Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – May 17, 2026
by Tony Wikrent
War
[Drop Site Daily: May 12, 2026]
American consumers have paid more than $37 billion in additional gasoline and diesel costs since the war with Iran began on February 28, according to a real-time tracker developed by Brown University’s Watson School of International and Public Affairs.
Trump not violating any law
‘He who saves his Country does not violate any Law’
Joe DePaolo, May 4th, 2025
Trump Isn’t Mentally Ill; He’s Evil
Thomas Meisenhelder, May 14, 2026 [Common Dreams]
…Nor are the mentally ill immoral. It is somewhat commonplace to find public figures, journalists, and other “experts” express that a person who commits a horribly immoral act must be mentally ill. This is a faulty presumption. Mental illness does not necessarily affect moral reasoning or understanding….
Donald Trump is not crazy, he is evil. The America Heritage Dictionary definition of evil has three components. The first one is that evil means morally bad or wrong. The list of the immoral acts of our president is too long to be included listed completely here, but consider just a sampling: participating in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuses, illegally detaining and deporting veterans, children, and others; using charitable donations for personal desires; separating innocent children from their families; fomenting racism and racial hatred; ridiculing the disabled; daily misogyny; supporting white supremacy; inciting violence; lying for personal gain; harming the lives of LGBTQ+ people; taking food and medical care from children and their families; and the list goes on and on.
The dictionary also defines evil as harmful or causing injury and pain. Rather than repeating the cruel and hateful list above, please consider this sampling of the harmful consequences of decisions of President Trump: ordering the murder of hundreds of people who have been in boats attacked because they were supposedly carrying illegal drugs; murdering nearly a hundred people in Venezuela when the country was attacked and he ordered its president arrested; causing death and injury to tens of thousands of Iranians during his war against the government of that country; partnering with Israel’s raining of death and destruction on the people of Lebanon, Gaza, and Palestine; expanding the embargo against Cuba causing pain, injury, and death to ordinary Cubans; and his administration’s defunding of the medical aid and food assistance provided to less developed nations by the US Agency for International Development, which has damaged the lives of millions of people around the world….
INSIDER Exposes Trump’s SECRET EMERGENCY Midterm Plan!! (YouTube video)
[Legal AF, YouTube, May 15, 2025]
Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wilentz interview Jonathan Winer, former State Department official, on the secret Presidential Emergency Action Documents, Trump’s intention to manipulate the midterm elections, his devilish designs, and how to foil them….
Jonathan M. Winer, Apr 29, 2026 [Washington Spectator]
…beyond President Trump’s existing attacks on voting lies an additional and potentially more dangerous layer of presidential power—the secret emergency authorities embodied in Presidential Emergency Action Documents, or PEADs.
Since President Eisenhower’s time, every administration has maintained a set of secret, pre-drafted PEADs for use in crises involving foreign attack or large-scale domestic upheaval. These are not policy proposals. They are directives, written in advance, that can be signed and implemented immediately across the federal government… they provide a standing mechanism that a President could activate to override legal constraints, detain individuals, and direct federal agencies to act without prior judicial review.
Here’s how President Trump could use the PEADs process if he faces results in the November 2026 congressional election that would give the Democrats a majority in the House or Senate, or both.
The scenario would likely begin by Trump declaring that the election results were rigged, as he has in the past. He could identify specific jurisdictions—counties, cities, or states—and assert that their results should not be recognized. He could point to claims of fraud and irregularities, illegal ballots, or foreign interference, including cyber activity, as the basis for that claim.
In response, compliant federal authorities would require investigation of those results before they were finalized. The authorities would move to secure ballots, voting records, or related materials in contested jurisdictions, building on the actions the Trump administration has already taken.
While these investigations are taking place, the President could then call on congressional leadership to proceed as if the announced results are invalid, urging the Speaker of the House to organize the chamber on the basis of a Republican majority, and encouraging similar action in the Senate, urging them to ignore any jurisdictions in which the federal government was still undertaking its review.
While any such action would be immediately litigated at that point, the President’s actions would be very likely to provoke a response from the voters themselves. People would take to the streets. They would protest what they understand to be the nullification of a legitimate election. Demonstrations would spread across major cities. Organized groups would coordinate marches, strikes, and shutdowns. Labor organizations, civic groups, and political networks would mobilize. The scale would quickly become national.
The President would likely respond with the kind of language he has already used to describe his political opponents, such as the “enemy within,” domestic adversaries he has previously said should be targeted by the U.S. military. This assertion would be consistent with his existing direction to his administration to treat “organized political violence” and “domestic terrorism” as priority threats and to identify, investigate, prosecute, and disrupt “to the maximum extent permitted by law” not only individuals, but organizers, funders, and supporting networks.
He could apply that framework to the protests. He could direct the Attorney General to treat coordinated demonstrations as organized political violence. He could instruct the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Forces to identify organizers, map funding sources, and examine any connections—real or alleged—to foreign actors….
13 of the Nearly 200 People Murdered by Trump and Hegseth Identified for First Time
Julia Conley, May 15, 2026 [CommonDreams]
The 57 confirmed bombings of boats that the Trump administration has carried out so far since last September have shattered families and communities across Latin America, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and US Southern Command never acknowledging the identities of the at least 192 people they’ve killed, beyond declaring them “narco-terrorists.”
But despite the concerted effort to keep the names and any information about the victims hidden—their identities “blown away over vast stretches of ocean,” as a new report states—20 journalists led by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism (CLIP) managed to identify 13 of the men whose killings have been called “murders” by legal experts and rights advocates.
The journalists and researchers represented CasaMacondo, Verdad Abierta, 360-grados.co, and NGO El Veinte in Colombia; Alianza Rebelde Investiga in Venezuela; the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian; and Airwars in the UK.
The investigation, titled “Bombed, Without the Right to a Defense,“ was completed despite widespread fears of speaking out about the bombings in the affected communities.
“Some relatives of victims in Venezuela and in Santa Marta, Colombia, say they have received threats, as sources confirmed to journalists in this alliance,” reads the report. “Authorities have remained largely opaque, and the officials willing to talk do so only off the record, wary of dragging their countries into conflict with [US President Donald] Trump.” ….
Christopher Armitage, May 15, 2026 [The Existentialist Republic]
Timothy Noah, May 14, 2026 [Backbencher]
Steven Greenhouse today posted a handy review of Trump kleptocracy in The Guardian. It’s a lot to keep track of! I wish someone would design a user-friendly Trump Kleptocracy Tracker. Johns Hopkins’s SNF Agora Institute has an OK one, inspired by the work of Atlantic writer (and SNF Agora fellow) Anne Appelbaum….
Heather Cox Richardson, May 15, 2026 [Letters from an American, May 14, 2026]
… Accusing Democrats of fraud will also accomplish the political goal of muddying the waters to make it harder for voters to see that the Trump administration is the most corrupt U.S. administration in history. And concern about voters’ perceptions of corruption must be uppermost in the minds of administration advisors right now, since new Hungarian prime minister Péter Magyar’s landslide victory over Trump ally Viktor Orbán was driven in large part by voters’ fury at Orbán’s corruption.
Muddying the waters for voters is the best the Trump administration can hope for because, for all the administration’s claims to be fighting fraud, Trump’s corruption is mind-boggling.
He has fired or demoted twenty inspectors general—the people key to oversight—and in 2024 alone the people he has since fired or sidelined identified more than $50 billion in waste and abuse. Matthew Purdy and Luke Broadwater of the New York Times noted in March that in both terms as of March 2026, Trump has also pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 70 donors or allies who were convicted of fraud. One, Philip Esformes, was convicted of stealing $1.3 billion from Medicare.
Steven Greenhouse of The Guardian reminded readers today that in January, David D. Kirkpatrick of the New Yorker reported that the Trumps have pocketed about $4 billion, primarily through cryptocurrency enterprises….
How Trump’s $500 Million UAE Crypto Deal Trades U.S. National Security for Family Profit
[Center for American Progress, via Naked Capitalism 05-13-2025]
Global power shift
China Sent a Tough Message to Trump… Did He Understand It?
Larry Johnson [via Naked Capitalism 05-14-2025]
China’s Growing Quantum Dominance Forces U.S. to Adapt F-35 Software
[Military Watch, via Naked Capitalism 05-16-2025]
China has decisively won the shipping war
Kevin Walmsley, May 14, 2026 [via Naked Capitalism 05-16-2025]
Oligarchy
Making sense of Trump’s unscheduled sudden midair disassembly of the American empire
Cory Doctorow, May 16, 2026 [Pluralistic]
…Oligarchy also produces a sequence of progressively weirder and more terrible rulers who rely on a mix of lies, flattery, coercion and personal cult nonsense to hold their coalition together in the face of mounting evidence for the system’s bankruptcy. Thus Reagan begat GW Bush, who begat Trump, whose potential successors are a kennel of the least-charismatic chud podcasters ever to curse an RSS feed.
Trump’s second term has resulted in a rapid, unscheduled, mid-air disassembly of the American empire….
These very, very unpopular tech companies dominate because American trade policy insists that they must. They are allowed to violate local laws because stopping them from doing so would result in trade sanctions. It’s true that US tech companies face fines abroad from time to time, but these are “the price list for inflicting societal suffering. Pick the one that suits your business model.” US trading partners haven’t really attempted to extinguish the unlawful conduct of US tech companies.
All of that is up for grabs now, thanks to Trump’s uncontrollable compulsion to repeatedly hormuz himself (and America) in the foot. But – as Bjarnason writes – this didn’t start with Trump. As ever, Trump is as much an effect as a cause, and the most important cause of Trump is the conversion of America into a financial economy, which started under Reagan, but was only finalized by Obama, who let the Wall Street looters who destroyed the world economy walk away unscathed, even as they stole the homes of millions of Americans:
Financial economies “suck the air out of the rest of the economy and make it less competitive.” Keeping billionaires in megayachts comes at the expense of “research, education, infrastructure, and healthcare.” Countries that financialize lag behind countries where the economy is based on making things, not extracting or financing things….
Should Billionaires Even Exist?
William Shoki, May 13, 2026 [LA Progressive]
A society serious about equality, democracy, and the finite nature of our world will, over time, make it impossible for them to arise.
Cory Doctorow, May 12, 2026 [Pluralistic]
…Fascists like Farage and Trump are, at their root, anti-democratic. Their pitch is that the people are incapable of self-determination (as Peter Thiel puts it, “democracy is incompatible with freedom”). They want us to think that all our neighbors are irrational and foolish, and that we, too, are irrational and foolish, and that our safety and prosperity can only be safeguarded if we seek out those few people who are born to rule and liberate them from the petty niceties and regulations that democracy and the rule of law demand.
In other words, the paradigm of democracy is that all of us are capable of both wise self-governance and self-rationalized misgovernance, and each of us has a useful perspective to contribute. The fascist paradigm is that we can’t be trusted to rule ourselves, and only the people who are born with “good blood” are capable of directing our lives….
Billionaire solipsism, dictator solipsism, AI, and the fascist paradigm
Cory Doctorow, May 13, 2026 [Pluralistic]
This is why AI is so attractive to the ruling class. For corporate leaders, the fantasy of your own worth is always dangerously close to collapsing, due to the haunting knowledge that if you don’t show up for work, everything continues as per normal; while if your workers don’t show up for work, the shop closes down and stays closed. Bosses really want to be in the driver’s seat, but ultimately they know that they’re strapped into the back seat, playing with a Fisher Price steering wheel. AI is a way to wire that toy steering wheel directly into the drive-train: it’s the fantasy that a boss can have an idea and the corporation will execute it, without any messy human needs or demands getting in the way….
At Gawker, They Battled a Billionaire. 10 Years Later, the Scars Are Still Healing
[Hollywood Reporter, via The Big Picture, May 14, 2026]
Ten years after Thiel sued Gawker into oblivion, a reckoning with what the case did to media — and to the people inside it. Their weaponized wit made enemies, minted stars and helped define the internet as we know it. A decade after Peter Thiel engineered the site’s spectacular collapse, Nick Denton’s diaspora is still shaping media — and haunted by what happened.
Peter Shamshiri [via Naked Capitalism 05-16-2025]
Felonomics
Julia Conley, May 17, 2026 [CommonDreams]
The World Health Organization’s official designation of an Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda as a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday came just a day after the world learned that the disease was spreading at all—a highly unusual chain of events, public health experts said, and one that suggested the virus has been circulating for weeks without the outbreak being detected.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Sunday that eight laboratory-confirmed cases, 246 suspected cases, and 80 suspected deaths had been reported in at least three health zones across Ituri Province in the DRC. In Kampala, the densely populated capital of neighboring Uganda, two lab-confirmed cases and one death were reported within 24 hours of each other….
Chartbook 447: The US economy in May 2026 – How much cognitive dissonance can you handle?
Adam Tooze [via Naked Capitalism 05-11-2025]
Trump officials, billionaires and the quiet reshaping of America’s public lands
[Floodlight, via Naked Capitalism 05-14-2025]
The carnage of mainstream neoliberal economics
Did Streaming Subscription Prices Just Hit the Wall?
Ted Gioia [The Honest Broker, via The Big Picture, May 13, 2026]
…There are (finally) signs that the streaming prices have hit the wall. The public simply can’t afford paying hundreds of dollars per year for each platform. So I’m not surprised that a new survey shows that 55% of consumers want to cancel subscriptions right now.
This isn’t just an idle threat. According to Deloitte, 40% of consumers have already cut back on subscriptions during the previous three months. Even more revealing: 61% say they would cancel their favorite service if the price went up by just five dollars.
Let me repeat that—they would cancel their favorite service, not just any platform….
I’d like to be able to provide specific numbers here, but Netflix now refuses to tell us the number of total subscribers. That’s revealing in itself. Not long ago, the company bragged endlessly about subscriber growth. Their silence now tells you everything you really need to know….
Half of US Home Prices Are at All-Time Highs. Half Are Underwater Since 2022
[EPB, via The Big Picture, May 13, 2026]
The bimodal housing market, in one chart. The “national average” is now actively misleading. Half of the country had a real housing recession that the national index hid. One variable explains why.
America’s biggest career hurdle: being a daughter
[Business Insider, via The Big Picture, May 13, 2026]
On the unpaid caregiving tax — disproportionately borne by daughters — and what it costs in retirement savings. A real number, finally being measured. Millennial daughters are depleting their savings to care for aging boomer parents
Your Mattress Got Worse on Purpose
[Worse on Purpose, via Naked Capitalism 05-15-2025]
Health care crisis
Trump administration withholds $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to California
[Drop Site Daily, May 14, 2026]
Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that the Trump administration is suspending $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to California and threatening to freeze federal funds to all 50 states if they fail to prosecute Medicaid fraud aggressively. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz said California’s records had generated “major red flags,” citing $630 million in disputed billing, $500 million in home health services, and $200 million in expenditures linked to coverage for undocumented immigrants. The administration also announced that it is imposing a six-month moratorium on new Medicare enrollment for hospices and home health agencies.
Predatory finance
Since beginning of Iran war, traders have ramped up bets on rising food prices
[Follow the Money, via Naked Capitalism 05-14-2025]
They’re not capitalists — they’re predatory criminals
William Murphy [via Naked Capitalism 05-11-2025]
Restoring balance to the economy
Mamdani Announces Balanced Budget Without Cuts
David Dayen, May 12, 2026 [The American Prospect]
Buoyed by billions in assistance from the state, real talk about what it takes to run New York City, and some taxes on the rich, the mayor closed a historic leftover budget deficit.
Christopher Armitage, May 10, 2026 [The Existentialist Republic]
Disrupting mainstream economics
Repeat after me: Higher minimum wages are good for business
[Klement On Investing, via The Big Picture, May 15, 2026]
Higher minimum wages seem to be beneficial for small businesses. Changes in employee retention rates after minimum wages increased. On average, existing employees were slightly more likely to stay longer at their employer if they got a higher wage. And that reduces costs for businesses in the medium term because every employee who leaves creates costs for hiring and training a new employee. The data has been clear for years; the politics catches up slowly.
The worst attack on MMT, ever?
Richard Murphy, May 11, 2026 [Funding the Future]
What happens when you do not understand MMT
Richard Murphy, May 11, 2026 [Funding the Future]
Information age dystopia / surveillance state
Dissent and AI: The Future Before Us Is Clear
Thomas Neuburger, May 14, 2026
What group of elites wants to stop being elite? There are no George Washingtons here.
Climate and environmental crises
‘Insect apocalypse’ is already fueling malnutrition in some regions, first-of-its-kind study reveals
[LiveScience, via Naked Capitalism 05-16-2025]
Climate Change Is Creating a New Kind of Weather Disaster
[Gizmodo, via Naked Capitalism 05-16-2025]
U.S. Wheat Stocks Down with Crop at 54-Year Low
[USDA Economic Research Service]
U.S. wheat ending stocks in 2026/27 are projected at 762 million bushels, down 18 percent from 2025/26. Total supplies are down 11 percent from the previous year with lower production more than offsetting higher beginning stocks and imports. USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service forecast winter wheat production to be the smallest since 1965/66, with reduced production for all Winter classes. In addition to declining area, yields this year are down with a significant, widespread drought, which has particularly affected Hard Red Winter. With acreage for Durum and Other Spring wheat also down this year, U.S. all-wheat production is forecast at the lowest level since 1972/73.
Democrats’ political malpractice
Thomas Neuburger, May 14, 2026 [God’s Spies]
The attack on dissent is bipartisan. Let’s choose just two of the most recent participants, Biden and Trump.
Biden’s Attack on Dissent
Most don’t remember or probably failed to notice Joe Biden’s DNI document “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021,” which contained this handy definition of one class of violent extremists….
Under Biden and that side of the fence, if you’re opposed to capitalism, corporate globalization (which includes most corporations), or our “governing institutions” (including the FBI and CIA), you’re a potential violent extremist….
[Payday Report, via Naked Capitalism 05-15-2025]
Resistance
We Just Found MAGA’s Weakness – What Eight States Just Figured Out About ICE
W. A. Lawrence, May 17, 2026 [Glass Empires]
… Consider Williamsport, Maryland, population 2,000. DHS purchases an 825,000 square foot warehouse for $102 million. The facility alone would nearly equal the town’s population. Maryland AG Anthony Brown files a strategically elegant lawsuit. His instrument: the National Environmental Policy Act. Federal projects mandate environmental review before construction begins. DHS completes its review in a single afternoon. The judge notices the irregularity.
Meet the snail. Semple Run flows directly behind the proposed warehouse. It shelters the Appalachian springsnail and endangered mussel populations. Sewage discharge would extinguish those rare species. Construction sediment would contaminate the waterway permanently. Judge Brendan Hurson grants a preliminary injunction in April. The judicial pause holds indefinitely. A tiny snail halts a federal detention warehouse.
A single Appalachian springsnail froze one federal detention warehouse this spring and dared the press to notice. I have spent months naming a strategy most commentators still treat as accidental local resistance. If you have waited for someone to connect Williamsport’s snail to civic saturation, you have arrived….
Federal power meets structural limits whenever communities mobilize their statutory inheritance. Environmental law has become an unlikely sanctuary for human rights jurisprudence. Trump’s deportation apparatus contains exploitable procedural seams. Process, environmental review, and municipal infrastructure each function as constitutional checkpoints. The $45 billion appropriation projected invincibility on paper. One Appalachian springsnail dismantled that illusion entirely….
Conservative / Libertarian / (anti)Republican Drive to Civil War
Mike Brock, May 11, 2026 [Notes from the Circus]
The far left is the political category that names regimes and movements willing to subvert democracy, suppress political dissent, and impose an ideological maximum programme through extra-legal means. This is the mirror of what Trump is doing now. This is what Project 2025 is on the right. There is not a single elected Democratic politician in the United States who fits the category….
Bernie Sanders is not far left. He has made his case in American public life for four decades. When he has lost the argument with the Democratic caucus, he has shown up. He has caucused with them. He has voted for legislation he considers half-measures and compromises with people he would rather not compromise with. He has operated inside the democratic procedural order across forty years of public service. The far-left category cannot survive contact with this conduct. The category is being applied to him anyway, by people who know better, because the application serves a function that has nothing to do with the substantive accuracy of the category….
Sanders is also Jewish — the son of a Polish immigrant whose family was largely killed in the Holocaust. He has been the most prominent Jewish politician on the American left for forty years. He has endorsed Zohran Mamdani. He has campaigned with him. The species of commentator who has been suggesting Mamdani is Islamist or Islamist-adjacent has not had to account for this, and has not tried. A serious analyst making the charge would have to explain why a Jewish politician with every reason to be sensitive to actual antisemitic threat has chosen to publicly ally with the figure the commentariat is framing as the threat. The commentariat’s silence on Sanders’s choice is the diagnostic. The framing is being maintained against the evidence, not from it….
JD Vance is far right. In a 2021 podcast appearance documented by James Pogue in the April 2022 Vanity Fair piece on the New Right, Vance laid out the operational architecture of a constitutional coup. I think that what Trump should do, if I was giving him one piece of advice, Vance said: Fire every single midlevel bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state, replace them with our people. And when the courts stop you, stand before the country, and say — the chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it. Pogue, in the piece, called this what it was: This is a description, essentially, of a coup. Vance was, at the time, a candidate for United States Senator from Ohio. He is now Vice President of the United States.
Donald Trump is far right. He is engaged, right now, in extra-legal means towards his ends. The deportation operation is being conducted without due process. The prosecutorial apparatus is being deployed against political enemies. The Court has been captured and is rewriting constitutional law to ratify the consolidation. The executive-order regime is being issued in disregard of statutory authority. The administration is operating against the constitutional order it claims to be defending….
The center-right commentariat that has been carrying the far left designation for Mamdani, AOC, Sanders, and the broader American left-of-center coalition has been doing so inside a discourse that has been calibrated by donor-network interests. The donor network has specific reasons to want normal liberal-democratic distributional policy to be coded as far left, because the coding is what licenses the broader political project of opposing the policy. Far left, as the designation operates in contemporary American commentary, is the rhetorical apparatus that converts mainstream center-left policy into a threat that justifies counter-measures the underlying conduct would not otherwise justify. The counter-measures include the actually-far-right project that is currently in power. The actually-far-right project requires the false-equivalence framing as its licensing condition….
Christopher Armitage, May 11, 2026 [The Existentialist Republic]
The South Rises Again
We are watching, in real time, the creation of a one-party state in the American South
Heather Cox Richardson, May 14, 2026 [Letters from an American, May 13, 2026]
… We are watching, in real time, the creation of a one-party state in the American South….
…Georgia Senate minority leader Harold Jones II reacted to the news of Georgia’s special session for redistricting by saying: “If Republicans ever used their power to help Georgians, they wouldn’t have to waste time and money redrawing the maps every few years to keep their majorities….
The (anti)Federalist Society assault on the Constitution
A Look Inside the Case That Enshrined Political Power for Billionaires
[New York Times, via The Big Picture, May 11, 2026]
A walk through the Buckley-to-Citizens-United logic chain. The donor class did not get here by accident — it got here by litigation. After Watergate, Congress tried to curtail the role of money in politics. But a pivotal Supreme Court case nipped it in the bud. Years later, new details are emerging on how wealthy Americans were conferred with a “right to spend” on elections.
The Strip Mall Where Clarence Thomas Hides His Wife’s Money
W. A. Lawrence, May 12, 2026 [via Naked Capitalism 05-13-2025]
There is a kitchen in northern Virginia where the United States Supreme Court is decided.
At one end of the table sits a justice with a docket. At the other end sits his wife with a client list. By long standing agreement, the Thomases decline to discuss either subject.
The country is expected to treat the Thomas arrangement as reassuring. Almost no one in the press or the Senate is willing to describe the Thomas arrangement as a private influence operation installed beside a sitting Supreme Court justice. Wealthy ideological networks have spent decades purchasing access to the highest court in the United States while ordinary citizens received patriotic lectures about equal justice and judicial independence.
Justice Clarence Thomas sat on the high bench reviewing Donald Trump’s election challenges while his wife was texting the White House chief of staff to help overturn the result. Twenty nine messages in total….
From 2011 through 2012, Federalist Society kingmaker Leonard Leo arranged between eighty and one hundred thousand dollars in consulting fees for Ginni Thomas, routed through Kellyanne Conway’s polling firm and billed to a Leo-advised nonprofit called the Judicial Education Project. His written instruction to Conway, preserved on paper, was that no mention of Ginni should appear on the documentation.
The Judicial Education Project submits amicus briefs at the Supreme Court. Leo was directing dark money to a sitting justice’s wife while simultaneously handpicking her husband’s future colleagues for Donald Trump. The same network pays Ginni, selects the judges, files the briefs, and authors the opinions.
Liberty Consulting, her vehicle for the cash, is registered to Suite 302 at 5765F Burke Centre Parkway in Burke, Virginia, a low brick complex of professional offices a twenty minute drive south of the Supreme Court. The company’s clients Justice Thomas need not disclose, the contracts remain sealed, and the income he reports on his ethics forms with a single number and a shrug….
The Crow money flows through identical plumbing. Before Harlan Crow was financing Clarence Thomas’s vacations, his mother’s residence, and his grandnephew’s private school tuition, the billionaire was writing a five hundred thousand dollar check to Ginni’s Tea Party nonprofit Liberty Central.
The household has functioned for a generation as a single fundraising and decision making unit. One spouse collects the checks, the other adjudicates the cases, and the connection between them is treated as a private matter….
Ginni Thomas is not uniquely corrupt. Thomas is the proof of concept for the marriage as political instrument and the household as ethics waiver.
She prefigures everything the second Trump administration has now industrialized at scale. Jared Kushner is presently collecting Saudi billions through Affinity Partners while traversing the Middle East as the president’s volunteer envoy. He is exempt from financial disclosure laws by the identical trick Ginni perfected: he is not technically in government, so his income is none of the public’s business.
Before the Trump family was monetizing the presidency in plain view, the Thomases were monetizing a Supreme Court seat in a Virginia strip mall. The federal judiciary, the Senate, and the legal press agreed not to look….
A test case is already moving toward the bench. On March 16, 2026, the First Circuit upheld the injunction blocking the Trump administration’s three trillion dollar federal funding freeze, the freeze that Mark Paoletta drafted as General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. The administration’s appeal is now headed to the Supreme Court, where it will be heard by nine justices including the husband of Paoletta’s longtime client, the man Paoletta helped confirm in 1991, the man whose wife Paoletta represented before the January 6 committee in 2022. Clarence Thomas will not recuse. The kitchen has known this for thirty years.
[TW: Click through for very specific instructions (near the end) on how you can help push this into the news cycle.]
Copy this sentence and post it in your own voice.
Virginia “Ginni” Thomas runs a consulting firm whose clients remain hidden from the public. Her husband, Justice Clarence Thomas, votes on cases involving those clients. The arrangement is not an ethics question but a kickback, and the silence of the press, the Senate, and the Chief Justice keeps it alive.
Christopher Armitage, May 16, 2026 [The Existentialist Republic]
…The argument we are making is that hundreds of federal judges, including six sitting Supreme Court justices, should face impeachment and removal from office for their association with an ideology that is antithetical to the duties, responsibilities, and expectations of their position. A claim that serious cannot rest on a thousand words and a few rhetorical flourishes. It has to earn the conclusion through the doctrine, the history, the rulings, and the constitutional standard, and it has to do that work in front of the reader rather than behind their back. The length is the price of doing this honestly….
Hamilton wrote Federalist 69 in March 1788, addressing ratifiers who worried the new presidency would recreate the monarchy they had just fought a war to escape. He walked through the comparison directly. The king of Great Britain held office for life. The president would serve four years and could be removed. The king was “sacred and inviolable” and could not be questioned in court. The president, Hamilton wrote, “would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” Some have tried to read “afterwards” as a sequence requirement, claiming Hamilton meant impeachment must come before criminal prosecution and that a president who escapes impeachment escapes prosecution forever. That reading collapses on contact with the essay it sits inside. Hamilton’s entire purpose in Federalist 69 was to assure ratifiers that the president would not possess the monarchical immunity the British king enjoyed. A reading that lets a president commit any crime in office and walk free after partisan acquittal recreates the exact immunity Hamilton was disclaiming. The word “afterwards” is descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes the natural temporal sequence in which the two accountability mechanisms would typically operate, because a sitting president would not generally stand criminal trial while still holding the office. What Hamilton actually said is what the sentence says. The president would be subject to impeachment during the term and to criminal prosecution after it, both available, neither contingent on the other.
If the doctrine were applied honestly, it would produce symmetrical results across administrations. A president is a president. The constitutional grant of executive power in Article II does not distinguish between Republican and Democratic presidents. A doctrine that says the president controls the executive branch should mean the same thing on January 19th and January 21st, regardless of who took the oath in between. That is not what the Court does….
Steven Harper, May 17, 2026 [Common Dreams]
spud
murphys articles are good. and he is correct, just because you can print as much money as you want. does not mean you should.
you should be constrained by knowing that if you push more money into the economy than it can handle. you will have inflation.
and since we already practice MMT for decades now because of the constant bailouts of the crisis capitalism, plus the outrageous foreign debts racked up under the balance of payments for foreign goods and services since 1993, is causing massive bubbles and inflation.
as far as taxes are concerned. we need to tax the rich heavily, so heavy that they cannot form a oligarchy, stop their hoarding of money which creates bubbles, then recycle that money back into the productive economy, government investments, and wages.
taxes on the real producers of wealth, the workers, should be as light as possible.
the public banking guy is correct in some aspects. i have advocated for it for years now. but the dreaded word socialism crops up, and the pea brains run for cover.
Purple Library Guy
Mike Brock on the “far left” seems very, almost quintessentially, American. By which I mean he talks about things like “far left” authoritatively without having the faintest clue what it means.
Mark Level
Thanks to Tony for the link to the BackBencher piece on Gummy Golem Jared’s Shakedown scams. I enjoyed the piece, but I will not go to ANY site run by the slimy, Banderist NeoCon Ann Apfelbaum!!
Dorothy Parker was once interviewed about her rivalries with other women intellectuals of her era. She said she had no rivalry with Hannah Arendt, nothing but respect for her.
“I can’t stand her. I think every word she writes is false, including ‘and’ and ‘but.’” Her steady smile has grown into a full grin.
That’s how I feel about ApfelBaum, aka AppleBomb.
Mark Level
Sorry, the penultimate paragraph was what she said of playwright Lillian Helman. I tried to bold the sections in the original quote I found, but it didn’t work, then it cut out the reference to Hellman. Ghost in the machine. More coffee for me.
spud
data centers are a prime example, driven by the deregulation and the gutting of the new deal/fair deal/Gatt from 1993 onwards.
Misallocation of resources in a collapsing capitalist economy occurs when capital is not efficiently distributed, often leading to poorly managed businesses surviving at the expense of more productive ones. This inefficiency can hinder overall economic recovery and growth.
stewcap.com Cambridge University Press
Misallocation of resources in a collapsing capitalist economy refers to the inefficient distribution of capital. This often results in poorly managed businesses continuing to operate while more productive firms struggle to thrive.
Inefficient Capital Distribution: Capital is often funneled into failing businesses instead of being invested in more viable options.
Market Distortions: Factors such as low interest rates can allow poorly run companies to survive, leading to a phenomenon known as “zombie firms.”
Credit Market Imperfections: Flaws in the credit market can prevent resources from flowing to more productive firms, further exacerbating the issue.
Consequences of Misallocation
Consequence Description
Economic Stagnation The overall economy may struggle to recover as resources are not utilized effectively.
Reduced Productivity When capital is tied up in inefficient firms, overall productivity declines.
Hindered Innovation New and innovative businesses may lack the necessary funding to grow and succeed.
Zombie Firms: Companies that continue to operate despite being unprofitable, often sustained by low-interest loans.
Investment in Non-viable Projects: Resources may be wasted on projects that do not yield returns, limiting the potential for economic growth.
In summary, the misallocation of resources in a collapsing capitalist economy can significantly hinder recovery and growth, as capital is not directed towards the most productive uses.
Resource misallocation can hinder economic recovery in capitalist systems by preventing productive firms from accessing the necessary financial resources, which leads to lower overall productivity and output. Addressing these misallocations is crucial for enhancing efficiency and promoting growth.
World Bank promarket.org
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Oligarch theft is a significant issue in a collapsing capitalist economy, as it often leads to increased inequality and the exploitation of resources meant for the public good. This situation can exacerbate social tensions and undermine democratic institutions.
hamptonthink.org peoplesaction.org
Oligarch theft refers to the actions of wealthy individuals or groups who exploit resources and wealth that should benefit the public. This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in a collapsing capitalist economy, where the gap between the rich and the poor widens significantly.
Increased Inequality: Wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of a few, leading to a stark divide between the rich and the poor.
Exploitation of Resources: Essential public resources are often misappropriated for personal gain, undermining the welfare of the general population.
Undermining Democratic Institutions: The influence of oligarchs can weaken democratic processes, as they may manipulate policies to favor their interests over the public good.
The impact of oligarch theft in a collapsing capitalist economy can be severe:
Consequence Description
Social Tensions Increased inequality can lead to unrest and dissatisfaction among the populace.
Resource Depletion Public goods and services suffer as funds are diverted to enrich the elite.
Political Corruption Oligarchs may engage in corrupt practices to maintain their power and influence.
Cuts to Essential Services: Proposed cuts to healthcare and education can disproportionately affect low-income communities, exacerbating existing inequalities.
Manipulation of Policies: Wealthy individuals may lobby for legislation that benefits them at the expense of the broader population.
In summary, oligarch theft is a critical issue that not only highlights the failures of a collapsing capitalist economy but also poses significant risks to social stability and democratic governance.
Wikipedia peoplesaction.org
Oligarch theft can significantly undermine public resources by enabling corruption, which often leads to the irregular allocation of licenses and permits, and the bypassing of regulatory frameworks. This results in substantial revenue loss for governments and can slow economic growth due to decreased investment and increased inequality.
World Bank imf.org
Oligarch theft exacerbates social tensions in capitalist economies by concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a small elite, leading to increased inequality and disenfranchisement of the majority. This dynamic fosters resentment and instability as the interests of the wealthy often overshadow the needs of the broader population.
Oxfam America democracychallenged.com
To prevent oligarch theft in collapsing economies, it is crucial to strengthen antitrust enforcement and implement campaign finance reform to reduce the influence of wealthy elites on public policy. Additionally, promoting transparency and accountability in government can help safeguard against the concentration of power and protect democratic processes.
NAACP
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Free trade can undermine capitalism by allowing large financial interests to dominate markets, which may lead to inequities and weaken democratic institutions. Critics argue that the benefits of free trade often favor the wealthy, while ordinary workers and consumers may suffer from job losses and reduced economic opportunities.
Professor William Mitchell humanprogress.org
Impact of Free Trade on Capitalism
Free trade can have significant implications for capitalism, particularly in how it affects market dynamics and economic equity. Here are the key ways in which free trade may undermine capitalist principles:
Concentration of Wealth
Large Financial Interests: Free trade can enable large corporations and financial entities to dominate markets. This concentration of power can lead to inequities, where the benefits of trade are disproportionately enjoyed by the wealthy.
Market Control: As big players gain more influence, smaller businesses may struggle to compete, leading to reduced market diversity and innovation.
Job Losses and Economic Opportunities
Displacement of Workers: Free trade often results in job losses in certain sectors, particularly manufacturing. Workers may find it challenging to transition to new roles, leading to economic instability for many families.
Reduced Wages: Increased competition from international markets can drive down wages, particularly in industries that are unable to compete with cheaper foreign labor.
Weakened Democratic Institutions
Erosion of Fairness: The dominance of large financial interests can undermine democratic processes. When economic power is concentrated, it can lead to policies that favor corporations over the general populace, weakening the principles of democracy.
Political Influence: Wealthy corporations may exert significant influence over political decisions, leading to regulations that benefit them at the expense of broader societal interests.
Summary Table
Aspect Effect of Free Trade
Wealth Concentration Favors large corporations over small businesses
Job Market Impact Leads to job losses and wage reductions
Democratic Integrity Erodes fairness and increases corporate influence
Free trade, while promoting global economic integration, can create challenges that undermine the foundational principles of capitalism, particularly in terms of equity and democratic governance.
Professor William Mitchell humanprogress.org
Free trade can create job opportunities by increasing market access for exports, leading to higher demand for goods and services, which can boost employment. However, it can also displace jobs in industries that cannot compete with cheaper imports, resulting in job losses for some workers.
epi.org cepweb.org
Free trade tends to exacerbate income inequality, as it often benefits the wealthiest individuals more than the middle and lower classes. Studies indicate that in countries like the U.S. and Ecuador, trade can lead to greater income gains for those at the top of the income distribution compared to those in the middle or lower tiers.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology prosperousamerica.org
Fair trade is a prominent alternative to free trade, focusing on equitable trade practices that promote social justice and sustainability. It aims to ensure that producers in developing countries receive fair compensation and better working conditions, countering the inequalities often exacerbated by free trade policies.
americanethnologist.org Toward Freedom
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a prime example of ridding yourself of parasites, the oligarchs simply cannot control themselves.
Putin is no Lenin, but to bad the oligarchs thought that they were still dealing with yeltsin,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLYI5LGA2I0
RUSSIA SEIZES Ownership of $20 BILLION Sakhalin 2 LNG Facility from SHELL, MITSUBISHI & MATSUI
President Putin has Passed a Decree SEIZING OWNERSHIP of the Sakhalin 2 LNG Facility which was constructed by SHELL at a estimated cost of $20 BILLION. The Facility produces 4% of the World’s TOTAL LNG and Shell held a 27.5% stake, Mitsui 12.5% and Mitsubishi 10%. This action has been taken after Japan’s Prime Minister stated that the G7 is considering a 50% PRICE CAP on Russian Oil. In this video I provide details of the history of the deal, what has happened and the IMPLICATIONS of this for Russia.
Mark Level
Wow, Spud, thank you so much!!! This is the BEST News I have heard in months!!!
The Hardliners pushed Vladimir, he finally manned up and is no longer West-Cucked, this suggests. Piracy like other bad acts can go 2 ways among the Great Powers.
And Fuck Shell Oil.
Jefferson Hamilton
>Mike Brock on the “far left” seems very, almost quintessentially, American. By which I mean he talks about things like “far left” authoritatively without having the faintest clue what it means.
Yeah, having read that article, or at least skimmed it because life is already too short, it is pretty much standard online liberal kvetching from the late 2000s, early 2010s.
spud
Mark Level:
one as to ask what it takes before putin figures out he is not at the table, but on the table. i can see with the first two years of the war, it took time to reorganize the economy, the military and production, and also keeping war deaths at a minimum, but the last two years have proven that the time has come to lower the hammer before the west reorganizes.
he made a mistake, the oligarchs will not give it up, and they reorganized, and are taking the war to Russia’s heartland.
there needs to be a response, so devastating, that those idiots keep their lips zipped, and beg neutrality and kick nato out.
one or more of the baltics really should be folded back into mother russia.
the morons that joined nato, just got dragged into a war they cannot win. the big mouths running finland and the baltics, should now be looking for some rat hole somewhere to live out the rest of their lives, and it looks like a piece of garbage like blair though that the U.A.E. was to be his place, snicker, i hope he had to go into bomb shelters!
so where would they go, unfortunately, north america.
Mark Level
Russell Dobular left NYC about a week after Mamdami took power, 4+ month trip across 5 Asian countries, recently returned. At about 2 hours in he starts on the segment in which he announces the pied-a-terre tax for “homes” for non-New York state residents has reduced the $12 Billion City deficit he inherited from corrupt scumbag Eric Adams is now $0.
Dobular rightly calls Mamdami the best retail politician seen in the US in many decades. He is imperfect of course, like pretty much every politician (I’d cite Dennis Kucinich as the only one in my lifetime whose been entirely incorruptible, Kshwama Sawant in Seattle recently also). Some people side with TPTB and always preach failure and doom. Were there to be others who bloomed like mushrooms in fertile soil, this country could in time return to viability if not success. You gotta start somewhere.
https://duedissidence.substack.com/p/live-at-700-pm-et-iran-hawks-flood
The millionaires and billionaires sqwack like enraged chickens, claim they’ll leave. Most won’t go to a backward place like Tennessee, none of the Cultural Capital of NYC. They play an angry prick crying crocodile tears in the segment, are fair and present the other side, before demolishing it.
spud
Mark Level:
when the parasites head south, you know the jig is up for those companies.
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Some people side with TPTB and always preach failure and doom. Were there to be others who bloomed like mushrooms in fertile soil, this country could in time return to viability if not success. You gotta start somewhere.
How would that be siding with the TPTB? TPTB are the ultimate optimists promising a land flowing with milk and honey that is really sewage and toxic sludge.
It’s more like some people, many people even especially the so-called activists, that side with TPTB, be it wittingly or unwittingly, and always preach elusive, nay impossible, hope when and where none exists.
Hey guy, no fertile soil exists any longer, both literally and figuratively. It’s all been denuded/transformed. There is no real activism any longer. If there was, many of these data centers for example would have been destroyed already. Instead, they continue unabated despite the Hopium that you can make a difference.
The Dems do not have a solution to it and only serve to contain any potential outrage by offering that they would like to place a moratorium on further data centers construction until the details are ironed out. That is code for the data centers will continue to be constructed but under the guise it is being done ethically when behind the scenes it will be business as usual. The ONLY solution to the AI data centers is no AI data centers. That solution is not on the table and never will be so the only way at this point to stop the data centers is by destroying them and those funding it, but I know that will never happen because .. because why? Because no fertile soil exists to grow that crop, that’s why.
Mark Level
LAS, you are about half-right, as usual. I almost mentioned data centers in the post but made a choice to be concise.
Saw a half-right colleague of yours on the Jimmy Dore site, I watched it live so can’t really link to it, but it was posted yesterday. Well-informed (mostly) dude he was talking to was petting his small, raggedy dog in his lap/hands while talking to Jimmy. A vibe like Dr. No with his kitty (hope I got that right, no Bond film expert.)
He reported huge Data Centers are being planned for Wyoming and Utah (I have a younger ex-Mormon friend who lived in both of these places as a child and youth, so easy to remember), of course one cannot know WHO/What criminal entity is behind these Apocalyptic Heat Engines and environment destroyers. Huge pushback in both states, however your cynicism here is warranted, in one place the 3 council-members probably sold out for a few sheckels, likely about the amount Judas got in the fairy tale, perhaps more. I listened to the well-informed guy for awhile, until he started insisting though he opposes baking people to death (he had great insight, mentioned if our days were longer, 24 hours, we would bake to death in the day, freeze to death at midnight) he started ranting about how “Global Warming isn’t real”, releasing billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere has no negative effects. I quit the video. Before I did though, he noted next year we’ll have an El Nino effect, likely lots of snow in Wyoming, wetness in Utah, bit of reprieve from drought (why I left California.)
“No fertile soil,” incorrect. How did a “radical”, “anti-Semite,” “Communist” “wacko” like Mamdami go from pollling at 2% contra Cuomo and the other goons and win convincingly? New Yorkers, including Jewish ones, decided by a majority that they don’t enjoy complicity in a genocide, or being robbed. And there are others elsewhere who are moving to the Real Left, meaning not the Dimmie Party. And now he is producing Material Benefits for his own voters/constituents.
When Dictators push people to the brink of starvation, homelessness and death, many will fight back. See the 1930s, FDR split the difference with reform to block Revolution. We are coming to a Revolutionary moment, as is much of the RoW, especially the failed West.
Now, I will grant that the US populace is very sick (as Oakchair notes), stupid, propagandized and divided against one another. (And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, far more below water not mentioned.) I don’t foresee mild reform, much less Revolution here, so I’m still laboring to get out. Change is coming in any case, us Taoists (& even Ecclesiastes) know that’s how the world works.
When’s the last time ANYONE in power did this? Decades back, we can debate, certainly since Clinton (who did produce the simulacrum of a good economy, entirely benefiting TPTB and not the rest of us.)