns that “a potential escalation with Iran could be imminent.”

A CBS headline blares: “Trump striking Iran ‘is certainly a possibility.”’ [HOW CAN A POSSIBILITY BE CERTAIN!?]

Wolf Blitzer of CNN this morning asking, “Are we seeing signs of the United States potentially shielding its personnel from potential Iranian attacks?” His guest, some retired Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton, replied: “Usually when things like embassy evacuations occur, that means that action is imminent—or at least a very high possibility.”

I could go on and on with countless more examples of news stories that say nothing. But the benefit of the wall-to-wall coverage is clear. I took a look at CNN’s YouTube page and realized that its own Iran segment—“Trump prepared to strike Iran by this weekend”—has its second highest view count, racking up nearly 700,000 views. (Segments before and after don’t even crack 100k, to give you a sense of how much of a home run that is for CNN’s YouTube channel.)

Yes, the military is preparing, because, well, that’s what the military does. This isn’t the first time it’s had two aircraft carriers in the region (not even the first time in the past year). To say that this is the “biggest” deployment since the 2003 invasion of Iraq is itself questionable (because we don’t have any numbers of other steady state and crisis deployments) and irrelevant. Donald Trump could direct the attack of Iran with a pea-shooter if that’s all he had at his disposal, given how much of a wildcard he is.

“Are we going to war with Iran?” is the wrong question. Most important because I’d say we’re already “at war” with Iran, and that war has already escalated.

In the past year alone, we’ve seen:

Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 22, 2025 strike on Iranian nuclear facilities involving seven B-2 bombers and dozens of Tomahawk missiles;

Operation Rising Lion, the June 2025 attacks by the Israelis;

US strikes in Yemen, Syria and Iraq to do damage to Iranian “networks;”

Ongoing cyber attacks on Iranian government network capabilities;

The initiation of new covert (and special) operations to prepare for potential strikes;

Ongoing cover operation to facilitate and aid “regime change,” including the covert shipment of Starlink terminals into Iran to facilitate protests and organizing; and

Restoration of “maximum pressure” sanctions against Iran.

US forces have been building up since December, predating the Iranian crackdown on protesters. And since then, the following regional countries have announced that they will not permit American aircraft to use their airspace for offensive strikes: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and Turkey. So whatever decision is made, any strike would have to heavily rely on ships, and would therefore face significant limits.

Again, no decision has been made!

In any case, war with Iran is already here. No one wants to acknowledge that because the “World War III” framing benefits the parties I mentioned earlier: Trump, the military, the media, and so on.

Everybody wins. Well, except us, the public.

Never mind that poll after poll finds majority opposition to U.S. military action against Iran (even more than the majority opposed to ICE’s conduct in Minneapolis). None of this matters to Washington because they’re oblivious to the existence of anybody but themselves.

And as for the leaks in the New York Times and elsewhere describing how military action might unfold (i.e. demonstration strikes, attacks on nuclear targets, Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure, its domestic security apparatus, or even regime change), even if all of these things happen, as the Midnight Hammer strikes showed, it will not resolve the issue. There is no operatic finish, no decisive end, to this style of endless war that the national security state can pretty much carry out wherever and whenever, while we foot bill.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step, as the saying goes; but that’s hard to do when the media constantly misdiagnoses it. The coverage lately reminds me of John Madden, the late football commentator infamous for his banal remarks.

We are indeed being gamed, right off the field and into the stands where only cheering can be heard.

There’s a distinct possibility of potential future stories that I’m considering doing - subscribe to get them (if indeed they come to pass)

Leave a comment

Share

— Edited by William M. Arkin

From Ken Klippenstein via this RSS feed

My swearing-in, January 1993

Friends,

The New York Times reports that Department of Homeland Security has sent Google (owner of YouTube), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and other media corporations subpoenas for the names on accounts that criticize ICE enforcement. The Department wants to identify Americans who oppose what it’s doing.

I’ll save them time.

***

Hello? Kristi Noem?

Robert Reich, here. I hear you’re trying to find the names of people who are making negative comments on social media about ICE enforcement.

Look no further. I’ve done it frequently. I’m still doing it. This note to you, which I’m posting on Substack, is another example.

If you want more details, just type “Robert Reich” onto an internet browser, followed by YouTube or Facebook or Instagram or X or TikTok or Reddit. Then type in your name, or ICE, or the Department of Homeland Security. That will give you plenty of evidence.

If you read what I’ve said, you’ll find it’s very critical. I’ve done some videos that are very critical of you and ICE, too.

Let me not mince words: I really truly believe you’re doing a sh*tty job.

I’ve said and will continue to say that many of the things you and ICE are doing are unconstitutional.

For example: Pulling people out of their homes in the middle of the night without search warrants. Arresting people without giving them due process of law to defend themselves. Putting innocent people into detention camps. Not giving them adequate food or medical care. Not letting their families know where they are. Sending them out of the country to brutal prisons in other lands. Even jailing children. Arresting journalists reporting on protests against you. And murdering two innocent Americans and not allowing a full criminal investigation of those murders.

All this forbidden by the Constitution of the United States, Madam Secretary. The federal courts keep telling you this but you and your department keep defying the courts. This is unconstitutional, too.

You’re even violating the constitution by sending administrative subpoenas to Google, Meta, and all the rest, seeking accounts like mine that criticize what you’re doing.

I have a right under the First Amendment to criticize you without fear of the consequences.

It’s my government, Madam Secretary. You see the possessive pronoun I’m using? My government. It’s your government because you’re a citizen of the United States, not because you’re a government official.

You and your boss are supposed to be working for me and every other American. You swore an oath. The people of the United States hired the two of you to do your jobs, which doesn’t including spying on us or jailing us or trying to intimidate us or murdering us.

I was once a cabinet officer like you are, Madam Secretary. I had a big office like you do. I had a big staff, like you do. Taxpayers paid for all of it, as they do for everything you’re up to — except when Congress stops the funding, as they have now, because you’re doing so many despicable things.

When I was in the cabinet, Madam Secretary, I was acutely aware of my responsibilities to the Constitution of the United States. I told myself every day that I had sworn an oath to uphold it. I worked very hard every day to fulfill that responsibility.

I’m not boasting or bragging. I merely did my duty.

I visited communities where my department’s inspectors were attempting to keep people safe, to make sure they were doing what they were supposed to be doing.

I did what federal judges told me to do.

I invited criticism of me and my department. That was an important way to get feedback on what we were doing, to learn if we were making mistakes, to improve the way we served the public. Feedback is very useful in a democracy. You might even say it’s essential to democracy.

What the hell are you doing, Madam Secretary?

Robert Reich

Kristi Noem’s swearing-in, January 2025

From Robert Reich via this RSS feed

Friends,

I try to ignore Trump’s posts because every one of them is filled with his noxious bloviation.

But sometimes he posts are so revolting that I can’t just let them pass. The loathsome sociopath in the Oval Office has to be held accountable.

So it was late last night — which happened to be the fifth day of Black History Month — when at exactly 11:44 pm Trump posted a video that included a depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys.

Now, we all know Trump is a loathsome human being. His insults have become an odious staple of his presidency. You may remember his AI-generated video of himself as a fighter pilot dumping excrement on No Kings Day protesters. Or his AI-generated video of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries as mariachi performers.

This morning, White House press secretary hurried into the White House press room with her usual pooper-scooper to clean up the mess from last night’s racist post, calling it nothing but “an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” and adding, for good measure: “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”

Well, it turns out plenty of Republican members of Congress were outraged, too — and they didn’t fake it. **“**The most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” posted South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott, the sole Black Republican in the Senate. “A reasonable person sees the racist context in this,” posted Nebraska Republican Senator Pete Ricketts. “Totally unacceptable,” posted Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker. “Wrong and incredibly offensive,” posted New York Republican congressman Mike Lawler. “Offensive, heart breaking, and unacceptable,” posted Ohio Republican congressman Mike Turner.

What happened then? Just before noon today, Eastern Time — some 12 hours after Trump posted this piece of sh*t — the White House said it had been deleted.

No apology offered, of course. The White House blamed an unnamed “White House staffer” for it.

But you and I and anyone who has paid attention to Trump’s outbursts of bigoted offal over the past months knows it came from him.

Three observations.

First, even Republican senators and representatives are now unafraid to publicly accuse Trump of being a bigot. That’s progress.

Secondly, when congressional Republicans make a ruckus, Trump backs down.

Third, this incident adds to the accumulating evidence that Trump is losing his mind.

Share

From Robert Reich via this RSS feed

Friends,

Five years ago tomorrow was the most shameful day in American history.

We must not allow Trump to persuade America that it did not happen or that he was innocent, or let him deflect the nation’s attention from the fifth anniversary of what occurred that day.

Less than three weeks ago, Jack Smith, the former special counsel to the Justice Department, appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and testified under oath:

“Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.”

The sole reason Donald Trump is not now behind bars is that Smith dropped the case after Trump was elected to a second term, because the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States — written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by five other justices, three of whom were nominated by Trump — prevented the prosecution of a sitting president.

Let us ponder this for a moment.

Although the peaceful transfer of power lies at the heart of American democracy, Trump sought to overturn the result of the 2020 election. He is now president once again.

Five years ago tomorrow, on January 6, 2021, when Vice President Mike Pence walked into the Capitol, he faced a withering pressure campaign by Trump.

Trump and his henchmen had already twisted the arms of governors and election officials around the country to change the result of the election in his favor. They had coaxed loyalists in five swing states to submit signed certificates falsely claiming they were “duly elected and qualified” members of the Electoral College.

Pence was about to throw out the slates of false electors. As he began the electoral vote count, thousands of Trump supporters — many of them armed — stormed the Capitol. Some chanted they wanted to “hang Mike Pence” for refusing to block the certification.

They came directly from a rally Trump held on the Ellipse, in which Trump repeated his false claim that the election had been stolen and told the crowd, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

According to the criminal indictment,

“After it became public on the afternoon of January 6 that the Vice President would not fraudulently alter the election results, a large and angry crowd — including many individuals whom the Defendant had deceived into believing the Vice President could and might change the election results — violently attacked the Capitol and halted the proceeding.”

The FBI estimated that between 2,000 and 2,500 people entered the Capitol Building in the attack, some of whom participated in vandalism and looting, including of the offices of members of Congress. Rioters also assaulted Capitol Police officers. They occupied the empty Senate chamber while federal law enforcement officers defended the evacuated House floor.

Within 36 hours, five people died. One was shot by Capitol Police; another died of a drug overdose; three died of heart attacks or strokes, including a police officer who died the day after being assaulted by rioters. Many were injured, including 174 police officers. Four other officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months.

“President Trump was wrong,” Pence said subsequently. “I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

A week after the attack, the House of Representatives impeached Trump for incitement of insurrection. In February 2021, after he left office, the Senate voted 57–43 in favor of conviction but fell short of the required two-thirds majority, resulting in his acquittal.

Senate Republicans then blocked a bill to create a bipartisan independent commission to investigate the attack, leaving the House to organize its own select committee.

After an 18-month investigation including more than 1,000 witnesses and nine televised public hearings, the House’s select committee identified Trump as the “central cause” of the Capitol attack by the pro-Trump mob.

The panel, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, voted unanimously to recommend charges to the Justice Department to prosecute Trump for seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Following a special counsel investigation by the Justice Department, Trump was indicted on four charges in August 2023.

As I’ve noted, all charges against Trump were dismissed after his reelection to the presidency.

Of the 1,424 people charged with federal crimes relating to the riot, 1,010 pled guilty and 1,060 were sentenced and served time in prison. Enrique Tarrio, then the chairman of the Proud Boys, received the longest sentence, a 22-year prison term.

Upon retaking the presidency, Trump pardoned them all.

***

Trump and his lackeys in the Republican Party have since promoted a revisionist history of the event — downplaying the severity of the violence, spreading conspiracy theories, and portraying those charged with crimes as hostages and martyrs.

Trump has tried to recast the violent events as a “day of love.”

On December 8, 2024, in his first broadcast news interview since the 2024 election, Trump said members of the House committee that investigated the riot “should go to jail.”

***

We must never forget. We must teach our children and our children’s children and all future generations of Americans what happened on January 6, 2021— so that, as Mike Pence hoped, “history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

January 6, 2021 was the most shameful day in American history. It should live in infamy, as should the traitor who refused to accept the election results and incited the attack on the U.S. Capitol — Donald J. Trump.

Share

From Robert Reich via this RSS feed

Friends,

Trump recently had his name engraved on the U.S. Institute of Peace — now renamed the “Donald J. Trump U.S. Institute of Peace.” On Wednesday, the White House confirmed the renaming, calling it “a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.”

Actually, it’s a reminder of what a strong malignant narcissist can accomplish when untethered from reality.

On Friday, Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, the world football league, awarded Trump the first (and likely last) annual FIFA Peace Prize — along with a hagiographic video of Trump and “peace.”

What FIFA has to do with peace is anyone’s guess, but Infantino is evidently trying to curry favor with Trump. (Infantino, by the way, oversaw the 2020 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, defending and minimizing Qatar’s miserable human rights record. He also played a key role in selecting Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, notwithstanding the Saudi murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.)

Both Trump’s absurd renaming of the U.S. Institute of Peace and the equally absurd FIFA award are parts of Trump’s campaign to get the Nobel Peace Prize — something he has coveted since Barack Obama was awarded it in 2009 (anything Obama got credited with, Trump wants to discredit or match).

Too late for this year. The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to María Corina Machado of Venezuela “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.” (The prize is awarded annually on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, in a formal ceremony at the Oslo City Hall. Trump has his eye on the 2026 prize.)

Ironically, Trump has declared war on Venezuela, without congressional authorization — causing the death so far of at least 87 people bombed by American military jets targeting vessels allegedly carrying drugs into the United States.

Those 87 include two people who barely survived a first bombing, only to be bombed again. (Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who saw a video of the second strike in a closed-door briefing, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” yesterday that the two survivors “were barely alive, much less engaging in hostilities,” when the follow-up strike took place.)

Trump has designated a Venezuelan criminal group — Cartel de los Soles — as a Foreign Terrorist Organization led by Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Yet analysts have pointed out that the Cartel de los Soles is not a hierarchical group but an umbrella term used to describe corrupt Venezuelan officials who have allowed cocaine to transit through the country.

Could it be that Trump wants access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves?

He doesn’t seem to be particularly upset about cocaine trafficking. While he’s bombing small vessels in the Caribbean allegedly for smuggling fentanyl into the United States, Trump is pardoning Honduras’ former president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of trafficking large amounts of cocaine into the United States.

Trump is also in the process of giving eastern Ukraine to Vladimir Putin. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s golf pal and itinerant diplomat, has offered Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy adviser, a plan for carving up disputed territory in a way likely to appeal to Putin.

As revealed in a transcript of a recent meeting, Witkoff told Ushakov, “Now, me to you, I know what it’s going to take to get a peace deal done: Donetsk and maybe a land swap somewhere.”

Witkoff also advised Ushakov on how Putin can get the best deal for Russia — by having Putin flatter America’s narcissist-in-chief:

”Make the call and just reiterate that you congratulate the president on this achievement [in Gaza], that you supported it, that you respect that he is a man of peace and you’re just, you’re really glad to have seen it happen.”

Ushakov responded:

“Hey Steve, I agree with you that he will congratulate, he will say that Mr. Trump is a real peace man and so-and-so. That he will say.”

While Witkoff has been seeking a “peace” deal in Ukraine by giving Putin much of what Putin wants, Witkoff and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner have been seeking billions of dollars in business deals with Russia. It’s a brazen conflict of interest.

Witkoff spoke on the record to The Wall Street Journal, characterizing the talks with Russia over oil, gas, and rare-earth minerals as “a bulwark against future conflicts there. Because everybody’s thriving.”

Everyone’s thriving, that is, except Ukrainians and those conscripted into the Russian army.

Other potential beneficiaries of the deal include ExxonMobil, along with a Trump donor and college pal of Donald Trump Jr. with the improbable name Gentry Beach. Beach hopes to acquire a 9.9 percent stake in a Russian Arctic gas project.

Meanwhile, Trump has allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to continue bombing Gaza, even after declaring a ceasefire there.

Peace prize? Please.

Trump is taking credit for achieving “peace” between nations that weren’t even at war.

He’s also trying to change the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War.

And he’s conjuring up “enemies within” the United States as pretexts for prosecuting political opponents, attacking American universities, and attempting to stifle media criticism of himself and his administration.

According to Alfred Nobel’s will, the Peace Prize is awarded to the person who in the preceding year “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Nobel’s will further specified that the prize be awarded by a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament.

Memo to the Norwegian Parliament and the Nobel committee: No president in American history deserves the Nobel Peace Prize less than does Donald J. Trump.

Share

From Robert Reich via this RSS feed

Friends,

Most of us have an “Uncle Bob.” They’re a Trumper, or a Republican, or conservative. They disagree with us on most of the fundamental issues of our time and refuse to listen to us when we try to reason with them. But, hey, they’re a member of our family.

We’re about to have Thanksgiving dinner with them, and we don’t want it to be a disaster (as it’s sometimes been). So what do we do?

Read more

From Robert Reich via this RSS feed

FBI Director Kash Patel and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem

Subscribe now

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are warning police across the country that protests against ICE or Trump administration policies are cover for terrorism to occur, according to a restricted circulation intelligence Bulletin leaked to me.

The Bulletin is the latest sign that Trump’s NSPM-7 national security directive ordering federal agencies to root out domestic terrorism will ramp up surveillance and monitoring of protests and free speech.

Screenshot of leaked bulletin

Republican Party leaders are joining the panic over so-called domestic terrorism, with two top officials this week likening the upcoming “No Kings” anti-Trump protests to terrorism.

“They have a ‘Hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for October 18 on the National Mall,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said last Friday. “It’s the pro-Hamas wing and Antifa people,” he said. Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, House Republicans’ third-highest ranking leader, also called that the upcoming No Kings protest a “‘Hate America’ rally,” attributing it to the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party.

These comments appear to be the first where congressional leaders have adopted the Trump administration framing of protesters as linked to terrorism. (Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem recently said that Antifa, which has been designated a “domestic terrorist organization” is just as dangerous as ISIS.)

The No Kings protest originated as a response to Trump’s military parade this summer, which also coincided with the president’s birthday. Drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters across the country, the demonstrations were about as mainstream as you could imagine, enjoying the support of prominent liberal groups like Indivisible, MoveOn and Public Citizen.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise echoed his colleagues’ rhetoric, deeming the upcoming No Kings event a “‘Hate America’ rally.”

Just weeks ago this kind of talk was largely confined to the more flamboyant administration figures like White House Senior Director for Counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, who months ago suggested that the political opposition might be providing “material support” for terrorism, as I reported at the time.

The leaked intelligence Bulletin, dated October 1, is titled “Domestic Violent Extremists Pose Increased Threat of Violence to ICE Facilities and Personnel.” It is intended for consumption by law enforcement across the country. Employing the FBI’s euphemism for domestic terrorists, “Domestic Violent Extremists” (DVEs), the Bulletin suggests that those who are or might attack ICE and other federal facilities are lurking behind anti-ICE demonstrations.

Attacks in the past, the Bulletin says, “took advantage of First Amendment-protected activity,” conveying the narrative that protests themselves demand monitoring and are part of some “extremist” conspiracy.

“Two attacks at ICE facilities in Texas — in July and September 2025, which resulted in four casualties — underscore the elevated threat environment for immigration enforcement operations in the United States,” the intelligence Bulletin says. “Since June 2025, DVEs in at least three states have conducted two targeted, pre-planned violent attacks against ICE personnel and facilities and additional unplanned, reactive violent attacks that took advantage of First Amendment-protected activity.”

None of the “four casualties” the Bulletin references, though, were actually ICE personnel. In the case of the alleged Dallas ICE shooter Joshua Jahn, the 29-year-old opened fire on an ICE facility, killing two ICE detainees and wounding a third before taking his own life.

“FBI investigation into the suspected shooter revealed that he expressed anti-ICE sentiments,” the Bulletin says.

While it’s true that bullets recovered from the scene were inscribed with the phrase “anti-ICE” — photos of which FBI Director Kash Patel was quick to post to social media, leading major media to adopt the narrative that this was anti-ICE terrorism — Jahn’s former friends told me he was a largely apolitical troll who they thought just wanted to spread chaos. (His brother has also said Jahn hadn’t had strong feelings about ICE nor politics in general and that he thought the shooting was carried out “indiscriminately.”)

The Bulletin’s second example describes the July attack on the ICE Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas. The Justice Department says that a group of assailants dressed in black tactical clothing first used fireworks and graffiti to lure ICE and law enforcement personnel out before opening fire, shooting one officer in the neck. Flyers and spray paint found on the scene saying things like “FIGHT ICE TERROR” and “RESIST FASCISM” do suggest that the attack was politically motivated. But nowhere in the later indictment is there any sign that a protest was involved.

The Bulletin closes with a vague reference to DVEs having “leveraged large, lawful protests” in “multiple cities” in California and Oregon since June, implying some relation between the demonstrations and domestic terrorism.

“These individuals have caused damage to ICE facilities in Portland and Eugene, Oregon, and engaged in violent confrontations with law enforcement,” the Bulletin says.

There have no doubt been violent confrontations and instances of vandalism — but terrorism? There hasn’t been a single ICE employee killed this year. And the officer shot in the neck seems to be the only major injury resulting from political opposition to ICE.

The lack of evidence doesn’t seem to matter with the moral panic over domestic terrorism in full swing after Charlie Kirk’s murder, a 9/11-type event for the administration.

In late September, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a directive citing Trump’s NSPM-7 throughout, titled “Ending Political Violence Against ICE.” Two days later, the Bulletin I obtained was produced.

Subscribe if you know the difference between protest and terrorism

Leave a comment

Share

— Edited by William M. Arkin

From Ken Klippenstein via this RSS feed

Friends,

This week, the top brass of America’s military — more than 800 four-star generals, lieutenant generals, major generals, and admirals — were summoned from their posts around the world to a conclave in Quantico, Virginia. The apparent reason? To listen to “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth and their commander-in-chief, Donald Trump.

Hegseth delivered a diatribe against political correctness, beards, fat generals, and women in combat missions. Trump gave a long, rambling, incoherent mess of a speech.

It seemed unlikely that the military’s top brass were summoned merely for this.

But if not, what was the real purpose of this unprecedented gathering? Other than Hegseth’s and Trump’s bonkers speeches, we don’t know. Was the event also used to distribute highly sensitive information? To enable face-to-face communications about pending changes in the use of military force? To get buy-in from the top brass for an agenda that had to be communicated in person?

Here are several of the views I’ve gleaned from military-watchers I trust about the real purpose of this gathering:

Read more

From Robert Reich via this RSS feed

My historian colleagues might correct me, but I do not think anyone at least in recent history has done what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is about to do: put all of the American generals and admirals from around the world into a single room (next week, in Virginia) just to say something to them.

There is no practical reason to do this: he has easier and more secure ways to communicate with the commanders. And there are obvious risks: the entire armed forces of the United States, spread around the world, will be without its leaders. Given that the government could well shut down the next day, the separation of commanders from their command might be indefinite.

And if Hegseth has his way, those generals and admirals will all be in one site, announced in advance, which means that the entirety of the American command structure will be more vulnerable, physically, than in any conceivable military scenario, including nuclear war. There is no scenario other than this one in which they would all be in the same place at the same time.

So why might Secretary Hegseth do such an extraordinary thing? Only four solutions to the puzzle come to mind.

He has some trivial thing to say and does not understand the risks.

He wishes to endanger the lives of the generals and admirals.

He will stage a purge, perhaps involving a loyalty oath or something similar that requires personal presence.

He will tell the commanders that henceforth their assignment will be to oppress American citizens (“homeland defense”). This could be combined with the third scenario: those who refuse will be fired.

Perhaps others can think of other possibilities, but I am afraid that I cannot.

One might wonder why no effort was made to keep this secret. Perhaps Hegseth wants the senior officers to worry. Perhaps the news was shared because reasonable people in the Pentagon fear that the meeting is part of a plan to remake the American military as a domestic political police force. This would be in conjunction with other efforts, such as yesterday’s terror memo, to pursue regime change in the United States. Making known that there will be such a meeting is the one way to begin a conversation that might prevent its taking place, or at least alter its purpose.

Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

PS News outlets: please do not publish heroic portraits of Hegseth or of others in connections with articles about this and related subjects. Doing so undermines reporting and naturalizes the transition to authoritarianism.

From Thinking about... via this RSS feed

Friends,

If it’s to have a future, the Democratic Party must not only condemn Trumpism but explain why so many Americans are struggling and provide a credible way for most people to share in the nation’s prosperity.

That means forgetting about moving to the so-called “center” and instead embracing the passion, energy, youth, and big ideas of young Democratic candidates like Zohran Mamdani in New York and Senate candidates Graham Platner in Maine, Dan Osborn in Nebraska, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, and Nathan Sage in Iowa.

Most Americans are justifiably angry that our political-economic system is in the hands of a bevy of billionaires and multimillionaires who have rigged it for their own benefit.

Trump talks as if he’s a tribune of the people but he’s cutting Medicaid, food stamps, veterans’ benefits, education, and much of what average Americans depend on so he can give another big tax cut to his wealthy backers.

Where are congressional Democrats in all this? Dazed, asleep, mum, frightened.

Trump has baselessly attributed America’s real problems — such as stagnant wages, insecure jobs, soaring food prices, and unaffordable housing — to immigrants, the “deep state,” transgender people, socialists, and communists.

Why don’t Democrats tell America the truth — that these problems are largely due to monopolistic corporations and robber-baron billionaires? Because too many Democratic politicians are afraid to bite the hands that feed their campaign coffers.

Hopefully, that’s beginning to change. A cohort of new, young, progressive Democrats appears willing to take on the moneyed interests.

They’re calling for higher taxes on the super-wealthy to finance what average working Americans need. And they want big money out of our politics.

Mamdani’s remarkable win in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary was based on the simple message that New York has an affordability crisis and that the wealthiest New Yorkers must help respond.

Mamdani’s three main proposals to help working families cope with it are to make city buses free, freeze the rent for stabilized apartments, and expand free child care.

Under Mamdani’s plan, the financial burden of paying for these policies would largely fall on wealthy taxpayers and businesses.

Other young progressives now running for U.S. Senate are sounding similar themes. They include Maine’s Graham Platner, a 40-year-old veteran and oyster farmer who’s challenging incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins.

Platner describes his candidacy as a referendum on wealth and power. He’s pledging to “topple the oligarchy.”

As he pilots a fishing boat in his launch video, Platner rails against billionaires, corrupt politicians, unattainable housing, and decades of stagnant wages.

“People know that the system is screwing them. No one I know around here can afford a house. Health care is a disaster, hospitals are closing. We have watched all of that get ripped away from us, and everyone is just trying to keep it all together.

Why can’t we have universal health care like every other first-world country? Why can’t we take care of our veterans when they come home? Why are we funding endless wars and bombing children? Why are CEOs more powerful than unions? We’ve fought three different wars since the last time we raised the minimum wage.”

Nebraska’s Dan Osborn — a union president and former machinist who organized Nebraska workers during a nationwide strike at the cereal giant Kellogg’s — invokes a similar message. He’s attacking CEOs who care more about wealthy shareholders than workers and politicians who are more loyal to donors than voters.

Osborn captured national attention during his independent Senate run in 2024 against Republican Senator Deb Fischer. Although he lost that race, he narrowed Fischer’s margin of victory to single digits in a state that Trump won by 20 points.

Now he’s back, challenging incumbent Republican Senator Pete Ricketts in a contest Osborn characterizes as a struggle between the working class and the wealthy.

Osborn contrasts himself with Ricketts, whose father founded stockbroker TD Ameritrade and whose net worth is estimated to be $184 million. “Our government doesn’t look like me,” says Osborn, “so that’s certainly what I want to get in there and change.”

Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed is the former director of Wayne County’s Health and Human Services and the Detroit Health Department and a former professor of epidemiology at Columbia. His background in public health is a big reason why he’s so dedicated to Medicare for All and abolishing medical debt.

El-Sayed has become one of the Democrats’ most cogent citics of RFK Jr. El-Sayed also has a strong political track record as runner-up to Gretchen Whitmer in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor and as part of the Biden-Bernie Unity task force in 2020.

Iowa’s Nathan Sage is challenging Republican incumbent Senator Joni Ernst. He’s a military veteran, mechanic, and longtime sports radio personality whose campaign emphasizes his working-class identity and the needs of Iowa’s working class.

The Democratic establishment doesn’t particularly like any of the people I’ve named.

Mamdani is making corporate Democrats cringe. Hillary Clinton endorsed Andrew Cuomo for New York mayor. Trump may, too.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is eschewing the progressive Senate candidates I’ve mentioned in favor of so-called “moderates.”

That’s a mistake. The Democratic establishment is looking in the rearview mirror.

What about the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2028?

My personal favorites are Representative Ro Khanna of Ohio and former senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who’s now running again for the U.S. Senate. I’ve also been impressed by three governors who are effectively standing up to Trump: California’s Gavin Newsom, Illinois’s JB Pritzker, and Maryland’s Wes Moore.

I’m also hearing from young people across the country — not only in the Democratic strongholds of New York, California, and Massachusetts but also in Texas (where I spent some time in August) — that they’re moved and excited by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

In 2028 — assuming Trump doesn’t call off the next presidential election — AOC will be the ripe old age of 38, and eligible for the presidency.

A new day is dawning for the Democratic Party — if it’s able to see the sunrise.

Share

From Robert Reich via this RSS feed

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin

Subscribe to be the first to get our reporting

The Democratic Party held its first national meeting since Donald Trump’s return to office and though Chair Ken Martin got attention for admonishing the party for only bringing a “pencil to a knife fight,” the message conveyed to those attending was to stop any internal debate about the direction of the Party.

In case you’ve missed it, the Democrats are facing their lowest approval rating ever. The gerontocracy continues its stranglehold on power, with three Democratic members of Congress ages 70+ dying in office this year alone. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hasn’t sat down for a single interview in nearly two months, by my count. And when new leaders like Zohran Mamdani emerge, the Party can’t bring itself to endorse their own nominee.

I watched the entirety of the Democrats’ three-day summer meeting. Martin’s “pencil to a knife fight” zinger resonated on social media and frankly with myself, but it leaves me wondering: who is this knife fight taking place against?

The context for Martin’s pencil to a knife fight comment is his admission that the party of “A-student” types and lawyers solely mount a legal and procedural challenge to Trump. “We've gotta stand up and fight,” Martin says, suggesting bazookas instead. No more playing by the rules, he says, no more fighting with a “hand tied behind our backs.”

After saying “that’s right” to an attendee shouting “LFG!” (Let’s Fucking Go), Martin continued:

“Americans are hungry for leaders. They're hungry for candidates who are on the side of working people. They’re hungry for leaders who give a damn about their circumstances. And they're hungry for a government that gives people freedom, not fascism. To every American who is hungry for that kind of government, I invite you to join us. Democrats, Republicans, Independents. I invite you to join us. Together we will fight with every fiber of our being against Trump in his power hungry circus.”

Here and throughout his speech, Martin decried Trump in terms that sounded remarkably similar to the 2020 campaign. He described a battle between democracy and tyranny; freedom against fascism. Whatever you think of Trump, these are the same lofty abstractions Joe Biden leaned into heavily, summed up by one of his favorite lines: “Democracy is on the ballot.”

It was a slogan that lost. Now Martin is doubling down.

Trump, he says, is “fascism dressed in a red tie.”

“This is not politics as usual … this is authoritarianism.”

Most striking to me about Martin’s overall message is that Democrats need to stop getting into arguments with each other.

“We have to stop settling on winning arguments with each other; we have to win elections,” Martin said. The way to win, the Party leader says, is to unify behind “one single goal to stop Donald Trump … and put this country back on track.”

And how to put the country back on track? By my count, Martin uttered Trump’s name 19 times in his main address. Obviously, it makes sense that the opposition party would have some things to say about the sitting president. But he hardly mentioned major issues like housing, a word he didn’t mention at all, even though Zohran Mamdani just weeks ago campaigned to victory on it. He didn’t mention inflation either, and only said healthcare twice and inequality once.

I looked for a theme beyond condemnation of Donald Trump in his speech and I never found it.

Martin, it turns out, is more of a Politburo boss directing how the Party should work, not what policies and visions it should adopt that coincide with what the voters need. “ Winning the argument gets you maybe a nice round of applause and a few likes on Instagram,” he admonished elected leaders and online activists alike who love to fact and spell check Trump.

Describing Trump as “an insidious force hellbent on destroying our American experiment,” Martin again and again invoked an emergency that necessitated a new fight, but one based on Party discipline.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz made this point even more explicitly in his speech, saying: “We do not have the luxury to fight amongst ourselves while that thing sits in the White House.”

(The irony here is that he leads a state in which the Democratic Party just days ago took the extraordinary step of withdrawing their endorsement of the Minneapolis mayoral candidate, state Senator Omar Fateh. Then there’s Mamdani, who still can’t get the endorsement of his own party’s leaders like Hakeem Jeffries, whose district Mamdani outperformed him in!)

The great ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky once said, “we've gotta escape to where the puck will be, not where the puck is.” Martin made reference to Gretzky in his speech, adding “sure as hell” in telling the Party that it needs to look ahead.

Saying that “the day after the last election was the first day of the 2028 campaign,” Martin said the Party needs to “build power.”

”We are investing in a 10-year majority party vision, a vision to win back government at every level within the next decade. And that's what's different. We can take back our states, our counties, our towns, our legislatures, our courts, our Congress, and yes, our country, building, working, focusing on creating new majorities every single day.”

There just isn’t a vision though. And nor is there much effort to go out and listen for one. Democratic Party leaders barely use the media to speak to the public. I pay close attention to members of Congress’ appearances on TV news, YouTube, etc. and their media engagements are a small fraction of the Republican Party’s. But more importantly, national-level leaders avoid any kind of debate on issues, that is,  if the subject matter is about anything but the latest crimes of the president.

The 2024 presidential ballot was shaped by Biden and the Party apparatus and not by the voters. Throughout the first half of the year, the White House and the Party tolerated no acknowledgment of the president’s frailty. In the name of not having any debate, the Party squashed any primary challenges to Biden and then left no time (or way) for a viable candidate to emerge, anointing Kamala Harris instead. The Democratic Party met this past week and emerged with an exact repeat, a strict adherence to where the puck was in a losing game.

Subscribe if debate doesn’t scare you

Leave a comment

Share

— Edited by William M. Arkin

From Ken Klippenstein via this RSS feed

Trump with FBI Director Kash Patel

Subscribe now

Since the FBI started using the phrase “nihilistic violent extremism” earlier this year to describe people who it characterizes as believing in nothing, the term and the acronym “NVE” have spread like a virus to the rest of the federal bureaucracy.

When I first reported on the new designation in April, I warned that the new term was a euphemism the Trump administration wanted to use to  focus away from right wing extremism and white nationalist violence. Though Trump is fond of railing against “Antifa” and the “radical left” to the exclusion of any MAGA-related group, the FBI and the counter-terror hunters at home wanted to have a non-partisan sounding phrase for them to describe domestic threats, one that could apply to anyone from sexual predators to Luigi Mangione.

They came up with NVE, and by May, the FBI had reportedly opened 250 separate investigations into a single “nihilistic violent extremist” group. A new threat was born.

What I didn’t anticipate was how quickly other agencies would adopt the same language, even the State Department, which wants this “violent extremist” category to apply to foreign groups that it says might threaten Americans and even “public health,” whatever that means.

In fact, federal and state organizations, including a variety of military organizations, are now focusing on the supposed NVE threat. Much of this is taking place behind the scenes in internal documents. I only know about these records because the fine folks at transparency nonprofit Property of the People obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act and shared them with me. (Check out their other FOIA work here.)

First, there’s the Army Threat Integration Center, which in June issued an internal warning titled, "Nihilistic Violent Extremist Chat Group Would Likely Result in the Construction of a Viable Explosive Device.” Making reference to the Telegram chat app, where it says a guide had been posted on how to build a homemade grenade, the report notes that the Army had consulted with a chemist about the viability of the explosive.

What any of this has to do with nihilism isn’t clear, but the designation does allow organizations to categorize threats so that when some official asks how many reports have been written about the nihilist threat, or a statistic is needed, the report’s title contributes to the sense that the threat is real and Something Is Being Done. So there’s that!

Army document1010KB ∙ PDF fileDownloadDownload

The Army report also mentions the FBI’s creation of the “nihilistic violent extremist” threat category, defining it as “hatred of humanity or society,” though also stressing that NVEs can overlap with other groups like “incels” (involuntary celibates).

“FBI recently announced the creation of the NVE terrorist threat category. Hatred of humanity or society motivates individuals prescribing to NVE ideologies, who may also incorporate elements from other extremist belief systems such as white supremacy or involuntary celibacy (‘incel’). NVEs often frequents forums dedicated to the curation of gore material or the glorification of mass casualty attackers in the United States and abroad.”

That and other documents mentioning NVEs makes clear that the focus on nihilists isn’t just some fixation of FBI Director Kash Patel’s or other Bureau officials. The national security apparatus seems driven by the need to categorize threats, as though each one were carefully pinned on a taxonomist’s specimen board.

The term has spread to Congress as well. In testimony before the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee on June 10, Dr. Gina Ligon, Director of the University of Nebraska’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center, funded by the Department of Homeland Security, said that the rise of NVEs means we must “make sure that we are empowering intelligence and analysis to be able to do those kinds of assessments…” That is, the same kinds of assessments I’m reporting on here. It was the middle of budget season, after all.

Then there’s the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which in June put together its own internal assessment of the foreign nihilist threat. Warning of a “high threat” to Americans abroad, the State Department says:

Members of NVE networks very likely pose a high threat to U.S. persons and seek to target U.S. celebrities or events that draw crowds of Americans. The NVE threat consists of overlapping networks based in Europe, FVEY [Five Eye] countries [Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and US], and South America clustered across multiple social media and secure messaging applications.

State Department document4.85MB ∙ PDF fileDownloadDownload

State’s report lists several violent attacks carried out by what it labels NVEs which, though real, are pretty clearly motivated by social or political beliefs — the opposite of nihilism, a point I’ve made before. But none of the details matter to these agencies in their rush to push out reporting that affirms their new category and the sense of ubiquitous threats to society that demand unprecedented levels of policing.

Then in July, the Illinois Statewide Terrorism & Intelligence Center (STIC), a statewide “fusion center,” issued a frankly surreal internal assessment that sounded more like something out of a fantasy series than an intelligence report. Warning of things like “occult shrines” and internet “sewers,” the report details the tactics and indicators associated with NVE groups, which apparently include:

“Tempel ov Blood” [not a typo],

“Order of Nine Angels,”

“764,” and

“The Community.”

STIC document125KB ∙ PDF fileDownloadDownload

And in New York, the NYPD’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau put out a similar internal assessment, delving into even more obscure matters. There’s the Order of Nine Angels’ “Septenary Sigil” — something to watch out for, I guess — the "Heaven’s Gate cult, “Militant Accelerationism,” and “The Hard Reset.”

Oh, and some Wisconsin high schooler’s “plan to assassinate POTUS and overthrow the US government.” (Would it surprise you that he didn’t get very far with that?) Each of these seems to have some kind of political motivation behind them which, again, can hardly be categorized as nihilistic.

Screenshot of NYPD intelligence reportNYPD report15.2MB ∙ PDF fileDownloadDownload

Do the intelligence and law enforcement agencies really need to delve into these bizarre subcultures? It’s hard to see how any of this is making us safer.

The NYPD report is dated June 8, just days before a 27-year-old Shane Tamura, armed with an automatic rifle strolled into an office building in Midtown Manhattan, killing four people. (Here too, officials cast the shooting as some random, nihilistic act, but there’s clearly more to it, as I’ve reported.)  Perhaps if the national security state were focused on more serious things than pentagrams, this tragedy could have been prevented.

As the violent shootings in Manhattan, Montana, Georgia and elsewhere show, there is no end to the amount of real work that law enforcement agencies should be doing to make sure that guns don’t get into the wrong hands, or that local police have actual intelligence to deal with “common” criminals. It’s just that none of it is as sexy or satisfying (or indulgent of Donald Trump) as describing the threat to society of some devil worshipper with a Telegram inspired grenade.

Fundraising is in the toilet; PLEASE become a paid subscriber so I can keep doing this work. Don’t be a nihilist! :)

Leave a comment

Share

— Edited by William M. Arkin

From Ken Klippenstein via this RSS feed

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Subscribe now

The Democratic Party’s Instagram-friendly progressive darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has voted with the overwhelming majority of House representatives against withholding $500 million in missile funding for Israel, despite previously saying that Israel is committing “a genocide of Palestinians” in Gaza with US support.

The only lawmakers voting to withhold the military aid were Democrats Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Summer Lee and Al Green, and Republicans Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Coming under fire from the left for the glaring contradiction of providing military assistance to a state that is perpetrating an active genocide, AOC issued a statement claiming her vote was about protecting civilians.

The statement reads as follows:

“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s amendment does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza. Of course I voted against it.

“What it does do is cut off defensive Iron Dome capacities while allowing the actual bombs killing Palestinians to continue.

“I have long stated that I do not believe that adding to the death count of innocent victims to this war is constructive to its end. That is a simple and clear difference of opinion that has long been established.

“I remain focused on cutting the flow of US munitions that are being used to perpetuate the genocide in Gaza.”

https://x.com/caitoz/status/1946659894939295992

AOC’s statement is absolute crap. The Iron Dome is not used for defending, it’s used to facilitate constant attacks.

In an article for Jewish Currents titled “Iron Dome Is Not a Defensive System,” Dylan Saba explains:

“By almost entirely negating the ability of militant groups in Gaza to respond to Israel’s incursions, the purportedly defensive Iron Dome allows Israel to strike without fear of repercussion. And because the cost is so low when measured in Israeli casualties, Israel can wage perpetual war without suffering domestic political consequences, and is under negligible pressure to pursue diplomacy with the Palestinians. ‘In theory, a weapon like Iron Dome could be used only defensively. But in practice it doesn’t work that way,’ analyst Nathan Thrall told Jewish Currents. ‘Iron Dome facilitates greater Israeli offensive measures, because it lowers the perceived cost to Israel of escalating or extending or initiating attacks.’ In other words, while the Iron Dome may prevent the deaths of Israeli non-combatants, it has made it easier for Israel to engage in deadly operations that take Palestinian lives.”

https://x.com/JewishCurrents/status/1661800779848581128

The Iron Dome isn’t for protecting civilians, it’s for protecting the Israeli regime from deterrence. We see this in the comfort the regime displays in waging constant military violence on its neighbors knowing they can’t retaliate. That’s why Israel cut a ceasefire deal with Iran so fast.

Iran’s advanced missiles can’t be reliably stopped by the Iron Dome, so Iran was able to smash Israel and force it to cease its unprovoked aggressions. If Israel had had a missile defense system which could casually swat those missiles out of the sky at a high rate of success, Israel would still be bombing Iran today, and would continue doing so until Tehran looked like Gaza. Israel’s war-horny population would have supported this, because they’d have no skin in the game.

Saying you support funding Israel’s “defensive weapons” while opposing sending it “offensive weapons” is as nonsensical as saying you would never give a mass shooter guns and ammunition, but you would give him body armor to keep him safe from the police. You’re helping him commit mass murder just as much as you would be if you gave him guns and ammo. Kings didn’t arm their knights with shields and armor so that they could live long and fulfilling lives, they did it so the knights would live long enough to kill the people the kings wanted killed.

If you believe a state is committing genocide, there is no justifiable reason for you to support enhancing that state’s military capabilities and helping it defend itself from those who try to stop it. As others have pointed out, this is exactly the same as opposing Hitler’s Holocaust but supporting giving anti-aircraft flak cannons to Nazi Germany.

It’s a self-evidently ridiculous, warmongering, and ultimately genocidal position, disguised as progressive humanitarianism. It’s all the ugliest things about western liberals.

https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1946628558908002748

People who say you should criticize AOC less because there are way worse members of congress act like she’s just passively sitting there being a mediocre lawmaker. She’s not. She’s actively anchoring the leftmost edge of the Overton window of US politics to militarism, capitalism, colonialism, and genocide. She’s actively stopping American politics from moving any further left than the nightmare we see before us.

Leftists shouldn’t hate AOC less than the politicians to her right, they should hate her much more. It isn’t Mike Johnson’s responsibility to move the US government to the left, and it’s not Nancy Pelosi’s job. It’s hers. That’s what she was elected to do. That’s what she framed the goals of her entire political career as being. And she’s taking her stand firmly bracing against any leftward movement from America’s genocidal, warmongering, unjust, exploitative, tyrannical status quo.

And that’s what she was actually put there to do. Her real job is to say “thus far and no further” to the leftmost end of the political spectrum of the world’s most powerful and destructive government. That’s the Democratic Party’s job in general, and it’s the job of media-savvy progressive Democrats in particular. They are there to provide as little resistance as possible when US politics are shoved toward more genocidal, militaristic, oligarchic, capitalist, imperialist abuses, and to provide as much inertia as possible to any movement in the opposite direction.

That’s why people who seek leftward movement in the US political machine see AOC as one of their main enemies. It’s for the exact same reason you’d see someone actively blocking the fire exit as your enemy when trying to escape from a burning building.

____________

Caitlin’s Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my mailing list, social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Feature image via nrkbeta (CC BY-SA 2.0)

From Caitlin’s Newsletter via this RSS feed