Saturday, October 11, 2025
■ The Week in Review
"Let’s call this what it is: A baseless attempt to chill free speech and scare people away from exercising their constitutional right to protest an authoritarian regime."
By Jon Queally • Oct 10, 2025
The pro-democracy group Indivisible is among those speaking out against the Trump administration’s reported targeting of progressive and liberal organizations with various government agencies, including the FBI and IRS, as part of what critics call an “authoritarian playbook” by President Donald Trump that seeks to criminalize dissent, chill free speech, and frame nonviolent protest and opposition as “domestic terrorism.”
In-depth reporting by Reuters named Trump’s far-right, xenophobic White House advisor Stephen Miller as “playing a central role” in the internal effort to wield the power of federal agencies at a variety of organizations that the administration claims—contrary to all available evidence—are funding or orchestrating violent protests and political attacks.
Granted anonymity to speak more freely about the internal mechanics of the operation, Reuters’ reporting is based on discussions with “three White House officials, four Department of Homeland Security officials and one Justice Department official to produce the first comprehensive account of how decisions are being made, forces deployed, and operations coordinated in the crackdown.”
“Trump wants to scare people away from exercising their constitutional rights. We won’t let him succeed. Don’t let this smear distract you. The best response to attacks on our rights is to exercise our rights. That means showing up in huge numbers on October 18.”
According to Reuters, “Miller is deeply involved in reviewing government agencies’ investigations into the financial networks behind what the administration labels ‘domestic terror networks,’ which include nonprofits and even educational institutions, a White House official said.”
In response to [a Reuter's request], the White House highlighted seven political protests in 2023 and 2025 that included acts of violence directed against law enforcement officials, and two incidents of vandalism at Tesla dealerships this year as well as half a dozen social media posts celebrating the damage.
It named nine liberal groups, donors or fundraising organizations that it said helped finance or plan protests where the violent incidents occurred.
While the second White House official stressed that the organizations were not necessarily potential targets, the material provides insight into the administration's thinking.The list includes Soros' Open Society Foundations; ActBlue, the funding arm of the Democratic Party; Indivisible, a grassroots coalition opposed to Trump policies and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, a Los Angeles-based group.
"The goal is to destabilize Soros’ network," a third White House official said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Soros’s network of charitable organizations rejected any claim by Trump or the White House officials that its operations have anything to do with violent conduct or promoting violence.
“Neither George Soros nor the Open Society Foundations fund protests, condone violence, or foment it in any way,” the spokesperson said. “Claims to the contrary are false.”
Other groups named by the White House officials were two Jewish-led advocacy groups, IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace, both of which have organized protests and nonviolent sit-ins to oppose the genocide in Gaza being carried out by the US-backed Israeli government.
Citing the Reuters reporting, Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin said in a social media thread Thursday night that the fact a looming crackdown on groups opposed to Trump and his far-right agenda is coming less than two weeks before “before the largest peaceful protest in modern American history is absolutely intentional.” On October 18, massive protests are planned nationwide as a follow-up to the “No Kings” day of action that took place in June, bringing an estimated one million people into the streets against the Republican Party’s authoritarian lurch under Trump.
According to Reuters, “Miller is taking a ‘hands-on’ role in investigating the funding of nonprofits and educational institutions and is sharing recommendations from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent with Trump and other top advisers,” as well as sharing information with the joint terrorism task force.
“We don’t have all the details, but it appears Trump’s regime is gearing up to smear us with ludicrous accusations that we’re somehow tied to violence at protests—a claim that’s as false as it is predictable,” said Levin. “Let’s call this what it is: A baseless attempt to chill free speech and scare people away from exercising their constitutional right to protest an authoritarian regime. We have been committed to nonviolence from the very beginning. It’s a core principle, not just a talking point.”
“We will not back down,” Levin said in the post. “Trump and Miller can lie, smear, and threaten all they want. They will lose.”
“By floating false allegations of violence,” he concluded, “Trump wants to scare people away from exercising their constitutional rights. We won’t let him succeed. Don’t let this smear distract you. The best response to attacks on our rights is to exercise our rights. That means showing up in huge numbers on October 18.”
"Individuals are allowed to protest," the judge said. "They are allowed to speak. That is guaranteed by the First Amendment to our Constitution, and it is a bedrock right that upholds our democracy."
By Brad Reed • Oct 9, 2025
A federal judge has placed new restrictions on the use of force that federal agents can use on protesters and journalists in Chicago.
In a Thursday ruling, US District Judge Sara Ellis barred Department of Homeland Security officials from using riot control weapons “on members of the press, protestors, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.”
Ellis’ decision came in response to a complaint filed by independent media publication Block Club Chicago, along with other news organizations.
In its report on the ruling, Block Club Chicago explained that four of its reporters “were indiscriminately hit with pepper-spray bullets and tear-gassed by federal agents” while they were covering protests outside of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Illinois.
The publication also quoted Ellis saying in court on Thursday that some of the actions carried out by federal agents against journalists and protesters “clearly violate the constitution.”
“Individuals are allowed to protest,” she emphasized. “They are allowed to speak. That is guaranteed by the First Amendment to our Constitution, and it is a bedrock right that upholds our democracy.”
The temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by Ellis will be in effect for the next 14 days, and she could extend its length significantly by granting a preliminary injunction later in the month.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, a consistent critic of federal officials’ conduct in his city, hailed the ruling but lamented that it was even necessary in the first place.
“It’s a sad state in America when reporters have to go to court to not get shot at by the federal government,” he said, in a video posted on X by local talk radio station WCPT 820. “That we have to go to court so that teachers can run their classrooms and that students can get inside safely and that we can protect them from chemical agents. We have to go to court to protect the people of our city from chemical agents.”
Federal immigration officials have been employing increasingly aggressive and violent tactics in the Chicago area in recent weeks, including attacking a journalist and a protesting priest with pepper balls outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility; slamming a congressional candidate to the ground; dragging US citizens, including children, out of their homes during a raid in the middle of the night; and fatally shooting a man during a traffic stop.
The judge said she saw "no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois," and allowing troops into Chicago "will only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started."
By Jessica Corbett • Oct 9, 2025
US District Judge April Perry on Thursday partially granted Chicago and Illinois’ request for a temporary restraining order against President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops, purportedly to protect immigration officials carrying out “Operation Midway Blitz” in and around the nation’s third-largest city.
Perry—who pledged to issue a written opinion on Friday—said in an oral ruling that the US Department of Homeland Security’s descriptions of recent events in the area are “simply unreliable,” noting that “in the last 48 hours, in four separate unrelated legal decisions from different neutral parties, they all cast significant doubt on DHS’s credibility and assessment of what is happening on the streets of Chicago.”
Federal law—specifically, 10 US Code § 12406—allows the president to federalize the National Guard under three conditions, “not whenever he determines when one of them is met,” said Perry, an appointee of former President Joe Biden.
Those conditions are: invasion or a danger of invasion by a foreign nation; rebellion or danger of rebellion against the authority of the federal government; or if the president “is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”
“When President Trump is trying his best to imperil the rights of residents of major American cities, it’s encouraging to see this court ruling based on adherence to law and facts.”
Reporting on an argument made during a hearing earlier Thursday, the Chicago Tribune detailed:
[Christopher] Wells, the attorney for Illinois, said the country's founders did not use words like "rebellion, insurrection, or war" lightly.
"The president of the United States believes there is a rebellion brewing in the United States? That is such an audacious claim," Wells argued before US District Judge April Perry. "Who are the rebels? Are the rebels well-armed? ...There is no rebellion in Illinois."
[US Departmnet of Justice attorney Eric] Hamilton, meanwhile, repeatedly summarized violence in the Chicago area he said has been perpetrated by the "rioters" on immigration agents, including the boxing in of vehicles, assaults, and the alleged $10,000 bounty put on Border Patrol boss Greg Bovino's head.
"There doesn't have to be an actual rebeller," Hamilton said. "It is enough that there is a danger of a rebellion here. Which there is."
The judge said in her oral decision that she had seen “no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois,” and allowing troops into Chicago “will only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started.”
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement that “today’s ruling is a victory for the rule of law. The administration has provided no lawful explanation for its deployment of federal troops, and none exists. It’s clear that this attempted occupation within the state of Illinois is driven by political animus and not because federal officials are unable to protect federal property or enforce federal law.”
“The president does not have the unfettered discretion to turn America’s military against its own citizens when they exercise their constitutional rights,” he continued. “I am absolutely committed to upholding the Constitution and defending the rule of law, and I will continue to fight back against this unlawful attack on our state’s sovereignty.”
“The president does not have the unfettered discretion to turn America’s military against its own citizens when they exercise their constitutional rights.”
Hina Shamsi, director of ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a statement that “this decision reinforces that the president’s expansive claim of power to federalize state troops when there’s no actual emergency and good faith factual basis is unlawful. Like district court judges in Oregon and California, this court looked at the facts on the ground and rightly found that the Trump administration’s version of events is quite simply unreliable.”
“As the founders of this country made abundantly clear, turning troops on civilians is an intolerable threat to our liberties,” Shamsi added. “When President Trump is trying his best to imperil the rights of residents of major American cities, it’s encouraging to see this court ruling based on adherence to law and facts.”
Perry’s decision came in response to Chicago and Illinois’ Monday lawsuit over Trump’s move to deploy National Guard troops weeks into the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation. Rather than immediately weighing in, the judge scheduled Thursday’s hearing.
In the meantime, around 1,000 protesters took to the city’s streets Wednesday night; Trump called for the arrest of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, both Democrats; and members of the Texas National Guard began arriving in the suburb Joliet. As Wells put it during the hearing, despite the pending legal challenge, the federal government “plowed ahead anyway,” and “now, troops are here.”
US Northern Command said late Wednesday that approximately 200 Texas National Guard soldiers and 300 members of the Illinois National Guard “were activated into a Title 10 status” and are in the Chicagoland area to protect ICE and “other US government personnel who are performing federal functions.”
The village of Broadview confirmed to NBC Chicago that on Wednesday night, three vans carrying 45 members of the Texas National Guard arrived at the suburban ICE facility that has been the site of several protests in recent weeks.
“During their patrols, Broadview police officers observed the vans parked in the rear of 2000 25th Ave. and all of the guards were sleeping,” the statement said. “We let them sleep undisturbed. We hope that they will extend the same courtesy in the coming days to Broadview residents who deserve a good night’s sleep, too.”
As Chicago and Illinois filed their suit on Monday, demonstrators and journalists sued over federal agents’ violent violations of First Amendment rights at Broadview’s ICE facility. On Thursday, US District Judge Sara Ellis—appointed to the Northern District of Illinois by former President Barack Obama—issued a temporary restraining order barring officials from using pepper spray, tear gas, and other weapons “on members of the press, protestors, or religious practitioners who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.”
Also on Thursday, a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit heard arguments over Trump’s move to deploy the National Guard in Portland, Oregon, as he has previously done in Los Angeles, California and Washington, DC. That followed US District Judge Karin Immergut blocking the deployment—after which the Trump appointee was quickly accused of “legal insurrection” by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff.
Meanwhile, officials in Memphis confirmed in an online update Thursday that National Guard troops are set to start patrolling the city on Friday. In sharp contrast to Pritzker and Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has welcomed the planned deployment.
Unlike Trump’s efforts in Chicago and Portland, “National Guard troops in Memphis have not been federalized,” The Tennessean reported Thursday. “They are deployed under federal Title 32 rules, which preserve state authority over the National Guard with the federal government paying for expenses. As such, the Tennessee National Guard remains under Lee’s control.”
Neither Lee nor Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has “publicly explained the legal basis of the operation,” the newspaper also noted. While Lee, when questioned by reporters, deferred to Skrmetti, a spokesperson for the state’s top lawyer said in an email that “we do not have a comment at this time.”
IT'S TIME FOR PENNSYLVANIA TO REPLACE FETTERMAN WITH SOMEONE WHO COMPREHENDS INTERNATIONAL LAW & THE SURROUNDING ISSUES!
Sen. Rand Paul, one of just two Republicans to vote for the resolution, said he thinks Trump's illegal strikes on boats and threats to attack Venezuela "might lead to regime change."
By Stephen Prager • Oct 9, 2025
With Democratic Sen. John Fetterman joining Republicans in opposing a measure to rein in President Donald Trump’s ability to unilaterally bomb ships in the Caribbean Sea, the US Senate narrowly failed to advance a war powers resolution Wednesday.
Since the beginning of September, Trump has conducted four strikes on vessels off the coast of Venezuela which the administration has alleged, with little evidence, are carrying “narco-terrorists” spiriting illegal drugs to the United States.
Trump has also deployed thousands of sailors and marines to the Venezuelan coast and is reportedly considering strikes on the Venezuelan mainland, which has stoked fears within the country and across Latin America of another regime-change war.
In a quote to Responsible Statecraft, John Ramming Chappell, an advocacy and legal fellow at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, said that even if the ships attacked by Trump do contain drug-runners, the strikes carried out by Trump have been “summary executions and extrajudicial killings” that are “manifestly illegal under both US and international law.”
But by a 51-48 vote, largely along party lines, the Senate opted not to discharge a resolution introduced by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) from the Foreign Relations Committee that would have halted Trump’s ability to carry out more strikes without congressional approval.
“The president has used our military to strike unknown targets on at least four occasions, and he is promising more,” Schiff said in his speech introducing the resolution on the Senate floor. “With at least 21 people dead, and more killing on the way, with the president telling us that strikes on land-based targets may be next, we ask you to join us and reassert Congress’ vital control over the war power.”
Kaine added: “Americans want fewer wars—not more—and our Constitution clearly grants Congress alone the power to declare one. Yet President Trump has repeatedly launched illegal military strikes in the Caribbean and has refused to provide Congress with basic information about who was killed, why the strikes were necessary, and why a standard interdiction operation wasn’t conducted.”
Two Republican senators, Rand Paul (Ky.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), joined Democrats in voting to advance the resolution.
Paul, a libertarian who is typically more skeptical of foreign interventions than others in the GOP, has been an outspoken critic of Trump’s assertion of unchecked authority to bomb ships and the lack of evidence provided.
He previously sparred with Vice President JD Vance online after Vance said, “I don’t give a shit” that striking unarmed civilians without due process is a “war crime” under international law.
On the Senate floor, Paul said: “Perhaps those in charge of deciding whom to kill might let us know their names, present proof of their guilt, show evidence of their crimes... Is it too much to ask to know the names of those we kill before we kill them?”
Paul previously said in an interview with Bloomberg: “I think it might lead to regime change. And some of the more skeptical among us think that maybe this is a provocation to lead to real regime change, a provocation to get the Venezuelans to react so we can then insert the military.”
Murkowski added: “We all want to get rid of the drugs in this country, absolutely. But the approach that the administration is taking is new, some would say novel, and I think we have a role here.”
Even with two Republican defectors, it was not enough for the resolution to advance, especially with an assist from Fetterman (Pa.), the Democratic Party’s leading war hawk, who joined Republicans in voting the motion down.
It’s the second time in a matter of months that he’s voted against imposing a congressional check on Trump’s ability to carry out acts of war. In June, he was also the lone Democrat to vote against a Senate resolution to require congressional approval for future strikes against Iran, even as the president made regime change threats.
Nick Field, a correspondent for the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, noted that “voting against a war powers resolution seeking to curb Trump’s executive powers” was “not how John Fetterman campaigned in 2022, 2018, or 2016,” when he acted as a strident opponent of everything Trump stood for.
Fetterman has not publicly commented on his decision to vote against the resolution. His office did not respond to a request for comment from Common Dreams.
Despite the vote’s failure, Schiff said it likely will not be the last attempt to limit Trump’s war-making authority. Similar resolutions were introduced late last month in the House of Representatives by Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Jason Crow (D-Col.).
“Sadly, as these strikes get worse, support will only grow for another War Powers Resolution to stop them,” Schiff said. “Let’s hope by then we are not in a full-fledged war.”
"The rule of law is falling apart, so we all need to do something to make sure that it doesn’t keep going in this direction."
By Julia Conley • Oct 9, 2025
President Donald Trump and his allies have been relentlessly pushing the narrative that the aim of the White House’s deployment of federal immigration agents and hundreds of National Guard members to Chicago is to protect the public in what Trump has called “a war zone.”
But hundreds of people who marched through the city on Wednesday evening were clear about who is wreaking havoc in their communities.
“No ICE, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” residents of the nation’s third-largest city chanted, demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents leave Chicago and its surrounding suburbs.
Signs at the rally read, “ICE Is Trump’s Gestapo,” “Stop ripping families apart,” and “They blame immigrants so you won’t blame billionaires.”
The demonstration was organized soon after about 300 troops with the Illinois National Guard and 200 Texas National Guard members arrived in the city over the vehement objections of Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker, Democrats who have condemned Trump for deploying masked, armed ICE agents to the city for the past month.
While Trump has claimed that “Operation Midway Blitz” is aimed at protecting the public from undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes, US citizens have been targeted in raids and with violence perpetrated by immigration agents, who have shot pepper balls at a priest and a journalist, fatally shot a man during a traffic stop, and “deliberately” attacked peaceful protesters, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
The president has continued pushing the claim that protesters and immigrants are responsible for the chaos unfolding in Chicago and has suggested he could invoke the Insurrection Act, empowering him to order a larger military force to the city, if court cases filed against the administration halt the deployment of the National Guard.
At the protest Wednesday, one man told Sky News he is “concerned the US is slipping away from democracy to authoritarianism.”
Joely King, who is running to represent Illinois’ 1st Congressional District, told The Columbia Chronicle that attending the protest was “like standing up to a bully.”
“The thing with authoritarians, which is what we’re dealing with with the Trump administration, is that they need people to comply in advance to have any power, because it really is a weak movement, it does not support the people,” King said. “So showing up and saying no, you don’t actually have the popular support, you don’t have the power—it shows them that we will not give them what they want and just let them roll us over.”
Dozens of people also gathered Wednesday in “free speech zones” that have been designated outside the ICE facility in Broadview where agents have been taking people they’ve detained, and more assembled for a candlelight vigil in Joliet, where Texas troops were stationed before heading to Broadview.
“To people who are scared, who are detained, we are fighting for you,” Meredith Shoemaker, a 19-year-old Loyola University Chicago student who marched downtown, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “We don’t support what is happening.”
On Thursday, Judge April M. Perry in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois heard arguments for and against the National Guard deployment. Illinois officials filed a lawsuit to block the forces from coming to Chicago—a move that prompted Trump to say that Pritzker should be imprisoned for “failing to protect ICE officers.”
Perry, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, declined to rule on the case earlier this week, saying she wanted to hear arguments in a hearing.
At the march on Wednesday evening, another Chicago resident, Jinah Yun-Mitchell, told the Sun-Times that many in the city are determined to “stand up for people that can’t stand up for themselves” as Trump intensifies Operation Midway Blitz, in which more than 1,000 people have been arrested so far.
“The rule of law is falling apart,“ said Yun-Mitchell, ”so we all need to do something to make sure that it doesn’t keep going in this direction.”
"So he is going to drone strike American citizens?" said one journalist.
By Jessica Corbett • Oct 8, 2025
US Attorney General Pam Bondi generated alarm on Wednesday when she said the Trump administration is going to take the “same approach” to antifa as it has to drug cartels—as the military bombs boats in the Caribbean it claims are smuggling drugs.
Antifa encompasses autonomous anti-fascist individuals and loosely affiliated groups who lack a national organizational structure or leadership. Still, as the increasingly authoritarian administration works to quash dissent on all fronts, President Donald Trump last month signed an executive order designating the antifa movement as a domestic terrorist organization.
During a related roundtable on Wednesday—held as the administration worked to deploy the National Guard in Democrat-led cities—Bondi said that “we’re not gonna stop at just arresting the violent criminals we can see in the streets. Fighting crime is more than just getting the bad guy off the streets; it’s breaking down the organization brick by brick, just like we did with cartels.”
Glancing toward Trump, she continued: “We’re going to take the same approach, President Trump, with antifa: Destroy the entire organization from top to bottom. We’re going to take them apart. Thanks to your bold leadership, and the designation of antifa as a terrorist organization—which is exactly what they are—Americans will no longer tolerate their unhinged violence.”
Lawyer and radio host Dean Obeidallah warned: “Please understand that this is Trump regime explaining how they will use the government to prosecute Democrats. Page 1 of the fascist playbook is imprison political opponents so that the fascist has one-party rule.”
Others noted the violence the administration has already taken. Zeteo reporter Prem Thakker said: “My gosh. After the US bombed multiple boats in the middle of the ocean, murdering people on grounds that they were allegedly ‘carrying drugs,’ the US attorney general says, ‘Just like we did with cartels, we’re going to take the same approach…with antifa.’”
Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan said, “So he is going to drone strike American citizens?”
HuffPost‘s SV Dáte similarly asked, “So the US military will be summarily killing them from above now?”
Trump has recently announced four bombings of boats he claimed were running drugs, without releasing any evidence. Those US military attacks have killed at least 21 people. Critics in Congress and beyond argue the strikes are illegal under federal and international law.
On Tuesday, top Democrats from key committees in the US House of Representatives demanded further information about the bombings and reminded Trump: “Congress has the sole constitutional responsibility to declare war and to authorize the use of force. You have failed to secure such authorization for these strikes.”
Also on Tuesday, Bondi appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where lawmakers grilled her on a range of topics. Asked about legal justification for the boat bombings by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), she declined to comment.
Ahead of Bondi’s Senate testimony, watchdog groups and hundreds of former employees of the US Department of Justice expressed alarm about her leadership of the DOJ.
“We’re seeing the erosion of the Justice Department’s fabric and integrity at an alarming pace,“ says a letter signed by 282 former DOJ officials. ”Our democratic system cannot survive without the primary institution that enforces the law.”
"Come and get me," the Illinois governor said when asked about the president's call to have him arrested.
By Brad Reed • Oct 8, 2025
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issued a new warning on Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy the American military in US cities against the wishes of local elected officials.
Hours after Trump called for Pritzker’s imprisonment in a Wednesday morning Truth Social post, the Illinois governor claimed in an interview with MSNBC that the president’s ultimate goal with sending troops into US cities was to control the outcomes of future elections.
“He wants to militarize major cities across the United States, especially blue cities in blue states, because he wants us to get used to the idea of military on the streets,” he said. “2026 elections, I believe he’s going to post people outside ballot boxes and polling places, and, if he needs to in order to control those elections, he’ll assume control of the ballot boxes and count the votes himself.”
Pritzker pointed out that Trump considered ordering the military to seize ballot boxes after he lost the 2020 presidential election, but he was met with resistance from officials in his own administration.
However, Pritzker said that “I believe he would do it in 2026” to help Republicans maintain control of Congress.
Pritzker also struck a defiant tone when asked about Trump’s call to imprison him.
“This guy’s a convicted felon who’s threatening to jail me!” he exclaimed. “This guy is unhinged. He’s insecure. He’s a wannabe dictator. And there’s one thing I really want to say to Donald Trump: If you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me.”
Pritzker’s remarks come as Trump and his administration have deployed Texas National Guard soldiers to Chicago over the objections of both Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. The state and city are challenging the deployment in court.
Federal immigration officials have been employing increasingly aggressive and violent tactics in the Chicago area in recent weeks, including attacking a journalist and a protesting priest with pepper balls outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility; slamming a congressional candidate to the ground; dragging US citizens, including children, out of their homes during a raid in the middle of the night; and fatally shooting a man during a traffic stop.
One of them described her job as offering “concierge, white-glove service” to oil, gas, and coal companies seeking permits from regulators.
By Stephen Prager • Oct 8, 2025
A top energy adviser to President Donald Trump admitted in an August interview that the administration is offering “concierge, white-glove service” to fossil fuel companies while blocking and defunding clean energy projects.
The comments, reported Tuesday by the Washington Post, came from Brittany Kelm, a senior policy adviser for Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC), which was established within the Department of the Interior in February.
“We’re like this little tiger team, concierge, white-glove service, essentially,” Kelm said on the Lobby Shop podcast, “We were put together very particularly with the president’s priorities in mind on energy. So keeping coal plants open, establishing critical mineral mining domestically, and then that broader supply chain.”
She described her role in the council as being to help oil, gas, and coal companies navigate “the politicals” of agencies that grant permits for new projects. Companies, she said, “can walk out of our office, and they have all the contacts they need” for regulators in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the departments of the Interior and Commerce.
“We know how to unstick what is stuck,” Kelm said. “It’s a lot of undoing old policies and getting rid of regulatory burdens.”
Mahyar Sorour, the director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Fossil Fuels policy project, responded: “The reality of fossil fuel companies getting white-glove, concierge service from the Trump administration would be comical if it weren’t so sinister.”
“During the election,” she continued, “Trump told oil and gas executives that he would clear the way for more production without any safeguards if they gave his campaign a billion dollars—they did, and now Trump is blocking clean energy and giving the oil and gas industry immense handouts in return.”
Since retaking office in January, Trump has sought to expand the production of oil, gas, and coal with reckless abandon, without regard to the impacts of carbon emissions on the planet or other environmental impacts of pollution.
As the rest of the world has surged its use of wind and solar projects, surpassing coal for the first time this year, the Department of Energy made a $625 million investment to “expand and reinvigorate the coal industry,” which is the dirtiest form of energy.
And July’s massive GOP budget contained billions of dollars worth of handouts for the fossil fuel industry, boosted drilling on millions of acres of public lands, mandated oil and gas lease sales, and imposed new fees on renewable development.
At the same time, Trump has singlehandedly reduced the US’s growth outlook for renewables by 45%, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
As the Post reports:
His administration has held up permits for solar and wind projects since July and blocked wind farms outright. The Energy Department last week canceled $7.6 billion in funding for projects aimed at curbing climate change including installation of renewables, grid upgrades and carbon capture projects. That's on top of $27 billion in funding for clean energy that the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to claw back.
Alan Zibel, an energy and environmental policy researcher for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, joked that while the “White House rolls out ‘concierge, white-glove service’ for fossil fuels... wind and solar aren’t even allowed inside the Motel 6.”
This is put on stark display by a report co-authored by Zibel, and released Monday by Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project, which found that, under Trump, the agencies in charge of regulating energy and environmental policy “have made dozens of hires from the fossil fuel sector, mining conglomerates, and other polluting industries, as well as others who are well-paid to support a dirty energy agenda, such as corporate lawyers and the staffers from far-right think tanks directly tied to Trump’s dirty energy agenda.”
The report examined 111 executive branch appointees tasked with energy and environmental policymaking across nine agencies and found that 43 are former employees of fossil fuel companies.
While the EPA and Energy Department are each crawling with more than a dozen industry plants, no agency has more than the Interior Department, which has 32 in total.
One of them is Kelm herself, who, according to the report, “has spent her entire career working in Big Oil, most recently doing corporate relations for Shell, and previously in policy for Valero, community affairs for Noble Energy, and other roles for Texas-based oil companies like EnCore Permian and the Permian Basin Petroleum Association.”
Far from just lower-level appointees, several agency heads have direct industry ties. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright was formerly the CEO of the hydraulic fracking company Liberty Energy and, according to the report, “regularly makes public statements that downplay the effects of climate change, carbon pollution, and the environmental impacts of fracking.”
The administration also contains at least 14 corporate lawyers who worked for fossil fuel interests. David Fotouhi, the assistant secretary of the EPA, formerly worked as a lawyer at Gibson Dunn, which has represented oil and gas giants like the American Petroleum Institute, ConocoPhillips, and Energy Transfer. The law firm also helped to advise polluters like Chevron on how to beat lawsuits from state and local governments seeking to hold them legally liable for spreading misinformation about the climate crisis.
The administration also includes at least 12 officials directly handpicked from right-wing think tanks backed by fossil fuel money. Brooke Rollins, secretary of the Department of Agriculture (USDA), helped found the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) in 2021 with Texas oil billionaire and GOP megadonor Tim Dunn.
The oilman funded Rollins’ organization to the tune of $400,000, with the explicit goal of staffing the next Republican administration with appointees who would gut US climate policy.
“It would be ideal if we could get rid of this ‘CO2 as a pollutant’ business,” Dunn said at an AFPI event in 2023.
“Texas-based billionaires have taken over the Trump administration, providing a steady stream of staffers and an extreme set of policy ideas that consciously favors the most polluting forms of energy,” said Toni Aguilar Rosenthal, a senior researcher with the Revolving Door Project. “Trump’s policies aid the fossil fuel industry’s exploitation of the public sphere for private profit while simultaneously sabotaging renewables and ensuring that the US remains trapped in a dirty energy economy.”
"Miller's statements show their real position," said writer Greg Sargeant. "Trump's power to invent pretexts for emergency actions is limitless."
By Stephen Prager • Oct 8, 2025
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller appeared to slip up in an interview Monday, admitting that he believes President Donald Trump possesses the authority of a dictator.
Miller, who has made himself the face of the Trump administration’s efforts to crush political dissent, made the comments while appearing on CNN to defend the president’s deployment of troops to Portland and Chicago, which have run into roadblocks from federal courts.
The anchor, Boris Sanchez, asked Miller about a ruling by US District Judge Karin Immergut on Saturday that the president had no legal or factual basis to commandeer the Oregon National Guard and deploy the forces in Portland against protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Over the weekend, Miller had referred to the ruling as a “legal insurrection,” adding that “the president is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge.”
Given Miller’s comments, Sanchez asked, “Does the administration still plan to abide by that court ruling?”
Miller responded: “Well, the administration filed an appeal this morning with the 9th Circuit. I would note the administration won an identical case, in the 9th Circuit, just a few months ago, with respect to the federalizing of the California National Guard. Under title 10 of the US Code, the president has plenary authority, has…”
Miller then suddenly stopped speaking.
“Stephen? Stephen? Hey, Stephen, can you hear me?” Sanchez asked as Miller sat, wordlessly, his eyes blinking and darting around.
Sanchez then apologized, saying, “It seems like we’re having a technical issue,” before cutting to a break.
The recording of the interview reveals that there was not, in fact, a “technical issue.” Miller had appeared to cut himself off in the middle of his sentence before sitting motionless for approximately 15 seconds.
In a post with over 32,000 likes, one social media user speculated that it was because Miller had “said the quiet part out loud,” adding, “The plan wasn’t to be made public. Clearly, someone hit the panic button in his earpiece.”
After returning from the commercial, the interview continued. But the oddly specific phrase “plenary authority” was not invoked again. As the same user noted, the interview appears on CNN‘s YouTube channel, but has mysteriously been edited to remove Miller’s mention of “plenary authority.”
According to Cornell University’s Legal Information Institute, “plenary authority” refers to “power that is wide-ranging, broadly construed, and often limitless for all practical purposes.”
The law Miller cited, Title 10 of the US Code, states the three conditions under which the president may deploy a state’s National Guard: if there is a military invasion by a foreign power, if there is a rebellion against the US government or the danger of one, or if the president is “unable with the regular forces” to execute US laws.
The phrase “plenary authority” does not appear anywhere in the code. But as Huffington Post reporter Sara Boboltz explained, “Miller appeared to mean that the president has total control over everything the military does, even though he shares some of that power with Congress.”
Though Trump has asserted that Portland is “war-ravaged” to justify his use of military force, Immergut—a Trump appointee—shot this characterization down in her ruling as “untethered to facts,” as there was “substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days—or even weeks—leading up to the president’s directive.”
But Miller’s invocation of the phrase “plenary authority” in this context seems to imply that Trump alone is the judge of what situations warrant the use of the most extreme emergency powers.
“Trump just threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if governors and judges act lawfully within the constitutional system in ways that displease him,” said New Republic writer Greg Sargent on social media. “Miller’s statements show their real position: Trump’s power to invent pretexts for emergency actions is limitless.”
Sargent described this theory in more detail in a piece published Wednesday: “Miller is working overtime to polarize the public debate about Trump’s increasingly dictatorial abuses of power. And he’s doing so quite consciously. He relentlessly depicts Democrats as allied with a vast, inchoate class of violent criminals and insurrectionists operating in every shadow of American life.”
Trump’s deployments of troops to US cities are decisively unpopular. A CBS survey published Sunday found that 58% of Americans oppose Trump’s National Guard deployments.
But Sargent argued that “Miller plainly believes there’s a latent majority out in the country that can be sleepwalked into authoritarianism,” in part due to the muted response from many top Democrats.
With the exceptions of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker—the latter of whom Trump stated should be arrested on Wednesday along with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson—Sargent says that many of the opposition party’s leaders have declined to confront Trump’s narratives of urban anarchy head-on, seeing them as a “trap” to lure them into “a losing debate about crime.”
One Democratic strategist recently told Politico that “just like with immigration, Trump has found another issue where the Democratic Party is on a back foot“ and repeated false claims that crime is rampant in the nation’s large cities; in fact, violent crime is on the decline in the major cities the president has targeted, with particularly stark drops in Portland.
“Do Democrats, broadly speaking, have a theory of this moment that’s consciously matched to MAGA’s authoritarian politics? They need one,” Sargent said. “Because guess who does have a theory of the moment? Miller does. And he’s amassing unprecedented power to put it into practice as we speak.”
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