"Enjoy:"
- Charles Marohn rips apart the OAFPOTUS's half-baked proposal to allow 50-year mortgages, which would transfer even more rents to bankers than the current housing situation does.
- In a spectacular own-goal that will, I hope, be rolled back very soon, Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin has decided the city will no longer buy US treasury bonds, which are still the safest investments in the world and do not "support the regime" as she daftly claims.
- Jennifer Rubin cheers the millions of voters who have come around to the unavoidable conclusion that the OAFPOTUS and his droogs are horrible, incompetent, corrupt people.
- Kyla Scanlon toured 30 states and two other countries to answer the question, "where did American prosperity go?"
- Will Gotsegen warns that, even though the Republican-caused, longest government shutdown in history ended yesterday, cleaning up from it will take a while.
- Historian Zachary Karabell explains that the OAFPOTUS's eye-watering corruption is (a) nothing new in US politics and (b) not the end of the Republic. (He agrees its awful, at least.)
- The US Mint in Philadelphia stamped out the last pennies ever yesterday. The first ones, minted in 1793, had the purchasing power equivalent of 33c today.
Finally, Chicago's Alinea has lost its third Michelin star, fundamentally changing the fine-dining scene in the city. When the 2026 Guide comes out officially next week, Chicago will have only one 3-star restaurant. Quel horreur !
A coronal mass ejection late last week caused Kp7-level aurorae last night that people could see as far south as Alabama. Unfortunately, I missed them, though some of my friends did not. Fortunately, NOAA predicts that another mass of charged particles will hit around 6pm tonight, causing even more pronounced aurorae for most of the night. This time, I plan to get to a dark corner of the suburbs to look for them.
Meanwhile:
- ProPublica has an extended report about how the OAFPOTUS uses pardons and clemency far more corruptly than Harding, Jackson, or Reagan could imagine. (Madison, Jefferson, and the rest of the founders could imagine it, however, and they did not like it one bit.)
- John Judis thinks "the 8 dissenters did Democrats a favor:" "I believe that as the shutdown dragged into Thanksgiving, and as more jobs were lost, social services suspended, and planes grounded, the public would have begun blaming the Democrats more because — let’s face it — they had initiated the shutdown. The polls also showed that far more Democrats than Republicans felt affected by the shutdown."
- Brian Beutler wonders whether the divergence between people's perception of the economy and reality has more to do with the fracturing media landscape than with people's ability to intuit reality the same way economists do: "Our collective, manic emphasis on the cost of things has both made people upset, and given people a peg to hang their political frustrations on—but people did not become upset over nominal prices in some organic way. Democrats shouldn’t convince themselves that if they manage to lower prices, they’ll be assured more victories, or that if Trump manages to get costs down (perhaps with the help of the Supreme Court) he’ll become politically invulnerable. They certainly shouldn’t convince themselves that all things unconnected to prices are politically inert."
- Amanda Nelson reminds us that in 2008, the wealthy people who got wealthier even as the housing market collapsed and impoverished millions weren't stupid; they just didn't care. And neither do the authors of Project 2025.
- The $1.5 billion Illinois just pledged to transit projects fundamentally changed the vision of passenger rail across the region, according to the High Speed Rail Alliance.
- Chicago has issued the first permits for construction of the new O'Hare Concourse D, the first new concourse built at the airport since Terminal 5 opened in 1993. Construction could complete as early as 2028.
Finally, the OAFPOTUS's latest demented assertion about crime on the "miracle mile shopping center" left people baffled and also led to city council member Brendan Reilly (D-42), whose ward includes the Magnificent Mile, clapping back: "My suggestion to President Trump: spend more time focusing on your struggling real estate investments, especially the 70,000 square feet of vacant retail space that has remained un-leased since the opening of Trump Tower, 16 years ago...."
Between meetings and getting into the zone while fixing a bug, I worked straight through lunch and only got Cassie out around 4. So before my next meeting at 8pm, I've got a few minutes to catch up on all...this:
And yesterday, as most people know, was the 50th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking in Lake Superior.
Despite the FAA reducing flights at O'Hare and Midway today because of the Republican-caused government shutdown (longest in history!), I got from my house to O'Hare and through security in just over an hour. Red-state friends: I took the #81 bus to the Blue Line, so the whole 45-minute trip cost $3.00. I even had time to get coffee.
So far my flight is on time, and--unusually for the heavily-traveled ORD-SFO route--I got upgraded. Sometimes I think about cancelling my club membership because I only fly 8 to 10 segments a year these days, and then a day like this happens, where I mentally prepared for delays and disruptions but nothing happened.
We'll see if my good luck holds up for my 6am flight Sunday morning...
With the unusually late colors we have this autumn against the much earlier sunsets that started yesterday (before 4:30 pm from November 15th to December 31st, ugh!), things have remained tolerable. It will snow eventually; we'll have a freeze eventually; but for now, I'll just enjoy it.
I didn't enjoy these things, though:
In one bit of good news, the Illinois legislature restored $1.5 billion to state transit agencies, which means the CTA and Metra will live to fight another day. Included in the legislation was an end to parking minimums within 800 meters of public transportation hubs or corridors. I hope this encourages developers to build density where it's needed.
Economist Paul Krugman shakes his head at the GOP's own goal, bringing misery to millions of Americans way ahead of their original schedule:
Why are these terrible things happening? At a basic level they’re happening because Republicans want them to happen. Drastic cuts in food stamps and health care programs were central planks in Project 2025, which is indeed the Trump administration’s policy platform, and were written into legislation in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed last summer.
But the consequences of these cruel intentions weren’t supposed to be this obvious, this early. The harshest provisions of the OBBBA were backloaded, set to kick in after the midterm elections.
Why the backloading? Presumably Republicans believed that by the time Americans woke up to what was happening, the G.O.P. would have effectively consolidated one-party rule, making future elections irrelevant.
Instead, however, the mask is being ripped off right now, well ahead of schedule.
So what went wrong? I’d attribute it to a combination of policy ignorance, visceral hatred of doing anything that helps people in need, and the Epstein files. (Seriously.)
But remember, the modern Republican Party has "a visceral dislike for doing anything that helps people in need" which makes them unlikely to take the simple steps necessary to solve the problem they created. Like, for example, doing what their fearless leader has asked: end the filibuster and pass a clean resolution reopening the government. (Of course, that would be a gift for my party that could only be enhanced by candy and a stripper.)
Fortunately for the 42 million people who were about to starve next month, a Federal judge in Rhode Island has ordered the Dept of Agriculture to distribute Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to the people entitled to them "as soon as possible."
We'll see how this plays out over the weekend.
Even though I have a cute beagle hanging around my office this week, and even though I've had a lot to do at work (including a very exciting deployment today), the world keeps turning:
- The OAFPOTUS pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao for the crime of running a massive money-laundering website, because of course Zhao bribed him.
- Brian Beutler thinks the OAFPOTUS's corruption has gotten too obvious for even his supporters to ignore, leading to "the things Democrats like to talk about and the things I wish they’d talked about [beginning] to converge."
- Speaking of corruption, not to mention things that are so prima facie bad that it takes a special kind of felon to even suggest it, privately funding the US military is an obviously illegal and demonstrably dangerous idea. Just ask the Roman Senate.
- Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) refuses to reconvene the House, and the Republican majority in the Senate refuse to waive the filibuster on funding SNAP, which are the two biggest things the Republican majority has chosen to do instead of making sure 40 million Americans don't go hungry next week.
- Michael Tomasky makes a point that I've made to one of my Republican trolls acquaintances: it really doesn't matter to the national Democratic Party if Zohran Mamdani wins the New York City mayoral election on Tuesday: It's NYC, not Maine.
Finally, if you're looking to pick up a little lakeside real estate, this house in Kenilworth, Ill., is on the market for the first time ever. It's a steal at $7 million.
Naturally, the press had a lot to say about the largest protest in my lifetime (I was born after the Earth Day 1970 demonstration):
- As many as 250,000 people turned out for the downtown Chicago event, which included a procession that carried a 23-meter replica of the US Constitution, and resulted in zero arrests or reports of violence. (The video of the procession leaving Grant Park is epic.)
- David Graham of The Atlantic explains why the protests got under the OAFPOTUS's skin: "Trump’s movement depends on the impression that it’s unstoppable and victorious. ... Huge protests that demonstrate he is not invincible endanger his political success: They offer people who voted for Trump reluctantly or who have had second thoughts a feeling of camaraderie and hope, and give them a way to feel okay ditching him. ... Trump and his allies seem to grasp what Saturday revealed: The protests are popular, and the president is not."
- Brian Fife sees a paradox in the protests: "One could find this inspiring, so many disparate causes united under one banner. But for those of us who want to see tangible reform in the United States, the lack of clear messaging or policy recommendations—especially during a protest intended to inspire action—was disorienting."
- Josh Marshall disagrees, lauding "the subtle genius of 'No Kings'," saying the name itself is "a deceptively resonant name and slogan with the deepest possible roots in American history. This brings with it a critical inclusivity, which grows out of the name itself and the lack of those specific and lengthy sets of demands that often characterize and ultimately fracture such movements. ... The jagged and total nature of the onslaught against the American Republic creates a clarity: We all know what we’re talking about. You don’t need to explain. The imperfect but orderly and generally lawful old way versus this. And when you say “No Kings,” you’re saying I don’t want this. I don’t accept presidential despotism. I’m here ready to show my face and say publicly that I will never accept it."
- Brian Beutler has "22 thoughts on No Kings DC," of which: "I do not think it’s a coincidence that, as anticipation grew, and the GOP panicked and smeared, universities rejected Trump’s extortionate higher-education “compact,” and the Chamber of Commerce finally decided to sue Trump, etc. The days of proactive capitulation seem to be ending."
I looked for mainstream Republican reactions to the event but only heard crickets. The OAFPOTUS's own response, which I will not dignify with a link, would be grounds for invoking the 25th Amendment in any normal era.
Meanwhile, the vandalism continues:
- Workers have begun demolishing the east side of the White House East Wing as the OAFPOTUS continues to wreak historical violence on the Executive Mansion without Congressional—i.e., the owner's—approval.
- Writing in Harvard Magazine, Lincoln Caplan examines the damage that US Chief Justice John Roberts has done to the Constitution, tracing his legal career from Harvard Law through his clerkship under US Chief Justice William Rehnquist, another hard-right ideologue who, unlike Roberts, didn't have the votes to become his generation's Roger Taney.
- Jeff Maurer suggests that Democrats simply change the conversation about immigration and not apologize for our past policy misses: "I think that Democrats can craft a positive, forward-looking message on immigration that starts a new conversation without dwelling on the past. It would tell a story that happens to be true, which is nifty, because I prefer political narratives that aren’t a towering skyscraper of bullshit whenever possible. The narrative goes like this: 'America is rich, safe, and vibrant because we’ve always attracted the smartest, hardest-working people from around the world. We need an immigration system that attracts the best and the brightest for years to come.'"
- North Carolina, already one of the most-Gerrymandered states in the union, has passed a new congressional map they believe will give them a 10th Republican US House seat, with only three Democratic-majority districts in Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte. (They've even managed to get Asheville to turn pink, based on 2024 election results.)
- Adam Kinzinger suggests encouraging Russia to end its war in Ukraine through the simple expedient of giving $2 billion of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine each day the war goes on.
- Julia Ioffe reviews the life of Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, Vladimir Putin's ex-wife.
- Molly White explains the October 10th crypto meltdown that destroyed $19 billion of Bitcoin holdings in just a few seconds.
And hey, I even read some non-political news in the past 24 hours:
Finally, it warms my heart to read that Gen Z workers have the same attitude toward workplace "emergencies" that Gen X workers have always had. (Boomers and Millennials, WTF is wrong with y'all?)
But today? 10/10 would recommend!
Ah, ha ha. Ha.
Everything else today has a proportion of funny to not-funny that we should work on a bit more:
- The administration served up two full helpings of corruption today: indicting New York Attorney General Letitia James as payback for prosecuting the OAFPOTUS, and finalizing a $20 billion gift to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's friends under the guise of propping up the Argentine Peso.
- US District Judge April Perry (NDIL) has blocked the National Guard from entering Chicago pending new arguments on the 24th.
- Julia Ioffe reports on what the troops sent to Portland, Ore., think of being sent there; Jeff Maurer reports on the twerking inflatable dinosaurs taunting ICE there.
- Paul Krugman patiently explains that, in fact, everything economists predicted about the OAFPOTUS's tariffs has happened, even though what non-economists claimed they predicted didn't: "The point is that corporations are very good at finding ways to avoid paying taxes, especially when the rules are complicated and the tax collectors don’t have enough resources to track down their clever strategies."
- Why is billionaire and scary dude Peter Thiel warning about the Antichrist? Seems, you know, unhinged. In fact, he sounds a lot like Charlotte Iserbyt. What is it with these people?
- Quico Toro has lived in Japan for a year, which gave him an unhappy view of Amtrak. (Though, frankly, living in any other OECD country except Canada would do that.)
- The Cubs beat the Milwaukee Brewers yesterday, so the two teams go on to a final, fifth game tomorrow at Miller Park.
Finally, Loyola University Chicago's Sister Jean has died at 106. She was the official team chaplain of the Loyola Ramblers men's basketball team, and well-loved throughout the University.
In the news today:
- Brian Beutler reminds history buffs that in "the median experience of tyranny" life doesn't change much right away.
- Paul Krugman mines the data to understand why gold prices have soared in the last couple of months. But, he argues, "holding gold isn’t an alternative to holding currency. It is, instead, an alternative to holding bonds, which pay interest."
- Jeff Maurer reminds the smitten that, no matter how well-intentioned, activists are just "dumb assholes like you and me:" "[T]he actions of some progressive groups become less baffling when you imagine that their goal isn’t to advance for their cause, but rather to appear to advance their cause while keeping their job and improving their social standing."
Finally, the Post examines the age-old question, why is there always one side of town no one wants to live in, and why is it always downwind of the 19th- and 20th-century factories?