Month: November 2025

This is the stuff that keeps me going:

Recently, Clifford “Buzz” Grambo decided to upgrade his electric scooter. The old one he had purchased online reached only 16 mph and wasn’t cutting it anymore. He needed to go faster to keep up with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement cars he chases around Baltimore. So Grambo bought a Segway Max G3, which features a 2,000-watt motor and can get up to 28 mph.

“The first time I caught up to them, I could tell that they already knew who I was,” he told me when we first spoke on the phone in late October. “They had seen me before, so they thought they were just going to speed away. I was like, ‘Ha ha, bitches, I got a new scooter!’”

Grambo’s nickname comes from the buzz cut he has sported ever since a drunk driver crashed into his childhood bedroom, hitting him in the head and sending him to the hospital. Of late, hehas earned another moniker, according to the Baltimore Banner, from fans of his mission to warn neighbors of ICE presence: modern-day Paul Revere. . . .

Grambo, 43, is one of countless everyday people across the country stepping up to repudiate the descent of federal law enforcement agencies onto their cities and the violent abduction of their immigrant neighbors in broad daylight. In the face of increased threats of repression and at risk of retaliation, their displays of defiance, however small, show that resistance can surface anywhere.

These acts of peaceful disobedience look like the dozens, if not hundreds, of rapid response networks and neighborhood watch groups cropping up to bear witness to raids. It is the Chicago teachers blowing whistles outside schools when immigration agents are in the vicinity or someone is in the process of being detained. It is the Los Angeles “soccer mom” who drives after ICE cars and documents sightings on TikTok, raising more than $122,000 in donations. And it is Grambo on his scooter.

The work started a few months ago, after Grambo and his wife, Mandy, came across a post on social media about community members who had taken to the streets to protest ICE agents stopping an immigrant. The pair got in their car and drove over to join, shouting at officers until they left. Afterward, Grambo and others got together to discuss what seemed to have worked and what more they could do. A loose network formed.

I dearly hope that we will look back on this time as one in which the average, everyday people came out of their houses to confront a violent authoritarian takeover on the streets of American cities and they backed them down with brave, peaceful resistance. It’s the true meaning of patriotism.

Trump is bleeding Independents in all the polls. Even his support among Republicans is starting to erode a bit. Where does that leave us?

G. Elliott Morris:

After this November’s off-year elections, I argued that the Democrats’ sweep from Georgia to New Jersey wasn’t the result just of Democratic-leaning turnout, but the product of real swings to the left among key voting groups. Two such groups were Latinos and voters who care most about the economy — the latter of which went from backing Trump by over 60 points in 2024 to backing Democratic candidates for governor by roughly 30 points in 2025. Latino-heavy precincts in New Jersey moved left by 50 points.

This week, polls confirmed the Democrats’ rosy position with voters, and even showed a sizable shift toward the party compared to previous data. In one notable survey from Marist College, sponsored by NPR/PBS News, Democrats held a 14-point lead over Republicans in the U.S. House “generic ballot” test (the “generic ballot” is a poll question that asks voters who they would vote for in their local congressional district if the 2026 elections were held today). NPR ran with the headline “Democrats have biggest advantage for control of Congress in 8 years.”

The Marist poll is an outlier, but not the only poll to show a trend toward Democrats this week. Today’s Chart of the Week: Democrats post their best week yet in generic ballot polls for the 2026 midterms.

First, consider the toplines. Since Nov. 13, six national pollsters have released House generic ballot surveys. All of them show Democrats ahead, with margins ranging from D+3 to D+14 and an average of about D+6. That’s a noticeably bluer environment than what we were looking at even a month ago, when Democrats’ edge in most surveys was in the low single digits or non-existent (more on that later).

He notes that, “these aren’t just “friendly” outfits — the list includes everyone from non-partisan firms like YouGov and Verasight to media pollsters, including Marist and Marquette, to Republican consultant shops like Echelon Insights. The data here are from high-quality firms with solid track records of accurately measuring public sentiment.”

So what does it mean?

1. The “Trump realignment” among young and Latino voters looks increasingly fragile. The exits in Virginia and New Jersey already suggested that Trump’s gains with these groups were built on economic discontent, not durable ideological change. The new polls are consistent with that story. As the economic narrative has turned against Republicans, these voters have drifted back toward Democrats.
2. The November elections really did signal a meaningful shift in the national mood. Whereas some commentators characterized the elections as local contests plagued by weak Republican candidates, the voters who punished Republicans over affordability and Trump’s second-term agenda don’t exist only in the election returns; they appear in national opinion polls, too.
3. A D+4 generic ballot in November 2025 is not a guarantee of anything. District maps still favor Republicans, and we’re nearly a year out from the midterms. Economic data, world events, and candidate scandals can all move opinions again. A court has temporarily taken the Republican gerrymander in Texas off the table, but the Supreme Court could reinstate it.
4. Normal patterns of midterm backlash should push Democratic numbers up. Historically, the party in control of the White House tends to lose ground in generic ballot polls as the midterms approach. From the previous November to Election Day, the out-party typically gains about 4 points in the generic ballot. That would put Democrats at D+8.2, higher than their vote margin in the 2018 “blue wave” elections.

I’m not holding my breath on anything and I don’t predict anything. But this is good news if only for the fact that it’s making Republicans very nervous about this next year and they’re starting to resist Dear Leader a little bit. After all, the reason they have succumbed to him like a bunch of beaten animals is their fear of losing their seats if he comes out against him. If these numbers hold up, he may be the least of their problems.

Laura Loomer has a Pentagon press pass and a direct line to the president of the United States. And he listens to her.

We are living in the dumbest timeline.

I guess we knew he would attempt to do this but we hoped he wouldn’t:

The Trump administration announced on Thursday new oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts for the first time in decades, advancing a project that critics say could harm coastal communities and ecosystems, as President Donald Trump seeks to expand U.S. oil production.

The oil industry has been seeking access to new offshore areas, including Southern California and off the coast of Florida, as a way to boost U.S. energy security and jobs. The federal government has not allowed drilling in federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which includes offshore Florida and part of offshore Alabama, since 1995, because of concerns about oil spills. California has some offshore oil rigs, but there has been no new leasing in federal waters since the mid-1980s.

Since taking office for a second time in January, Trump has systematically reversed former President Joe Biden’s focus on slowing climate change to pursue what the Republican calls U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Trump, who recently called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” created a National Energy Dominance Council and directed it to move quickly to drive up already record-high U.S. energy production, particularly fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.

Meanwhile, Trump’s administration has blocked renewable energy sources such as offshore wind and canceled billions of dollars in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects across the country.

He hates the sight of offshore windmills but oil derricks are a beautiful sight to see, I guess.

Is there anything he’s done that isn’t a total abomination? Even one thing?

Mr. Mamdani goes to Washington

Get your popcorn ready (CNN):

Trump-Mamdani meeting: President Donald Trump will meet with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani today in the Oval Office. Trump has labeled the democratic socialist a “communist” and threatened to withhold funding from the city, and Mamdani invited Trump to “turn the volume up” in his victory speech earlier this month.

First, let’s see if Trump, 79 and increasingly erratic, thinks he still has the chops to control the narrative from this meeting with Mamdani, 34. Mamdani requested this meeting. He’ll come prepared for a frontal attack even while he hopes to head off Trump’s threatened cuts to the city’s federal funding. Mamdani told reporters, “I’ll be ready for whatever happens.”

Will Trump go one-on-one with Mamdani’s dazzle? Does Trump have the nerve? Or will he bring in JD Vance to double-team him, as Trump did with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in February?

The White House is not saying whether or not the press will be allowed into the Oval Office for any part of the meeting.

Tokyo Rose Garden (Karoline Leavitt) laid down suppressive fire on Thursday, saying, “It speaks volumes that tomorrow we have a communist coming to the White House, because that’s who the Democrat Party elected as the mayor of the largest city in the country.” Trump’s press secretary wouldn’t know a communist if one seized her means of production.

The meeting is set for 3 p.m. ET.

* * * * *

Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?

No King’s One Million Rising movement 
50501 
May Day Strong
Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink 
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Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

Your Department of Justice on Trump

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council, posted a lengthy Bluesky thread worth your perusal. He highlights finding behind the preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, and others over their use of excessive force and riot control weapons during their “Operation Midway Blitz.” Find the 233 page ruling here.

Before anyone gets their hopes up that Gregory Bovino, the Chief Border Patrol Agent of CBP’s El Centro Sector, and his CBP/ICE thugs are brought to heel, they appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That panel put the injunction on hold Wednesday while under review. The appeals panel finds the Ellis ruling overbroad and promises a quick appeals process, but cautions “do not overread today’s order” (WBEZ):

“In no uncertain terms,” the panel wrote, “the district court’s order enjoins an expansive range of defendants, including the President of the United States, the entire Departments of Homeland Security and Justice, and anyone acting in concert with them.

“The practical effect is to enjoin all law enforcement officers within the executive branch,” it said.

But the Ellis assessment of Bovino and his underlings is particularly harsh. My sense in reading her comments is that she feels CBP holds the judicial branch in contempt. Their testimony in incident after incident of excessive force is not credible. Often, its is directly contradicted by body worn camera (BWC) footage Ellis reviewed.

THREAD: Judge Ellis is the first federal judge to review extensive body cam video of DHS's actions in Chicago. She finds that DHS *repeatedly* misled the public and made claims that were disproven by agents' own videos.I'll go through some of the most egregious ones here.

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) 2025-11-20T23:04:06.411Z

Body cam footage, for example, seems to disprove DHS allegations that protesters were ramming their vehicles “every day during the operation.” In fact, it suggests that agents slammed on their brakes “in an attempt to force accidents that agents could then use as justifications for deploying force.” (You’ve probably seen stories.)

DHS claimed an incident on Oct. 3 showed agents were in danger of being "rammed."In fact, body cams "suggest[] that the agent drove erratically and brake-checked other motorists in an attempt to force accidents that agents could then use as justifications for deploying force."

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) 2025-11-20T23:09:29.559Z

Judge Ellis writes, “While Defendants may argue that the Court identifies only minor inconsistencies, every minor inconsistency adds up, and at some point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe almost anything that Defendants represent.”

In one footnote, Ellis adds, “The Court also notes that, in at least one instance, an agent asked ChatGPT to compile a narrative for a report based off of a brief sentence about an encounter and several images.” This “further undermines their credibility and may explain the inaccuracy of these reports when viewed in light of the BWC footage.”

As for Bovino himself, Ellis finds he “appeared evasive over the three days of his deposition, either providing ‘cute’ responses to Plaintiffs’ counsel’s questions or outright lying.”

This is your Department of Justice on Trump.

UPDATE: Speaking of untrustworthy

The federal government claims that the day after it was sued for allegedly abusing detainees at an ICE detention center, a “system crash” deleted nearly two weeks of surveillance footage from inside the facility.  

People detained at ICE’s Broadview Detention Center in suburban Chicago sued the government on October 30; according to their lawyers and the government, nearly two weeks of footage that could show how they were treated was lost in a “system crash” that happened on October 31.

* * * * *

Is this a private fight, or can anyone join?

No King’s One Million Rising movement 
50501 
May Day Strong
Freedom Over Fascism Toolkit
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink 
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense

Is the veil lifting?

Yes, he says that they really need to worry about the Democrats but come on. The whole government is run by Republicans, right now. And I think he knows it…

This is something that needs to be discussed more openly and fully. All that gold and the East Wing and the parties at Mar-a-lago and the meme coins and the billionaires crawling all over thing — maybe it’s starting to gel, even among some on the right.

And who knows if it will ever come back?

J.V.Last on the latest RFK Jr atrocity and more:

Yesterday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—the nonpartisan agency whose work has long been the global gold-standard for health science—made a change to the section of its website on the nonexistent link between autism and vaccines. The CDC went from stating that “vaccines do not cause autism” to saying that:

• The claim “vaccines do not cause autism” is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
• Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities.

We’re going to get into the details of this change in a minute, because they’re important. Kids will get sick because of what the CDC just did. Some of them will die.

But the even bigger story is that the U.S. government is no longer a reliable source of information. The consequences of this corruption will ripple through American society for years.

And despite my fit of optimism yesterday, this is not a thing that can be put back together.

Last goes on to explain why trust is so important to a democracy. If people cannot make informed decisions without having to verify every piece of information (if that’s even possible) the whole system becomes very inefficient and unproductive, not to mention stupid and dangerous.

Politicians exaggerate, distort, and lie all the time. This is—however regrettable—an accepted part of our democratic politics.

But until 2025, it was assumed that important, apolitical government agencies did not lie. If the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that inflation was up by 2 percent, then that’s what its best methodology could determine. If the NIH said that measles had an r0 between 12 and 18, then that’s what the best science showed.

The government could be wrong. Methodology evolves; models can be improved; new data emerges.But the American government would never intentionally spread disinformation as part of a political project.

That’s all gone. And it’s not just Trump. In fact, he’s irrelevant to this larger problem:

What I’m talking about is that in the legal world, judges have seen so many lies from federal prosecutors that they are grappling with the end of regular order.I’m talking about the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics being fired after her agency released data the president did not like. And now, the CDC changing its guidance on vaccines and autism to fit with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccination project.

These lies at the CDC are going to get kids killed. I can’t believe any scientist or medical doctor would put up with it. And the rest of this is making everyone unable to make reasoned decisions, including American businesses. I wish I understood why they are so pathetically myopic that they’re just letting this happen with virtually no push back simply in order to secure their own short-lived profits. I guess they must think they’re going to die soon (and they don’t love their children) because what this is doing to the future of this country and potentially even their own fortunes is profound.

Julia Ioffe takes a look at Trump’s threats to launch a full fledged war on Venezuela:

Once again, all of Washington—and the country and the world—wait and speculate: Will he or won’t he? Over the summer, we wondered whether Donald Trump would strike Iran. (He did.) Four months later, we’re back waiting on this man, who ran as the “president of peace,” to decide whether he’ll strike Venezuela. Trump has already ordered alleged narcotrafficking boats to be blown out of the water. Now he has publicly authorized covert C.I.A. action inside Venezuela, deployed Reaper drones and F-35s to Puerto Rico, and moved a carrier strike group into the region.

In the cases of both Iran and Venezuela, regime change has not been an overt or even primary goal, at least for Trump. “I tried to get him to do it a lot, but he didn’t want to do it,” Trump’s erstwhile national security advisor and regime-change aficionado John Bolton told me. “He said earlier, with Iran, that he doesn’t seek regime change. But once he’s in it, it becomes about, what does he think he can get credit for?” Likewise in Venezuela, Bolton said, Trump is mostly focused on the appearance of strength. “I think he thinks about what will make him look tough, but he doesn’t think much beyond that,” Bolton went on. “He never does.”

This, of course, leaves Trump wide open to the influences of people who do think beyond political theater.

We already know about Rubio who has long wanted to overthrow Maduro. It’s his Castro fantasy. Miller’s happy to go along because it will inflict pain and suffering on Latinos. Hegseth would love to prove his manhood.

Trump loves to be a tough guy and sabre rattle. but he’s afraid to make the call. And the administration is struggling to find a rationale for doing it:

The messages coming out of the White House are a jumble: Officials say the point is to fight narcotrafficking, and also claim the regime itself is the main narcotrafficker via the “Cartel de los Soles.” But the Cartel de los Soles is not an actual cartel. Rather, it’s the derisive moniker that Venezuelan journalists have given the corrupt Maduro regime, whose security forces are indeed reportedly in bed with narcotraffickers. Trump says he’s open to talking to Maduro, but has also made clear that he wants him out—probably. The carrier strike group is in the region because, in the president’s words, “it’s gotta be somewhere, it’s a big one”—and it’s also there to pressure Maduro to leave power peacefully. And so on.

Bolton characterized the administration’s policy as a “muddle” of ideas. “It’s a little bit of an anti-narcotics strategy, a little bit of an anti-migration strategy. Rubio may have in his mind what he wants to do, but that’s not what’s happening.” As for what Trump could be contemplating? “I think he doesn’t know, either,” Bolton said. “If you look at different comments he’s made, I think it’s really swirling in his head and he doesn’t know what to do.

No doubt. He thought that killing a bunch of random people in boats and issuing threats would make Maduro cower and run away but it hasn’t worked so far:

But the pressure campaign on Maduro is, so far, not having the intended effect. “You haven’t seen any high-level defections or fracturing in the regime,” said one former senior defense official who specializes in the Western Hemisphere. “This has proven to be a pretty remarkably cohesive regime.” The Trump administration, this source explained, wants to display a credible military threat to force Maduro to leave peacefully, but they don’t want to have to actually make good on it. The result is “a game of chicken, because Maduro is unlikely to leave unless he’s somehow forced to do so, and then that puts the Trump administration in a position of either having to go ahead with further escalation or finding some other off-ramp.”

So, will he or won’t he? Military buildups are a little like Chekhov’s gun: If you bring it out in Act I, it has to go off before the end of the play. On the other hand, launching military action could be politically costly, especially if it leads to American casualties. Decapitating an autocratic regime also risks creating a failed state, à la Iraq or Libya—this time in America’s backyard. Experts believe the Venezuelan opposition, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, is strong enough to fill any power vacuum. But Venezuela itself lacks many of the democratic institutions it would need.

And Trump has MAGA to contend with:

On yet another hand, Trump’s base—and his vice president and many of his national security appointees—are vehemently against foreign adventures and especially regime change, scarred as they are by Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump campaigned as an isolationist, which should give him some leeway to take his finger off the trigger.

Trump can simply declare victory if he wants to. But he isn’t stable and he’s got a lot of people around him like Rubio, MIller and Hegseth who are itching for the fight. He’s tired and wants to spend his time picking out swatches for the Blue Room. He might just let them have their splendid little war.

Krugman on the vibecession:

 I noted last week that the Biden era vibecession — people feeling bad about an economy that looked good by standard measures — has persisted under Trump. In fact, public perceptions of the economy appear to be plumbing new depths.

Honestly, I’m surprised. One factor in poor economic sentiment under Biden was partisanship. People’s reported perception of the economy is strongly affected by whether their preferred party is in power:

This is true for both parties, but historically Republicans have tended to cheer harder and boo louder than Democrats. So other things equal we would have expected average sentiment to improve under Trump II.

Now, things aren’t equal. Objectively, the economy is worse in important ways than it was a year ago. Still, the extent of the plunge in perceptions is remarkable.

It may be that Trump is — bear with me here — actually paying a price for telling Americans not to believe their own eyes. As I’ve written recently, it’s important not to engage in false equivalence. Biden and company told Americans that their incomes were outpacing inflation, which was true but not what people wanted to hear. Trump keeps insisting that grocery prices are way down, which is simply a lie. And people may be noticing.

The absolute absurdity of the Trump team’s efforts to explain away bad economic news may also be taking a toll. Remember when Scott Bessent was supposed to be the adult in the room? Now he’s blaming migrants taking diseased cattle with them for high beef prices.

I think all of that is part of it. But those of you who’ve been reading me for a while know that I was saying the following throughout the last year of the Biden term:

I also wonder whether Trump’s other problems — from Epstein to the deep unpopularity of ICE’s actions — are bleeding over to economic sentiment. Political consultants like to imagine that the public makes clear distinctions between issues: “kitchen table” versus democracy versus corruption.

In reality public opinion is much more of a gestalt in which bad or good feelings on different issues merge.

I think it’s unresolved pandemic trauma. This country never reckoned with the death of more than a million people and just went on as if it never happened. Maybe that even explains Trump’s otherwise inexplicable victory in some way — people wanted to go back to the time before it happened and erase everything after. But it didn’t work. They ended up being reminded of everything horrible about the pandemic over which Trump presided, the chaos, the incompetence, the corruption and the narcissism.

People blame food prices or immigrants or “woke” for the deep feelings of insecurity and fear that were unleashed in that period and they are subconsciously reminded of it when they see the orange miscreant on their television screens. It was as if the nation somehow thought that rubbing salt into its psychic wound would heal it and all it did was keep the pain fresh every single day.