2/

....American election, from the fossil fuel industry to oligarchs in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK, Brazil, China, Russia, and OPEC.

Koch Network & the consequences of Citizens United.

These folks never explain how removing women's civil rights is going to reduce the price of gas.

David Koch’s Most Significant Legacy Is the Election of Donald Trump

Efforts made by Koch, largely ignored by the mainstream press, primed key states to elect a GOP president. Trump was simply the beneficiary.

The Intercept (theintercept.com)

Dark Money: Jane Mayer on How the Koch Bros. & Billionaire Allies Funded the Rise of the Far Right

Democrats and Republicans are expected to spend about $1 billion getting their 2016 nominee elected. There’s a third group that will spend almost as much. It’s not a political party, and it doesn’t have any candidates. It’s the right-wing political network backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David Koch, expected to spend nearly $900 million in 2016. The Kochs’ 2016 plans come as part of an effort to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to conservative candidates and causes

Democracy Now! (www.democracynow.org)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/20/us/politics/koch-network-2024-election-trump.html

New Grassroots Resistance People: Talking to Theda Skocpol and Caroline Tervo | Los Angeles Review of Books

Andy Fitch talks with Theda Skocpol and Caroline Tervo about polarization, effective organizing, and their book "Upending American Politics."

Los Angeles Review of Books (lareviewofbooks.org)

No Cost for Extremism - The American Prospect

Why the GOP hasn't (yet) paid for its march to the right. 

The American Prospect (prospect.org)

Inside the Koch-Backed Effort to Block the Largest Election-Reform Bill in Half a Century

Jane Mayer writes about a leaked conference call in which leaders of dark-money groups and an aide to Mitch McConnell expressed frustration with the popularity of election-reform legislation—even among Republican voters.

The New Yorker (www.newyorker.com)

https://www.desmog.com/2024/10/25/project-2025-trump-mapped-how-6-billionaire-family-fortunes-fund-climate-denial/

Just a moment...

(idahocapitalsun.com)

Please remember them. Remember them, and then remember what they died for: fighting a much larger danger. Remember what they were fighting, •see• it, and •act•.

Do not let their deaths be in vain by making their deaths the only thing you see.

/end

3/

These folks' tax cuts come before the lives of Americans.

Koch Network Fuels Republican Push to Kill ACA Subsidies

As millions face higher premiums, Koch‑funded groups are pressuring Republicans to oppose Obamacare subsidy extensions.

Sludge (readsludge.com)

Charles Koch’s network launches $20m campaign backing Trump tax breaks

Revealed: fossil fuel billionaire’s Americans for Prosperity vows ‘herculean undertaking’ to renew and deepen tax cuts

the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)

Top Republicans rub shoulders with extremists in secretive rightwing group, leak reveals

Wealthy entrepreneurs and media moguls also named on membership list for influential Council for National Policy

the Guardian (www.theguardian.com)

Dark Money
Jane Mayer

Captured : The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy
Sheldon Whitehouse, Melanie Wachtell
Harvard Business Review Press

Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction
David Enrich

Rockbridge Network

These folks never explain how attacking Somali immigrants is going to lower housing costs.

4/

For purported bigots, they sure take a lot of money from Asian oligarchs.

For apparent islamophobes, they sure like the cash of petrostate despots.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/secret-gop-cabal-with-vance-and-thiel-plots-eternal-maga-rule/

J.D. Vance Will Be a More Extremist Christian VP Than Mike Pence

J.D. Vance has deep ties to far-right Christian nationalists who want to impose a populist radicalism to the United States.

Rolling Stone (www.rollingstone.com)

nytimes.com

(www.nytimes.com)

The Shadowy Billionaire Network That’s Quietly Flipping States Red

Discover how the secretive Rockbridge Network, backed by billionaires like Peter Thiel and Rebekah Mercer, is quietly shaping the future of U.S. politics.

Baller Alert (balleralert.com)

Trump-linked Rockbridge Network sets up Korean arm with ex-PM, tycoons

The Korean division of the Rockbridge Network, a donor-backed political coalition closely aligned with US President Donald Trump, has launched in Seoul, drawing

The Korea Herald (m.koreaherald.com)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockbridge_Network

The NRA & Konstantin Nikolaev
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/the-nra-spent-dollar30-million-to-elect-trump-was-it-russian-money

Konstantin Nikolaev—the Putin ally behind Mike Johnson campaign donation

The Russian oligarch gave money to the Republican's 2018 congressional campaign via a U.S-based company in which he owned a majority.

Newsweek (www.newsweek.com)

Russians used a US firm to funnel funds to GOP in 2018. Dems say the FEC let them get away with it.

“Republicans disregarded decades of Commission precedent.”

Mother Jones (www.motherjones.com)

CoreCivic, Geo Corp
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/private-prison-behemoth-is-first-corporation-to-max-out-to-trump/

The KKK but with a budget the size of Russia’s military. Running mass detention camps.

Think about that for a minute.

Think about what it could mean, what it •already is•:

Into the abyss

The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.

Degenerate Art (degenerateart.beehiiv.com)

16/

All of what’s happening in Minneapolis is deeply rooted in US history. And in Minneapolis and St. Paul history specifically: Read about the Rondo neighborhood, for example. It’s no accident the the flagship lake in the City of Lakes was named after the vice president of the Confederacy until just a few years ago. Don’t get too excited about making saints of us all here.

It’s crucial for us to recognize that historical precedent. It’s also crucial for us to recognize the extreme new danger of the present moment.

15/

I see that misguided narrative in the gutless business leaders who talk about “de-escalation” and “finding real solutions” — as if the problem is just that a few ICE murdered two people, not that all the ICE agents are an authoritarian secret police in the making.

I see that misguided narrative in the elected officials who decry ICE, but then talk about “better training” and “more oversight” — as if the secret police will become humane if they just get a few new rules to ignore and have to sit through a Powerpoint about them.

8/

@Pollinators @inthehands
I will emphasize some of your points when I call my Senators.

My neighbors definitely do not think this is more of the same. You don’t have to take my word for it. Look at how many Somali and Latin-American restaurants were thriving in November and now are closed, or getting almost no business if they are taking the risk of staying open. Look at how many kids are staying home from school — regardless of legal status, just because of the color of their family’s skin. Look at how many families are living in houses filled with dirty laundry because they won’t even take the risk of leaving the house to go to the laundromat.

My neighbors are living in •terror•.

If it’s more of the same, why did all of this suddenly change in the last two months?

14/

The KKK but with a budget the size of Russia’s military. Running mass detention camps.

Think about that for a minute.

Think about what it could mean, what it •already is•:

Into the abyss

The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.

Degenerate Art (degenerateart.beehiiv.com)

16/

All of what’s happening in Minneapolis is deeply rooted in US history. And in Minneapolis and St. Paul history specifically: Read about the Rondo neighborhood, for example. It’s no accident the the flagship lake in the City of Lakes was named after the vice president of the Confederacy until just a few years ago. Don’t get too excited about making saints of us all here.

It’s crucial for us to recognize that historical precedent. It’s also crucial for us to recognize the extreme new danger of the present moment.

15/

Please remember them. Remember them, and then remember what they died for: fighting a much larger danger. Remember what they were fighting, •see• it, and •act•.

Do not let their deaths be in vain by making their deaths the only thing you see.

/end

"The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards."

We have an IMPORTANT WINDOW HERE.

Things are getting bad enough that ordinarily complacent people are getting nervous. More people are starting to notice the signs and recognize concentration camps for what they are. This is not a drill.

We still have ENOUGH freedom and internet capability that we can reasonably look up and find information about how this works, and what other people have done about it before. The botslop hasn't eaten it yet. Our access is still there-- although the system is probably ALREADY trying to keep track of who's searching it up and who's reading what books/websites, they aren't fully stopping us from reaching the information. (Yet.)

There are TWO things that could happen next:

1-- Full Fash: Elections get canceled, the hammer comes down, things get really ugly really fast.

2-- Diet Fash: Republicans pratfall on their faces, some grinning limousine neoliberal Democrats swoop in smiling, they promise things will get back to "normal", and things simmer back down to the miserable grind where we watch our healthcare and wages shrivel while the sky gets angrier.

EITHER WAY, the concentration camps will keep getting built bigger, and our access to information will continue to get worse. Option 2 doesn't mean it's over-- it means they're going to catch their breath and try again.

We're not gonna get through to the other side of this until most of us get upset enough to get used to the idea of showing up the way Minneapolis has been doing lately. That's the level of involvement needed, the energy. The system is going to watch our reactions and be trying to get ready to counter it better next time, trying to figure out how to drain our energy and make it harder to muster or maintain it.

The Obama/Harris/Newsom types are NOT going to put the brakes on that power. They'd be in no more hurry to close Dachau than Guantanimo. Get it? And don't give me that, "aww but they're trying so hard" shit. No. See Minneapolis? That's what resistance looks like. It's not strongly worded letters, grandstanding, or handwringing excuses. The Democratic Party leadership aren't just cowards, but traitors actively collaborating with the nightmare.

Look at what the people in Minneapolis are doing. Figure how to carry that feeling of being FED UP close at hand and ready to deploy. Learn as much as you can while the information window is still open. The main lesson of history, as I see it, is: people should freak out and stand up for what's right harder, sooner, and more often.

@inthehands https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/115991953783115796

People were jumping into action here in Minneapolis — droves of people, comfortable people, white people — not in mid-January, but in •early December•. (And the groundwork started much earlier!)

Community meetings overflowing. Signal groups exploding. Observer trainings filling day after day after day. Mutual aid networks popping up like mushrooms. On and on.

Why? Because we saw brown and Black neighbors being dragged from their cars, dragged from their homes, stalked, terrorized, •kidnapped• with barely the slimmest shadow of due process or legal oversight.

5/

This •is• precedented:

DHS murdered Pretti and Good the exact same way police have been murdering Black people for generations. The ICE+CBP abduction patrols sure look a heck of a lot like the bounty hunters who operated in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The terror tactics of CBP and ICE bear an uncanny resemblance to the tactics of the KKK.

None of that is a coincidence. It’s the same historical thread. It’s basically the same people.

Precedented.

11/

"The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards."

We have an IMPORTANT WINDOW HERE.

Things are getting bad enough that ordinarily complacent people are getting nervous. More people are starting to notice the signs and recognize concentration camps for what they are. This is not a drill.

We still have ENOUGH freedom and internet capability that we can reasonably look up and find information about how this works, and what other people have done about it before. The botslop hasn't eaten it yet. Our access is still there-- although the system is probably ALREADY trying to keep track of who's searching it up and who's reading what books/websites, they aren't fully stopping us from reaching the information. (Yet.)

There are TWO things that could happen next:

1-- Full Fash: Elections get canceled, the hammer comes down, things get really ugly really fast.

2-- Diet Fash: Republicans pratfall on their faces, some grinning limousine neoliberal Democrats swoop in smiling, they promise things will get back to "normal", and things simmer back down to the miserable grind where we watch our healthcare and wages shrivel while the sky gets angrier.

EITHER WAY, the concentration camps will keep getting built bigger, and our access to information will continue to get worse. Option 2 doesn't mean it's over-- it means they're going to catch their breath and try again.

We're not gonna get through to the other side of this until most of us get upset enough to get used to the idea of showing up the way Minneapolis has been doing lately. That's the level of involvement needed, the energy. The system is going to watch our reactions and be trying to get ready to counter it better next time, trying to figure out how to drain our energy and make it harder to muster or maintain it.

The Obama/Harris/Newsom types are NOT going to put the brakes on that power. They'd be in no more hurry to close Dachau than Guantanimo. Get it? And don't give me that, "aww but they're trying so hard" shit. No. See Minneapolis? That's what resistance looks like. It's not strongly worded letters, grandstanding, or handwringing excuses. The Democratic Party leadership aren't just cowards, but traitors actively collaborating with the nightmare.

Look at what the people in Minneapolis are doing. Figure how to carry that feeling of being FED UP close at hand and ready to deploy. Learn as much as you can while the information window is still open. The main lesson of history, as I see it, is: people should freak out and stand up for what's right harder, sooner, and more often.

@inthehands https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/115991953783115796

Precedented, but not the same:

If ICE and CBP are basically the reincarnation of the KKK, it’s the KKK with a budget the size of Russia’s entire military.

Literally. In the literal sense of “literally.” The incoming ICE + CBP budget is ~$140 billion.[1] Russia’s military budget is ~$145 billion.[2]

(If I’m misreading these numbers, please correct me.)

[1] https://www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy26_homeland_security_conference_bill_summary.pdf

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-hikes-national-defence-spending-by-23-2025-2024-09-30/

12/

@inthehands you are not misreading it, and it is actually even more than that. Because that is their *sole* budget and does not include other budgets they benefit directly or indirectly from. Some concentration camps for example, likely will be paid for by the BoP or other agencies.

And put another way: that is near the entire GDP of Kuwait.
It is more than the GDP of Luxembourg, nearly twice Venezuela's, and 3.5 times that of Iceland.

@inthehands or let's put it another way entirely!

The ENTIRETY of DHS (that's USCS, USCG, USSS, INS, FPS, TSA, FLET, APHIS, FEMA, SNS, NDMS, NIRT, DEST, CDP, CBRN, EML, BioWar, Plum Island, CISA, NCS, NIPC, and more) was a total of 240,000 employees in 2018. They have slashed that number by over 20,000.

ICE is 21,381 employees. That works out to $6.5 MILLION dollars PER EMPLOYEE. Their 2026 budget in brief states that they will spend $24.7M TOTAL on "detainee healthcare."

The KKK but with a budget the size of Russia’s military. Running mass detention camps.

Think about that for a minute.

Think about what it could mean, what it •already is•:

Into the abyss

The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.

Degenerate Art (degenerateart.beehiiv.com)

16/