curated news excerpts & citations
Closer to the Edge: 25 QUESTIONS
Because Opposing Fascism Apparently Needs Clarification Now
- If I walk in here with a copy of Alice’s Restaurant on vinyl, does that count as antifascist literature under NSPM-7?
- Can I still sing “you can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant” without being charged as a domestic terrorist — or do I need a permit?
- When Arlo Guthrie said he was “sittin’ on the Group W bench,” did he mean the one reserved for antifascists in 2025?
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Jay Kuo: Chicago and the Horrors of Carte Blanche
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – October 2, 2025
At about 1:00 on Tuesday morning, federal agents from Border Patrol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) raided an apartment building on Chicago’s South Shore Drive. Using helicopters and large vehicles, as well as flash-bang grenades, and dressed in military fatigues, agents broke down the doors of the residents of the five-story building and pulled them from their homes in zip ties, some of them naked. Agents left the people tied up outside for hours before letting all but 37 of them go. The apartments residents returned to were trashed.
Cindy Hernandez of the Chicago Sun-Times reported on the raid, noting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said some of those arrested ““are believed to be involved in drug trafficking and distribution, weapons crimes and immigration violators.” It also said the neighborhood was “a location known to be frequented by Tren de Aragua members and their associates.”
But, as Hernandez reports, DHS did not offer any evidence to support its assertions. Some of the people detained during the raid are U.S. citizens.
…Today, Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times reported that the Trump administration informed congressional committees that the president has decided the U.S. is in a formal “armed conflict” with the drug cartels the administration has labeled terrorist organizations. If the U.S. is engaged in such an armed conflict, the administration said, those suspected of smuggling drugs for the cartels are “unlawful combatants.”
This declaration backfills the administration’s justification for striking three boats in the Caribbean in September, killing 17. According to international law, Savage and Schmitt explain, in an armed conflict it’s lawful for a country to kill enemy fighters even when they don’t pose a direct threat.
This redefinition is problematic not just because most overdose deaths in the U.S. come from fentanyl from Mexico, not drugs from Venezuela, the home base of the boats the administration struck. Legal experts say that trafficking an illicit consumer product is not the same as armed conflict. It is problematic also because the administration did not identify any of the drug cartels it claims it is engaging in armed conflict, who must be engaged in organized armed combat to be part of an armed conflict.
…The declaration means that the administration is laying claim that the U.S. is in an active armed conflict, which would give the president extraordinary wartime powers. This dovetails with the September 17 demand of DHS that the “media and the far left” must stop “the demonization of President Trump, his supporters, and DHS law enforcement.” It also supports Trump’s warning to military leaders on Tuesday that “[w]e’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy,” followed by complaints that “Venezuela emptied its prison population into our country” and a vow to “straighten…out” the cities “run by the radical left Democrats.”
That assault is underway now, not only through raids like the one in Chicago on Tuesday, but also by administration figures who are using the government shutdown to hurt Democrats and their constituencies. Independent journalist Marisa Kabas reported this morning that the Department of Education changed out-of-office email replies for furloughed employees from generic messages to ones blaming Democrats for the government shutdown. Leah Feiger and Vittoria Elliott of Wired reported that when employees changed their out-of-office responses back to neutral language, the message changed back to blaming the Democrats.
…The nation’s rapid advance toward authoritarianism is one story right now, but there is another: the administration is rotting from inside.
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo reports that the groundwork required for the mass layoffs Vought has threatened is not apparent, suggesting the administration is trying to project power it does not have.
The Republicans are trying to pin the blame for the shutdown on the Democrats, but Trump is apparently so unstable he is hurting their cause. …
On Tuesday, after his 70-minute incoherent speech to the nation’s top military leaders, Trump proved Democrats’ point when he told White House reporters that the administration intends to use the shutdown to cut programs the American people want, including ones that give them access to medical care.
…This is another unforced error, with Trump tying himself to Project 2025 after assuring voters before the 2024 election that he had nothing to do with it and knew nothing about it. …
Yesterday, the day after Trump’s 70-minute rambling talk in front of the nation’s top military leaders, Representative Madeleine Dean (D-PA) confronted House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). A camera caught the exchange:
Dean: “The president is unhinged. He is unwell.”
Johnson: “A lot of folks on your side are, too. I don’t control him.”
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Andrew McCarthy: Trump Notifies Congress That the U.S. Is at War with Drug Cartels
The more distant we are from an actual military threat, the more imperative it should be to obtain authorization from the people’s representatives.
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Bulwark: Trump’s ‘Shoot the Hostage’ Shutdown Strategy
The White House’s 3D-chess move: crushing the economy to own the libs.
(Bulwark more…)John Pavlovitz: Congratulations, Trump Supporters, You’ve Owned the Libs
Daily Kos: MAGA Mike Johnson Admits that the Shutdown is ‘Something that We’ve All Always Wanted to Do’
Sarah Jones & Jason Easley: Trump Admits He Is Project 2025, And The Media Refuses To Apologize For Lying To America
Dean Blundell: Let’s Just Call it What It Is: The Epstein Files Government Shutdown.
Shakedown is more like it: How Trump’s Government Shutdown Looks Like an Epstein Files Cover-Up (and Why Swearing In Adelita Grijalva Terrifies Them)
Sarah Jones & Jason Easley: Here Is Why Trump Is Losing The Government Shutdown
Trump shut the government down, then continued construction on the White House ballroom, showing once again that he is the master of bad messaging that is losing the government shutdown.
Raw Story: Dem candidate calls for seizing Trump’s golf course in retaliation for ‘illegal’ act
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Joyce Vance: A Note About the Comey Case
In the wake of the Comey indictment, The Washington Post is reporting tonight that “Lawyers inside the high-profile U.S. attorney’s office [for the Eastern District of Virginia] prosecuting former FBI director James B. Comey are unnerved by what they see as an unprecedented push by President Donald Trump to inject politics into their staffing and charging decisions … a strategy they say could jeopardize national security investigations.” Two longtime prosecutors in the office were fired within days after Erik Siebert, the Trump nominee to be U.S. attorney who declined to indict Comey because the evidence wasn’t there, was replaced by Trump loyalist Lindsey Halligan. Halligan, a former insurance lawyer, has no prosecutorial experience.
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Both, it turns out, seem to have been targeted because of their association with Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general during the Biden administration, who served as the head of DOJ’s National Security Division during part of the Obama administration. That’s how petty this is. And it’s also dangerous. The Eastern District of Virginia plays an outsized role when it comes to terrorism investigations and prosecutions. …
…Some commentators have suggested that permitting a judge to dismiss the case without holding a trial would fuel conspiracy theories about Comey being protected by the “deep state.” …
It would be naïve to expect Trump’s base to accept any outcome that doesn’t conform to their biases, including a decision by a jury to acquit. …
…Jim Comey stands indicted. But the administration that has waxed loudly about horrible criminals has no issue with breaking the law itself. Following the shutdown, many federal government websites carry the same sort of “warning” that the Justice Department’s does.
It’s a partisan message, blaming Democrats for the government shutdown (even though Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the House). And it’s being paid for with taxpayer dollars on government websites. That’s a clear violation of the Hatch Act, which restricts civilian executive branch employees from participating in partisan political activity. And as if irony isn’t already dead, it’s also on the DOJ website page advising employees they are subject to the Hatch Act.
(Joyce Vance more…)
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Daily Beast: Mike Johnson Caught on Camera Admitting Trump Is ‘Unwell’
HuffPost: Mike Johnson’s Response To Dem Calling Trump ‘Unhinged’ Is Raising Eyebrows
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Al Jazeera: How the world is responding to Israel’s interception of the Gaza flotilla
Italian unions call for general strike as global protests grow and multiple governments criticise Israel.
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James Eagle: Global Innovation Index by GDP per capita
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What we see is that innovation is not just the preserve of wealthy nations. This chart highlights how several emerging economies are outperforming expectations relative to their level of development. China, India and Vietnam stand out, placing far above where their GDP per person would suggest. Together these countries represent close to three billion people, and their innovation scores are reshaping the global map. They therefore have far more influence collectively than any other country in the world through their sheer size, which Switzerland cannot complete with.China in particular is a huge outlier. With a GDP per person of around US$25,000 on a purchasing power basis, it still manages to outperform much richer peers, clustering and is almost aligned with Switzerland and the US. India and Vietnam also look impressive, showing that scale and ambition can help close the development gap.
(James Eagle more…)
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Your Local Epidemiologist: Routine vaccinations, sanitation, and a look back at history
Sanitation vs. vaccine impact, requirements, universal recommendations, Hep B and more
(Your Local Epidemiologist more…)
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Patricia J Wentzel: 988 versus 911
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Marisa Kabas: Slate x The Handbasket: Top MAGA ‘voter fraud’ watchdog votes in PA. Records show he doesn’t live there.
(Marisa Kabas more…)
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Qasim Rashid, Esq.: I FOIA’d the FBI for Border Czar Tom Homan’s Alleged Bribery Tape
FBI Director Kash Patel claims there was no crime, so he should have no problem releasing a harmless video
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KUT: UT Austin among nine universities asked to sign new ‘compact’ by Trump White House
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NY Times: After Declining to Give Trump a Sword for King Charles, a Museum Leader Is Out
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NY Times: Kennedy Fires N.I.H. Scientist Who Filed Whistle-Blower Complaint
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who was on administrative leave, alleged that the Trump administration had defied court orders and undermined vaccine research.
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Conspiracy First, Evidence Later: Maga’s Rush After Church Attack and 75% of Scientists are Considering Leaving U.S.
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NewsNation: Trump-Epstein statues make return to National Mall
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties