“Be loud for America!”
September 3, 2025
Members of the resistance continued to press their advantage on multiple fronts on Tuesday. The full court press is working. Trump is back on his (platform) heels.
In a second outstanding speech pushing back on Trump's threat to “occupy” Chicago, Governor JB Pritzker called on the citizens of Chicago (and America) to be part of the resistance. Pritzker said,
[W]e will do everything possible to ensure that [federal] agents operating inside the confines of this state do so in a legal and ethical manner.
To Chicagoans, what you can do is look out for your communities and your neighbors. Know your rights. Film things that you see happening in your neighborhoods and your streets and share them with the news media.
Authoritarians thrive on your silence. Be loud for America.
To everyone listening, but most especially to the press, refuse to pretend that any of this is normal.
I refuse to concede that the abject cruelty that we're seeing play out with the execution of Trump and Steven Miller's policies are okay or justified.
I refuse to fall into the pundit trap that demands we sacrifice vital constitutional rights if it's being done in the fake guise of fighting crime.
I urge you to watch Governor Pritzker’s 15-minute speech in its entirety. It is another example of Democratic governors resisting Trump by calling him out in plain language.
Moreover, Pritzker challenged the press to speak the truth about Trump's actions and called on Republican officials to abandon Trump's lawless attack on Democratic states. Kudos (again) to Governor Pritzker.
But it gets better. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson followed Governor Pritzker with a speech that tied the gun violence in Chicago to red states “exporting” handguns into Chicago.
Mayor Johnson made the compelling point that if Trump really wanted to clamp down on gun violence in Chicago, he should support gun safety legislation that would shut down the flow of handguns and illegally modified rifles (machine guns) into Chicago.
The video of Mayor Johnson’s remarks is here.
Mayor Johnson said,
The vast majority of guns do not come from Chicago. They are not made in Cook County. They are not bought in the state of Illinois. These guns come from red states.
They are coming from Indiana. They are coming from Mississippi. They are coming from Louisiana. That is the harsh reality. . . . [¶]
For every gun that the Chicago Police Department fights to get off the streets, two or three more new guns come into our city.
Chicago will continue to have a violence problem as long as red states continue to have a gun problem.
Mayor Johnson’s strategy is brilliant: “Yes, there are shootings in Chicago, but those shootings are driven by massive exports of handguns and illegal conversion kits into Chicago from red states.”
Keep pounding that message! The alleged “need” to occupy Chicago is driven by the reckless refusal of Trump and the GOP to regulate the manufacture, sale, and transportation of guns, as well as their refusal to impose liability on manufacturers and distributors of guns and ammunition designed to kill humans.
Governor Pritzker also adopted an effective strategy of previewing Trump's plans. Per Pritzker,
In the absence of significant federal coordination, we've gathered information from unauthorized patriotic officials inside the government and from well-sourced reporters about Donald Trump's plan, which is to deploy armed military personnel to the streets of Chicago.
Pritzker then went on to detail Trump's plans to stage ICE, Border Patrol, Homeland Security, and “masked men in unmarked cars” at the Great Lakes Naval base.
In addition, the Texas National Guard is being moved to the Great Lakes Naval base, presumably to “protect” ICE in immigration raids—a curious development given the thumping that Trump took in California’s suit challenging the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles. See WSJ, Trump’s Use of Troops in Los Angeles Was Unlawful, Judge Rules.
Per the WSJ,
In a withering opinion taking aim at President Trump’s enthusiasm for military deployments at home, Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco found that the administration didn’t comply with the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 statute that restricts the use of U.S. armed forces on America’s streets.
For an excellent discussion and analysis of the ruling, see Lucian K. Truscott IV (Substack), A scalpel and an axe: I read the Posse Comitatus Act decision against Trump so you don’t have to.
Per Truscott,
Breyer held that Trump’s orders violated the [Posse Comitatus Act] in multiple ways: Trump specifically directed the commander of the deployment to use the soldiers for law enforcement purposes, an action banned by the PCA; failed to insist that the military forces coordinate with local law enforcement; and used an inadequate rationale to justify a military deployment for civilian law enforcement purposes.
For those interested in further reading on this subject, Truscott’s piece provides more detail and discussion.
Here’s the point: Governors Pritzker and Newsom are on the offensive, challenging Trump's unlawful justification for deploying National Guard to Democratic states. Trump and the National Guard commanders must be mindful of Judge Bryer’s detailed deconstruction of the Guard’s presence and activities in Los Angeles. Given the strictures in Breyer’s opinion, the National Guard troops may be relegated to tasks such as picking up trash and spreading mulch in planters, as they are currently doing in D.C.
And finally, in a truly brilliant form of resistance (noted by reader “lin” in the Comment section), Malcom Nance is promoting
a bit of psychological operations. Every time the National Guardsman moved a large unit to Union Station, [veterans protesting the deployment] started playing the retirement speech of General Milley … nonstop.
On Sunday, after a show of force by the park police and DHS, they played the recording for eight hours.
Per the Remember Your Oath group,
We intend to expand this protest to all major cities. So if you’re a veteran, go to rememberyouroath.org and register. It’s a self-starting group, so once registered, you can get a permit, a tent, and a recording of General Milly’s speech and go to town.
This video shows how the group at Union Station in D.C. is employing this strategy: YouTube, Remember Your Oath: Washington DC.
Watch the video! You will be inspired! I promise!
While Trump may proceed with deploying Texas National Guard troops to Chicago, Pritzker and Newsom are fighting back. Our duty is to stand up for the Constitution. In the words of Governor Pritzker, we must “Be loud for America!”
Developments in the Maxwell-Epstein child sex trafficking investigation
Speaker in Name Only, Mike Johnson, called for an early summer recess in the House in the hope that the intense public interest in the Maxwell-Epstein sex trafficking investigation would subside. The opposite happened. The summer recess allowed proponents of full disclosure to coordinate their demands.
Representatives Ro Khanna (D) and Thomas Massie (R) filed a discharge petition that could force every member of the House of Representatives to vote yay or nay on the disclosure of the Maxwell-Epstein files. See CBS News, GOP Rep. Thomas Massie files discharge petition to force House vote on releasing Epstein files.
Rep. Massie says that he is “confident” that he will get to the 218 votes necessary to force a floor vote by all members of the House. See The Hill, Massie says he’s confident he’ll get to 218 on Epstein discharge petition.
Massie has some reason for optimism. After Rep. Nancy Mace met with an Epstein victim on Tuesday, she was seen wiping tears as she rushed to avoid reporters. The Hill, Mace leaves meeting with Epstein victims visibly upset.
Reps. Massie and Khanna need six Republican signatures on the discharge petition to force a floor vote on the underlying bill, which requires the release of the files. At the moment, it appears that there are seven Republicans who have indicated support for the petition (Massie, MTG, Boebert, Mace, Burlinson, Burchett, and Van Drew). Massie reports that five other Republicans have agreed to co-sponsor the underlying bill, but have not taken a position on the discharge petition.
Whether those Republicans will actually sign the petition remains an open question until they actually put pen to paper.
Whatever happens, it will be a close call. The White House is worried. It is actively lobbying Republicans in the House not to sign the discharge petition.
And even if the discharge petition does not force a floor vote, Republicans will have acted to protect those who participated in Maxwell and Epstein’s sex trafficking ring.
And it will get worse for Trump, no matter what. On Wednesday, September 3, at 10:30 a.m. Eastern, Reps. Massie and Khanna will hold a press conference with ten Epstein victims on the steps of the Capitol. Massie says the press conference will be “explosive.” See The Hill, Thomas Massie says he hopes Speaker Johnson 'will listen to the pleas' of Epstein victims
Tune in on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. Eastern to hear directly from ten Epstein-Maxwell victims.
Trump and his trade advisor say overruling tariffs would “be the end of the United States.”
Both Trump and his convicted felon trade adviser, Peter Navarro, have said that it would be “the end of the United States” if the Supreme Court upholds a ruling of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals finding that Trump's tariffs are illegal. See Axios, Trump tariffs being blocked would be "end of the United States," adviser says.
Trump has collected hundreds of billions in unlawful tariffs. If the Supreme Court agrees that Trump did not have the legal authority to collect the tariffs, the US must refund those tariffs to the U.S. companies that paid the illegal tariffs.
While painful, refunding ill-gotten gains is not likely to be the end of the U.S. As one reader of this newsletter noted in the Comment section, the federal government would likely refund the unlawful tariffs by providing the US companies a credit against future tax liabilities.
Many readers have asked: If the companies receive a refund of the illegally collected tariffs, will consumers receive compensation for the higher prices they paid?
That is a good question with a complicated answer. Unlike the companies that can be identified by taxpayer number, not all consumer transactions can be sourced back to the retail purchasers.
But it is likely that lawyers will file class actions on behalf of consumers seeking repayment of the higher prices. Litigation is seldom the most efficient way to resolve disputes, but that is what it might take to settle accounts with retailers who passed on tariffs in the form of higher prices to consumers.
Red states suffer the most under Trump's arbitrary withholding of NIH grants
Here is an unintended consequence of Trump's illegal withholding of medical grants awarded by the CDC / NIH. Based on a study by KFF Health News, many blue states sued to reinstate those grants—and were successful. Most red states simply accepted the illegal cuts. As a result, red states felt the brunt of the cuts to CDC grants. See NBC News, Blue states that sued kept most CDC grants, while red states feel brunt of Trump clawbacks.
The chart below illustrates the success of blue states in reinstating the grants, compared to the inaction of red states:
The above analysis was prepared by Henry Larweh, KFF Health News, Rachana Pradhan, and Rae Ellen Bichell.
The CDC grants targeted by Trump supported medical and scientific research at major universities and hospitals across the nation. The unlawful termination of those grants has caused unemployment, dislocation, and loss of life-saving research projects that were shut down when the grants were canceled.
My hunch is that tens of thousands of researchers have lost their jobs (or suffered a reduction in income) as a result of the cuts, which have had a ripple effect on tens or hundreds of thousands of residents in red states.
The effects of Trump's negligence and unlawful actions have hurt tens of millions of Americans. If only 10% to 20% of those affected by the cuts vote against Republicans in 2026 in response, the impact of just this one policy could make a significant difference in the 2026 midterms and state-level elections.
Concluding Thoughts
Trump made himself available on Tuesday in a typical unhinged press conference that announced the relocation of the “Space Force” headquarters from Colorado to Alabama because Trump disagrees with Colorado’s election laws. See Air Force Times, Trump links Space Command HQ move to Colorado's ‘crooked' voting laws.
And just like that, Trump made the midterm elections more difficult for the four Colorado Republicans who hold seats in the US House of Representatives.
While we cannot rely on Trump's mismanagement and malfeasance to propel Democrats to victory in the 2026 midterms, we should exploit the natural advantages that Trump is handing to Democrats.
For example, reader Susan W. alerted me to the fact that Florida’s legislature held two special elections on the day after Labor Day. The scheduling appeared to be an attempt to disadvantage Democrats in reliably blue-leaning Orange County. The move backfired. Democrats won both special elections in Florida on Tuesday by overwhelming margins. See WESH-TV, RESULTS: Special elections Florida Senate, House seats Orange County.
Democrats winning special elections in Democratic strongholds may not be considered news, but Florida did everything it could to suppress turnout in the special election—a move that should have hurt Democrats.
We should not over-interpret these results, but we should also recognize that if Democrats had not exceeded expectations, pundits would be writing the obituary of the Democratic Party in Florida. Such is the nature of the one-sided “Heads the GOP wins, tales the Democratic Party loses” coverage in the press.
Here's the takeaway: Democrats are more than holding their own. They are leaving nothing on the field of battle. They are refusing to quit. They are refusing to obey in advance. And they are refusing to surrender in advance, despite numerous stories predicting that the 2026 midterms will not occur or will not be free and fair.
While we cannot relent and must fight like heck to protect the fairness of the 2026 elections, we continue to see that showing up to vote is a powerful act of resistance. So, while pundits are busy predicting the death of democracy, history is being written in the streets by American citizens who refuse to give up!
Stay strong, everyone! Talk to you tomorrow!
Daily Dose of Perspective
The fuzzy blob in the image below is Barnard’s Galaxy, which is located 1.6 million light-years from the Milky Way. It is the nearest non-satellite, non-spiral galaxy to the Milky Way. (The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way.)
Robert knows this but dear readers Navarro and company are yanking our chain. The government was fully aware of the consequences of their actions when they fought against any stay of the tariffs pending appeal. They also had the option to segregate the tariff funds pending appeal or even explore insurance to cover the possibility of repayment. They took the calculated risk or pretending they have no risks in the lawsuit. But for a corrupt court reviewing this situation, the law does not provide for a litigant to obtain relief when they created their own emergency situation. You cannot murder your parents and then seek mercy because you are an orphan. The government is not going to fall apart if it has to refund billions of dollars. In fact all they need do is reverse tax breaks or impose new taxes on our super rich billionaires. I am sure our patriotic billionaire class will happily forgo their tax breaks to secure the future of the United States and capitalism. Robert thank you and your family for your service to our country and your readers.
I say this multiple times a day. Thank you Robert and Jill Hubbell for being there while NY Times pundits and to my dismay, even Lawrence Tribe (see Bluesky post) keep on pontificating their doomsday narrative. We will prevail.