U.S. President Donald Trump has never been coy about his desire to bend universities to his will. Last week, Columbia University became the testing ground to see how far he can push that agenda.

On March 7, the Administration announced it was cancelling $400 million in federal funding from Columbia, alleging that the university violated Title VI by failing to redress the “persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Last Thursday, it issued a list of demands that Columbia must fulfill before any talks on reinstating funds can even begin.

Among them: Place the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department “under academic receivership;” devise a plan to “hold all student groups accountable” for violating university policies; and empower law enforcement to “arrest and remove” students who “foster an unsafe or hostile work or study environment.”

The question is whether Columbia will fight or whether it will sacrifice the free speech rights of its faculty and students to appease the Trump administration.

But there’s one demand that gives the others their bite: Columbia must adopt a new definition of antisemitism. This definition matters because it will determine what speech gets muzzled in the departments under receivership, and what speech results in discipline, removal from campus, and expulsion.

While the letter stops short of explicitly mandating a specific definition, it unsubtly reminds the reader of the Trump administration’s embrace of the so-called IHRA definition, which declares it antisemitic to hold Israel to a “double standard,” “deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” or compare its policies to those of the Nazis.

The implication here is clear: Adopt IHRA or kiss a half billion dollars goodbye.

The purported interest in protecting Jewish students from antisemitism is a transparent pretext. The Trump administration is a den of antisemites. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews. The Pentagon’s deputy press secretary is an avid spreader of antisemitic conspiracy theories. And let’s not forget about Elon Musk, who turned X into a safe space for white supremacists, promoted tweets downplaying the Holocaust and blaming Jews for the “great replacement,” gave two Hitler salutes at a rally, and then jetted off to a right-wing convention in Germany where he opined that Germany’s real problem was “too much focus on past guilt.”

If Elon Musk were the president of Columbia, the university would have lost its Title VI funding long ago.

Nor is the right-wing’s love affair with IHRA rooted in its solicitude for Jews. IHRA is their definition of choice because, unlike other working definitions of antisemitism, IHRA is broad enough and vague enough to sweep up virtually any criticism of Israel. Pro-Israel litigants have invoked IHRA to argue that it is inherently antisemitic—and creates a hostile environment for Jewish students—to criticize Israel for supporting “Jewish supremacy,” notwithstanding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel is a “state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people.” Or to suggest that Israel is maintaining an apartheid in the occupied territories, even though Israeli’s third-largest newspaper, its human rights NGOs, and the International Court of Justice agree with that assessment. Or to accuse Israel of committing ethnic cleansing, even though Israel’s former defense minister came to the same conclusion and Israeli officials openly advocate mass expulsions. Even calling for Palestinians and Jews to have equal immigration rights has been labeled antisemitic on the grounds that the influx of Palestinians would make Jews a minority and “obliterate the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.”

There’s a malign genius to the administration’s approach. Trump and his enablers know they can't directly muzzle students or faculty without facing First Amendment lawsuits. To be clear, that doesn’t mean the administration won’t try. ICE has already begun arresting foreign student activists, and DOJ has signaled plans to charge protestors under federal counterterrorism laws. But the administration surely understands that most of those actions will be thwarted in the courts.

As a private institution, however, Columbia is unconstrained by the First Amendment. There’s no redress in the courts if Columbia starts expelling students for criticizing Israel. So the trick is to find a way of outsourcing the censorship to university administrators. And that’s where the funding cuts come in. As explained by one of the strategy’s architects, the threat of defunding is designed to create an “existential terror” that will “discipline [universities] in a way that you could not get through administrative oversight with 150 extra Department of Ed bureaucrats.”

To be clear, this tactic is also blatantly illegal. The Executive cannot withdraw Title VI funding without making findings of fact, providing an opportunity to be heard, and submitting a written report to Congress—none of which has happened here. And the Executive can only defund the specific programs that are found to be out of compliance. The law doesn’t allow the sort of blanket cuts that have been imposed.

And even if the administration complied with these requirements, the First Amendment bars the government from conscripting universities into their efforts to censor protected speech. It likewise bars the government from leveraging public funds to force a university to endorse a state-sanctioned view on a matter of public concern (i.e., whether criticism of Israel is antisemitic). In a 2013 case, Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring an NGO to have “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking” before it could receive grant money to help combat the spread of HIV. Writing for a 6-2 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged that the NGOs (like Columbia) were free to turn down the funding, but held that the government could not force the NGO to choose between its First Amendment rights and federal largess: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

The question is whether Columbia will fight or whether it will sacrifice the free speech rights of its faculty and students to appease the Trump administration.

The Trump Administration is clearly counting on the latter, and not without cause. Columbia has been a case study in preemptive acquiescence: In recent weeks, university administrators have threatened disciplinary measures against students for writing op-eds calling for divestment from Israel, for sharing social media posts in support of the protests, and for co-hosting an art exhibition in a private building about the occupation of a campus building. After two students—one a recent IDF soldier—showered protesters with a foul-smelling spray, Columbia responded by forcing into retirement a professor who expressed concern about Israeli students coming to Columbia “right out of their military service,” and then paid a $400,000 settlement to the students who sprayed the chemical.

This is not going to end with Columbia: the Department of Education has sent similar letters to 60 other universities. And the assault on academic freedom is not going to be limited to discourse about Israel. This battle is, in a real sense, the front lines. If Columbia—with its $14 billion endowment—folds, it’s hard to imagine others won’t follow. If Columbia’s administrators cannot find the backbone to protect free speech on its campus, students and faculty will have to defend their constitutional rights themselves, in court.

After a federal judge pressed the Trump administration to provide evidence by 5 pm Monday about whether the White House had violated the court’s order in deporting migrants with little to no due process, so-called border czar Tom Homan said that the flights would continue regardless. “We’re not stopping,” he said. “I don’t care what the judges think.”

In our system, judges don’t just “think.” They have the final say, unless their rulings are appealed to the Supreme Court, in which case the high court’s majority has the final final say.

On Monday afternoon, it became apparent that Trump’s Justice Department shares Homan’s odd view of our judicial system. DOJ lawyers filed papers telling the judge that the administration would not provide any further information about the deportation flights, and that the court should vacate the hearing.

Later, speaking Monday evening on Fox News, Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized the judge, saying “What he’s done is an intrusion on the president’s authority.”

What’s going on here?

A very dangerous game.

On Sunday night, Trump told reporters that a federal judge in California who ordered the administration to rehire thousands of fired probationary workers was “putting himself in the position of the president of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes.”

Excuse me? In our system of government, courts pass judgment on actions of a president and the executive branch. Courts don’t put themselves in the “position” of a president. They act as the Constitution empowers them to act — as a co-equal branch of government.

If the executive branch doesn’t agree with what a lower-court judge decides, it can appeal to a higher court and ultimately to the Supreme Court.

Trump isn’t the only one to make this unconstitutional claim. In early February, Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” It was an odd statement coming from someone who has studied at one of America’s preeminent law schools — and it was logically absurd, since it’s up to judges (and eventually the Supreme Court’s justices) to determine a president’s “legitimate power.”

Let’s be clear. Trump has openly violated numerous laws and constitutional provisions — such as ending birthright citizenship; giving associates of Elon Musk’s government-slashing effort access to a sensitive Treasury Department system; transferring transgender female inmates to male prisons; placing thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development employees on leave; and effectively dismantling USAID and folding it into the State Department.

In response, federal judges have temporarily barred a slew of Trump orders from taking effect.

But not until now has Trump or his regime blatantly refused to follow a judge’s order.

What happens when this or another lower-court ruling goes to the Supreme Court, and the high court rules against Trump?

Vance has said that if this occurs, Trump should “stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

Never mind that the quote attributed to Jackson is, as one scholar has noted, “probably apocryphal.” It’s heard more and more from Trump appointees these days, as exemplified by Homan’s remark this morning and this afternoon’s Justice Department filing.

Trump’s appointments in his second term are having the opposite effect of his first-term appointees. In his first term, they restrained him somewhat. Recall that the Justice Department’s top brass threatened to resign en masse if he appointed as attorney general the one assistant attorney general who was prepared to sell his soul to Trump and say the 2020 election was stolen from him.

This time, his appointees are magnifying his worst instincts. Rather than act as guardrails, they are egging Trump on.

Many people wonder if we’re in a “constitutional crisis.” Definitions of that phrase vary considerably, as do opinions about whether we’re in one now.

My worry is that Trump is surrounded by extremist anti-democracy nihilists, including his vice president, who are encouraging him to defy the Supreme Court.

If and when he does, we’ll be in a constitutional crisis that should cause every American to take to the streets.

Live at 10 am Eastern/9 am Central time, and Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

In this episode of The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan address the escalating conflicts in the Middle East, starting with Israel’s latest bombing campaign in Gaza. The airstrikes, which began days ago, have killed over 400 people, including many children, shattering a two-month ceasefire. We examine the scale of the destruction, with residential areas reduced to rubble and an ongoing aid blockade exacerbating the crisis for Gaza’s surviving residents.

We also talk about Donald Trump’s recent military actions in Yemen, where airstrikes targeting Houthi rebels have killed at least 31 people since Saturday. Trump has intensified this proxy war, with the U.S. deploying what he called “overwhelming lethal force” to counter Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes, which are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

We also cover the broader rivalry between Israel and Iran, a key undercurrent in both conflicts. They discuss Israel’s strikes as a signal to Iran, which backs Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis—collectively known as the “Axis of Resistance”— as well as recent U.S. warnings to Tehran to cease supporting the Houthis. The show ties these threads together, analyzing these interconnected crises.

The post TMI Show Ep 99: “Time to Cut Israel Loose?” appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Let’s discuss something happening under our noses: The middle class is disappearing.

Last week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) teamed up with Republicans to pass a government funding bill. If you ask them, they’ll say, “We did this to save American workers!”

But, if they cared about American workers, they wouldn’t have cut $13 billion from healthcare, education, and infrastructure while adding $6 billion to defense. Unless the average American is now classified as a fighter jet, that extra money isn’t going to help you.

So the next time a politician tells you they’re fighting for you, ask them: What are they doing to take wealth and power away from the billionaire class?

And that’s the problem. Over and over, we’re told that these decisions are in our best interest. Yet somehow, the rich keep getting richer while the rest of us are left with higher bills, lower wages, and a government that never seems to have money for schools or healthcare—but always has billions for bombs.

Why? Because the billionaires at the top have turned the economy into a giant vacuum—and guess what? It’s sucking up everything you own.

Here’s the kicker: Most people don’t even realize it’s happening. Things cost more. Your savings may be shrinking. But you still have food on the table, so it doesn’t feel like a crisis—yet.

Seniors notice it first—property taxes and school taxes. Their fixed income isn’t stretching as far, so they complain about taxes because they assume the government can do nothing about rising prices but can lower taxes.

Younger people? They know something is off, but they’ve been told to blame immigrants. ”They’re buying up your homes! They’re driving up rent!” That’s exactly what the rich want you to believe—because as long as we’re busy fighting each other, we’re not paying attention to the people rigging the system.

Are we going to fall for it again? Or are we going to start paying attention?

While Schumer and Fetterman claim to be fighting for the working class, their actions—like voting for a government funding bill that slashes social spending while protecting corporate interests—show they’re more focused on keeping the machine running than fixing what’s broken.

What’s broken? The fact that wealth isn’t disappearing—it’s just being moved.

The Pandemic Was Among the Biggest Wealth Transfers in History—And You Paid for It

It started how these things always begin: with regular people getting squeezed. Offices shut down. Businesses closed. Millions of people were laid off overnight. Rent was still due, bills kept coming, and suddenly, survival wasn’t just about avoiding a virus—it was about making it to the next month without losing everything.

Meanwhile, something very different happened in a parallel universe occupied by the world’s wealthiest men. In just two years, the 10 richest men on the planet doubled their net worth—going from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion. That’s an extra $15,000 per second. Not for doing anything new. Not for inventing anything, building anything, or working harder than anyone else.

At the same time, 160 million people fell into poverty. That’s roughly half the U.S. population—wiped out financially while the wealthiest men on Earth raked in $1 trillion.

This wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a glitch in the system. It was the system. The pandemic proved that the real money isn’t in work; it isn’t in clocking in early and staying late. It’s in ownership. If you have read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki tried to teach us this; the rich listened.

Billionaires became more prosperous by owning companies that laid people off, raising prices, and cashing in on government bailouts. They owned the companies from which we bought food, mortgages, and electricity. The system isn’t designed to reward labor but to reward the people who profit from it.

Trillions of dollars in stimulus money flooded the market. Some of it went to everyday people, but most of it—directly or indirectly—ended up in the pockets of those who already had more money than they could ever spend. And just like that, the most significant wealth transfer in modern history was complete.

Your Wealth Didn’t Vanish—It Was Transferred Upward

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the government injected massive cash into the economy to prevent total collapse. And let’s be clear—that was the right move. Despite all the hand-wringing about inflation on the news, people needed money to survive.

But then, when workers didn’t immediately rush back to low-paying jobs, the rich threw a tantrum. Suddenly, they claimed that the government had “overstimulated” the economy—suggesting that people were so flush with cash that they just decided to stop working.

You’re not struggling because of bad luck or bad budgeting. You’re struggling because the rich own everything—and they’re making sure you own nothing.

Like most economic takes from the ultra-wealthy, this was a complete lie. Yes, increasing the money supply can contribute to inflation, but this kind of inflation is easy to manage. You can pull money back out of the economy through taxation or adjustments to monetary policy. The real problem wasn’t too much money—it was that, for once, regular people had a tiny bit of breathing room, and billionaires didn’t like it.

Here’s how they pulled off the biggest wealth heist in modern history:

We Pay Them for Everything

The rich don’t make money by working. They make money because they own everything, and because they own everything, we’re forced to pay them for everything.

• They own our homes → We pay rent.
• They own the businesses where we shop → We pay for goods and services.
• They own the farms and energy companies → We pay them every time we eat or turn on the lights.
• They own the banks → We pay them interest when we borrow money.

They Raise Prices—Because They Can

Now, here’s where it gets worse. Since they own everything, they set the prices. And what do they do? Raise them.

• Housing is unaffordable. That’s because investors buy homes and turn them into overpriced rentals.
• Grocery prices are ridiculous. That’s because big corporations own the farms, the processing plants, and the grocery chains.
• Energy bills keep rising. That’s because the same handful of companies own the power plants, oil refineries, and gas pipelines.

And when everything gets more expensive, what do we do? We pay them more, and now they have us blaming immigrants.

They Loan Us Money—And Make Us Pay Them Back With Interest

Since prices are rising faster than wages, most people can’t keep up. But instead of fixing the problem, the rich found another way to profit: debt.

• Can’t afford a home? Here, take out a mortgage—and pay them interest for 30 years.
• Struggling with everyday expenses? Just put it on a credit card—and pay them interest forever.
• Want to get an education? Take out student loans—and keep paying them long after you graduate.

So, we pay them for necessities, and when we can’t afford those things, we borrow from them—and pay them even more in interest.

The End Result?

Every year, the rich own more because they’re constantly collecting our money. Every year, we own less because we’re constantly paying them for necessities. And it gets worse. The more money they collect, the more they buy up assets—houses, land, businesses—making it even harder for the rest of us to catch up.

Schumer and Fetterman Just Helped Keep This Rigged System in Place

So why does this all matter? Because instead of addressing these problems, our leaders keep making them worse. Schumer and Fetterman’s latest vote shows exactly where their priorities are. They passed a funding bill that keeps the government running but at the cost of cutting billions from social programs. Meanwhile, defense spending—where corporations and wealthy investors make billions in profits—keeps growing.

It’s Time to Face the Truth

You’re not struggling because of bad luck or bad budgeting. You’re struggling because the rich own everything—and they’re making sure you own nothing. And as long as our leaders keep protecting them, things will only worsen.

So the next time a politician tells you they’re fighting for you, ask them: What are they doing to take wealth and power away from the billionaire class?

And let’s be clear—Chuck Schumer is not the leader we need right now. Under his watch, Democrats failed to deliver real economic relief, leaving millions frustrated enough to turn to President Donald Trump. Under his leadership, the party keeps acting like taking the high road will somehow fix a rigged system. It won’t.

It’s time to fight back. And that starts with demanding new leadership—because Schumer has already shown us whose side he’s on.

When on January 23 of this year, California Senator Jarred Huffman stood on the House floor to voice his opposition to the Fix Our Forests Act, or FOFA,, he bitterly noted how the bill had been rushed to a vote without normal consultation.

The reason for the rush was obvious. Fires were raging in the suburbs of Los Angeles and FOFA’s proponents wanted to capitalize on the tragedy to pitch their bill, which in the name of wildfire prevention exempts vast acreage of backcountry logging from ordinary scientific and judicial oversight. The irony is that the LA fires had no connection with forests whatsoever. They began as grass and brush fires near populated areas, which, fanned by ferocious Santa Ana winds, quickly spread building to building, with disastrous results.

The irony widens when you consider that in 2024, Huffman, along with California Republican Jay Obernolte, introduced a bill that actually would help communities deal with fire. Called the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act, it proposed $1 billion per year to help communities harden homes and critical infrastructure while also creating defensive space around their perimeters. The bill was introduced this year yet again, six days after FOFA was rushed to a vote, but it hasn’t even been given a hearing by the House Natural Resources Committee. That committee is chaired by Oklahoma Republican Bruce Westerman, who, it turns out, is the chief sponsor of the Fix Our Forests Act.

Once again, it’s the same old formula: slash citizen oversight in the name of wildfire reduction.

Do you see the political convolutions at work here? A very real fire danger facing communities is used to promote a bill focused primarily on back country “fuels reduction,” far from such communities, while the Huffman-Obernolte bill, that focuses on the communities themselves, gets nowhere. The process not only puts millions of acres of mature and old-growth forests at risk of massive “mechanical treatments,” it leaves the immediate fire dangers faced by communities largely unaddressed.

This political formula is nothing new. Twenty two years ago, then-President George W. Bush signed into law the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, which also sought environmental restrictions for expanded logging under the pretext of preventing wildfires like those in California. The concern for conservationists was the same then as it is now—logging interests and the U.S. Forest Service using the wildfire threat to create “emergency” authority to bypass environmental reviews and curtail judicial oversight, providing easier access to mature and old-growth forests, while doing little in the way of home hardening and community protection.

Proponents of the Fix our Forests Act would counter that there are provisions within the bill that help coordinate grant applications for communities. That’s well and good, but falls far short of what the Huffman-Obernolte bill provides, which not only includes major funding to harden homes and critical infrastructure, but helps with early detection and evacuation planning and initiates Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience plans for insurance certification.

Further, there is a plethora of research that contradicts the notion that fuels reduction and forest thinning protects communities from wildfire. In fact, intensive forest management is shown to often increase fire severity. Meanwhile, the industry position that forest protection increases fire risk doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Indeed, years of mechanical treatments have done little to solve the problem, while doing tremendous ecological damage.

Now we have President Donald Trump’s all-caps Executive Order: “IMMEDIATE EXPANSION OF AMERICAN TIMBER PRODUCTION.” Once again, it’s the same old formula: slash citizen oversight in the name of wildfire reduction. The order calls for action to “reduce unnecessarily lengthy processes and associated costs related to administrative approvals for timber production, forest management, and wildfire risk reduction treatments,” while putting community safety up as the justification. From the first paragraph: “Furthermore, as recent disasters demonstrate, forest management and wildfire risk reduction projects can save American lives and communities.” Only they don’t. The only things shown to save lives and communities are the types of actions put forth by the Community Protections and Wildfire Resilience act.

The Democratic Party has a history of protecting public lands and a constituency that expects such protection. A similar thing can be said of certain moderate Republicans, where a courageous spirit prevails when it comes to environmental protection. If there ever was a time to remember that tradition and that spirit, it would be now.

In 1776, America declared independence not just from a king, but from an entire feudal order. The promise was radical: no more lords and vassals, no more aristocratic monopolies, no more inherited rule. It was a vision of self-governance, economic freedom, and political democracy.

As we know, this promise was deeply flawed from the outset—built atop the brutal reality of chattel slavery, which entrenched a racial caste system even as the revolution sought to break from feudal hierarchy.

Still, the revolutionary spark—that governance should belong to the people, not an inherited elite—set a course for future struggles, from abolition to labor rights to civil rights. The unfinished promise of 1776 has always been to extend that right to everyone, dismantling old forms of domination wherever they persist.

The fight against neo-feudalism must be reclaimed by a left willing to challenge entrenched power at its roots, not merely manage decline.

Yet nearly 250 years later, we find ourselves under the shadow of a system that eerily resembles the one we once revolted against. Power is no longer held by monarchs but by corporate oligarchs and billionaire dynasties. The vast majority of Americans—trapped in cycles of debt, precarious labor, and diminishing rights—are not citizens in any meaningful sense.

We talk around this reality. We call it “money in politics,” “corporate influence,” and “economic inequality.” But these are symptoms, not the disease. The disease is neo-feudalism—a system in which power is entrenched, inherited, and designed to be impossible to escape. And unless we call it by its true name, we will never build the movement needed to fight it.

Feudalism may have faded in name, but many of its structures remain. Today’s hierarchy mirrors the past in ways we can no longer ignore.

• Then: Lords owned the land, and peasants worked it under their control.
  Now: A handful of corporations and investment firms own vast swaths of housing, farmland, and industry.
• Then: Aristocracies passed power down through hereditary privilege.
  Now: Dynastic billionaires and corporate monopolies ensure that wealth remains concentrated in a ruling class.
• Then: The peasantry was bound to their lords by custom, debt, and necessity.
  Now: Student debt, medical bills, and stagnant wages trap entire generations in perpetual economic dependence.
• Then: Political power was controlled by a small elite who ruled by divine right.
  Now: The illusion of democracy masks the fact that billionaires fund both parties, controlling policy no matter who is elected.

This is not the free society America was supposed to be. It is a highly stratified system in which the many serve the interests of the few, with no meaningful path to real power. And worse, the establishment left—rather than challenging this order—has come to represent it.

The Democratic Party was once the party of the working class. Today, it has become the party of the professional-managerial elite—the bureaucrats, consultants, and media figures who believe that governing is their birthright.

The establishment left has in many ways absorbed the role of the aristocracy—not just in terms of wealth but in the way it positions itself as the enlightened ruling class. They claim to stand for “equity” and “democracy,” yet do nothing to challenge the real structures of power.

Instead, they manage decline while maintaining their own privilege—careful not to upset the donor class that sustains them.

As newly elected Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin put it, “There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats, who share our values, and we will take their money. But we’re not taking money from those bad billionaires.”

Pronouncements from global elites certainly don’t help either. The now-infamous slogan “You’ll own nothing and be happy”—popularized by the World Economic Forum and widely interpreted as a blueprint for a hyper-managed future—only fuels growing resentment toward an emerging system where ownership, autonomy, and mobility are increasingly out of reach for the average person.

This is why figures like Steve Bannon and reactionary populists have hijacked the narrative of neo-feudalism. Despite his own ties to oligarchs, Bannon has correctly identified that America is no longer a capitalist democracy but a feudal order where power is locked away from ordinary people.

He explicitly frames this crisis as a return to feudal hierarchy: “The ‘hate America’ crowd… they believe in some sort of techno-feudal situation, like was in Italy, back in the 14th and 15th century… where they are like a city-state, and there are a bunch of serfs that work for them. Not American citizens, but serfs, indentured servants.”

He has also drawn direct comparisons between modern economic conditions and serfdom: “Here’s the thing with millennials, they’re like 19th-century Russian serfs. They’re in better shape, they have more information, they’re better dressed. But they don’t own anything.”

However, Bannon’s solution—a nationalist strongman government—represents just another form of vassalage.

Reactionary populists like Bannon, President Donald Trump, and Tucker Carlson exploit real economic grievances and redirect them into a revenge narrative. Instead of seeing neo-feudalism as a system that transcends party or nationality—one that has evolved from medieval serfdom to corporate vassalage—they reframe it as a nationalist grievance.

Bannon likens “globalists” (an ambiguous term) to feudal overlords, but insists that nationalism can break their grip. Trump labels the deep state and liberal elites as the enemy, but assumes the role of a strongman to restore justice. Carlson says the working class is being crushed, but blames cultural elites rather than the billionaire class as a whole.

This misdirection is key. Rather than exposing the true architects of neo-feudalism—corporate monopolists, financial barons, and entrenched dynasties—these reactionaries redirect public anger toward an amorphous “cultural aristocracy” of media figures, academics, and bureaucrats. The real oligarchs escape scrutiny, while the working class is fed a narrative that pits them against cultural elites rather than the economic structures that keep them in servitude.

The only way forward is to complete the unfinished revolution against feudalism—not through reactionary nationalism, but through systemic transformation. The fight against neo-feudalism must be reclaimed by a left willing to challenge entrenched power at its roots, not merely manage decline.

The question is no longer whether neo-feudalism exists. The question is whether the left will finally recognize it—and act before it’s too late. If it fails, the fight will be lost to those who see the problem but offer only deeper subjugation as the solution.

The Irish do love a good story and a good celebration. The celebration of St. Patrick’s Day has evolved from the observance of the death of St. Patrick in the fifth century into a celebration of Irish culture and heritage. The corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and Guinness I understand; the green beer—not so much.

While the modern day “Wearing O’ the Green” for many adds to the fun, the original adoption of green ribbons, clothing, and hats by the Society of United Irishmen and the street ballad “The Wearing of the Green” (lamenting the oppression of the 1798 Irish rebellion) were never known by many and forgotten by most.

The Choctaw, unlike the British government, recognized the humanity and suffering of the Irish people, even as the Choctaw still suffered and had little to give.

During the 700 years of British colonial rule of Ireland, the Irish like all subjects of British settler colonialism suffered violence and coercion to further the economic power of the empire. The methods of how to control native populations, the land, and natural resources varied from empire to empire, but those methods resulted in resistance and often wars of rebellion. Worldwide, whether in Ireland, India, Africa, Asia, the Americas, or the Palestinian state—people, eventually, will reject their oppressors.

On this St. Patrick’s Day we would do well to remember a chapter of often forgotten history, the relationship between the Irish people and the Choctaw Nation. In 1847, during the worst of the Irish famine, the Choctaw Nation, roughly 15 years after their forced journey from their ancestral home in Mississippi to Indian territory in Oklahoma on the “trail of tears and death,” collected and sent $170—over $5,000 in today’s money—to Midleton in County Cork, Ireland.

The Choctaw, unlike the British government, recognized the humanity and suffering of the Irish people, even as the Choctaw still suffered and had little to give. They had been forced to cede 11 million acres, they still mourned lost family members, yet they gave what they could, seeing that their own suffering was now lived by the Irish.

Often, times of suffering and adversity bring out, as former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln called it, “the better angels of our nature.” The people of Ireland and the Choctaw Nation shared a common suffering and formed a common bond that still exists. In 2018, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar visited the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma and noted, “A few years ago, on a visit to Ireland, a representative of the Choctaw Nation called your support for us ‘a sacred memory.’ It is that and more. It is a sacred bond, which has joined our peoples together for all time. Your act of kindness has never been, and never will be, forgotten in Ireland.”

Indeed they did not forget, and in 2020, as the Navajo and Hopi tribes suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Irish people, citing the generosity of the Choctaws, raised nearly $2 million for the Navajo and Hopi peoples. In gratitude for the gift, Gary Batton, chief of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, said, “We have become kindred spirits with the Irish in the years since the Irish potato famine... We hope the Irish, Navajo, and Hopi peoples develop lasting friendships, as we have.”

Colonialism has a long and tragic history, sadly still seen today. If only as an afterthought, while celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, we should remember the common bond that exists between the oppressed peoples of the world. Perhaps we might call upon those “better angels of our nature” and do what we can to resist the oppression here, in Palestine, in Ukraine, in Africa, and realize that across oceans or even across the street, we must recognize each other’s humanity.

Just dropped another exclusive chapter for paid Substack subscribers.

Remember Wall Street’s 2008 implosion—Bear Stearns crumbling under subprime greed, shaking the world? Now rewind to the ’80s: me, a Columbia dropout, crammed into a $850-a-month walk-up with two slackers, Chris and Dan. Pot smoke, polygraphs, and a $10,000-a-year gig in Bear’s Clearance Order Room—where I juggled stock trades, dodged trash-talking traders, and learned money’s cold lessons. It’s a sweaty, loud, dead-end hustle, spiced with pranks and a middle finger to the suits upstairs, like penny-pinching CEO Ace Greenberg.

This is raw, unpolished, and straight from my desk. Want the full flavor—grit, guts, and a paperclip revolt? Subscribe to my paid Substack to read the whole messy draft as I write it.

tedrall.substack.com

The post Bear appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

The strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP, lawsuit by Energy Transfer Partners against Greenpeace is a blatant attack on free speech, enabled by a biased legal system stacked with unqualified, partisan judges. It exemplifies how corporate power, run amok, threatens one of the most fundamental American rights—the right to dissent.

In late February, we watched this unfold in a small courtroom in Mandan, North Dakota—a town just across the Missouri River from Bismarck, now the site of a legal mugging. The victims? The entire climate and environmental movement, represented by Greenpeace. The assailants? Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), Dakota Access Pipeline, and their legal enforcers at the infamous fossil fuel law firm Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher.

In President Donald Trump’s dystopian America, stacked juries and sham trials may soon become the new normal.

ETP’s CEO, Kelcy Warren, isn’t even pretending otherwise. He admitted the lawsuit’s purpose is “to send a message.” When asked if he wanted to cut off funding for groups like Greenpeace, he answered, “Absolutely.” He has even suggested that environmental activists should be “removed from the gene pool.” Now Warren has commandeered a public court and stolen public resources and citizens’ time, all to wage his revenge attack and get his “pound of flesh.” He’s just picked out the biggest environmental justice name he could think of—Greenpeace—as his victim.

In truth, this case is about silencing dissent. It continues the long-standing erasure of Native American rights, sidelining the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe—the true leaders of the DAPL protest movement—while targeting anyone who dares challenge corporate billionaires and fossil fuels.

We've seen this playbook before. When Chevron lost a $9.5 billion judgment in Ecuador for its deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste as Texaco. It decimated Indigenous communities and is a big reason why Native Americans should be worried fossil fuels will poison their water—Chevron did it intentionally. Then, to escape justice in Ecuador, it weaponized the U.S. legal system to wage SLAPP attacks and denied access to justice for Indigenous peoples, which culminated in the unprecedented imprisonment of a U.S. lawyer for a misdemeanor contempt charge—via a private corporate prosecution.

Gibson Dunn, central to both cases, is a prime example of how unethical lawyers manipulate the courts to crush free speech. In the Greenpeace case, they claim “tortious interference” over statements Greenpeace repeated from news reports—statements that were true. More chillingly, ETP argues that Greenpeace is liable for any alleged crimes at Standing Rock because it trained activists in deescalation, nonviolence, and safety. If the same logic applied, those who trained January 6 insurrectionists in political activism would be held liable for the Capitol riot—an irony that exposes the selective use of accountability.

The world saw the footage from Standing Rock: brutal police crackdowns, mass arrests, and unchecked violence against Indigenous and allied protesters. Yet no security personnel faced consequences—only demonstrators. Now, ETP seeks to gaslight the public in a courtroom where nearly every juror has admitted bias against Native Americans and environmental activists, with direct ties to the fossil fuel industry. In President Donald Trump’s dystopian America, stacked juries and sham trials may soon become the new normal.

This case could redefine First Amendment rights for everyone in the U.S. It must be exposed for the grave threat it is. Bipartisan efforts are underway to bring a federal anti-SLAPP law into effect to help protect the right to free speech. This case should light a fire under those efforts because, for many, the ability to peacefully protest and organize is all we have left.

Maybe Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer was correct.

Maybe it was more important for him to align himself with President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and congressional Republicans than to resist them with one of the few weapons that Democrats possess—the Senate filibuster.

Maybe calling the Republicans’ bluff to shut down the government would have been worse than the pain that Trump, Musk, and their allies continue to inflict on the nation and the world.

Or maybe Schumer just blew it.

Rather than walk the confident path of a leader, Schumer’s missteps undermined his future effectiveness and empowered Trump, Musk, and MAGA Republicans.

We’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter. Regardless of his ultimate rationale, Chuck Schumer failed a critical test of leadership and should resign as minority leader.

Hanging on Too Long

Age isn’t the reason that Schumer should step aside, but it’s a contributing factor. At 74, he’s one of the youngest of an aging old guard. Like his elderly colleagues, he had to sacrifice a lot personally to reach the heights that he now enjoys. The allure of power and prestige causes too many leaders across numerous professions to hang on too long.

The phenomenon is pervasive in politics. But eventually reality becomes painfully obvious. For President Joseph Biden Jr., it was a disastrous debate performance; for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), it was periodic public “freezes” as news cameras rolled; for the late Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), it was humiliating physical and mental deterioration.

For Chuck Schumer, it was his confusing rhetorical journey to a vote that intensified the GOP’s grip on the nation and made the Democratic party complicit in their destructive agenda. Rather than walk the confident path of a leader, Schumer’s missteps undermined his future effectiveness and empowered Trump, Musk, and MAGA Republicans.

At this critical inflection point for democracy, America cannot afford a rudderless resistance from a compromised leader.

From Vocal Opponent…

With the barest of majorities and nearly unanimous Democratic opposition, House Republicans passed a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open for the next six months. But overcoming the 60-vote threshold necessary to end a Democratic filibuster in the Senate required the support of eight Democrats. (Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had announced that he would not vote with his fellow 52 Republicans to support the resolution.)

As minority leader, it’s not Schumer’s job to govern. His responsibility is to lead the opposition, especially in the rare situations where the Democratic minority holds even a modicum of leverage. Controlling the votes needed to break a Senate filibuster provided such leverage.

At first, Schumer performed his role. Shortly after the House approved the CR, he announced that Democrats would insist on limiting it to 30 days—through April 11—rather than the six months that House Republicans had approved:

Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input—any input—from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR…

Schumer added, “Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass.”

So far, so good. That was March 12.

To Apologetic Supporter…

The next day, Schumer reversed course and said that he would vote with Republicans. Rather than lead fellow Democrats in the Senate, he also said that they were on their own. In the end, nine Democrats joined him in supporting the GOP’s resolution.

But it’s not merely the debatable wisdom of Schumer’s final vote that renders him incapable of leading Senate Democrats from here. His public journey and feeble rationale are his undoing.

Schumer’s op-ed in The New York Times offered an elaborate rationale for the final decision:

• “[A] shutdown would give Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk permission to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.” Schumer said that It would give them the ability to declare vast swaths of the government “non-essential” and close them until the budget impasse broke.

But it’s difficult to see how Musk and his team could operate more quickly or more ferociously to destroy the federal workforce.

• “[C]ongressional Republicans could weaponize their majorities to cherry-pick which parts of government to reopen.”

But congressional Republicans have ceded their constitutional responsibilities to Trump and Musk. Weaponization began on Inauguration Day.

• “[S]hutdowns mean real pain for American families.”

But the Trump/Musk agenda is already inflicting “real pain” on a massive scale.

• “[A] shutdown would be the best distraction Donald Trump could ask for from his awful agenda.”

But if Trump and Musk tried to blame Democrats for a shutdown, the Democrats’ rebuttal is simple: Republicans control the entire government. Instead, he gave Republicans a new talking point: Democrats joined Republicans in bipartisan approval of the CR.

More pointedly, Schumer’s stated reasons for supporting the CR also existed 24 hours earlier, when he announced his unqualified opposition to it.

To Incriminating Explanations of His Reversal

During an interview after the vote, Schumer tried to justify his flip-flop.

• He said that he didn’t expect the resolution to pass the House and reach the Senate.

That reveals a lack of foresight and planning.

• He said that his initial opposition was a negotiating tactic aimed at giving Democrats maximum leverage in their fight against the legislation.

That reflects a lack of judgment and the absence of negotiation skills.

• He said that he “hoped” they could negotiate with Republicans to get a 30-day extension, rather than the 90 days in the House’s CR.

That suggests a strategy that is no strategy at all: hope.

And Schumer remains blind to the reality surrounding him:

I think the whole Democratic Party is united on what I mentioned in the earlier broadcast, showing how bad Trump is in every way… We’re succeeding.

United? Succeeding? On the same day that the Times published Schumer’s interview, a national poll showed that the Democratic Party’s favorability rating had dropped to an all-time low: 29%. Even among Democrats, the party’s approval rating is below 50%.

And that was before nine Senate Democrats supported the Republicans’ CR. It was a Trump-Musk-GOP win for which Trump congratulated Schumer:

Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing—Took “guts” and courage! The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming. We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights.

Maybe Trump’s praise will be Schumer’s kiss of death as minority leader.

The combined efforts of President Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress, and pro-Israel groups, like the Anti-Defamation League, have declared war on the liberal ideals of freedom of speech and assembly and the very idea of the university. Republicans and their allies are demanding universities eliminate any mention of diversity, equity, and inclusion in admissions or programming, and they have put in place a grossly distorted and expanded definition of antisemitism. In both instances, they have told educational institutions that failing to bow to these diktats will find their federal funding cut.

While organizations representing both faculty and administrators have cautioned against complying with the requirement to eliminate DEI, already some universities have done just that. Dozens of institutions have scrubbed their websites of the now-taboo words and programs. Offices to promote diversity have been closed, and courses have been canceled.

More ominous has been the damage done to free speech and academic freedom by the threats of the administration and Congress to punish universities that do not take measures to rein in what they call “antisemitism.” The main problem with this edict is that it’s based on a bogus definition of antisemitism, long promoted by the pro-Israel group, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)—a definition that equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Their argument is that criticism of Israel is antisemitic because it is the only Jewish state and therefore criticism of Israel is threatening to Jews who identify with it. At best, the “logic” is far-fetched. At worst, it’s a crude effort to silence and punish critics.

For his part, Donald Trump saw criminalizing protesters and forcing universities to cower as yet another way to pave the road to his authoritarian reach.

In their efforts to impose their definition, the ADL found eager accomplices among right-wing fundamentalist Christians, Republicans in Congress, and Donald Trump—though their reasons for doing so may have differed. But whether their collaboration was a marriage of convenience or consensus, the result has been serious damage to higher education.

The ADL wants to silence the growing chorus of critics of Israeli policies. Right-wing Christians, driven by a heretical view of the Old Testament that sees Israel as necessary for their hoped-for Final Days, want to protect Israel. As they form about 40% of the GOP’s voter base, Republicans and Trump want to keep them happy. Because the earliest pro-Palestinian demonstrations occurred on a number of prestigious university campuses, Republicans also see this effort as a way to amplify their targeting of “elites” and “liberals.” And as critics of Israeli policies are largely Democrats, Republicans see defending Israel as a wedge issue that strengthens their base while making life uncomfortable for Democrats. For his part, Donald Trump saw criminalizing protesters and forcing universities to cower as yet another way to pave the road to his authoritarian reach.

These diverse interests have coalesced in a coordinated assault on academic freedom, free speech, and critics of Israel. An early sign of this assault was evident during last year’s congressional hearings in which a number of Ivy League university presidents were summonsed to appear in order to be skewered by Republican members of Congress. The hearing’s most memorable moment began with a Republican representative, falsely claiming that the expression heard in some demonstrations “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was an antisemitic call for genocide against Jewish people. She then quickly shifted gears asking the presidents whether there were punishments for calling for genocide against Jews. The presidents were flummoxed by this illogical leap and gave confused responses.

Then, in the midst of the Columbia University campus protests, the Republican Speaker of the House made a visit to the school demanding a crackdown. Other Republicans joined in pointing out that the campuses were bastions of un-American liberal elitism and needed to be taught a lesson. A congressional committee threatened to cut federal funds to campuses that didn’t stop protests, punish protesters, and rid their campuses of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activities and courses.

Pro-Israel groups were emboldened to file complaints with the Office of Civil Rights charging administrators with turning a blind eye to faculty and student antisemitism.

In the face of these challenges, the cowering began. During the summer of 2024: campuses brought in security consultants to rewrite faculty and student codes and handbooks; courses were eliminated; and faculty were silenced. Columbia University even set up an office that encouraged students to file complaints against pro-Palestinian students and faculty. Repression was in full swing.

With the election of Donald Trump the pressures intensified. Columbia University became a “whipping boy” because of both its prestigious status and demonstrated willingness to cower. Despite the university’s efforts, last week the Trump administration increased the pressure on Columbia, announcing that the school was losing $400 million in federal grants. Clearly Mr. Trump intended to teach as the same lesson he was teaching Ukraine (and indirectly other countries or campuses): “Do what I demand, or you'll be punished.”

Then came the news from Mr. Trump that a graduate student at the university, Mahmoud Khalil, was being deported for antisemitism. Other than the fact that Khalil was the lead negotiator on behalf of the student protestors, there was no evidence of anything he had said or done to warrant that charge.

It appears that the purposes behind this move are to create fear, silence criticism of Israel, and force the university and students and faculty to bend in the face of this oppressive march toward authoritarian rule. With widespread protests being mounted in the face of this pending deportation, it remains to be seen whether Trump’s deportation order will succeed or backfire. In either case, damage has been done and not only to free speech, but also to the very idea of academic freedom that has long been a hallmark of American education.

***

For several years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Zogby International polled Arab attitudes toward the United States. We were prompted to do so by a Time Magazine cover which featured then-President George W. Bush’s famous response to the question: “Why did Arab terrorists attack us?” He was quoted as saying they did so because “they hate our values of democracy and freedom.”

Our survey results found that Bush’s flippant observation was untrue. In every Arab country in which we polled, substantial majorities expressed strong appreciation for America’s freedom and democracy. They also liked: the American educational system, American cultural products, and the American people.

What Arabs did not like were American policies, especially those toward Palestinians, and Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. In follow-up interviews we conducted to better understand the findings, one respondent said, “I love America’s values, but they don’t want to apply them to Arabs.” Another said, “I studied in America, and I love the country. I don’t feel America loves me. I feel like a jilted lover.”

At the poll’s conclusion we asked respondents for their overall favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the U.S. The results were overwhelmingly unfavorable. and when we asked whether their attitudes were based on America’s values or policies, it was the policies that were determinative.

Not only is Donald Trump continuing the policies of his predecessors that are alienating to Arabs, but he’s also damaging the very values of freedom and democracy that the rest of the world admires about our country.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had one job: to stand between President Donald Trump and the complete dismantling of American democracy. Instead, he caved—again—handing Trump the power he craved without a fight, without a demand, without even a moment of real resistance. With every cowardly compromise, Schumer isn’t just failing Democrats—he’s enabling an autocrat in real time.

The question most Democrats want to ask of Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate appears to be, “How’s that ‘keeping the government open to hold Trump accountable’ thing working out for you?”

Everything Trump does now going forward, when people or the press complain, he will say was authorized by “bipartisan legislation” with “the full support of the Senate Democrats.”

Democrats in the Senate must stop playing defense, call out the authoritarian threat by name, use government shutdowns and the debt ceiling as leverage, and put democracy at the center of very negotiation.

In fact, just hours after Schumer and a handful of timid Senate Democrats voted to pass Trump’s Enabling Acts of 2025 legislation, the president issued an executive order gifting Russian President Vladimir Putin with the gutting of the Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution.

He then assaulted civil service workers by shutting down the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and attacked women and Black people by shutting down the Minority Business Development Agency, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

Meanwhile, the House and Senate are both in recess: Congress is shut down, but Trump sure isn’t. Thanks, Chuck.

And this cave-in to the Mango Mussolini has Democratic voters so furious they’re reconsidering donations and even voting in 2026.

Eight years ago, as Trump was starting his first term, NBC News reported that 59% of Democratic voters told pollsters they wanted Democrats in Congress to make compromises with Trump, and only a third (33%) said they should “stick to their positions even if that means not being able to get things done in Washington.”

But that was eight years ago (and apparently the era in which Schumer is still living). Today, Democratic voters have a completely different message for their elected representatives: Fight like hell!

Fully 65% of Democrats say even if it means shutting down the government, their representatives and senators should stick to their guns and fight on both issues and principles; only 32% still want Democrats to compromise with Republicans.

The result of Schumer’s caving in to the GOP is now a shocking 27% approval level for the Democratic Party.

Democratic voters get what Sens. Schumer, Kirsten Gilibrand (D-N.Y.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Schatz (D-Hawaii), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Angus King (I-Maine) did, and they hate it. Those senators had seen this GOP strategy coming ever since the election was called back in November, and they never bothered to inform Americans about what Republicans were up to.

As a result, Trump now has massively more power than he did last week, and Democrats won’t have another chance to force compromise or even stop him until this summer—probably late June—when the ability of the federal government to move money around collides with the debt ceiling (which we hit this past weekend).

Republicans are already planning to punk Schumer and his “peace-in-our-time” colleagues again. And it sure appears that Democrats have already ceded the rhetorical field to them by not letting Americans know—in a way as unmistakable as were the Tea Party protests against former President Barack Obama adding a Medicare buy-in to Obamacare—about what the stakes and Republican plan will be.

As a result, Indivisible, arguably the most powerful and influential Democratic group in the nation, just openly called for Chuck Schumer to step down:

“After weeks of constituents demanding that Democrats use this rare, precious point of leverage on the government funding bill, Schumer did the opposite,” co-executive director Ezra Levin wrote. “He led the charge to wave the white flag of surrender. But Indivisible has no intention of surrendering to Trump, Elon Musk, and congressional Republicans.”

Leadership of the group reached out to their 1,600 local Indivisible groups nationwide with two emergency meetings; 82% of group leaders in New York state (Schumer’s state) and 91% of Indivisible leaders nationwide voted to demand Schumer step down from his position as Senate minority leader.

“We thank him for his service,” the Indivisible press release says, “but we need new leadership in this moment and we understand to get there we need a chorus of support for change… Our democracy is in danger. The path ahead will be hard. Indivisibles are ready to do the work—it’s time for a Senate Democratic leader who is too.”

American political observers who’ve been wondering for years what Putin has on Trump are beginning to alter their perspective, based on how he’s ignoring court orders, using the Justice Department as his own instrument for revenge, and crushing any Republican who dares speak up or stand up against him.

Instead of fearing Putin, there’s a growing consensus that Trump simply sees Putin as his role model, a situation that’s actually even more dangerous.

He, too, lusts for absolute, unquestioned power in a major nation, democracy be damned. He’s already taking steps to enrich his friends and imprison his enemies, regardless of the legality of either. He’s laying the foundation to shut up or break any opposition, be it in the media, in Congress, or in the streets.

This is how democracies die, from the end of the Roman republic to Germany in the 1930s to modern-day Russia and Hungary. In every case, there were opponents of the wannabe dictator who tried to warn the people, and in each of those cases they were ignored (even though they reflected majority public opinion).

Both Russia and Hungary show how democracies don’t collapse overnight—they erode step by step. Institutions are undermined, dissent is crushed, elections are rigged, and economic power is concentrated in the hands of a corrupt elite. Once these three pillars—governance, civil liberties, and economic fairness—are dismantled, reversing the slide into tyranny becomes increasingly difficult.

Last week, Trump snatched three students from their homes and is detaining them—in defiance of our nation’s First Amendment—pending deportation simply because they said things that pissed off him and his fellow criminally corrupt autocrat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He’s been in defiance of multiple court orders to restore funding and hiring to federal agencies, and just defied a federal judge who ordered his deportation planes to turn around in midair (they didn’t).

And now his Justice Department is investigating green organizations like Habitat for Humanity (having frozen their checking account) as well as people involved in movements like Black Lives Matter. It’s just a matter of time before they go after groups like Indivisible and FiftyFifty.one, commentators on TV (he said MSNBC and CNN are “illegal” on Friday), and writers on Substack (they’ve already sued Jim Stewartson for over $1 million).

Trump is punishing prosecutors for investigating his crimes, politically destroying Republicans who dared challenge him, and trashing American media and allies who don’t suck up to him sufficiently. His cabinet meetings resemble something out of North Korea (or the old Apprentice show), with his underlings engaging in effusive, slobbering, over-the-top praise of Dear Leader’s brilliance, charisma, and manliness.

He is, in other words, following Putin’s template from the late 1990s and early 2000s as if it were a checklist. Which is, in part, why Schumer’s betrayal was so destructive, both to the Democratic Party and the country.

The U.S. still has time to rescue our democracy, but only if our elected Democrats will explicitly recognize the warning signs and act decisively.

Schumer and his colleagues could have demanded Republicans fund election security (Trump just shut down that agency), reinstate ethics laws, get big money (Elon Musk, et al) out of politics, expose disinformation in media and social media (Trump shut that agency down, too), and restore accountability for the traitors who killed three police officers and smeared literal shit all over the offices of Democrats in the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Even if he got none of it, the demands and negotiations would have gotten all of them into the media.

Instead, Schumer gave it all away. He gave Trump exactly what he wanted, without even the smallest glimmer of a fight.

This is no way to run a political party or the Democratic faction in the Senate.

It’s time for new leadership that understands how communication works in the 21st century, is committed to defeating Trump and Trumpism, and can effectively tour the media and the country to galvanize the people.

Democratic decline doesn’t spontaneously stop itself; it must be fought tooth-and-nail at every level. Every time Democrats hand Republicans a win without even exacting a symbolic concession, it strengthens the GOP’s hand both in public opinion and future negotiations.

While Democrats play by the old rules, Republicans have fully abandoned them, and, so far, they’ve suffered no consequence whatever for attacking our democracy. They won’t stop until it’s too late to prevent the authoritarian slide.

Democrats in the Senate must stop playing defense, call out the authoritarian threat by name, use government shutdowns and the debt ceiling as leverage, and put democracy at the center of very negotiation. Every budget fight, every bill, every debate must include protections for our democracy.

It’s too late to screw around any more; Vladimir Putin, fossil fuel billionaires, and their neofascist and white male supremacist buddies have declared open war on our democracy, and we need a warrior, not a backroom dealer, at the front of our movement if we are to rescue this nation.

There is no more room for weak leadership, no more time for calculated political inaction. Schumer must go, and Democrats must replace him with a leader who understands the existential stakes of this moment.

If we don’t mobilize now—if we don’t demand real resistance—we won’t just lose another election. We’ll lose our democracy.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by millions of Americans every year.

It's a recognition of the shared heritage of two great countries.

But the meaning of St. Patrick is something most Americans get exactly wrong.

This misunderstanding reveals why these two nations—once so similar—are now worlds apart.

Here's what Americans need to know.

***

[Sound of a bullet chambered, waves breaking in indifference.]

Venice Beach, twilight.

I'm minding my own business when—

[Flash]

A gun is pointed at my face.

Random violence. Pointless. American.

But this isn't just about crime. It's deeper.

In America, violence isn't a national crisis—it's a block-by-block lottery. You're safe until you're suddenly not.

I grew up in Ireland, and we simply don't live this way.

Why?

Because violence isn't just about guns—it's about trust.

The Real Heist

[Cut to marble floors, quiet handshakes, silent theft.]

While Americans are busy fighting each other—left vs. right, immigrants, tariffs—the real robbery happens quietly:

• Trust gutted—institutions hollowed until safety nets snap.
• Inequality weaponized—the rich feast; everyone else fights each other over crumbs.
• Desperation manufactured—crime, addiction, despair—all intentional side-effects of profit-driven division.

Ireland is no saint. But this desperation doesn't dominate, because trust—even when imperfect—remains intact. Arguments rarely become instant death sentences. Less inequality means fewer people forced into despair. Institutions still hold, even when they falter.

The difference? People in Ireland still expect their institutions to function. Americans expect them to fail.

Trust itself is being deliberately dismantled, turning neighbors into threats instead of allies.

And when trust collapses, what and who fills the void?

Manufactured Chaos

[Cut to your uncle, veins bulging, shouting about "libtards!"]

Left vs. Right: the puppet show you can't stop watching.

• Two-party spectacle: a staged distraction from real theft.
• Media outrage: addictive scrolling keeping you blind to what's really happening.
• Global chaos: Siding with dictators, up is down, bad is good.

Your neighbor isn't robbing you.

They are. Slashing the federal government, agencies, medicaid, SNAP under the guise of efficiency and long-term good to turn billionaires into trillionaires while consolidating power. All the while…

Pulling your strings.

Carjacking your anger.

They aren't just feeding your fear—they're refining it into a weapon.

St. Patrick's Fire: A Moral Inferno

[Cut to 433 AD. Hilltop. A forbidden flame.]

The Irish High King had one rule: No fire before mine.

Then Patrick lit his fire—a flame of open defiance.

The Druids warned: "If that fire isn't put out, it'll never be extinguished."

They were right. It burned through an empire for 800 years.

So, what's America's fire?

• It's not partisan warfare.
• It's not scapegoating migrants.
• It's a moral stand against those profiting from fear—against those robbing your fundamental right to live without fear.

Who Are the Real Snakes?

Patrick banished snakes from Ireland—but there were no snakes. They were poisoners of trust, hope, and community.

America's snakes?

• Social media owners who profit from, and shape, fear.
• Politicians who weaponize division.
• Corporate interests dismantling your safety to line their pockets.

President Donald Trump isn't fighting snakes—he is the snake. But he's not alone. They're everywhere, wearing different skins, exploiting the fear they manufacture.

The Only Question That Matters This St. Patrick's Day

Forget distractions. Forget the puppet show.

Ask yourself this:

Do I feel safe?

Not just from violence—

• Safe from losing healthcare overnight?
• Safe from sudden joblessness?
• Safe enough to trust your community, your future?

America doesn't have to be this way.

They built it like this.

Which means you can unbuild it. And trust can be rebuilt.

But you must see the snakes. If you don't, you'll never fight the right battle—you'll fight each other while they watch and profit.

***

St. Patrick was a slave. He defied a corrupt king. He lit a fire.

That fire was truth—a moral truth against injustice. And it can't be put out.

It burned through 800 years of oppression, famine, and war.

He didn't just bring religion—he brought something far more powerful.

St. Patrick's Day isn't about shamrocks or beer.

It's about your resistance.

This year, don't just celebrate.

Act.

Light. Your. Fire.

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In this episode of The TMI Show, hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan, joined by guest Scott Stantis of The Chicago Tribune, dive into the contentious topic of Donald Trump’s deportation policies. The discussion highlights two major flashpoints.

First, the high-profile deportations of Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil, Ranjani Srinivasan, and Leqaa Kordia, whose arrests tied to pro-Palestinian protests have ignited debates over immigration and free expression. Khalil, a green card holder, was abducted by unidentified men despite legal status, while Srinivasan self-deported after her visa was revoked, and Kordia was arrested for overstaying her visa.

Second, the deportation of Brown University professor Dr. Rasha Alawieh, a Lebanese kidney transplant specialist, despite a valid H-1B visa and a judge’s order halting her removal, underscores the White House’s brazen lawlessness.

The episode also addresses the Trump administration’s defiance of a federal court order by deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador. As the administration ignores federal court orders, it could fairly be argued that we’re entering a constitutional crisis, as it challenges the balance of power and rule of law.

The post TMI Show Ep 98: “Trump’s Deportation Outrage Unleashed” appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

When I was 10 or 11, I joined up with a group of girls at summer camp to single out a tall, gawky campmate who had reached puberty much earlier than the rest of us. Ganging up on Ilene was a way to bond with the other girls, to reassure myself that I wasn’t an undesirable outsider like her. There was a brief, intoxicating sense of power in it that quickly curdled into guilt when her mom came to speak to the camp counselor about her daughter’s misery.

While I’m embarrassed by this memory, I think under the right circumstances almost all of us are capable of being cruel. It often arises when we’re repulsed by our own insecurity or weakness. We then project it onto others so we can avoid feeling bad about ourselves.

Cruelty is also a tool of power. From authoritarian rulers to internet trolls, cruelty is often disguised as strength, when instead it reveals a profound weakness—an inability to engage with others in good faith. Right now we see it playing out in the White House, as U.S. President Donald Trump tries to assert his control through fear, modeling the dictators he coddles. “Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president,” explains journalist Ezra Klein. Terrorists use terror because they know it’s the only tool they have.

When cruelty becomes fashionable—when it is seen as strength rather than a moral failing—societies descend into darkness.

As a child of Holocaust survivors, the president’s public displays of callousness chill me. His proud, unapologetic heartlessness reminds me how humans are capable of unspeakable brutality. Yale University psychology professor Paul Bloom describes cruelty as even worse than dehumanization. Dehumanization is what enables soldiers to enter into battle and kill without moral paralysis. By contrast, Bloom writes, “Cruelty is when you act fully aware of the humanity of the persons you are mistreating or humiliating. In fact, that’s the whole point.”

This sadistic streak was fully evident when Trump and Vice President JD Vance ganged up on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, making him grovel for an empty deal and publicly humiliating him for being insufficiently submissive. That the meeting was even televised made it feel like a gladiator fight in the Colosseum. Red meat for the masses. A signal that cruelty is not only acceptable, but to be celebrated. “This is going to be great television,” said Trump, smiling at the cameras as the meeting ended.

And that's what really makes this so dangerous. Because history shows us that cruelty has a seductive pull. The Nazis weren’t an anomaly; they were an extreme manifestation of a tendency that has existed throughout human history. When cruelty becomes fashionable—when it is seen as strength rather than a moral failing—societies descend into darkness. And cruelty, when normalized, begets more cruelty. One sees it in how families often pass down abusive behavior over generations or how everyday Germans behaved under Hitler during World War II. “If you and I were in Nazi Germany,” says Bloom, “we’d like to think we’d be the righteous ones, we’d be the heroes. But we might just be regular old Nazis.”

Ultimately though, while cruelty can be contagious, tyrants fall not just because people oppose them, but because, deep down, most of us long for a world where respect is earned through decency, not domination. Through every dark time in history, there is always a counterforce—a fundamental human longing for justice and decency—that helps bring down oppressive regimes. In the end, cruelty is a learned behavior, but it’s also a choice. It’s easy to be an asshole, especially under duress, while compassion takes practice and intention. If we recognize our own capacity to be cruel, we can opt to counter it or at least refuse to nourish it.

But it’s not that easy. When I hear about the slashing of programs that will result in the death and suffering of millions or how trans people and immigrants are being scapegoated to serve as distractions from billionaire plunder or when Musk says that “empathy will be the downfall of western civilization,” I feel murderous. It makes me feel cruel and stirs a desire for retribution. Yet, if I let the rage take over, I have fallen right into Elon’s trap.

Recently, I was talking with my best friend from high school about Israel when she told me that Muslims aren’t like us, that you couldn’t think of them as people. My gut response was to berate and shame her. But instead, I chose to hold back until I could give more thought to my response. Two days later she called me to tell me that her partner was gravely ill. We still haven't been able to talk about her troubling words, but now I have a better idea of what I will say. I will ask her to share the pain behind her anger. I’m not sure what made her utter the words she used, but I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with Muslims.

When we do talk, I hope she can acknowledge her misplaced resentment and that we can repair our relationship. I hope I’m able to extend her some compassion and not lash out. I will remind myself that the world won’t get better by giving in to my worst instincts. If we are to defy the power of cruelty, we must choose—again and again—to respond with something better.

The arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, by ICE agents expecting a student visa reveals a chilling escalation in the Trump DHS’s targeting of Israel critics. This assault on free speech suggests even citizenship may not protect dissenters, as the administration prioritizes silencing opposition over constitutional rights. The incident underscores a growing threat to personal freedoms, challenging the security of legal status in the face of authoritarian overreach.

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In May of 1986, I received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. That degree has been a proud part of my resume in the many years since.

As Columbia rushes to appease the Trump administration by expelling, suspending, and revoking the degrees of a growing number of students accused of peaceful protest and exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, I unequivocally renounce my degree and any affiliation with the university. I charge Columbia with complicity in the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and with terrorizing its anti-genocide, pro-Palestine students, faculty, and staff. I charge Columbia with appeasement of and partnership with fascist governments (Biden and Trump) in Washington.

The shameless capitulation of Columbia to government pressure is reflective of the corporate, neoliberal selling-out of academia. Academia, exemplified by Columbia University, has surrendered its proclaimed mission of intellectual independence and endeavor, and the academic pursuit of knowledge and social advancement.

Today, I renounce my 1986 master’s degree from SIPA. I renounce it in the name of Mahmoud Khalil, of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, of Hind Rajab, of Shaban al-Dalou, of all those who are names and not numbers.

In Gaza today, during this holy month of Ramadan, more than 2 million people suffered through the 14th day of a criminal siege imposed by Israel. No food, no water, no electricity for light, heat, desalination, or medical equipment, and no humanitarian aid or supplies have been permitted into the decimated Gaza Strip for two weeks. The people, who continue to experience a genocide conducted by the United States and Israel, are dying of hunger, of thirst, of disease. They are dying from their untreated wounds, from hypothermia, from shelling, sniping, and drone attacks. They are dying from causes too numerous to count.

In the West Bank today, Palestinians continue to be driven from the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams refugee camps—camps established because the Nakba of 1948 made them refugees in their own land. Today, the Israel Defense Forces (let’s call it what it is—the IOF—Israel Occupation Forces) continued to tear up roads, wells, and infrastructure across the West Bank, deny Palestinians their supposedly inalienable right to return, take selfies amid the rubble of homes and schools, shoot children, and defecate on the floors and furniture of the emptied buildings.

In other words, this was an ordinary day in the lives of Israeli soldiers and decision-makers in Tel Aviv and Washington, D.C. And yet, in this world that fascism and genocide turn upside down, it is not the perpetrators of these historic crimes who are in the dock. Instead, peacefully protesting students are targeted by their own schools and government.

On March 13, the Zionist administration of Columbia University (recall that Zionism is a racist, supremacist, settler colonial political ideology), rushed to cooperate with the Trump administration after it received an extraordinary letter listing nine demands Columbia must meet to avoid having $400 million in federal funding denied. Eager to comply with this extortion, university officials announced that an additional 22 students were expelled, suspended, or had their degrees revoked.

The next day, the U.S. Department of “Homeland Security” (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) followed up on their abduction and rendition to Louisiana of Columbia graduate and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil with the arrest of a second student, who is also Palestinian. Evoking the “Commie sympathizers” trope of the Red Scare, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem referred to the students as “terrorist sympathizers.” Meanwhile, Columbia allowed federal agents to search dorm rooms at Columbia University. At the request of Columbia University “Public Safety” officers, the New York Police Department (NYPD) entered Butler Library to investigate graffiti in a men’s restroom.

On March 14, I drove from my home in western Massachusetts to W. 116th Street and Broadway in Manhattan to stand with pro-Palestine students of Columbia and Barnard, and leaders of Within Our Lifetime. As an alumna, I felt compelled to be in the presence of their humanity, their courage, and their uncompromising, untiring dedication to Palestinian liberation from the river to the sea.

To Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and former officer and intelligence analyst of the IOF: We see who you are. We see the role you have played in calling in the NYPD on the peaceful students of last spring’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment. We see your hosting of former Israeli prime minister and war criminal Naftali Bennett (“I’ve killed many Arabs in my life and there’s nothing wrong with that”), who joked about distributing exploding pagers to anti-genocide students at Harvard a few days ago.

Today, I renounce my 1986 master’s degree from SIPA. I renounce it in the name of Mahmoud Khalil, of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, of Hind Rajab, of Shaban al-Dalou, of all those who are names and not numbers. I denounce the terrorism of Columbia University, and of all the U.S. administrations, Democratic and Republican, that have supported and partnered in the decades-long dehumanization and genocide of the Palestinian people. I denounce Columbia’s and the U.S. government’s monstrous conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism that puts Jews in the way of true danger and is, in itself, anti-Semitic.

Each day of the deepening fascism of the U.S. is another day of starvation, displacement, and terror for Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. But in renouncing my degree and burning my diploma, I say: I will never stop talking about Palestine.

Following the example of the protesters who burned their draft cards during the Vietnam war, I call on all CU alumni to join me in publicly burning our Columbia diplomas.

Many alumni can give firsthand accounts of the 1968 anti-Vietnam war protests at Columbia that led to nonviolent occupation of campus buildings. When campus negotiations failed, Columbia called in 1,000 police, resulting in the arrest of over 700 students and the shutdown of the university. True to corporate, neo-liberal and neo-fascist form. But the protests on Columbia’s campus and campuses across the U.S. contributed to ending the largest U.S. colonial war of the 20th century.

No symbolic gesture such as burning diplomas can atone for the suffering that Zionist institutions like Columbia and Barnard cause and are complicit in. Each day of the deepening fascism of the U.S. is another day of starvation, displacement, and terror for Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. But in renouncing my degree and burning my diploma, I say: I will never stop talking about Palestine. The repression of Columbia University and the U.S. government, as with all historic repression, lights the flame of deepening and widening resistance and change.

The people will teach the Zionist authorities a long overdue lesson. As the students of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) explained, in responding to CU administration anger over “Free them all” graffiti spray painted on the President’s House on March 14, “The people will not stand for Columbia University’s shameless complicity in genocide. The University’s repression has only bred more resistance and Columbia has lit a flame it can’t control.”

“Free them all” refers not just to Mahmoud Khalil. Not just to all pro-Palestine students persecuted by Columbia and by DHS, ICE, President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It refers to all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli torture prisons. It refers to the Palestinian people, past, present, and future. And ultimately, it refers to us all, since ultimately, we are all Palestinian. I hope that the flames of burning Columbia diplomas will help light the way toward this freedom.

Back in 2021, Donald Trump called cryptocurrency “a disaster waiting to happen” and a “scam.” Takes one to know one, right?

As he got closer to regaining the White House, however, Trump changed his mind about this “scam,” probably as a result of the millions of dollars that flowed into his campaign coffers from industry donors. To the delight of these donors, Trump promised to make the United States the cryptocurrency capital of the world. He also talked about creating a strategic reserve of Bitcoin.

After he won the election, Trump received over $11 million in contributions to his inaugural committee from the crypto industry. It’s a hallmark of pyramid scams that only the people at the top reap the benefits, and Trump has put himself at the very apex of the ziggurat in order to rake in millions for his posse and for himself.

Consider the saga of $TRUMP.

When the inmates take over the asylum, the currency becomes a way of consolidating power in the hands of oligarchs.

Three days before his inauguration, the $TRUMP meme coin debuted. Meme coins are usually based on an internet meme and are “typically characterized by their volatile nature.” Well, that sounds like a good fit for Trump! Indeed, after he promoted the coin on his social media accounts, its value surged astronomically.

Some of the biggest winners in this naked money grab were the firms that launched the coin and profited from the transaction fees, which netted them as much as $100 million in the first two weeks. One of those firms was CIC Digital, which is owned by…Trump himself.

Like all financial operations characterized by irrational exuberance, the value of $TRUMP soon plummeted. Indeed, over 800,000 investor accounts lost a total of $2 billion. Of course, they’re not the only Trump supporters who are suffering from buyer’s remorse. Even the stock market, which initially cheered Trump’s election, is having a serious hangover, a swing in mood not very different from $TRUMP’s trajectory.

$TRUMP’s deep dive notwithstanding—or perhaps because of the success of this scam—crypto remains an essential part of Trump’s economic plans. And Trump is not the only far-right leader who has dabbled in scamming the population with crypto. Argentina’s Javier Milei is now dealing with the aftermath of a corruption scandal associated with $LIBRA, a meme coin he initially supported and which left 10,000 investors over $250 million poorer. El Salvador is still reeling from Nayib Bukele’s crypto obsession, which cost his country $60 million when Bitcoin tanked a couple years ago—not to mention all the Salvadoran energy and natural resources that Bitcoin mining has absorbed.

Two years ago, I explained how cryptocurrencies function like pyramid scams. Last year, I discussed the environmental consequences of crypto.

Now I want to dig a little deeper into the politics of crypto: how Trump and his far-right allies are using these digital currencies as a strategy to rig the rules of the game in their favor.

The Mechanisms of Theft

To understand how crypto scams work, you need to know about “sniping” and “rug-pulling.”

When a new crypto product is launched, whether it’s a meme coin or a non-fungible token, a select group of speculators place a big buy to push the value higher. If enough of these “snipers” exit at the same time, the value drops, providing the snipers with short-term profits and leaving a lot of other investors holding the (empty) bag.

Of course, it helps to know in advance about a new product launch so that you can line up your bots and your AI to execute high-volume and high-speed trades—and your coordinated exit from the stage. In another context, you might call this “insider trading.”

The orchestrated sale of the crypto product is known as the “rug pull.” It can be sudden, as was the case with $TRUMP. Or it can take place over a longer period of time in what used to be known as the “long con.”

The rug pull sometimes relies on the services of a celebrity. Let’s take a brief look at the case of Javier Milei in Argentina to understand how this works.

Enter Milei

Argentine President Javier Milei is, to say the least, a heterodox economist. He pledged to cut government spending as a way of reining in inflation. He fired 30,000 government workers, eliminated government subsidies, and halted many public works projects. No surprise that Milei and his infamous chainsaw served as the inspiration for Musk and DOGE.

Inflation in Argentina has indeed fallen, from nearly 300% to around 85% in January. But the costs have been immense to the poor. More than half of Argentines now live below the poverty line, and they are dealing with increased costs for food and basic services. The economy has contracted as a not-very-surprising result of Milei’s chainsaw approach to government.

Among his many economic enthusiasms, Milei has relentlessly attacked the country’s central bank and advocated for the adoption of the U.S. dollar as the national currency. During his first year in office, he didn’t put crypto at the heart of his economic platform. But his efforts to displace the central bank has been accompanied by a push to lift restrictions on currency exchange, which would give cryptocurrencies a big boost. Argentinians are already leading adopters of crypto, largely as a hedge against the volatility of the Argentine peso (frankly, they might as well buy lottery tickets or play slots at the casino).

As for Milei, the real purpose of his economic program has been starkly revealed by this scandal: a transfer of money from the poor to the rich.

But that’s changing as a result of the $LIBRA scandal.

At the instigation of several fast-talking meme coin boosters, Milei endorsed $LIBRA when it was released on Valentine’s Day this year. But the value of the meme coin tanked within mere hours as top investors pulled the rug out from under it. As “Cryptogate” spread, Milei scrambled to deny any connection to the fiasco.

But that was hard to do given the evidence of several tweets showing Milei, with his trademark glower and two thumbs up, posing with those boosters, including an American named Hayden Davis.

Davis runs Kelsier Ventures, which was part of the sniping and rug-pulling around $MELANIA, the spousal counterpart to $TRUMP, which followed a similar trajectory of jumping high off the diving board and then plunging into the empty pool below. Davis did the same thing with $LIBRA, making off with around $100 million. He has promised to refund some of that money to the people who lost big. Don’t hold your breath.

“This is an insider’s game,” Davis has said about these meme coins. “This is like an unregulated casino.”

As for Milei, the real purpose of his economic program has been starkly revealed by this scandal: a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. His popularity was already on a downward trajectory in early February before the scandal, with 53% of the population disapproving of his policies (compared to 43% in favor). Cryptogate could be an anchor that pulls Milei down to the bottom of the sea.

Trump Also Goes Big

It’s no accident that the administration’s government-cutting initiative, DOGE, shares a name with a leading cryptocurrency. Cutting government oversight, eliminating regulations, and empowering the already-powerful private sector all benefit the crypto industry. But Trump is not just cutting government—he is putting his own people into positions of power.

That includes right-wing financier David Sacks, who’s in charge of both crypto and AI in the Trump administration. Sacks comes out of the same political milieu as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel (with whom he led PayPal). As with so many of Trump’s appointees, the opportunities for corruption abound. As MSNBC reported at the end of last year, “Sacks launched an artificial intelligence company called Glue this year and is known to be a major investor in cryptocurrencies, which would seem likely to create some conflicts of interest if he’s steering the administration’s AI and crypto policies.”

Trump is also staffing the Securities and Exchange Commission with crypto loyalists who have already begun to deconstruct the oversight of the crypto sector. As The New York Times notes:

Federal officials declared that so-called memecoins would not be subject to strict oversight. A series of investigations into major cryptocurrency firms were halted. And the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to pause a fraud case against a top crypto entrepreneur. Just over a month since President Trump’s inauguration, U.S. regulators have almost entirely dismantled a yearslong government crackdown on the crypto industry, a volatile sector rife with fraud, scams and theft.

Meme coins, of course, are the $TRUMP and $MELANIA scams that have already bilked thousands of investors. The reduction of oversight on crypto, meanwhile, is likely to increase the pool of victims. Burwick Law is the firm trying to claw back money for those who were scammed by $HAWK (promoted by influencer Haliey Welch) and also 200 clients from various countries who lost money in the $LIBRA scandal. Dubbed the “ambulance chaser of crypto,” Max Burwick is going to face a deregulatory headwind coming from the Trump administration.

But the biggest crypto project of the Trump administration is its crypto strategic reserve, an idea promoted hard by the crypto industry. It’s the culmination of the right-wing’s push for U.S. businesses to invest in crypto and also state governments buy up the currency. A strategic reserve of crypto makes no sense. Such reserves are meant for valuable assets like oil and gold. Why doesn’t Trump consider a strategic reserve of Amway products or Tupperware?

For the time being, the two reserves (one for Bitcoin, the second for other digital assets) will contain only crypto seized in criminal or civil forfeitures. The crypto industry was disappointed that Trump didn’t mandate federal purchases of the currencies. But that will probably happen in the future. The new initiative calls on federal agencies to come up with strategies to buy more Bitcoin. And there’s now a bill in Congress calling on the government to buy a million Bitcoin.

So, basically, such a reserve is just a gift to all the crypto loyalists who have supported Trump. Let’s call it what it is: a first step toward state capture by crypto oligarchs.

Why Does the Far-Right Love Crypto?

Crypto appeals to the far-right for several reasons. It promises to undermine the state’s central authority. It offers a degree of anonymity, which can facilitate tax evasion, asset parking overseas, and plain old money laundering. And its volatility allows for the profiteering that sometimes goes by the name of entrepreneurialism.

Meanwhile, for extremist organizations that need to stay under the radar to evade surveillance, crypto is the monetary equivalent of an encrypted messaging service. According to the Anti-Defamation League, “15 white supremacist and antisemitic groups and individuals, as well as their donors, that collectively moved $142,546 worth of cryptocurrency to and/or from 22 different cryptocurrency service providers.” The European far-right is also beginning to trade in these currencies.

In countries with conventional governance—that is, not lunatics like Trump and locos like Milei—crypto functions as a right-wing weapon against the state. But when the inmates take over the asylum, the currency becomes a way of consolidating power in the hands of oligarchs.

Meme coins like $TRUMP and $LIBRA are just the side hustles by opportunists who want some of the crumbs that fall off the oligarchs’ tables. The real money is in the “legitimate” trade in crypto, the speculation in Bitcoin and Dogecoin. This is where far-right politicians create “positive synergies” between government deregulation on one side and campaign contributions on the other.

This institutional corruption is at the center of the Trump-Milei enterprise: the wholesale looting of the public sector and the grotesque enrichment of the already rich.

When the powerful speak, mushroom clouds emerge—oh so easily. Power is about conquest; winning the war, getting what you want no matter the cost.

For instance, Israel should nuke Gaza. “Do whatever you have to do.” Thus declared Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) last year in a “Meet the Press” interview, comparing the current genocide in Palestine to the U.S. decision to end World War II by A-bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “That was the right decision,” he said, spewing out the historical abstraction that still rules the world.

Nothing is more sacred than self-defense! And nothing is more necessary for that than nuclear weapons, at least for the countries that possess them. To think beyond this abstraction—to cry out against the pain of the victims and declare their use is potential human suicide—violates the political norm of the powerful and is easily categorized by the media, often sarcastically, as naïve.

“I realized my pain was not only my pain but other people’s pain.”

And thus we’re stuck in a MAD world, apparently: a world under unending threat of mutually assured destruction. If you have a problem with that, you’re probably a weakling singing “Kumbaya.”

Or so the global war machine wants us to believe, reducing humanity’s anti-nuke—antiwar—sanity to a hollow hope.

It is in this context that I heard Sim Jintae and Han Jeong-Soon speak at a small event the other day in suburban Chicago, sponsored by an organization called—brace yourself—The International People’s Tribunal to hold the U.S. accountable for dropping A-bombs. The two speakers (via translator) are Korean victims of the bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima nearly eight decades ago. Sim Jintae is a first-generation survivor: He was two-years-old when the bomb was dropped. Han Jeong-Soon is a second-generation survivor—the child of survivors of the inferno, who has suffered throughout her life from the aftereffects of the bombing. Their message: Nuclear war lasts forever!

Well, that’s part of their message. Note: The movement they represent is Korean. A little known fact about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that thousands of Koreans were what you might call doubly victimized by the horror. This was during an era when Japan had colonial control over Korea, and some 100,000 Koreans had been forcibly moved to Japan to do wartime labor. Many of them, including Sim Jintae’s parents, had been working in a munitions factory in Hiroshima.

About 40,000 Koreans died in the bombings. Those who survived suffered the aftereffects in silence... until they reclaimed one another and found a collective voice. This is the voice I heard last week at the event I attended, and it resonated as loud as—perhaps louder than—the pro-nuke media and their supplicants. Their collective voice emerges from reality, not abstraction. My God, I hope it’s louder than that of Lindsey Graham, and so many other politicians.

Here is the voice of Han Jeong-Soon. Born in Korea 14 years after the destruction of Hiroshima—her parents had also been forced laborers there, living a few kilometers from the epicenter of the bomb blast—she suffered all her life from birth defects: heart problems, chest pain, lung issues. She had multiple surgeries. She suffered on her own... until she saw a film about the bombing in 2004. Then:

“I realized my pain was not only my pain but other people’s pain,” she told us. She began organizing other second-generation survivors, and began telling the world: “My war has not ended. No war should be allowed or tolerated. No to all war.”

Is this the voice that will drown out the military-industrial complex? The People’s Tribunal is demanding, as the starting point of the human journey beyond war, for the United States to apologize for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was an action that instantly expanded the scope of hell the human race could inflict on itself.

When I heard that word, “apologize,” in the context of first- and second-generation Korean A-bomb victims—victims who were denied necessary healthcare, by both Japan and the United States—what I heard was a soul scream: a demand that the perpetrator grasp and acknowledge the full extent of the harm it caused, and in so grasping, vow never to use such a monstrous weapon again... and, indeed, vow to transcend war itself.

The International People’s Tribunal put it this way:

The A-Bomb Tribunal aims to establish the illegality of the U.S. atomic bombings in 1945 to secure the basis for condemning all nuclear threats and use as illegal today. The fact that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illegal under the international laws in 1945 means that the use and threat of nuclear weapons today are also illegal.

The A-Bomb Tribunal aims to overcome the nuclear deterrence theory that justifies the use and threat of nuclear weapons by nuclear-weapon states, and contribute to the realization of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a nuclear-free world.

Let us listen to those who have suffered the most. Let us hear the cry of their throbbing souls and begin to understand that the time has come for us to create a world beyond dominance and war. Indeed, let us begin listening to one another and, in so doing, learn that we all matter. This is the true nature of power.

Empathy is weakness, asserts a man, who views the world through ego-inflated grandiosity not the grandeur that is spread before him in the form of the living Earth.

“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy”—Elon Musk

When the dismal, life-defying ways of humankind (embodied by the aforementioned tech billionaire grifter) cause life to seem unbearable to my sight, I’m compelled to turn my grief-darkened vision inward; therein, I am, in moments of grace, greeted by a type of internal dawn. The first light of inner day touches my mind. The warmth of its touch stays with me as night winds howl, the ignorant gibber and rage, and foul men ascend to power.

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”―Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable

How does authoritarian rule come to be? First and foremost, because the mark has been swindled out of the ability to endure the incomprehensible—thus to endure the anxiety inherent to freedom.

There are moments, despair-pummeling hours during long, rest-deprived nights that I, pressed down by the crush of events, feel as though I simply can’t go on. Held in the thrall of grief, I cannot manage to write another word. Yet I continue to, word by word, sentence by sentence. Somehow I bear up. It remains a mystery as to how. I suspect, if I had to speculate as to the reason, the mystery in itself is exhilarating.

The rude rifting delivered by an insult comic, ridiculing vanity and human folly, is, most likely, less offensive to God (or even human sensibility) than religious fundamentalists praying for the end of the world or tech bros insisting they will deliver us to a “posthuman” paradise, wherein the serpent is empathy.

The world does not need a savior to die—or become transhuman—for our sins. At every sunrise, inner or extant, rebirth is possible.

Before we can access our humanity, we must first genuflect before the grandeur of earthworm and galaxy. From my empathy-ridden perspective sin is committed by refusing to notice the terrible beauty of it all and allow the worst among us to do all the talking and claim the world as their entitlement. A voice resounds within me: Defy the lie; resist soullessness. Because we are mortal human beings, defeat will come—but choose to be wounded by beauty.

Peter Paul Rubens, "Saint Sebastian Tended by Two Angels" (c. 1630)

Only when I admit life is incomprehensible can I discern the cretinous lies passed off as truths by those who seek to gain power. Under the perpetual and pummeling uncertainty of a capitalist system, the contrived confidence of grifters will hold those who crave certainty in the thrall of tales promising false hope. Removal of dangerous outsiders is a time-tested go-to of the ruthless. Thus the mark has been provided with provisional relief from anxiety, as, all the while, relieved of his money; and from the realm of political grifters, eventually, freedom of choice.

How does authoritarian rule come to be? First and foremost, because the mark has been swindled out of the ability to endure the incomprehensible—thus to endure the anxiety inherent to freedom. Hence, the calling of writers is to ask uncomfortable questions. Demagogues and grifters claim they have solutions. They have cures for all ills at hand, they lie. They will bring deliverance from troubles. Don’t question them; just fall in and be swept along in the parade of true believers.

Gabriel Pomerande, from "Saint Ghetto of the Loans" (1950)

Enveloped, as we are, within the present media simulacrum and building AI panopticon, a landscape of lies extends to the ends of the mind. Events, terrible in nature, unfold with the illusion of weightlessness as everything seems to be giving way and flying apart. A center made of nothing cannot hold.

Empathy is crucial as a centering principle. Set yourself in the direction of liberation by defending the dignity of the unfairly shunned. Freedom can be gained by resistance to falling into authoritarianism’s manic, joyless parade of mass conformity; many join authoritarian movements to relieve the anxiety inherent to uncertainty and the elation—albeit illusionary—experienced by (shallow in nature) acceptance within the mass.

In a just world, those deserving of shunning are the power seeking types of shitheels who attempt to gain authority by retailing in hatred and fear. Demagogues, inherently devoid of empathy, inflict division. In soul-making contrast, resisting their lies can serve to unite those possessed of viable hearts and dreaming souls..

Where words leave off, music begins. Poetry, the closest a verbal form can come to music insofar as revealing visions not perceptible to the temporal-locked mind. See if you recognize this Bronze Age classic:

I will search for my lost ones who strayed away, and I will bring them safely home again. I will bandage the injured and strengthen the weak. But I will destroy those who are fat and powerful. I will feed them, yes—feed them justice!—Ezekiel 34:16

First, the ineffable vision; then stranded in a valley of dry, rattling bones; then a rain from Heaven came, and the army known as flesh was restored. Then came a trickle of a stream rising from the heart of a hidden, desert temple… that makes fecund the arid land and restores life to a salt-poisoned sea.

Ezekiel is not promulgating prophecy about real estate—he was referring to the heart of humanity.

We will be lost in a valley of bones until repentance enters and brings to restoration the dry hearts of a worldview that permits genocide and ethnic cleansing and regards empathy as a weakness of character.

Gustave Doré, "The Vision of The Valley of The Dry Bones" (1866)

Ezekiel’s vision unfolds as poetry. Hence it is true… in the lexicon of the heart.

A devotee of literalism would sneer at the assertion, “So, you’re saying, an acrid valley strewn with sun-bleached skeletal remains, upon hearing the voice of God, was restored then rose as an army of flesh? Have you over-indulged in edibles? How can you pretend that is even possible?”

No, the edibles remain untouched, and yes, from the numinous perspective of poetic vision, it is possible. A transformation of vision has come to be. Poems are reflections of the human psyche, our hub of Anima Mundi i.e., The Soul Of The World. Remember, a poet does not create a poem; the poem creates the poet. In this way, poetry begets the flesh of essential being.

Therefore from the perspective of the psyche it is not only possible but a vital aspect of human existence. Deliverance from dry despair can be remedied by a flowing stream of hope. The heart, revitalized, will soldier forth as the army of your living flesh.

Yet, a culture dominated by crackpot realists insist you are the sum total of your bank account, that your persona is defined by your car and place of dwelling. Is it not a mystery as to why people are depressed and desperate. Why, in a consumer culture, the citizenry become hapless marks of grifters retailing in sleight-of-hand corporatism and bait-and-switch politics. And empathy is scorned as an enemy of the state and a threat to the common good.

Antithetical to the storylines of the grift, from the poetic imagination, enigmatic visions glide into the minds as wheels within wheels of fire; the thoughts of the heart flow forth and restore to living abundance the Dead Sea within you.

Crazy talk, huh? From the vantage point of my internal Ezekiel, my ragged, defrocked, enslaved-by-empire seer within, the anguish of the times is being inflicted by capitalist con men—not by poets chanting of the anguish felt in the heart witnessing the hideous mess created by crackpot realism. To wit, transitioning from prose to verse, a dispatch from the landscape of visions and renewal:

A ravine in my heart;
nocturnal creatures slink and prowl.
Moonlight issues forth from my mouth;
reflected on cold city steel—I tremble.
The sky is the dark blood of the redeemer’s wounds;
the rain-renewed creek wails out the birth cries of newborns.
March winds buffet my thoughts—night spirit, what are you demanding?
With every year, sustained eye contact is made with the inscrutable gaze of my dead.

(Postscript: A poem, a comedy routine, a parcel of prose achieves to be a prayer of communion dispatched toward the greater world from inner terrains of loneliness. Yet, once sent, the missive has forgotten the name of its author. Living force that it is, it seeks connection and merges with the living force that is the reader. At that point, its creator might not recognize it in passing while amid the clamor within the agora of the imaginal. This kind of loneliness is inconsolable. It is lonely as the Moon; the Sun’s caress will never reach her dark side. Yet her borrowed luminosity bestows night here on Earth with the ache inflicted by beauty.)

Living day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute can unfold in meaning, with purpose, even beauty. Convinced otherwise, one is diminished; one’s essences become fragmented to shards. Yes, the times are ugly—yet there exists a possibility of surrendering to the beauty that is bestowed, odd as it seems, by lamentation or the humor of knowing what has been lost to folly. Existence is laughing near you—not at you. Thus a crack opens in persona where ensoulment can enter and take up long-term residence.

Enchantment beckons; blunder toward its scintillation and caress; insist reluctant types come along for the ride. Yes, all concerned can be brought to ruin—but, as is the case with a fine piece of clothing, what good is persona that is never worn outside of the house?

After your inevitable downfall make the soul your bed of recovery.

Moments of fulfillment and wisdom do not give themselves over into companionship with those who, by reflex, reject life out of fear of losing a type of vanity revealing itself as a forced innocence, evinced far too long into life. Moreover, the compulsive pursuit of happiness is the stuff of vacationing on one of those crass cruise ships sloshing between hyper-commodified port cities.

“You lose your grip, and then you slip into the masterpiece.” —Leonard Cohen, “A Thousand Kisses Deep”

There is a force within driving you to be used by life. Ignore it and you will bore yourself and others blind.

The woundings incurred by living life on life’s terms are a crucial aspect of it all.

The scars inflicted will heal into a braille by which you will tell your life’s tale.

Frida Kahlo, "The Broken Column" (1944)