Author: A.T.

. . . There is no such thing as capitalism in the singular. There are many capitalisms. The capitalism of 1880s America — child labor, company towns, no weekends — was capitalism. The capitalism of 1955 America — 35% union density, 91% top marginal tax rates, the GI Bill building the largest middle class in human history, GDP growth rates double what they are today — was also capitalism. Denmark is capitalist. Singapore is capitalist. The neoliberal version we have run in America since roughly 1975, delivering four decades of stagnant wages for most workers while routing nearly all productivity gains to the top, is also capitalism.

These systems produce radically different outcomes — in wages, mobility, life expectancy, civic trust, democratic stability. The question is never “capitalism, yes or no.” The only question that has ever mattered is: which capitalism, designed how, for whose benefit? . . .

Nick, a billionaire, is one of my heroes.

Long-time readers will know I’ve long pitched his 2012 TED Talk — Rich People Don’t Create Jobs” (6 minutes) — and, from 2014 —Beware, Fellow Plutocrats, The Pitchforks Are Coming (20 minutes).

This latest piece is, I think, so worth reading in full.

She’s Been A Republican . . . Forever

April 23, 2026April 22, 2026

But first . . .

. . . a few notes from Trump’s team*:

> BOBBY

DON’T LET SCIENCE GET IN THE WAY OF A GUY WITH A WORM IN HIS BRAIN

CDC won’t publish report showing covid shots cut likelihood of hospital visits.

I’m not saying the worm is still there — we only know about the worm because Bobby told us — but it clearly ate something important while in residence. The mercury poisoning may not have helped, either.

> PETE

“AN ABSURD MANDATE”

Annual flu vaccine no longer required for U.S. military, Hegseth says. He calls it “an absurd mandate.” Now that we’re making America safe for measles again — why not?

Also:

Hegseth Says U.S. Troops Are Fighting for Jesus. The Pope Disagrees.

> KASH

Need I say more?

> TULSI

Ditto.

> KEVIN

Paul Krugman calls Kevin Warsh, the next Fed Chair, Trump’s Sock Puppet:

. . . He was asked who won the 2020 election . . . and evaded. . . .

He was also asked about the spurious prosecution of Lisa Cook, asked about the spurious charges being brought about Jay Powell and refused to take a stand in support of people who will be his colleagues once he gets to the Fed. . . .

What was on trial was, can he at least pretend to be not a total hack? And the answer is no. He’s afraid to even show a little bit of verbal independence without substance when it comes to Donald Trump, which is bad.

It should be utterly disqualifying for the position because being the Fed chair is important. It requires a lot of independent judgment and requires a lot of credibility because the Fed is mostly needed in moments of crisis. And in those moments of crisis, people need to believe, markets need to believe, but the general public needs to believe that we’re talking about people who are serious experts and seriously have the interests of the nation at stake rather than their partisan political views.

He failed that test with flying colors. And he will be confirmed anyway.

And now!

From Florida’s Sun-Sentinel:

I’m a lifelong Republican. This is not what we voted for

I am a lifelong Republican from Boca Raton. I never imagined I would be writing something like this.

But here we are.

Like many Floridians, I feel unrepresented — not by the opposing party, but by my own. That should alarm anyone who still believes in representative democracy. When elected officials stop listening to theirconstituents, we are no longer participating in governance. We are being managed.

Recently, my U.S. senator, Rick Scott, sent out an update touting his efforts to pass the SAVE Act, a bill framed as necessary to prevent noncitizens from voting. The message was urgent, emphatic and unwavering.

It was also deeply disconnected from reality.

There is little evidence that noncitizen voting occurs at any scale that would justify sweeping new federal restrictions. What the SAVE Act would do, however, is create new barriers for eligible voters — particularly married women, seniors, disabled individuals and lower-income Americans — who may face additional hurdles in proving citizenship under stricter documentation requirements.

There is also a question of scale. Even conservative-leaning data sources have documented extremely few cases of noncitizen voting over decades, compared to the billions of ballots cast nationwide in that time. Meanwhile, millions of Americans lack ready access to documents like passports or birth certificates, and tens of millions — particularly married women whose names have changed — could face additional hurdles under stricter requirements. That imbalance raises a fundamental question: Are we solving a real problem, or creating a new one?

As Republicans, we used to stand for limited government and individual freedom. We believed the burden should not fall on citizens to prove themselves again and again just to exercise a fundamental right. That principle seems to have been abandoned.

At the same time, far more urgent issues are being ignored.

We are witnessing executive actions that raise serious constitutional questions, including military engagement abroad without clear congressional authorization. Regardless of party, Congress has a duty to assert its role in matters of war. Silence is not leadership.

We are also seeing growing alarm from communities across the country about immigration enforcement practices — families separated, detainees held without timely charges, and reports that demand transparency and accountability. These concerns deserve serious attention, not deflection.

Yet instead of addressing these pressing issues, our leaders are doubling down on legislation that appears more about political strategy than public necessity.

This is not the Republican Party I have supported my entire life.

Across the country, Americans are exercising one of our most fundamental rights: peaceful protest.

Demonstrations on March 28 reflected a growing sense that voices are no longer being heard through traditional channels. Dismissing these movements does not make them disappear — it deepens the divide.

Let me be clear: This is not about abandoning conservative values. It is about reclaiming them.

We should be defending the Constitution, not sidestepping it. We should be protecting the right to vote, not making it harder. We should be demanding accountability from every branch of government, regardless of which party is in power.

And above all, our elected leaders should be listening to the people who elected them to serve.

If the Republican Party continues down this path, it risks losing not just elections but the trust of those who once stood firmly behind it.

I am one of them.

Katherine “Kitty” Donovan, of Boca Raton, is a retired Broward County school administrator with 37 years’
experience in middle schools, a grandmother of three boys and the Florida state senior ambassador for Giffords
Gun Owners for Safety.

And here I append my daily plug for leavingMAGA.

* “I’ve seen better cabinets at IKEA,” read one NO KINGS 3 sign. Turns out the “basket of deplorables” was not so much that small portion of Trump voters who are Klansman, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers or clean-cut torch carriers at Charlottesville (“Jews will not replace us!”) . . . as they are perhaps the appallingly incompetent, corrupt, reckless crew with which he has populated his regime.

Are We Trapped?

April 22, 2026April 22, 2026

Watch this conversation with John Mearsheimer. It’s not short (30 minutes if you watch at 1.5X speed) . . .

. . . but it came to me recommended as “the most informative conversation of where we are with Trump, Iran, and Israel that I have ever heard.”

In better news:

WE’RE GONNA WIN

Virginians voted yesterday for congressional redistricting that may flip four Republican-held seats our way.

KASH — NOT SO MUCH

He’s suing The Atlantic for $250 million over this story, but will lose.

PEOPLE ARE GROWING DISILLUSIONED

Some will never lose faith that “he alone can fix it.”

They wait patiently for the war in Ukraine to end on Day One and for his “concept of a [health care] plan” to be fleshed out.

To them, even once he starts walking down Fifth Avenue shooting people, there will be no last straw.

But others are . . .

LEAVING MAGA

The movement is catching on.

Last week’s billboard in Spokane got local TV coverage and spawned a viral reddit thread, driving 102,000 visits to the web site (so far).

Not all were planning to leave MAGA, obviously; and certainly not all were from Spokane (pop. 230,000 or so). But wow.

And in addition to the billboards that some of you are helping to pay for (thank you!), people have been making mini-“billboards” spontaneously, on their own.

Like this one spotted in New Hampshire:

And this one in Cincinnati:

And this one at a NO KINGS 3 rally:

If you’re still with me, let me again recommend John Mearsheimer’s analysis.

To listen at 1.5X speed, just click the “gear box” icon to set the speed.

The Court

April 21, 2026

IT’S CATHOLIC

As recently as 1981, only 1 of the 9 Justices was Catholic. Today, in a country that is 20% Catholic, all but 2 of the 9 Justices are Catholic. One, Sotomayor, is a liberal; Opus Dei-affiliated Leonard Leo had a hand in appointing the other 6.

IT’S CHANGED

The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court
Secret memos obtained by The New York Times illuminate the origins of the court’s now-routine “shadow docket” rulings on presidential power.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Just after 6 p.m. on a February evening in 2016, the Supreme Court issued a cryptic, one paragraph ruling that sent both climate policy and the court itself spinning in new directions.

For two centuries, the court had generally handled major cases at a stately pace that encouraged care and deliberation, relying on written briefs, oral arguments and in-person discussions. The justices composed detailed opinions that explained their thinking to the public and rendered judgment only after other courts had weighed in.

But this time, the justices were sprinting to block a major presidential initiative. By a 5-to-4 vote along partisan lines, the order halted President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, his signature environmental policy. They acted before any other court had addressed the plan’s lawfulness. The decision consisted of only legal boilerplate, without a word of reasoning.

At the time, the ruling seemed like a curious one-off. But that single paragraph turned out to be a sharp and lasting break. That night marks the birth, many legal experts believe, of the court’s modern “shadow docket,” the secretive track that the Supreme Court has since used to make many major decisions, including granting President Trump more than 20 key victories on issues from immigration to agency power.

Since that night a decade ago, the logic behind the Supreme Court’s pivotal 2016 order has remained a mystery. Why did a majority of the justices bypass time-tested procedures and opt for a new way of doing business?

The answer would remain secret for generations, legal experts predicted. “We’ll never know (at least, until our grandkids can read the justices’ internal papers from that time period),” Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown, wrote in a newsletter in February marking the anniversary of the order.

The New York Times has obtained those papers and is now publishing them, bringing the origins of the Supreme Court’s shadow docket into the light.

The 16 pages of memos, exchanged in a five-day dash, provide an extraordinarily rare window into the court, showing how the justices talk to one another outside of public view. . . .

Key Excerpts From the Supreme Court’s Secret Memos

BONUS — GOOD NEWS!

From The Economist: globally, democracy is in better shape than you think.

A Nurse, A Drunk, The Pope And A Surgeon Walk Into Shanghai’s Pulmonary Hospital

April 19, 2026April 18, 2026

JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE A NURSE . . .

. . . doesn’t mean you’re a productive member of society, says this must-watch MAGA maiden (2 minutes).

KASH PATEL

One of my dormmates a million years ago was Efrem Zimbalist III. His dad — whose name you can likely deduce — starred in “The FBI“ throughout our college years. The FBI on TV was all about sobriety, integrity, and incorruptibility — as it was in real life until February 21 of last year, when this guy was sworn in. As profiled in The Atlantic, a sad, dangerous joke.

CHINA

Gloria: “Given yesterday’s China post, I thought you might want to know about a Spanish thoracic surgeon I follow on Instagram who spends six months of the year at the Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, the largest of its kind in the world. The other six months he travels the world teaching and operating. He has developed a method by which he makes just a single small incision to remove tumors, etc. It’s called the UNIportal method and is revolutionary, because in ~48 hours the patient is home. Old-school thoracic surgery is very painful with a long recovery time. It is in China where he has helped develop the robots for these operations. Silicon Valley turned him down!!! Check this out. It’s in Spanish, but you’ll get the gist.”

TRUMP FOR POPE!

The Lincoln project imagines his campaign ad (90 seconds).

TRUMP FOR SURGEON!

Bob F. saw this (as we all did) . . .

. . . and then prompted his A.I. as follows:

President Trump recently posted an AI image of himself as Jesus, then claimed he thought it was supposed to be him as a doctor, caring for people. Please create an image of him as a doctor . . . and write a speech that Trump might give regarding the original depiction.

After just a little tweaking, here’s the image Bob got . . .

And here’s the speech . . .

Thank you, thank you very much. Great to be here.

Now before we begin, I have to say—because the fake news, they’re out there, they’re already twisting things—they said, “Oh, he wanted to be Jesus.” I said, “What are you talking about?” I never said that. Never even thought it. Fake news. Totally fake. I was a doctor all along. A healer. Helping people. That’s what this is about. But they don’t want to report that. They never do.

And frankly—look, I’ll say it—Jesus never made a good deal, okay? I mean, think about it. If it were me, I would’ve negotiated eternal life for everybody—no dying, no sacrifice, no problem. Done. Easy. That’s a deal. And the Ten Commandments? I love them, very strong, very important—but ten? That’s a lot. I would’ve negotiated it down to six. Maybe seven. Believe me, there’s a few in there that we don’t need. People agree with me

And then I look at this image—folks, it’s incredible. People are saying it’s one of the greatest paintings ever made. Maybe the greatest. I see it and I say, “Wow… that’s Dr. Trump.” Very official. Very strong. Right out of central casting. The best doctor—maybe better than all of them, honestly.

And you know, I went to Penn—very good school, University of Pennsylvania. Great school. Top of the line. And they have one of the best medical schools anywhere. Some people say the best. And I was there, I understood it all, I really did. I could have been a doctor, easily. I chose a different path—turned out pretty well, I think—but I could have done it. No question.

Look at this—white coat, stethoscope, everything. Looks natural, doesn’t it? Like I’ve been doing it for years. And the patient? Looks a little like Jon Stewart, doesn’t he? He’s doing unbelievably well. He was in rough shape—very rough—but now? Total turnaround. Doctors are calling me, they’re saying, “Sir, how did you do that?” I say, “It’s just talent. Natural talent.”

And you’ve got everybody around—nurses, soldiers, great Americans—they’re watching, they’re amazed. They’re saying, “This guy knows what he’s doing.” And they’re right. I do.

The lighting—have you noticed? Beautiful lighting. Very powerful. Some people say it looks almost… heavenly. I didn’t say that—but people are saying it. And I’ll tell you, it makes the whole thing look very special.

And of course, the American flag—big, beautiful, waving. Eagles flying, jets overhead. It’s like we’re not just healing one person—we’re healing the whole country. We’re making America healthy again. That’s what we’re doing.

But again, the fake news—they don’t want to talk about that. They say, “Oh, he’s not a real doctor.” Very nasty. I say, “Look at the results.” You can’t argue with results. The results are incredible.

So I want to thank the artist—whoever made this, fantastic job. Truly incredible. We may have to hang it somewhere very important. Maybe in the new ballroom. We’ll see.

Thank you very much, everybody. Stay healthy—because if not, Dr. Trump might have to come back. And believe me, you’ll be in very good hands. The best hands.

The Chinese Century

April 18, 2026April 18, 2026

ROBOTS

The Chinese outnumber us 4 to 1 in people and the entire world in robots. Why would we expect always to remain the largest economy and the most powerful nation on earth?

And that’s okay — not every nation can be forever #1. In terms of happiness, we’re not even in the Top 20.

As I’ve argued before, the American Century began in 1917 when we entered World War I and ended exactly on time 100 years later when the current president was sworn in.

I think you’ll find this New York Times “The Daily” ear-popping:

How China Made Itself Tariff-Proof (32 minutes).

(If you’re not a Times subscriber, here’s the executive summary: they are way ahead of everybody — even the Germans and Japanese — in “dark” factories that need no humans . . . and in using robots to manufacture more robots to widen that lead further . . . and in part it’s their response to the one-child policy that has left them with tens of millions of highly educated young people who refuse to do factory jobs. How ironic is that? A Chinese labor shortage.)

To me, the top line is that we’d better find a way to be nice to each other and avoid the Thucydides Trap.

What about a world in which we and China cooperated to enforce sovereignty, eradicate poverty, solve the climate crisis and — most challenging of all — keep A.I. from brushing us all aside, save the few it might keep for research and amusement?

BILLBOARDS

This simple leaving MAGA billboard in Spokane, Washington, made the local news and went viral on Reddit, driving 80,000 visits to the leavingMAGA site. It’s hard to leave MAGA, as founder Rich Logis can tell you first-hand. For years, he was one of their biggest boosters. It’s a little less hard now that there’s a community of like-minded people to welcome them home.

PEDOPHILES

Any word on the files in which the Trump name appears more than 38,000 times?

Any word on the young teen’s accusation that has not gone away?

MARTHA NEVER SAID THIS

But she may have thought it.

The Dark Triad

April 17, 2026

OPRT

Oportun Appoints Doug Bland as Chief Executive Officer to Lead Next Phase of Growth and Profitability

Famous last words, perhaps, but I’m holding on for a much higher price a year or two from now.

THE WORST OF THE WORST

ICE Has Detained Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé, an 85-Year-Old Widow, in her nightgown — but hey.

THE DARK TRIAD

This letter was sent to the bipartisan leadership of Congress on Monday:

Dear Senate Majority Leader Thune, Senate Minority Leader Schumer, Speaker Johnson, and House Minority Leader Jeffries:

We write to you today with a sense of urgency that we do not use lightly. The behavior and rhetoric of President Donald Trump have crossed a threshold that demands the immediate and bipartisan attention of Congress. This is not a partisan assessment. It is a judgment grounded in observable fact, consistent professional assessment, and the constitutional responsibilities that your offices carry.

President Trump exhibits what forensic mental health experts have, across dozens of independent assessments, identified as the “Dark Triad” of personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Rather than constituting a clinical diagnosis, this trait-based assessment is grounded in behavioral observation and is particularly useful for assessing the level of danger an individual poses in a political leadership position. We do not offer this as a clinical verdict. We offer it as the considered judgment of a substantial body of professional opinion, based on well-researched evidence that is consistent, accumulating, and impossible to dismiss.

What makes this more than an academic matter is what predictably happens when this personality structure collides with immovable obstacles. The clinical literature is clear: individuals with Dark Triad profiles, when confronted with situations they cannot control or escape, do not recalibrate. They escalate. The psychological imperative to relieve narcissistic collapse overrides strategic calculation, concern for consequences, and ordinary self-restraint. Rage surges to domination. Impulsivity overrides caution. The urgent need to extinguish psychological pain eclipses every other consideration.

We are watching this dynamic unfold in real time.

The President’s recent public communications have been, by any normal standard of political discourse, alarming. His posts demanding that Iran “open the fuckin’ strait, you crazy bastards” and his threat to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages,” adding that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” are not the rhetoric of calculated geopolitical pressure. They are the expressions of a man in profound psychological distress who is reaching for the most extreme retaliatory threats available to him. That these statements were addressed to an adversary in the context of an active military confrontation makes them not merely shocking but profoundly dangerous.

President Trump has now ordered a US naval blockade of Iran — an action that has sent world oil prices soaring and placed the United States in direct opposition to the international community. His ongoing actions carry the potential to trigger a global economic catastrophe, draw in regional and great powers, and ignite a wider conflict with consequences that no one can bound. These orders are being issued without adequate deliberation, without congressional authorization, and in a context in which the President’s judgment is, by every visible measure, severely compromised.*

We urge three specific actions.

First, Congress must immediately retake its constitutional authority over war. The bombing of Iran and the initiation of a naval blockade — acts of war under both US and international law — cannot be authorized by presidential fiat. Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress the sole power to declare war and to regulate commerce with foreign nations. The Framers intended Congress to deliberate upon and be accountable for precisely such consequential actions. Congress must assume its constitutional authority now, before further escalation renders the question moot.

Second, congressional leadership — on a bipartisan basis — must convene urgent consultations with senior administration officials, including the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of State, and the Director of National Intelligence. The purpose is not routine oversight. It is to create a circuit breaker capable of preventing escalation toward catastrophe, including the potential use of nuclear weapons. Those officials have their own constitutional and statutory obligations. Congress should insist on those obligations and provide a forum in which they can be exercised.

Third, Congress should formally initiate consultation with the Vice President and Cabinet regarding the President’s fitness for office under Section 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. We do not prejudge the outcome. We are not calling for the President’s immediate removal. We are calling for the process that the Constitution itself provides for this contingency: when a President’s capacity to discharge the duties of office is in question and poses a potential imminent danger to the nation. The Amendment exists because those who drafted it recognized that the question of presidential incapacity would occasionally arise, and that it required a constitutional answer rather than a political improvisation.

He is a constitutional emergency. The mechanisms for addressing such an emergency exist. They were placed in the Constitution and its amendments for moments precisely like this one.

We recognize the gravity of what we are asking. We ask it because the gravity of the situation demands it.

A President who publicly threatens to destroy a foreign civilization, who launches a bombing campaign and then imposes a naval blockade without congressional authorization, and who shows every behavioral sign of a personality in acute crisis is not merely a political problem. He is a constitutional emergency. The mechanisms for addressing such an emergency exist. They were placed in the Constitution and its amendments for moments precisely like this one.

The war with Iran will not wait. The escalation dynamics of this active military confrontation will not wait. The psychological conditions driving the President’s decisions will not improve under pressure — they will worsen.

We urge you to act without delay. The Constitution gives you the tools. Your oath of office assigns you the responsibility.

Respectfully,

James Gilligan, M.D. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine; Former President, International Association of Forensic Psychotherapy

Prudence L. Gourguechon, M.D. Former President, American Psychoanalytic Association; Former Vice President, World Mental Health Coalition

Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div. President, World Mental Health Coalition; Co-Founder, Preventing Violence Now; Former Faculty of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Former Faculty of Law and Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine

James R. Merikangas, M.D. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, George Washington University; Research Consultant, National Institute of Mental Health; Co-Founder, American Neuropsychiatric Association; Former President, American Academy of Clinical Psychiatrists

*The blockade was first proposed, I think, by Richard Haas, whom you might know from Morning Joe, and may not be as ill-considered abs the authors imply.

Project 2029

April 16, 2026April 15, 2026

CONFIRMED FAKE

As suspected, the speech I posted yesterday was generated by AI. But spot on!

(Free yesterday, it’s now been placed behind a paywall.)

GOOD NEIGHBORS

Georgia Defeats All 15 Anti-LGBT Bills.

Because “love is love,” and why not “live and let live”? Beating up on the gays is not the sure political winner it once was.

PROJECT 2029

No one is writing Project 2029. So [this guy’s begun to] (9 fast-paced minutes).

BONUS

Miles Taylor:

Years from now, if the world order collapses, historians will trace it back to something more mundane than a nuclear war or a deadly pathogen. “It began,” they’ll write, “with a single man’s insatiable need for chaos.”

A weapon of mass distraction, if you will.

I watched that “weapon” get built, up close, during my time at the Department of Homeland Security. There was hardly a day we were allowed to focus on our job of protecting hundreds of millions of Americans. Instead, more days than not were spent scurrying around Washington, dealing with the fallout of foolish presidential missives.

As an example, let me tell you about Friday, December 21, 2018.

I walked into the Oval Office for what should’ve been a straightforward win. . . .

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Lessons From Hungary

April 15, 2026April 15, 2026

I WAS HACKED

If you get an invitation to a party, from my gmail account, don’t open it! Not that we wouldn’t have a great time, but this is a Russian hack that seems to be spreading. I was an idiot to fall for it. Sorry for any inconvenience. (If you did try to open it, change your Google password.)

WAS BILL CLINTON HACKED?

YouTube warns that this powerful speech contains “altered or synthetic content.” But even if Bill Clinton didn’t say all this about Trump and the Pope, as I suspect he did not (it’s too late tonight to check; I’ll likely report back tomorrow), I’m posting it anyway because it’s spot on — about events we know to be true.

No need to watch it all. The first minute or three gives you this gist.

COMPARATIVE CORRUPTION

This comparison of the Bidens and the Trumps is devastating. You will enjoy!

TRUMP’S BRILLIANT IRAN DEAL

Under two minutes . . . and I’m pretty sure you’ll see where it’s heading before he gets there. Watch and share!

LESSONS FROM HUNGARY

Here’s How to Defeat Trumpism — advice from the New York Times editorial board.

Join Indivisible’s What’s the Plan? call today at 3pm Eastern.

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