Defiance

    

I just ran across this. Thinking about perhaps becoming a paying member, subject to some confirmatory due diligence. We'll see. Things are not good in the U.S.   

 

 

From an April post of mine:

Improper Ideologies.

I am a 79-year-old natural born U.S. citizen from western Long Island, New York (Floral Park, bordering Queens borough, to be precise). I now live in Baltimore, Maryland. I recently renewed my passport and was shortly thereafter granted a Global Entry Pass by TSA. My Maryland driver’s license is Real ID compliant. I have no criminal record, and have had an FBI background check (replete with fingerprinting) pursuant to my 2000-2005 tenure as an OCC/FDIC regulated bank credit risk officer.

I have never wanted nor owned a firearm (never had a tattoo either). The totality of my experience with physical violence comprises one absurd schoolyard fistfight when I was a sophomore in high school. It lasted perhaps 30 seconds and didn’t resolve anything (beyond confirming my not even coming close to being the cinematic adolescent badass I’d assumed I was).

My wife and I have been together since 1974. We raised three children, and are now retired doting grandparents / great-grandparents. Across my wife’s career as an increasingly senior quality assurance executive, she underwent numerous federal security clearance investigations, and repeatedly held what is known as the (always project-specific) “Q clearance” (for her nationwide work in DOE nuclear waste remediation and worldwide DOD contractor engineering and construction, much of it classified). She has performed QA audits at all of the federal National Laboratories, and at US military facilities around the globe. She has forgotten more about classified information SCIF-level security protocols than our poignant Marvel Comics SecDefBro Pete Hegseth ever knew.

Notwithstanding the breadth and depth of our dispositively documented loyal U.S. citizen histories, it would not surprise me one whit were we to be detained and perhaps renditioned by Donald Trump‘s ICE/DHS thugs the next time we return from visiting abroad.

The unacceptable offenses? Hmmm… suborning Woke Leftist Secular Globalist MAGA/Project 2025-averse “alignment” with “Homegrown Improper Ideologies?”

'eh?

 

UPDATE 

 

Been crawling their website. I have as many questions as answers thus far. Below, bottom of the home page.

 

    

I would not have gone there.

GLENN KIRSHNER

 

____ 

"Civil society leaders recently launched what’s been dubbed a “NATO for nonprofits” — a mutual defense pact where organizations pledge to rally behind any group targeted by Trump’s revenge machine. Hollywood leaders have done the same for the entertainment industry.

Now we must do it for individuals. If President Trump keeps weaponizing government to go after elected leaders, whistleblowers, or other opposition figures, they shouldn’t have to stand alone. We should make it clear, in advance, that we’ll stand with them.

A first wave of former government officials has come together to launch the DECLARATION OF DEFIANCE for exactly that purpose. See below"

 

PUBLIC FIGURES WHO HAVE SIGNED ON THUS FAR

Jeff Modisett
Former Indiana Attorney General
Brian P. McKeon
Former Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources
Chris Gorman
Former Attorney General of Kentucky
Stephanie Grisham
Former White House Press Secretary
Richard Lyman
Senior Advisor to former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld
Marty Linsky
Former Massachusetts Republican State Representative
Paul Rosenzweig
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy, DHS
Ty Cobb
Former White House Special Counsel and federal prosecutor
Bob Inglis
Former Member of Congress
Alexander Vindman
Lt. Col (Ret.)
Emil H. Frankel
Former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation
Rosa Brooks
Former Counselor to the Undersecretary of Defense
Denver Lee Riggleman III
Former Member of Congress
Joe Walsh
Former Member of Congress
William Kristol
Former Chief of Staff to the Vice President, White House
Sidney Blumenthal
Former Assistant and Senior Advisor to President Clinton
Joyce Vance
Former U.S. Attorney
Hon. Paul W. Hodes
Former Member of Congress
Christopher Shays
Former Member of Congress
Kathy Boockvar
Former Pennsylvania Secretary of State
Reid Ribble
Former Member of Congress
Brad Miller
Former Member of Congress
Kevin W. Techau
Former U.S. Attorney
Barry R. Grissom
Former US.. Attorney
Murray Dickman
Assitant to the Attorney General
John Cavanaugh
Former Member of Congress
Gerry Sikorski
Former Member of Congress
Brian Baird
Former Member of Congress
Ben Chandler
Former Attorney General and Congressman from Kentucky
Kelly M. Fay Rodríguez
Former U.S. Special Representative for International Labor Affairs
Matt McHugh
Former Member of Congress
John W. Carlin
Former Governor of Kansas
James Greenwood
Former Member of Congress
Peter H Kostmayer
Former Member of Congress
Paul Begala
Former Counselor to the President, Clinton Administration
Mel Levine
Former Member of Congress
David Skaggs
Former Member of Congress
Matt Bennett
Former Deputy Assistant to the President, The White House
Jim Lewis
Former U.S. Attorney
Miles Taylor
Former DHS Chief of Staff
David Lapan
Former DoD and DHS spokesman
Karan English
Former Member of Congress
Richard Gephardt
Former Member of Congress
Gregory P. Wilson
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of the Treasury
Russ Carnahan
Former Member of Congress
Joe Hoeffel
Former Member of Congress
Joe Hunter
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary, Department of the Interior
Robert F. Orr
Justice (retired)
Mark Udall
Former U.S. Senator Colorado
Olivia Troye
Former White House Homeland Security Advisor, Trump Administration
Mickey Edwards
Former Member of Congress
Karen Loeffler
Former U.S. Attorney
Barbara Comstock
Former Member of Congress
Mark Harvey
Former National Security Official, The White House
Desiree Cormier Smith
Former Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice
Claudine Scheider
Former Member of Congress
Seth Wayne
Former Trial Attorney, DOJ Civil Rights Division
Julia Gegenheimer
Former DOJ Special Litigation Counsel and Assistant Special Counsel
Mary B. McCord
Former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security
Les AuCoin
Former Member of Congress
Russ Feingold
Former U.S. Senator, Wisconsin
John M. Mitnick
Former Associate Counsel to the President; former General Counsel, DHS

Topically apropos, JON STEWART

 

 

SOME PRIOR TRUMP RIFFS OF MINE

• Define 'Ignorance'
• Book 'im, Dano
• BabaDon Update 

By no means exhaustive. And, I have numerous other continuous topics of legit concern.

More shortly...

Politics & Prose. Andrew Ross Sorkin interview.

 

I finished the 600+ page 1929. A totally marvelous read. Finishing up Too Big to Fail. I'm already well-versed in that topic. I could have written parts of it.

 

The "Politics & Prose Bookstore?"

 

I may have to jump on Amtrak to DC Union Station and go there. They also tout this:

 

Lordy. I'll go broke. Bookstore / Coffeehouse / Winebar?

 

The Sorkin interview above is a great way to spend an hour & 3 minutes. 

 

IRONY UPDATE

 

Some Warm Fuzzies sedative words of the FIRE Sector.

TRUSTS, SECURITIES, EQUITIES, BONDS... 

"We at Trust National Bank of Main Street assure you that our words are our Bonds. Your Equities are Secure..."

 

Right. To which we now, in the budding age of crypto, catatonically add in "TRUSTLESS." 

 

Generic Zoloft Jargon aside, we're really just talking enforceable contract law.

 

Another fine read.  

 

An ongoing concern, one rather acutely ramping up in recent years, is one of our sociopolitical Bifurcation. to wit, [1] Those of us bound by the law yet not protected by it, in contrast with [2] those protected by the law but not bound by it. Which cohort applies to you?

 

ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED RECENT TOPICAL READING

 

   

 

A couple more:

 

    

More in a bit...

The Builder in Chief

... [W]e must remember that a weak and broken man like Donald Trump cannot succeed without the support of rich and powerful enablers. From the feckless and compliant Republican Congress to the billionaires and corporate executives, money is just as essential to his success as obedience. And rather than facing a chorus of “no” from these people, many have chosen to say “yes” to him by handing over tens of millions of dollars.

This has been an ongoing reality since his inauguration on Jan. 20, which was funded by the corporate elite who proudly stood behind him in the rotunda of our nation’s Capitol. But it came into fresh focus again yesterday when the White House released the names of 37 corporations and rich donors whose dollars are being used to strip away the history and memories of our White House to make way for Trump’s enormous Mar-a-Lago-style ballroom which will dwarf the People’s House.

While specific dollar amounts were not noted, the list includes Altria Group, Amazon, Apple, Booz Allen Hamilton, Caterpillar, Coinbase, Comcast, J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul, Hard Rock International, Google, HP, Lockheed Martin, Meta, Micron, Microsoft, NextEra Energy, Palantir, Ripple, Reynolds American, T-Mobile, Tether America, Union Pacific Railroad, Adelson Family Foundation, Stefan E. Brodie, Betty Wold Johnson Foundation, Charles and Marissa Cascarilla, Edward and Shari Glazer, Harold Hamm, Benjamin Leon Jr., The Lutnick Family, The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation, Stephen A. Schwarzmann, Konstantin Sokolov, Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher, Paolo Tiramani and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

This list includes tech and AI giants, arms manufacturers, crypto financiers and wealthy individuals committed to funding Trump’s grotesque abuse of our history, traditions, values and democratic processes. While he has demolished the East Wing without explicit official approvals and with indifference to the will of the people, their money gives him cover and support. Their money tells him that he can continue to act as he sees fit.

“He is the builder in chief,” his lead propagandist Karoline Leavitt proudly said yesterday on Fox News. “In large part, he was reelected back to this People’s House because he is good at building things. He has done it his entire life, his entire career.”

Get it? Rather than lowering the price of eggs, making healthcare more affordable or making life more livable, Trump was reelected to build monuments to his ego.

Trump initially said this billionaires’ ballroom would cost $200 million; now he says it will cost $300 million, a sum he spouted without explaining how all that money is being raised or spent. (This along with lying that he wouldn’t “touch” the now gone East Wing.) Reportedly, the payments are being managed by the Trust for the National Mall, a non-profit that works with the National Park Service.

Make no mistake: Beneath the pseudo-legitimacy of these organizations is a coordinated campaign to channel corporate money and support for Donald Trump. For example: The BBC reported that, according to court documents, YouTube is paying $22 million as part of its legal settlement of Trump’s lawsuit over the platform’s suspension of his account in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

This is where we are: The Supreme Court won’t say no to Trump’s unfettered demolition. The Republicans in the House and Senate won’t question any of his lawlessness or abuse of power. Too many corporations and billionaires won’t say no when he demands more money. All this convinces Trump to keep going ... [Steven Beschloss]

apropos of my prior post?

 

 Below, from BARKING JUSTICE MEDIA: 

Since 2017, and with breathtaking speed since Trump’s re-election, the very fabric of American democracy has been torn apart: laws subverted, loyalists installed, dissent criminalized, and power consolidated with ruthless efficiency. Programs that protected the vulnerable have been erased, voices of truth silenced or hunted, and the levers of government twisted to serve not the people but oligarchs, cronies, and authoritarian ambition.

  
We are crossing critical thresholds. This is not a warning. It is already our reality, an America where rule of law, decency, and civic courage face extinction by design.

Where is our nation headed?

I posted this image and text this morning to BlueSky, Meta, and TwittX:

THIS is likely where we’re headed, given that the Article I Branch is now in hospice care with a DNR.

That photo jibe is a knock-off from a WWII fascist quote aimed at the Pope. Hyperbolic today?

 

Consider, from Joyce Vance's new book, just released.

 

to wit,

...Judicial review positions the Court, arguably the weakest of the three branches of government, to determine when one of the other branches exceeds the scope of its constitutional authority and to countermand the unconstitutional act. 

Marbury v. Madison establishes the principle of judicial review, which allows courts to assess laws passed by Congress for constitutionality. The contours of judicial review are not laid out in the Constitution, but Chief Justice Marshall understood that if the new nation were to have a functional rule of law, the Supreme Court had to have both the authority to deem laws unconstitutional and to overrule them so they could not stay in effect in violation of the Constitution. 

But what about unconstitutional acts by a president? [emphasis mine] That part of the equation was explicitly confirmed by the Court in a case heard a century and a half later. By then, plenty of case law already pointed to this obvious conclusion, but the Court made plain: Even a president can’t bypass the courts and ignore judges’ decisions. In Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, decided in 1952, the Supreme Court refused to let President Harry Truman take over US steel mills during the Korean War. Though Truman didn’t like the decision, he complied. That’s how the rule of law works. 

By December 1951, trouble was brewing in the nation’s steel mills. There was a dispute with organized labor over wages and working conditions. But the United States had been at war in Korea for more than a year, and China had also entered the fray. Then, negotiations with the United Steelworkers of America, a powerful union, failed. The union filed notice that it would strike at the end of the month when existing agreements with employers expired. Federal mediation with the union was tried and failed. Truman sent the case to the Federal Wage Stabilization Board in an effort to avoid a major disruption of material in such a delicate moment. That failed as well, and the union gave notice that a nationwide strike would commence on April 9, 1952. 

The Court explained what President Truman did next in its opinion: “The indispensability of steel as a component of substantially all weapons and other war materials led the President to believe that the proposed work stoppage would immediately jeopardize our national defense and that governmental seizure of the steel mills was necessary in order to assure the continued availability of steel. Reciting these considerations for his action, the President, a few hours before the strike was to begin, issued Executive Order 10340…. The order directed the Secretary of Commerce to take possession of most of the steel mills and keep them running.” The issue before the Court was whether a president had the power to take this action via executive order. 

The steel companies tried to fight off the executive order in court, arguing that the president lacked the power to make the seizures because neither the Constitution nor an act of Congress granted it to him. On April 30, 1952, the district court ruled in their favor and enjoined the government’s seizure. The court of appeals weighed in the same day, but it came to the opposite conclusion. It stayed the district court’s injunction, which meant the president could move forward. In a display of the speed with which the Supreme Court can act when motivated, it granted certiorari, agreeing to hear the case on May 3, and set it for oral argument on May 12. 

Plenty of case law from the intervening 149 years since Marbury pointed toward the conclusion the Supreme Court reached in Youngstown, but its decision settled the matter once and for all…

Vance, Joyce. Giving Up Is Unforgivable: A Manual for Keeping a Democracy (pp. 24-26). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

 Will Donald Trump simply scoff? He scoffs crudely at everything else these days

 

 Joyce's Substack (I subscribe).

 

Click here.

Below, another worthy read.

 

 

 

 

BACK TO JOYCE

 

Cutting to the chase.

 

 

UPDATE

 

From Rick Wilson's Substack.

[Steve] Bannon is road-testing a narrative that treats the Constitution as negotiable, the law as elastic, and power as a permanent condition of the right people in the right offices. He’s not coy about it either. Asked how they’d get around the pesky “no third term” rule, he purred that there are “many different alternatives,” and that, at the “appropriate time,” he’d unveil the plan.

Translation: they’re workshopping pathways to normalize the unthinkable and daring the rest of us to stop them.

This is how authoritarians advance: by saying the quiet part out loud until it isn’t quiet anymore. They float the balloon, smirk while you sputter, then call your protest hysteria. The goal isn’t persuasion; it’s habituation. Bannon’s prediction isn’t a legal argument; it’s a loyalty oath: accept that Trump is destiny, that elections are a formality, and that rules are for the weak.

'eh?

Gaza 2025

 

We in the U.S. have no clue.

 

And, then there's this...

 

National day of peaceful constitutional protest

Baltimore Speakers Series update

 

This was an amazing talk. He is The Real Deal.

 

Recent video interview:

 

 

On the Wiki.

 

See my prior topical posts of UKR-Russia relevance. 

 

Also, see my post on season opener Dr. Anthony Fauci. 

 

ERRATA

 

   
ON DECK:
"NO KINGS DAY, OCT 18TH"

 

17 Baltimore area rally locations

 

 

GOP HOUSE SPEAKER JOHNSON

Scurrilous.

Arlo

    

I am again a grandfather, now for the 3rd time. Arlo was born on October 6th, a month premature. He was discharged yesterday afternoon following a requisite stabilizing NICU stint. Momma and baby are both doing fine. Calvin, who turns 6 in January, is ecstatic to be Arlo's "big brother."

Andrew Ross Sorkin's admonition

This dude is good.

New book release on October 14th.

 

His voluminous prior work, equally adroit and comprehensive:

 

Cool.

 

I'm just a little fish nobody, but I'm feeling fairly vindicated, in light of my precursor nano-involvement in the subprime Custerfluck.

 

Tranche Warfare

See also my follow-on post:

 

The Dukes of Moral Hazard

WELL, WHAT ELSE COULD GO WRONG?

 

Crypto?

___

OCT 14TH UPDATE

 

With a temporary victory in hand after getting a tenuous ceasefire in place in Gaza, Donald Trump returned to the U.S., where the government is shut down, the shadow of the Jeffrey Epstein files hovers over him — and now Wall Street investors are being told by a key financial analyst that the U.S. is going broke.

According to a report from Fortune’s Eleanor Pringle, JPMorgan Asset Management’s chief global strategist David Kelly warned this week that financial ruin is on the horizon.

In his note to investors, he pointed out that efforts to roll back government spending by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was a flop, the White House’s "One Big Beautiful Bill" act is slated to add trillions to the national debt, and the tariff money President Donald Trump is counting on is “shaky” at best.

Fortune is reporting, “America’s national debt is spiraling higher by the second. At the time of writing it sits at over $37.8 trillion, and there are $1.2 trillion in interest payments to service the borrowing. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Fed chairman Jerome Powell have both expressed concerns about it.”?…[ Rawstory ]

…Individuals became spectacularly rich. The wealthiest in the nation amassed fortunes in excess of $100 million, which, in today’s dollars, would be nearly $2 billion. Some of the most senior executives of America’s biggest companies had salaries and bonuses of $2 to $3 million annually, the equivalent of $37 to $56 million today. 

And with that wealth came fame. It was, arguably, the first true celebrity age: a mass-produced, media-driven obsession with individuals not just for their talent or achievements but for their sheer visibility. And, increasingly, those in the spotlight were not artists or athletes—but men of wealth. Hollywood stars like Charlie Chaplin, Clara Bow, and Douglas Fairbanks still drew headlines, as did Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh. But for the first time, businessmen joined their ranks. In an era that equated fortunes with brilliance, the titans of Wall Street and industry became household names. Magazines like Time, which started in 1923, and Forbes, which began in 1917, turned financiers into cover stars. Their salaries were scrutinized, their pronouncements quoted like scripture. The richest men in America were cast as visionaries, symbols of success in a nation enthralled by it. 

What is clear, in hindsight, is the extent to which the heady times of the 1920s disguised a set of underlying imbalances, a massive bifurcation of American society. As technology made farming more efficient and less dependent on physical labor, huge numbers of farmworkers fell into economic distress, along with the towns they lived in, creating a widening gulf between the urban haves and the rural have-nots. Wall Street became like a giant balloon floating above the common people, its self-mythologizing leaders enjoying the comforts of what felt like a privileged realm. Government took little notice, as an extreme form of laissez-faire reigned in Washington. President Calvin Coolidge was proudly committed to slashing taxes and restoring the federal government to its pre–World War I size and capacity. The American people, he believed, could solve their own problems. He was wildly popular. 

Business was only too happy to make its own rules. As giant corporations such as U.S. Steel and General Motors achieved market dominance and racked up profits, the wealthy became a class unto themselves, particularly in New York City, home of Wall Street, the greatest wealth-creating engine the world had ever seen…

Sorkin, Andrew Ross (2025). 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--and How It Shattered a Nation (loc. 325). Kindle Edition. 

Excellent book.

 

apropos...

 

@4:26, "Wall Street is always looking to create risk—and hide it.  And, so, it's like 'where have they hidden it NOW'? That is the question. And, we're all looking in the wrong place."

 

Portents...

 

UPDATE