GlacialTurtle

"The walls are closing in" every day in your youtube/podcast feed but it's now 2025 and Trump disappearing US citizens and arresting judges but this latest gaffe is definitely for real gonna sink him this time.

The “MeidasTouch” political podcast has rapidly become the most successful in the United States. As the Wall Street Journal writes, “downloads and views of MeidasTouch on platforms including YouTube, Spotify, and Apple, more than doubled over the past month to top 115 million.” This is more than twice what Joe Rogan had during the same period. MeidasTouch is run by three brothers: Ben, Brett, and Jordy Meiselas. Ben, a lawyer, got his start interning for Sean “Diddy” Combs at Bad Boy Records before working in the offices of Hillary Clinton and Rep. Steve Israel. He later became a business partner and attorney for Colin Kaepernick, playing a key role in the quarterback's lawsuit against the NFL. Brett is a producer and editor who previously worked at The Ellen DeGeneres Show, while Jordy was an advertising executive before joining his brothers to launch MeidasTouch.

The show offers itself as an alternative to the right-leaning “manosphere” epitomized by Rogan. According to the New York Times, its Substack has more than 500,000 subscribers, some 40,000 of whom pay at least $8 a month to get ad-free and exclusive content, meaning the project makes over $320,000 per month from Substack alone. The analytics website Social Blade concludes that their YouTube channel earns millions of dollars per year from ads. As a result of dethroning Rogan, MeidasTouch has been receiving a lot of favorable press recently. The Times reports that “they are fast becoming power brokers in Democratic politics and—party faithful hope—finally replicating the influential media ecosystem that Republicans have built over the past decade.” They are described as the “independent” “progressive media network” that is “reshaping the progressive media landscape.” They have 12 full-time employees and 30 regular contributors, including former Trump fixer Michael Cohen and former Trump associate Lev Parnas.

[...]

The world of MeidasTouch, by contrast, starts and ends with Donald Trump’s presidency. What stupid thing did Donald Trump say today? How did he embarrass himself? Who gave him a brutal rhetorical smackdown? Even though it is targeted at viewers who think Trump is dumb, the content is remarkably shallow, by which we mean that it doesn’t dive seriously into topics like health care, criminal punishment, foreign policy, and inequality. It’s the National Enquirer for Trump-haters.

MeidasTouch is also constantly offering Democratic viewers reassurance that Donald Trump is imploding. (“IT’S ALL UNRAVELING!!” “SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL!!” “FOX IS PANICKING!!!”) Indeed, Ben Meiselas himself says the channel is “providing a comforting place.” In doing so, they might be offering a false sense of security. Note that many of the podcast’s videos on Trump “implosions” and “humiliations” were published before he defeated Kamala Harris in November, such as “WOW! Trump CRUMBLES During DISASTROUS Arizona Speech” (Aug. 22, 2024, 2.1 million views) “Trump HUMILIATED in Michigan as REAL CROWD Is EXPOSED” (Aug. 31, 2024, 2.1 million views) “Trump Makes CATASTROPHIC MOVE in SUNDAY PANIC ATTACK” (Oct. 12, 2024, 2.1 million views). Today, after all this catastrophe for Trump, the right controls all three branches of government. Public opinion of the Democratic Party is still very low. Donald Trump’s presidency may yet implode, but his approval rating has not cratered so far, and the country is still basically evenly divided on him. Furthermore, Democrats cannot rely on the “Carville strategy” of simply waiting for Trump to destroy himself while doing nothing to build a popular movement.

[...]

In fact, while MeidasTouch is devoted to nonstop criticism of Trump, the categories of criticism it offers are quite narrow. MeidasTouch actively avoids major left-wing concerns. In addition to the absence of discussion on environmental issues (perhaps the most crucial way in which Trump endangers the future of the human species), they rarely cover Gaza. On the podcast, there is little on Trump’s horrific plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza and turn it into the next piece of his real estate empire, his crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech, and his threatening of universities that fail to quell Palestine protests.

The decision to avoid Palestine by Democratic-aligned media seems to be deliberate, and it goes beyond MeidasTouch. MeidasTouch is part of a broader universe of content creators that are aligned with the Democratic Party, which include Brian Tyler Cohen (4 million YouTube subscribers) and David Pakman (3 million YouTube subscribers) among others. Notably, last March, according to a source with the events, Pakman attended a private, off-the-record meeting with Kamala Harris on the day of Joe Biden's State of the Union address. During the trip, he met with Cohen, the Meiselas brothers, and dozens of other so-called “independent progressive” media figures. In an internal email, Pakman later told his staff that the content creators at the White House had talked among themselves and everyone had admitted that they deliberately avoid producing Gaza coverage in order to prevent controversy. One could argue that this is probably a big reason why these particular influencers were invited to the White House in the first place. Pakman, for his part, has previously asserted that Israel would never “waste ordnance” on Palestinian civilians and that he views Congressman Ritchie Torres, who is perhaps best known for being one of AIPAC’s top recipients of funding, as the kind of person who he would like to see lead the “progressive movement.”

These influencers consciously avoid Gaza not because they don’t have an opinion, but because they know that some of their audience won’t like what they have to say. In a way, their silence is preferable to outright pro-Israel propaganda—but the fact that their entire media strategy revolves around ignoring difficult topics speaks volumes. One might imagine that, had these media outlets been around in the 1960s, they wouldn’t have talked about the Vietnam War or the Civil Rights Movement. Even when they obsessively cover Trump, their selective focus is telling. As of this writing, neither MeidasTouch, Cohen, nor Pakman has produced a YouTube video on Trump’s attempt to deport pro-Palestine protester Mahmoud Khalil—a major escalation in the crackdown on dissent. If Trump had tried to illegally deport a pro-Ukraine protester, there’s no question that these influencers would be covering it. Their silence exposes an unwillingness to challenge the Democratic Party’s bipartisan complicity in suppressing pro-Palestinian voices.

Likewise, the existence of the left is virtually shut out on these channels. Brian Tyler Cohen, who calls himself an “independent progressive political host” (he previously worked part-time for MSNBC), has been regularly covering news and politics on YouTube since 2018. But a review of his channel shows that during the 2020 election cycle, he never once featured Bernie Sanders in a video title or thumbnail—despite posting daily content and racking up millions of views. While Cohen has eagerly platformed establishment Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Jaime Harrison, Pete Buttigieg, Adam Schiff, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden, he ignored the only independent progressive candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary. The New York Times and CNN also participated in the “Bernie blackout,” but even they couldn’t erase Sanders entirely. Yet Cohen did—until it became politically convenient for him to feature Sanders on his show in November 2022, the first time Sanders was ever even mentioned in one of his YouTube titles. For some reason, Sanders now appears on his show semi-regularly. Why would he reward this behavior rather than use his influence to elevate any of the independent outlets that have tirelessly promoted him? For a channel that claims to represent the progressive movement, it’s astonishing that Bernie Sanders was treated as a nonentity while centrists were endlessly elevated. This wasn’t an oversight. It was a deliberate editorial choice, one that reveals Cohen’s real political priorities.

According to Semafor, Brian Tyler Cohen was involved in launching Good Influence (originally known as AtAdvocacy), a digital consulting firm which says it creates “meaningful impact for causes and campaigns through our network of powerful online messengers.” Former Vice President Kamala Harris has been one of the firm’s top clients, as a search of Federal Elections Commission data shows that the Harris campaign spent more than $600,000 on “digital consulting” and “licensing fees” from Good Influence between July and November 2024. Good Influence has also received money from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and from Vote Save America, among other contributions. Good Influence's founder, Stuart Perelmuter, has publicly documented visits to the White House alongside prominent liberal influencers such as Cohen, Pakman, Luke Beasley, and Lindy Li (who has since left the Democratic Party and is now fundraising for Donald Trump). One of Good Influence’s featured influencers, Kenny Walden (who goes by the name 2RawTooReal online), has taken his loyalty to the Democratic establishment to even more grotesque extremes, hurling vile, misogynistic attacks at progressive lawmakers like Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He has also creepily taunted Bernie Sanders with images of caskets and a dead body—behavior that, far from being disavowed, has been rewarded with a visit to the Oval Office and insider status within the Democratic Party’s influencer network.

But I was told Starmer was just going to be Corbyn but more competent and not an evil EU leaver? I was told he was merely Corbyn in a suit?

Could the liberals have been...gasp...wrong????

Keir Starmer is facing a rebellion over his plan to use direct deductions from people’s bank accounts and the cancellation of driving licences as part of a government crackdown on welfare fraud and over-claiming.

In an attempt to claw back the annual £9.7bn in benefit overpayments made by the Department for Work and Pensions due to fraud or error, the government has adopted Conservative plans for debt recovery.

A fraud, error and recovery bill would give the DWP the power to require banks to provide data to help identify when an applicant is not meeting the eligibility criteria for a benefit for which they have applied.

The bill would allow the government to demand bank statements to identify debtors who have sufficient funds to repay what they owe through fraud or error in a claim. The DWP would then have the power to recover money directly from bank accounts of those not on benefits or in PAYE employment who are identified as having the means to pay.

Those who repeatedly fail to repay funds could fall prey to a suspended DWP disqualification order that would disqualify them from holding a driving licence.

Liz Kendall, the secretary of state for work and pensions, has said the powers are necessary to deal with a “broken welfare system” but she is facing opposition from her own backbenches.

Amendments tabled by the Labour MP for Poole, Neil Duncan-Jordan, that would force the government to drop key strands of the bill are supported by a growing number of MPs in Starmer’s party.

The amendments, backed by 17 named Labour MPs, would ensure that only those suspected of fraud rather than being the victim of an error were subjected to surveillance, “allowing the government to target criminality without monitoring the public”, Duncan-Jordan said.

The Labour MP is also proposing to remove the power to apply to a court to strip people of their driving licences due to debt, describing the policy as a “poverty penalty”.

Writing in the Guardian, Duncan-Jordan, who was elected for the first time in 2024, accused Starmer’s government of “resurrecting Tory proposals for mass spying on people who receive state support”.

He writes that the legislation “would compel banks to carry out financial surveillance of welfare recipients”, adding that “given the volume of accounts involved, this will be completed by an algorithm”.

Bluesky has restricted access to 72 accounts and one post in Turkey, marking a shift for the decentralized social media platform that had previously resisted government censorship, according to a report by the Freedom of Expression Association (İFÖD).

According to İFÖD, Turkish court orders led to the blocking of 59 accounts at the internet service provider level. Separately, Bluesky voluntarily made 13 accounts and one post inaccessible in Turkey, likely in response to legal pressure.

Bluesky, known for its decentralized structure, which allows users to create and operate independent servers rather than relying on a central authority, had been seen as a free-speech-friendly alternative to mainstream platforms such as X.

Turkey has increased pressure on digital platforms in recent years, requiring companies to appoint local representatives and quickly comply with content removal requests or face fines and bandwidth throttling. In March Turkish authorities blocked access to 126 X accounts, including those of independent media outlets.

At the same time, press freedom in Turkey has sharply declined. Turkey, which is known as one of the top jailers of journalists in the world, ranks 158th among 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2024 World Press Freedom Index.

Independent outlets face financial and legal pressure, while pro-government media dominate the landscape. The Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) and other regulatory bodies have been used to sanction dissenting voices, further curbing freedom of expression.

Bluesky has not publicly commented on the recent restrictions.

Someone who claims to be a holocaust historian btw, says they basically agree with Trumps deportations, repeatedly cannot meaningfully answer the obvious question of why would these people genuinely care about antisemitism when they're hanging with white nationalists, invokes "Trump Derangement Syndrome" when talking about deportation without due process...it just goes on.

Liberals, shut the fuck up about how Democrats are "better". These are the people within the admin who were listened to.

https://archive.is/BqZaa

Are you pleased that the Trump Administration is talking so much about antisemitism?

I’m pleased that they’re addressing it, because that’s what I did for the past three years, which was to really push the Biden Administration to seriously address it. So I am very, very pleased that it’s on their agenda.

And what do you see that agenda as being?

Well, I guess I’ve gone through a transition. Let me step back for a minute and say that from my first day in office, one of the things that I called for was for institutions—such as governments, universities, and the media—to take antisemitism seriously. I talk about antisemitism as a multi-tiered threat. One is the threat to Jews and Jewish institutions. But it’s also a threat to democracy. And I know that’s a very easy thing to throw around. People will say food insecurity is a threat to democracy. Which is true. But there’s a very direct link in terms of antisemitism. And that direct link is the fact that antisemitism is a conspiracy theory, in contrast to any other form of discrimination. Its distinctive characteristic is as a conspiracy theory.

What do you think the Trump Administration is doing to fight antisemitism and, in that sense, uphold democracy?

It’s calling universities to account. And, if you look at the first demands it made of Columbia, what’s striking about those things, like an end to encampments and masks—those were things that Columbia students have been asking for for a very long time. So I was pleased by that because they were asking the university to live up to its own standards. I’ve been told by people who are close to university presidents and administrators that many of them felt those were legitimate demands that should have been seen to earlier. So I didn’t have any gripe with those.

You are a smart person. Do you seriously believe that the Trump Administration cares about antisemitism? I’m a little confused here.

Yeah, I don’t . . . I don’t know. They haven’t spoken to me, they haven’t consulted with me. So all I can judge is by—

But Deborah, your entire career has been judging people for antisemitism, in some cases very effectively. The President hosted white supremacists for dinner. Elon Musk made what appeared to be a Nazi salute. Surely you can look into their souls here.

I have called that out.

O.K., but more broadly can you make some sort of judgment?

Yes, no, there’s been . . . there certainly has been a disturbing tendency, whether it’s whatever Elon Musk was doing with his arm, or when he appeared on video at a campaign event for the far right in Germany. There are a lot of examples. They’re disturbing and they’re bothersome.

[...]

Well, that right there makes me wonder. I’m just a little confused why people who care about antisemitism are friends with Donald Trump.

It is confusing. It is confusing, you know, but I can’t . . . In speaking to him, my sense is, with the little I know about him, which is very little, that he truly is concerned about fighting antisemitism. I also think there are many Jews, and some non-Jews, too, but many Jews who are disappointed by how universities have behaved since October 7th, and they see a strong—to use Passover terminology—a strong hand being used. Now, whether that hand is being used properly or not raises certain questions about what’s happening. To answer your question, a lot of people were relieved to see this forceful approach. I think, in many respects, it’s going too far.

You said some nice things about Secretary of State Marco Rubio. What has your reading been of him?

As a senator, he had a very strong track record on fighting antisemitism. I know there are many people, including Democrats in Florida, who appreciated his stance. What’s happening now is, I think, you know, I can’t judge, you know, but let me put it this way: I would hope that he would continue to maintain the strong stance he took while he was a senator.

You can judge him about, say, tweeting happily about people being sent to a horrific prison in El Salvador, right?

Look, there’s no reason . . . Look, when you take someone off the street who’s not supposed to be taken off the street, and you deport them, you make a mistake. I come from a tradition and a personal belief that when you make a mistake, you say, I made a mistake, and we’re gonna fix it. And that’s disturbing.

They may not care that they made a mistake. That’s the issue. Off the record and not for quotation: [Goes off record.]

Is there a reason you don’t want to say that on the record? Yeah, I don’t, because I’m still, you know . . . I don’t want to give people the chance. You know, there’s some people I know, including good friends of mine, who suffer from what the Republicans would call, what is it, “Trump Derangement Syndrome”? You know, anything he does is bad. Look, he moved the Embassy to Jerusalem. So I give him credit for that. I do give him credit for that. I’m not gonna say just because it’s the Trump Administration it’s bad.

I wasn’t asking you to say just because it was the Trump Administration that it was bad. I was just pointing out that they’re sending people without any sort of due process to a horrible prison in El Salvador.

You know, that is something that I find disturbing and I would hope that, you know, that they would, they would recognize that, because that’s not what this country is all about.

So we have all these horrific things with immigration, with DOGE dismantling the federal bureaucracy, with Trump basically destroying the Atlantic alliance. But we also have, on the other side of the ledger, moving the Embassy to Jerusalem in the first term. It shouldn’t be all black and white.

No, it’s not all black and white. It’s not all black and white. And, if you paint it only black, here’s what happens: then I have to wonder which of your criticisms are valid and which aren’t. That doesn’t mean you should go look for white when there isn’t any. But I think there are some places where, and that’s why initially I said, you know, there are some things that I applaud. But you can’t, you know, you can’t just ignore our laws. We’re a nation of laws. It wasn’t tolerance that allowed Jews to thrive here. Jews have flourished in this country because it is a nation of laws. When students feel they have no place to bring their grievances, or that when they bring their grievances, nobody cares, then you open up the door for this kind of action. So much of what’s going on could have been avoided had the universities really cared and taken antisemitism seriously.

In March, after blowing up Democrats’ unified opposition to the GOP’s government funding bill, which handed President Trump and Elon Musk expanded powers over federal spending, Chuck Schumer appeared on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes to defend his vote. In the interview, the Senate minority leader said he didn’t yet think that our democracy was at risk but made clear what his red line would be: “If Trump doesn’t obey the Supreme Court.” That, he stated, would be “different than anything else. It’s a quantum leap different, because our democracy is then—248 years of American democracy, the Magna Carta is out the window, and we will all have to take extraordinary action.”

This “quantum leap” did not take long to arrive. Last Friday, the Supreme Court unanimously ordered the Trump administration to help bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador. Abrego Garcia is an immigrant married to a U.S. citizen, with three U.S. citizen children, who has lived in this country for 14 years without being charged with any crimes—just an unsubstantiated claim of gang affiliation. A federal court ruled in 2019 that Abrego Garcia could not be deported to El Salvador, as he faced a risk of death there. The Trump administration brazenly violated this order in March, putting Abrego Garcia on a plane to what is effectively a concentration camp. This act was so “illegal,” in the Supreme Court’s words, that all nine justices agreed the administration must “facilitate” the release of Abrego Garcia and “ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.”

But Trump won’t do it. The administration argues that only El Salvador has the ability to send Abrego Garcia back. “DHS does not have authority to forcibly extract an alien from the domestic custody of a foreign sovereign nation,” Joseph Mazzara, acting general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a court filing on Monday. El Salvador’s president, who visited Trump on Monday, also claimed powerlessness. “How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” he told reporters, cruelly mischaracterizing Abrego Garcia. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.” (This is all laughable given the recent repatriation of alleged rapists and MAGA diehards Andrew and Tristan Tate from Romania.)

[...]

It’s been a shameful abdication of leadership by Democratic elites. But there was still an opportunity for redemption. Schumer said that if Trump defied a Supreme Court order, then there’d be no choice but to “take extraordinary action.” Presumably he has been preparing for this possibility—not doing so would be almost inconceivable Democratic malpractice.

But when I reached out to Schumer’s office late Monday, the senator hadn’t even posted a response to the news yet. Eventually his office put out a boilerplate statement, which they emailed to me: “The law is clear, due process was grossly violated, and the Supreme Court has clearly spoken that the Trump administration must facilitate and effectuate the return of Abrego Garcia. He should be returned to the U.S. immediately. Due process and the rule of law are cornerstones of American society for citizens and noncitizens alike and not to follow that is dangerous and outrageous. A threat to one is a threat to all.” In reply, I referenced Schumer’s statement that “we will all have to take extraordinary action” if Trump defied the court, and asked if he had any additional comments about the kind of action needed right now. His office has not responded.

This failure of leadership is particularly maddening from the leader of the opposition party in the Senate, because the upper chamber remains an institution that, as Mitch McConnell demonstrated, provides incredibly powerful tools to the minority party. We know what Senate Democrats could be doing if they decided “to take extraordinary action.” Just a few weeks ago we saw just one senator, Cory Booker, grind the chamber to a standstill for over 24 hours—an impressive effort, though arbitrary and undirected. Can you imagine how much more powerful it would be if Senate Democrats came together to organize a filibuster relay team that could continuously gum up the Senate until Trump agreed to follow the Supreme Court’s order?

An interesting, deep look and criticism of the Marxist Unity Group's (DSA caucus) proposal of what communist strategy should be.

Kolya Ludwig takes issue with the strategy of the Marxist Unity Group, arguing that a successful Marxist strategy must identify an intermediate political goal and a specific political enemy.

An interesting conversation has recently developed that speaks to some of the key theoretical and practical questions involved in revolutionary activity in the United States and elsewhere. It began with Steve Bloom’s critique of Donald Parkinson’s argument for the minimum-maximum program,[1] continued through Bloom’s elaborated critique of the Marxist Unity Group’s (MUG) thesis of a ‘Constitutional revolution,’[2] and resulted in a sequence of responses featured on Cosmonaut and in the Weekly Worker.[3] Tracing the debate thus far has led me to offer some reflections about its broader implications for socialist strategy.

[...]

The Marxist Unity Group, a caucus within the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), has accomplished the rare feat of taking theoretical discourse seriously within an organization that more and more appears to be surviving off of pure, spontaneous inertia. To their credit, MUG has spared us the disappointing (pseudo-)secrecy of some in the Marxist left by publicizing their perspective regarding the path to socialism and thus opening themselves to scrutiny. The current debate would be unthinkable otherwise.

As to the specific content of their theoretical positions, though, it strikes me that MUG has cornered itself into a contradictory political program: one that anticipates the ‘democratic republic’ as the desired form of workers’ state but fails to account for the ways that the masses themselves are already fighting for democracy. This contradiction arises, I believe, from MUG’s commitment to a neo-Kautskyan ‘strategy of patience’; a theory that forecloses serious consideration of cross-class alliances, and that has precluded a more productive relationship to the conjuncture and effective leadership within DSA. While its critiques of other Marxist conceptions of hegemony are well-taken, MUG still proceeds from a logic which does not break thoroughly enough from the fundamental mode of thought that predominates in contemporary US Marxism—that which broadly conceives of hegemony as a future prospect rather than an immediate question.

What makes the present perspective on hegemony distinct from other Marxist strategic formulations, including that of MUG, is (1) its assertion that proletarian class-consciousness is only developed by navigating the complexities of the struggle for hegemony over other classes, (2) its commitment to an intermediate revolutionary rupture that is already conceivable to the masses, and (3) a willingness to make politically agile calculations based on conjunctural assessments that do not adhere to prescriptive programs. Furthermore, I argue that this is not a novel strategic formulation, but the one Lenin actually practiced for most of his life, which Alan Shandro convincingly demonstrates in his book Lenin and the Logic of Hegemony.[4] Shandro’s scholarship, which I foreground in this article (while of course adding my own insights and emphases),[5] presents problems for neo-Kautskyan perspectives that require serious theoretical engagement—the lack of which, to date, suggests how disturbing Shandro’s thesis is for the dominant conceptions of hegemony on the Marxist left.[6]

[...]

There is much to appreciate about MUG’s Constitutional revolution thesis. For one, their preoccupation with the country’s founding document disturbs the sedimentation of “state loyalism” within DSA, a tendency whose defects are visible for all serious revolutionaries to see.[18] Secondly, and most importantly, MUG’s identification of an intermediate target on the road to workers’ power shows a willingness to take the necessary risk inherent in being a Communist: namely, to stake one’s principles on an actual political claim. In contrast to the cliched coming together and falling apart of Marxist projects around various theoretical and organizational ideas which, as Gant R. puts it, “[raise] the question of class struggle abstractly without presenting a coherent political challenge to the existing state,”[19] MUG’s perspective identifies a concrete political goal with which to anchor a Marxist project in the current conjuncture of US politics.[20]

Despite its boldness, I believe MUG’s proposal of a Constitutional revolution falls short of an adequate conjunctural analysis for two reasons. Firstly, it implies, by its privileged position in their agitational repertoire (even if it is never argued explicitly), that state power is located in the features of a particular legal document (though an exceptionally important one, as legal documents go). This framework misrepresents the real location of state power, which is in ideology, or the construction of consent among the dominated and intermediate classes around the class project of a particular cohort. In other words, the Constitutional revolution thesis does not sufficiently identify a particular sector of capital as the effective ruling class of the existing state, and as the necessary and principal target of our political program (a matter to which I will return later).

To be clear, there is no doubt that those in MUG already understand the inherent class nature of the state, and recognize that the prerogative of capital is the supreme law of the land as things currently stand, irrespective of any written law. Their agitational emphasis on the Constitution is thus surprising to me and does not, I argue, adequately reflect a Marxist understanding of power. Of course, a person knows they are expected to feign interest when “the Constitution is under attack,” but sincere deference to its strictures is the domain of liberal columnists and political hacks. The Constitution wields a certain symbolic power—sure—but the hard core of ideology is located elsewhere.[21]

The second reason I am skeptical of the Constitutional objective is that it doesn’t take account of popular moods as articulated (however immaturely) in the major social movements of the last couple of decades—movements which point neither primarily, nor secondarily to Constitutional concerns (despite Gil Schaeffer’s claim that “we are already in the middle of a mass democratic political movement against the Constitution that began in earnest in 2009”),[22] but which do point to a deep resentment toward the existing state. To interpret, appreciate, and properly articulate the desires of mass movements is not ‘tailism,’ as Mike Macnair suggests in his critique of Bloom.[23] It is rather the starting point for any revolutionary project that aims to transform a society made up of active human beings.

Elon and DOGE almost certainly siphoning what is otherwise meant to be confidential information from the NLRB, including very likely union members/organisers.

An employee who was trying to investigate had threats involving pictures of them walking their dog being posted to their door.

The DOGE employees, who are effectively led by White House adviser and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, appeared to have their sights set on accessing the NLRB's internal systems. They've said their unit's overall mission is to review agency data for compliance with the new administration's policies and to cut costs and maximize efficiency.

But according to an official whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and other federal overseers that was obtained by NPR, subsequent interviews with the whistleblower and records of internal communications, technical staff members were alarmed about what DOGE engineers did when they were granted access, particularly when those staffers noticed a spike in data leaving the agency. It's possible that the data included sensitive information on unions, ongoing legal cases and corporate secrets — data that four labor law experts tell NPR should almost never leave the NLRB and that has nothing to do with making the government more efficient or cutting spending.

Meanwhile, according to the disclosure and records of internal communications, members of the DOGE team asked that their activities not be logged on the system and then appeared to try to cover their tracks behind them, turning off monitoring tools and manually deleting records of their access — evasive behavior that several cybersecurity experts interviewed by NPR compared to what criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do

[...]

NxGen is an internal system that was designed specifically for the NLRB in-house, according to several of the engineers who created the tool and who all spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation or adverse consequences for any future government work.

The engineers explained that while many of the NLRB's records are eventually made public, the NxGen case management system hosts proprietary data from corporate competitors, personal information about union members or employees voting to join a union, and witness testimony in ongoing cases. Access to that data is protected by numerous federal laws, including the Privacy Act.

Those engineers were also concerned by DOGE staffers' insistence that their activities not be logged, allowing them to probe the NLRB's systems and discover information about potential security flaws or vulnerabilities without being detected.

"If he didn't know the backstory, any [chief information security officer] worth his salt would look at network activity like this and assume it's a nation-state attack from China or Russia," said Braun, the former White House cyber official.

[...]

For cybersecurity experts, that spike in data leaving the system is a key indicator of a breach, Berulis explained.

"We are under assault right now," he remembered thinking.

When Berulis asked his IT colleagues whether they knew why the data was exfiltrated or whether anyone else had been using containers to run code on the system in recent weeks, no one knew anything about it or the other unusual activities on the network, according to his disclosure. In fact, when they looked into the spike, they found that logs that were used to monitor outbound traffic from the system were absent. Some actions taken on the network, including data exfiltration, had no attribution — except to a "deleted account," he continued. "Nobody knows who deleted the logs or how they could have gone missing," Berulis said.

The IT team met to discuss insider threats — namely, the DOGE engineers, whose activities it had little insight into or control over. "We had no idea what they did," he explained. Those conversations are reflected in his official disclosure.

They eventually launched a formal breach investigation, according to the disclosure, and prepared a request for assistance from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). However, those efforts were disrupted without an explanation, Berulis said. That was deeply troubling to Berulis, who felt he needed help to try to get to the bottom of what happened and determine what new vulnerabilities might be exploited as a result.

In the days after Berulis and his colleagues prepared a request for CISA's help investigating the breach, Berulis found a printed letter in an envelope taped to his door, which included threatening language, sensitive personal information and overhead pictures of him walking his dog, according to the cover letter attached to his official disclosure. It's unclear who sent it, but the letter made specific reference to his decision to report the breach. Law enforcement is investigating the letter.

"If the underlying disclosure wasn't concerning enough, the targeted, physical intimidation and surveillance of my client is. If this is happening to Mr. Berulis, it is likely happening to others and brings our nation more in line with authoritarian regimes than with open and free democracies," wrote Bakaj, his attorney, in a statement sent to NPR. "It is time for everyone – and Congress in particular – to acknowledge the facts and stop our democracy, freedom, and liberties from slipping away, something that will take generations to repair."

In part because of the stymied internal investigation and the attempts to silence him, Berulis decided to come forward publicly.

Reminder: There is no legitimate debate. These people are not interested in safety or science or womens sports, they're interested in maintaining a simplistic gender binary against reality.

Right-wing media spent years demanding that President Donald Trump ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports. He complied. But rather than declare victory, conservative outlets immediately demanded even stricter measures, expanding their campaign to include intersex athletes and calling for invasive genetic testing. Their goal isn't fairness; it's perpetual outrage and ideological policing of women's bodies.

After Trump signed an executive order to ban trans women from women’s sports, right-wing media figures quickly pivoted to a months-old controversy centered around Olympic boxer Imane Khelif, a cisgender Algerian athlete who was falsely accused of being transgender last summer. Khelif was disqualified from the 2023 Women’s World Boxing Championships, even though she was assigned female at birth. Despite this, conservative media have revisited Khelif’s case as justification for excluding intersex women, labelling the boxer as “male” in order to claim Trump's ban isn't strict enough, and once again moving the goalposts in their ongoing obsession over who counts as a woman in 2025.

[...]

By March 6, City Journal began explicitly including intersex athletes in its push for expanded bans, advocating for chromosomal tests to exclude women with differences in sex development. Its writer asserted that “in rare cases, though more commonly in developing countries, doctors may misidentify a male newborn’s sex due to female-like or ambiguous genitalia caused by a developmental condition. … Just this summer, a loophole of this kind allowed two male athletes, Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-Ting, to compete as women and win gold medals in boxing at the 2024 Paris Olympics.” If evidence exists for this claim about private and personal details of Khelif and Lin’s bodies, it is entirely absent from the article (seriously, go take a look). According to BBC, the International Olympic Committee has stated that “Lin and Khelif were ‘born and raised as women.’”

[...]

his new phase targets intersex women — individuals with differences in sex development who've been recognized as female their entire lives — who it asserts are simply “male.” Under policies championed by conservative figures, women with conditions like androgen insensitivity syndrome — who have XY chromosomes but develop female anatomy — could be excluded entirely from women's sports. Many women with AIS only learn about their genetic makeup during puberty when menstruation doesn't begin.

Similarly, women with 5-alpha reductase deficiency or Swyer syndrome — conditions resulting in the presence of XY chromosomes but female-typical sex characteristics — would also face disqualification under strict chromosomal definitions. These conditions occur in roughly 1 in 100 people. Although rare, women born with XY chromosomes have given birth in the past.

History demonstrates the harm of such restrictive policies. Olympic medalist Caster Semenya endured invasive scrutiny and discrimination over her naturally occurring testosterone levels, exemplifying the potential consequences of implementing genetic testing requirements. Conservative media continue to advocate for mandatory genetic testing, despite evidence that it could unfairly exclude cisgender and intersex women alike.

[...]

Right-wing media's escalating demands following Trump's anti-trans executive orders represent an ongoing pattern. As Media Matters previously reported, conservative figures consistently deemed even Trump's most extreme anti-trans policies insufficient. Their end goal isn't fairness; it's continuous outrage, exclusion, and control.

DHS can't articulate a reason that Mahmoud Khalil, arrested and supposedly had his green card revoked for being involved with pro-Palestine prostest, for why he's been arrested other than the fact he organised protests.

President Trump has ramped up efforts to deliver on a campaign promise to carry out the largest ever deportation of immigrants in U.S. history.

Parallel to those deportation plans is a crackdown on what the administration calls antisemitism on college campuses.

Both efforts came to the forefront this week when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate student, who has not been charged with any crime yet. This is likely the first high profile arrest of a legal permanent resident in connection with the pro-Palestinian protests that rippled across the nation's campuses last year. Trump has vowed that this is the first of many arrests to come as he lays a framework for increased deportations. Trump officials are standing beside his efforts and doubling down on accusations that Khalil's actions align with those of a terrorist.

One of those officials is Troy Edgar, the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who defended Khalil's arrest on Morning Edition. When NPR's Michel Martin asked him to explain what Khalil did to be arrested, aligned with terrorist activity and potentially deported, Edgar did not give a clear answer.

"I think you can see it on TV, right?" Edgar said. "We've invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he's put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the Secretary of State can review his visa process at any point and revoke it."

Khalil, a Syrian national of Palestinian descent, does not have a U.S. visa of any kind. Therefore an immigration judge would be the one to decide whether or not his status is revoked, not administration officials. He does however hold a green card, making him a lawful permanent resident in the U.S.

[...]

Troy Edgar: I think what you saw there is you've got somebody that has come into the country on a visa. And as he's going through the visa process, he is coming in to basically be a student that is not going to be supporting terrorism. So, the issue is he was let into the country on this visa. He has been promoting this antisemitism activity at the university. And at this point, the State Department has revoked his visa for supporting a terrorist type organization. And we're the enforcing agencies, so we've come in to basically arrest him.

Martin: A White House official told the Free Press that there's no allegation that he broke any laws. So, again, I have to ask, what specifically constitutes terrorist activity that he was supporting? What exactly do you say he did?

Edgar: Well, like I said, when you apply for a visa, you go through the process to be able to say that you're here on a student visa, that doesn't afford you all the rights of coming in and basically going through this process, agitating and supporting Hamas. So, at this point, yeah, the Secretary of State and the State Department maintains the right to revoke the visa, and that's what they've done.

Martin: How did he support Hamas? Exactly what did he do?

Edgar: Well, I think you can see it on TV, right? This is somebody that we've invited and allowed the student to come into the country, and he's put himself in the middle of the process of basically pro-Palestinian activity. And at this point, like I said, the Secretary of State can review his visa process at any point and revoke it.

Martin: He's a permanent resident. He's not a visa holder. He's a legal permanent resident. He has the green card, at least he did, until it's alleged that it was revoked.

If the allegation is that Mr. Khalil organized protests and made speeches after which other people engaged in prohibited activity, or, say, violent activity. Well, Mr. Trump gave a political speech on January 6, 2021, after which some individuals engaged in violent and illegal acts. How is this any different?

Edgar: President Trump's a citizen and the president of the United States. This is a person that came in under a visa. And again, the secretary of state at any point can take a look and evaluate that visa and decide if they want to revoke it.

Martin: He's a legal permanent resident. I have to keep insisting on that. He is a legal permanent resident.

"If I'm going down for genocide, you are too, kid."

Imagine consolidating behind this guy in 2020 only for him to be heavily responsible for your loss in 2024. No sympathy for these dipshits.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris both understood the importance of being seen as the bigger change agent.

For Trump, that meant continuing to promise an antidote to the Biden-Harris years.

For Harris, there was more flexibility to define her brand of change.

She could risk looking hypocritical by making clean breaks with Biden on policies she had supported as vice president, rejecting parts of their record to forge her own agenda. She could identify new issues to run on that avoided the pitfalls of turning her back on the Biden era. Or she could rely on voters to see her gender, her genes, and her “lived experience” — a middle-class upbringing, schools outside the Ivy League, and a career as a prosecutor — as symbols of change.

Biden and his loyalists took the first option off the table.

He would say publicly that Harris should do what she must to win. But privately, including in conversations with her, he repeated an admonition: let there be no daylight between us. “No daylight” was the phrase he had used as a vice presidential candidate in 2008 to bind Republican nominee John McCain to an unpopular president, George W. Bush.

Almost everywhere she went, Harris walked among former Biden aides who sought to defend his presidency. Her campaign was run by a former White House deputy chief of staff — whom she had just empowered to box out her own confidants — and a phalanx of department heads who had served Biden until the previous month.

[...]

When Harris sat down with Walz and CNN’s Dana Bash the last week of August, the segment produced a little bit of news: Harris said she would name a Republican to serve in her Cabinet. She also said that she no longer supported a ban on fracking. Her 2019 call to end the practice threatened to hurt her in Pennsylvania, even though she had adopted Biden’s no-ban policy as his vice presidential candidate in 2020. But the first portion of the one-on-two interview — the part more viewers were likely to watch — featured Harris reciting a laundry list of Biden’s policies.

Sitting next to Walz in a chair that seemed to place her below him and heaping praise on Biden’s record, Harris did not look like a candidate seeking the highest office in the land. The whole scene reinforced the criticism that the vice president was either incapable, or afraid, of answering tough questions on her own.

For the rest of the campaign, her team required that she be provided a chair that met certain specifications: “Leg height no less than 15 inches; floor to top of seat height no less than 18.9 inches; arms on chairs may not be very high, arms must fall at a natural height; chairs must be firm.”

No matter how firm her chair, the question facing Harris was whether she could build a sturdy platform.

Her rallies and convention speech had not answered the question of why she was running for president — or how her vision for the country would deliver for voters — other than having been next in line. She was running out of major moments to explain a vision to a broad audience. Her September 10 debate with Trump would offer another opportunity — perhaps a last chance before voters cast early ballots — to establish that key part of her narrative.

But the day of the debate Biden called to give Harris an unusual kind of pep talk — and another reminder about the loyalty he demanded. No longer able to defend his own record, he expected Harris to protect his legacy.

Whether she won or lost the election, he thought, she would only harm him by publicly distancing herself from him — especially during a debate that would be watched by millions of Americans. To the extent that she wanted to forge her own path, Biden had no interest in giving her room to do so. He needed just three words to convey how much all of that mattered to him.

“No daylight, kid,” Biden said.

Democrats playing footsy with fascist Charlie Kirk over hating trans people. This is the party that's supposed to be the great defenders of LGBT people?

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a pioneer for LGBTQ+ rights who decades ago upset leaders in his own party when he defied state law and issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples, suggested Democrats were in the wrong in allowing transgender athletes to participate in female college and youth sports.

“I think it’s an issue of fairness, I completely agree with you on that. It is an issue of fairness — it’s deeply unfair,” Newsom said in his debut podcast episode of “This is Gavin Newsom.” “I am not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you.”

Newsom’s comments on the issue roiling political debates nationwide came in a conversation with influential MAGA-world figure Charlie Kirk, the campus culture warrior who leads the organization Turning Point USA and is a close ally of President Donald Trump and his son, Donald Trump Jr.

Newsom also agreed that the most politically destructive attack ads from Trump’s campaign featured Kamala Harris’ support for providing taxpayer-funded gender transition-related medical care for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.

“She didn’t even react to it, which was even more devastating,” Newsom said, suggesting upward of 90 percent of Americans disagreed with Harris’ position. “Then you had the video [of Harris] as a validator. Brutal,” Newsom added. “It was a great ad.”

Kirk challenged Newsom, a likely 2028 presidential hopeful, to speak out against AB Hernandez, a transgender high school track star from California whose triple jump event in the women’s competition is drawing fierce backlash from the right. Newsom said he has four children of his own — including two daughters — and noted that both he and his wife participated in college-level sports, she in soccer and he in baseball.

“I revere sports, so the issue of fairness is completely legit,” Newsom said. “And I saw that — the last couple years, boy did I [see] how you guys were able to weaponize that issue at another level.”

Kirk challenged Newsom over his use of the word “weaponize,” and Newsom replaced it with “highlight.”