The Real Reason Europe is Dying (It's Not Just War) | James Galbraith

 

Indian General Strike (not at all in mainstream media, but the largest strike ever...in the world)

 I thought the previous 250 million people striking in India to protest Modi's policies was big...until I came across this:

Extraordinary.
Workers and peasants join forces to demand the reinstatement of India's Job Guarantee MGNREGA and the repeal of Modi's anti-worker labor codes. https://t.co/ndasd6rp0V

— Pavlina R Tcherneva (@ptcherneva) February 14, 2026

One commenter says: The Indian media also did not cover it at all, or cursorily at best

MMT Founder's comments (via AI) about China's economic approach

From Warren Mosler:
How about [MMT] in China?

Copilot said

China is a fascinating case because it hasn’t adopted Modern Monetary Theory in name, but many of its long‑standing institutional practices align closely with MMT’s descriptive claims. The influence is indirect, but real — and increasingly visible in China’s internal policy debates.
China’s relationship to MMT: not ideological, but structural

Several features of China’s system naturally resemble MMT’s description of a currency‑issuing government:

1. Central bank–fiscal integration is normal, not taboo

China’s People’s Bank of China (PBOC) routinely supports government-directed credit creation and liquidity management. One analysis argues that China effectively uses MMT‑consistent mechanisms by allowing the central bank to absorb or backstop local government debt, injecting liquidity without triggering destabilizing inflation Millbrook School.

 

2. China’s policy debates explicitly reference MMT

As China expanded fiscal deficits to record levels in recent years, economists inside the system split into “hawks” and “doves.” The doves increasingly cite MMT to justify higher deficit spending as safe and necessary for growth and employment, while hawks invoke Ray Dalio’s warnings about debt cycles to argue the opposite chinabankingnews.com.

This is one of the clearest examples globally of MMT entering elite policy discourse—even if only as a reference point in internal debates.

 

3. China’s historical practice resembles functional finance

From the 1940s through the early reform era, the PBOC acted as a direct fiscal agent—essentially financing government spending. Analysts note that if China were to “turn to MMT,” it would be less a revolution and more a return to earlier institutional norms, especially during periods of job‑creation priority and countercyclical stimulus anz.com.

4. China’s monetary framework differs from Western orthodoxy

China still relies heavily on quantity‑based tools (reserve requirements, credit quotas) rather than pure interest‑rate targeting. This structure makes fiscal‑monetary coordination more explicit and more aligned with MMT’s view that monetary policy is not meaningfully independent in a sovereign currency system Reserve Bank of Australia.

 So has MMT changed economics in China?

Where MMT has influence

• It provides intellectual ammunition for pro‑stimulus economists inside China.
• It helps frame arguments for higher deficits during downturns.
• It validates China’s long‑standing practice of using state-controlled finance to pursue real‑resource goals (employment, infrastructure, industrial policy).

 Where MMT has not changed China

China does not identify its framework as MMT.

• The PBOC does not adopt MMT language or policy prescriptions like a Job Guarantee.
• China’s constraints are political and institutional, not theoretical — the leadership prioritizes stability, not doctrinal shifts.

The bottom line

China hasn’t “adopted” MMT, but MMT has become part of the vocabulary in China’s internal debates about deficits and growth. More importantly, China’s actual monetary‑fiscal architecture already embodies many of the operational realities MMT describes. In that sense, China is one of the clearest real‑world examples of MMT‑consistent practice — even if it never uses the label.

If you want, we can compare China’s system to Japan’s or the U.S.’s to see where MMT‑style operations diverge or converge.

Dollar Collapse? (good historical background to our present predicament)

 

Protecting yourself and your family from deceptive technology

 

My wife calls me, panicked.

The call is from her number, and her voice is unmistakable- that’s my wife.

‘Babe, our son is hurt. He got in a bike wreck. I’m at the emergency room but they won’t take our insurance and I need cash to get him help. Please send me 3000 dollars as… https://t.co/Gbo9r96VsX

— Dustin Burnham (@ModernDad) February 11, 2026

What to do about wealth inequality

 

Very simple solution: set interest rates at zero, introduce a federal job guarantee at a living wage and let the wealthy take the full brunt of asset depreciation. https://t.co/GXWZhzs2EN

— David McNab @mcfab@home.social (@DavidMcNab17) February 11, 2026

Just Ask

 

Several online videos show elders--often late '80s or older--competing in triathlons and "iron man" competitions. This typically means swimming, cycling and running a half marathon. 

When asked how he managed to do this at his advanced age, one man responded that you can ask your body to do things like stay healthy, and it will generally respond by doing it. You can ask your body to run a marathon or swim, cycle and run a triathlon, and it will do it. 

Your body does what you ask.

So all we have to do to maintain our strength, endurance and flexibility is ... ask? 

Obviously, the "asking" isn't always simple. Training to do physically stressful things like triathlons isn't trivial, but the persistent asking manages to improve even a natural process like aging. One elderly triathlete suggests "food, fitness and fun" are the keys to graceful aging.

Another question is, really, what are we asking our bodies to do now? A population of obese, out-of-shape humans, dying early of strokes, heart attacks and diabetes has been asking their bodies to adapt to unhealthy food and a lack of exercise. "The wages of sin is death," says Jesus. Amen, I say. 

Where's the fun in that?

 

The truth about bitcoin...

 

Remember when the bitcoiners were telling us that bitcoin would eliminate wars and usher in global peace?

Die hard bitcoiners are basically goldbugs with a lobotomy

— Dow (@mark_dow) February 4, 2026

Realtor Baloney

(c) by Mark Dempsey

As a former Realtor, I was disturbed to read Tamara Suminski's, Sacramento Bee editorial (1/30/26 "California leaders can expand homeownership opportunities. Here's How"). She's President of the California Association of Realtors. In it, she promotes the "abundance" talking points, saying taxes and frivolous litigation are among the biggest obstacles to home ownership. As is common, the omissions are more important than the points she makes.

She makes no mention of the fact that, as of 2024, one in six homes purchased in the United States was bought by investment buyers and speculators, more than triple the number in 2000. In low-price homes, investment buyers bought one in four. Philip Pilkington says, "Housing in America is being treated as a financial asset from which investors extract wealth—this is not unlike how land and property were treated in the feudal era."

Ms. Suminski also ignores the fact that there are more vacant homes than our current, record-breaking homeless population, the biggest since the Great Depression. San Francisco has five times its homeless population in vacant homes.

Vancouver, Canada, had an epidemic of speculator-owned vacant homes, too. This reduced the supply of homes available for purchase, making home prices increase. Vancouver had some success keeping prices reasonable by by taxing vacant property, a measure that discouraged the speculators. Is there any discussion of that in the current housing "debate"? Nope. Taxes are always a problem, never a remedy. And rent control? Why that's completely taboo!

Everyone keeps saying America has a “housing shortage.”

It doesn’t.

Divide total homes by population and you get this:
We’ve never had more housing per person than we do right now.

The problem isn’t supply.
It’s prices. pic.twitter.com/KS9iIPyGXs

— Jon Brooks (@jonbrooks) January 30, 2026

The home ownership problem comes down to affordability. Banks are partly responsible for the prices increasing. They love making homes ever more expensive, and, as the subprime/derivatives meltdown in 2007-8 proves, they will even accept fraudulent appraisals if it means they can make bigger loans. For banks, bigger mortgages mean bigger profits! Meanwhile, government financing underwriters and insurers (VA, FHA, FNMA, FHLMC) and the Federal Reserve, our central bank, do relatively little to penalize misbehaving banks. Instead, they excuse and bail them out.

Public policy matters when it comes to affordable housing, too. Nixon stopped the federal government from building affordable housing, and, as he was cutting taxes on the wealthy roughly in half, Reagan cut HUD's affordable housing budget by 75%. Clinton signed legislation with the Faircloth amendment, placing an upper limit on federal affordable housing programs. The attack on affordable housing has been a generations-long, bipartisan project.

Meanwhile, public policy was responsible for the possibility of home ownership in the modern era. The New Deal popularized 30-year mortgages and the FHA, a mortgage insurer that made such long-term mortgages safe for banks. More recently, government agencies like FNMA and GNMA have bought mortgages from the banks that originated them, creating a secondary market to encourage even more home-purchase lending. 

Ms. Suminski says that housing is "the most reliable engine of generational wealth...Over the past 33 years, California homeowners built approximately $165,000 in household net worth per capita..." This ignores the previous observation that "Housing in America is being treated as a financial asset from which investors extract wealth," and the fact that most of that "wealth" accrues in making housing unaffordable.

But did homeowners really build wealth with their homes? Never mind that the figure Ms. Suminski quoted favors the most expensive homes, not affordable ones; nobody "built" their equity. They passively let the asset inflation that has accompanied the financialization of the economy's productive activity do it for them. 

Such "wealth" is the definition of "economic rent," that is, money paid for nothing productive. Adam Smith observed that the wealthy feudal landowners who collect rent make money in their sleep. Home appreciation didn't create any new land, and didn't necessarily mean the homes were improved. Thanks to such omissions, the entire housing "debate" looks like Trump's declaration that he's going to make sure present homeowners keep the high values of their houses, while he'll make the homes more affordable. 

In related news, gambling is currently the second fastest-growing sector of the economy--an activity Warren Buffett called "a tax on ignorance." And ignorance sure looks like it's in the driver's seat when it comes to housing policy.

--

The author was a Realtor for more than a decade and a half, appraising property and representing those buying and selling it. 

 

Update 2/22/26:

if one can look at the fraying fabric around us, Epstein, ICE, Gaza, runaway consolidation of wealth, all protected by Palantir mass surveillance, and think the primary source of oppression is overly fussy environmental and labor regulations I simply don't know what to tell you

— Adam Johnson (@adamjohnsonCHI) February 11, 2026

The Chinese Advantage

 

He does a good job of explaining China’s economy. Also covers some common misconceptions.

Much better than my ghetto one take top of my head videos ;) pic.twitter.com/CiQKqI1NzU

— Larry 長祥 (@jambuki888) February 3, 2026

 

Update: Meanwhile, China treats even its minorities better...

 

When a native American met a Uyghur from Xinjiang.

He discovered a shocking truth.

He thought China was doing the same thing to Uyghurs as the U.S. did to native Americans, only to find out no genocide towards ethnic minorities in China, minority languages and cultures are well… pic.twitter.com/A8ZnQshVyq

— Li Jingjing 李菁菁 (@Jingjing_Li) February 11, 2026

Jail, Jail, Jail, Jail, Jail

(c) by Mark Dempsey

The County is sponsoring "listening" sessions about the County Jail. Of course no alternatives to jailing are offered, further validating Boss Tweed's political wisdom: "I don't care who people vote for as long as I can pick the candidates. Here's my email to the "listeners" and supervisors:

Dear "Listeners," Supervisors, and others,

The announced South Sacramento "Listening Session[s]" about jail planning are too far away, and too late at night for me to attend, so I'm writing this email to tell you what I would say if I were present:

First: People are easily influenced, and Hollywood tells us that detectives always nab the bad guys and that Perry Mason gets the ones the cops miss. In real life, though, the police and courts solve far fewer crimes--13% in California in 2022 (says Governing.com ). Cops, courts & cages don't get an A-plus; they get an F-minus. They are a terrible way to handle crime!

Nevertheless, since the '80s, spending on policing and prisons has increased more than four times faster than population growth. The influence of these fictions also appears in incarceration rates. With five percent of the world’s population, the US has 25% of its prisoners, five times the world’s per-capita average incarceration rate, seven times Canada’s or France’s rates, per-capita. Is Canadian or French crime worse than US crime? No, it's not as bad.

What's different in Canadian and French societies that lets them incarcerate at one-seventh the US rate and still have lower crime rates? For one thing, the US has more than half a million medical bankruptcies annually. Canada and France don't have those.

Could treating people better influence crime rates? Never mind Canada and France, multiple studies (here [pdf], and here, among others) conclude that treating poor people better lowers crime rates, and is cheaper than cops, courts, and cages.

Yet the US--and certainly Sacramento County--continues to believe that increasing people's desperation, not treating them well, is the way to solve the crime problem. True, the County has programs to lessen recidivism, but even the ineffective ones continue receive funding.

The vengeful impulse for punitive penalties has some local support, but Hollywood’s fiction and the media’s scary headlines keep the public anxious. Rather than house the homeless, open local free clinics, or experiment with basic job or income guarantees for the poor, the Board of Supervisors has actually considered enlarging the County jail more than once. spending millions that could conceivably fund more effective, less costly, and cruel alternatives.

Supervisor Rodriguez's newsletter even celebrated a court ruling that lets the County "sweep" (i.e., remove) homeless people camped on public land, whether there's alternative housing or not. Ms. Rodriguez apparently is in the running for the “Cruella D’Evil” award previously won by her predecessor, Sue Frost.

Meanwhile, the County's jail is full and has even lost a lawsuit about how its conditions mistreat prisoners. But 60 - 80% of its prisoners are convicted of nothing more than an inability to afford bail. They're doubly poor, too, because they'll likely lose whatever job they might have had if they await trial in jail, never mind the damage keeping them incarcerated does to their families and community.

Nevertheless, Sacramento County continues to send the message that you're not innocent until proven guilty, you're guilty until proven wealthy. Incarceration without trial also pressures innocent people to plead guilty just to get out of confinement sooner. That's not justice, it's an extortion racket.

As far as I know, the County has not considered supervised release or no-cash bail. In fact, the US and the Philippines are the only countries worldwide that require cash bail. That policy is a recipe for an expanding punishment bureaucracy, not a solution for crime. Incidentally, you'll seldom hear it from the Supervisors, but crime has been declining for decades now.



Opponents of a kinder approach to people accused might cite Yolo County's unfavorable experience--more crimes and more recidivism--when they released inmates early during COVID times. Yet Washington, D.C., and the state of Illinois have adopted no-cash bail for select offenses, and reporting from Illinois suggests there are ways to successfully do this. The headline: Nearly 8 months into Illinois' new era without cash bail, experts say recidivism and jail populations are trending lower.”

There are certainly ways to sabotage the kinder alternatives to incarceration. Oregon attempted to decriminalize drugs, then repealed that legislation as a failure. In Oregon, police were tasked to offer the alternative to drugs–rehab–with tickets. The drug users were not impressed, to say the least, and the police didn’t handle their defiance well. Why it almost looks like the police are tasked to implement such solutions to sabotage them!

Meanwhile, incarceration is seven times more expensive than medical addiction treatment and has a lower success rate. One study says: “If 40 percent of offenders receive rehab vs. incarceration, it saves the system $13 billion. Choosing drug treatment leads to fewer crimes, lower addiction rates, and saves society money.” Other countries--Portugal and Switzerland, among them--have successfully decriminalized drugs.

For those interested in more information, I'd recommend Alec Karakatsanis' Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System, and Copaganda: How the Police and the Media Manipulate Our News, which describe how pervasive the problems described here are. Getting this information would require reading as well as listening, but the Supervisors have surely mastered that skill. If they like, I'll send them copies, just let me know who wants one.

I've sent this information to the Supervisors repeatedly, so you'll pardon my skepticism about their ability to "Listen." I even sat on a County commission (a Community Planning Advisory Council) and can testify from my experience that County officials are at least hearing impaired when it comes to public input.

Grinding any opposition to pre-determined outcomes to dust with endless hearings (always halted once the opposition gets too close to success) and "listening" appears to be the County's preferred approach to public input. The County would rather continue its bankrupt strategy to ensure citizen safety than actually do something--competently, without sabotage--that's kinder, cheaper, and more effective.

Local Government Financing Shortfalls

 My letter to the local public media news publishers abridged@kvie.org

Hello,

I read your story about the financial troubles local governments have been facing lately. You have a few significant omissions. 

For example, there's a loophole in Prop 13 for commercial property that costs the state an estimated $12 billion annually. Prop 15 was narrowly defeated when it attempted to close the loophole. Did local politicians lobby for passage? Not that I could detect.

Then there's all the land speculation that could have served the public, but largely ends up in private coffers. 

Speculators bought, or more likely optioned, North Natomas farmland for roughly $2K per acre. It was cheap because it was 20' underwater ag land surrounded by weak levees. It was so unsuited for development that a federal grant to expand capacity included a $6 million penalty if local governments used that capacity to serve the North Natomas development.

The speculators went all the way to then-vice-president George Herbert Walker Bush and got that prohibitive, up-front penalty transformed into a pay-as-you-develop fee...oh yes, and they got $43 million to improve the levees to pre-Katrina standards.

After getting the entitlements to develop, they sold those acres to builders. Winncrest homes bought at $200K / acre. If your calculator isn't handy, that's a 10,000% (gross) profit...and I promise you that's after tax if they exchange out of the purchase.

Germany requires developers to sell outlying ag land to the local government at the ag land price, then repurchase it at the development land price. All that egregious profit inures to public benefit. And they have terrific benefits, including single-payer healthcare, excellent infrastructure, and free college tuition. The arts budget for the City of Berlin exceeds the National Endowment for the Arts for the US of A.

Finally, you didn't mention that sprawl is a Ponzi scheme. Outlying development is roughly twice as expensive to maintain as infill. So has that stopped the locals from approving more and more edge-city development? Nope.

All you're doing is documenting the fact that those maintenance costs are finally catching up to the locals. 

--Yours truly,

--Mark Dempsey

The destination of prosperity

From a tweet by Rutger Bregman:

Wrote this 12 years ago, in Utopia for Realists. I didn't realize at the time how soon this scenario could play out: 'For us today, it is still difficult to imagine a future society in which paid labor is not the be all and end all of our existence. But the inability to imagine a world in which things are different is evidence only of a poor imagination, not of the impossibility of change. In the 1950s we couldn't conceive that the advent of refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and, above all, washing machines would help prompt women to enter the workplace in record numbers, and yet they did. 

Nevertheless, it is not technology itself that determines the course of history. In the end, it is we humans who decide how we want to shape our destiny. The scenario of radical inequality that is taking shape in the U.S. is not our only option. The alternative is that at some point during this century, we reject the dogma that you have to work for a living. The richer we as a society become, the less effectively the labor market will be at distributing prosperity. If we want to hold onto the blessings of technology, ultimately there's only one choice left, and that's redistribution. Massive redistribution. 

Redistribution of money (basic income), of time (a shorter working week), of taxation (on capital instead of labor), and, of course, of robots. As far back as the nineteenth century, Oscar Wilde looked forward to the day when everybody would benefit from intelligent machines that were "the property of all." Technological progress may make a society more prosperous in aggregate, but there's no economic law that says everyone will benefit. 

Not long ago, the French economist Thomas Piketty had people up in arms with his contention that if we continue down our current path we'll soon find ourselves back in the rentier society of the Gilded Age. People who owned capital (stocks, houses, machines) enjoyed a much higher standard of living than folks who merely worked hard. For hundreds of years the return on capital was 4–5%, while annual economic growth lagged behind at under 2%. Barring a resurgence of strong, inclusive growth (rather unlikely), high taxation on capital (equally improbable), or World War III (let's hope not), inequality could develop to frightening proportions once again. 

All the standard options – more schooling, regulation, austerity – will be a drop in the bucket. In the end, the only solution is a worldwide, progressive tax on wealth, says Professor Piketty, though he acknowledges this is merely a "useful utopia." And yet, the future is not carved in stone. All throughout history, the march toward equality has always been steeped in politics. If a law of common progress fails to manifest itself of its own accord, there is nothing to stop us from enacting it ourselves. Indeed, the absence of such a law may well imperil the free market itself. "We have to save capitalism from the capitalists," Piketty concludes. 

This paradox is neatly summed up by an anecdote from the 1960s. When Henry Ford's grandson gave labor union leader Walter Reuther a tour of the company's new, automated factory, he jokingly asked, "Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues?" Without missing a beat, Reuther answered, "Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?"

The Trump Effect (Pay attention Elon!)

 

A preview of what Trump is doing to the rest of US foreign sales.

— Warren B. Mosler (@wbmosler) January 27, 2026

Michael Parenti explains political right vs. left, "free" market power

 

pic.twitter.com/7MPd3gmKLd

— Pontius Pilate (@aggholamyy) January 25, 2026

ICE is more of the Obama legacy

 

And Obama’s ICE director, Thomas Homan, is now Trump's border czar. Under Obama, Homan introduced the idea of taking children from parents as a tactic to discourage migration. Obama gave Homan a presidential award saying, "Thomas Homan deports people. And he's really good at it." https://t.co/T5W8xx04JZ

— Hampton Institute (@HamptonThink) January 8, 2026

 

Update: Obama’s ICE director, Thomas Homan, is now Trump’s border czar. Under Obama, Homan introduced the idea of taking children from parents as a tactic to discourage migration. Obama gave Homan a presidential award saying, “Thomas Homan deports people. And he’s really good at it.” 

The Best Laid Plans

 

🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/a9Wb5F7yaw

— The Best (@Thebestfigen) January 20, 2026

Mark Twain's comment on current events.

“There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land.” -Mark Twain, on the U.S.-Philippine War (although he could have said it about many other wars)

A little economic context

 

pic.twitter.com/nMlYruKB51

— NO CONTEXT HUMANS (@HumansNoContext) January 9, 2026

How is labor doing?

 

Released this morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ labor share of income for Q3 2025 is the lowest on record. pic.twitter.com/LvcUIPGHDD

— Mike Konczal (@mtkonczal) January 8, 2026

How to solve the "housing crisis"

(c) by Mark Dempsey

Several online commenters have written about the "housing crisis," suggesting off-site, modular building, or reduced regulation, etc., would solve the problem. I'd suggest these amount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

First of all, there's really no shortage of built homes. There are more vacant homes in the US than its current, biggest-since-the-Great-Depression homeless population. San Francisco has five times as many vacant homes as its homeless population, for one.

Is there any suggestion to raise property taxes on vacant properties, as Vancouver did to solve this problem? [Crickets]

Nixon stopped the federal government from building affordable housing, and Reagan--as he lowered taxes on the wealthy roughly 50%, and with his successor raised payroll taxes eightfold--cut HUD's affordable housing budget by 75%. Clinton signed the Faircloth amendment limiting federal affordability support, too, so the attack on the poor is bipartisan.

Setting that history aside, we could build mixed-income (poor among the wealthy), mixed-use (offices and retail among the residences), and remove a regressive tax imposed by sprawl--i.e., having to own a car. People could walk to work, school, or shopping. Four- or Eight-plexes among the mansions would accomplish this, and the poor (more generous, less materialistic) might be a good influence on the wealthy.😊

Build pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use at sufficient densities (11 units per acre and up), and we would have enough customers and transit riders within a walk of those destinations that local commerce and transit would be financially viable.

People often say they don't want denser neighborhoods--something that dramatically lowers land cost per unit--but many people pay premiums to live in NYC or Hong Kong.

The problem with density is that public services are absolutely critical. People are concerned about crime (yet per capita crime rates are lower in densely built NYC than in sprawlified Phoenix, AZ), and need things like parks, museums, etc. As I've pointed out above, the public realm (what's available to everyone) has been aggressively defunded since LBJ left office.

Implementing this would be a bit of a turnaround in a country where people are shocked to hear public enterprises actually beat private ones in providing goods and services. Publicly-owned SMUD is 35% cheaper than privately-owned PG&E, for just one example. Yet gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer somehow thinks "competition" will improve a natural monopoly like an electric utility. Wouldn't public ownership be an option? [again: crickets]

Unfortunately, the US population is eager for a deck chair rearrangement rather than a genuine solution, and kept that way by the massive marketing machine that tells us the post office is bad, and the courts are crooked, etc. And there is no shortage of well-funded saboteurs scheming to make those criticisms come true. 

For a little validation:

It's a myth that U.S. housing supply is short X million.

Simply divide total housing units by population.

We've never had more housing per person.

The problem is demand is FAR, FAR, FAR more sensitive to prices (price elasticity) than supply. https://t.co/yiDozYdP2V pic.twitter.com/LTdRGXnQMe

— John Wake (@JohnWake) January 9, 2026

How to (really!) improve the economy

 

Hey, what's a little crime amongst oligarchs?

 

Never forget:
-The only Republican US attorney fired in GWB's great purge of the DOJ was the guy who was about to indict the Sacklers
-Then Obama went and made Purdue's former defense attorney his AG https://t.co/V8yHZAQkKn

— moe tkacik (@moetkacik) January 5, 2026

American Thuggery Echoes History

 

In the last Gilded Age, Wall Street virtually controlled our government and turned the U.S. military into “a high-class muscle man for Big Business.” We’re living in the Second Gilded Age now, and history is repeating itself.

We can do better in this country. https://t.co/0LhCyHgK1N pic.twitter.com/w7Spe8Hf69

— Basel Musharbash (@musharbash_b) January 3, 2026

"Hope" = "Nope" ... The Obama "Justice" Pursuit

Alec Karakatsanis 

In 1997, Ezell Gilbert was sentenced to more than 24 years in federal prison in a crack cocaine case. Because of mandatory sentencing (treating crack 100 times as severely as powder), he was put in a cage for a quarter century, and even the judge said this was too harsh.

At sentencing, Gilbert noticed an error that increased his sentence by about *10 years* based on a misclassification of a prior conviction. In 1999, without a lawyer, he filed a petition complaining about the mistake. The Clinton DOJ opposed him, and a court ruled against him.

Ten years later, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in another person’s case, confirming that Gilbert had been correct about the error in his case. A public defender helped him file a new petition for immediate release from prison back to his family. He had served his time.

The federal judge sided with Obama/Holder, and Ezell Gilbert remained in a cage even though everyone agreed he was now in prison illegally. He had the audacity to hope that courts would follow the law.
A federal appeals court disagreed with Obama/Holder, and in June 2010, three judges set Gilbert free after more than 14 years in prison.

The judges rejected the DOJ’s argument as a departure from fairness and common sense. They said that it could not be the law in the U.S. that a person had to serve a prison sentence that everyone admitted was illegal. Ezell Gilbert went home and stayed out of trouble.

Here’s where it gets interesting. There are many people like Gilbert in federal prison whose sentences are illegal. Did you know that? Instead of rushing to ensure that thousands of people illegally separated from their families were set free, DOJ decided to fight and appeal.

The Obama/Holder DOJ argued: If prisoners were allowed to file more petitions, the “floodgates” would open and many others — mostly poor — would have to be released. They asked a larger group of judges to reverse Gilbert’s victory.

In 2011, a larger group of judges, led by a Republican majority, agreed with Obama/Holder that the “finality” of sentences was too important to allow prisoners to be released on a second rather than first petition, even if the prisoner was correct all along.

Ezell Gilbert was rearrested and sent back to prison to serve out his illegal sentence in a cage. Here's a link to one of the most shameful court opinions I've ever encountered, and one of Barack Obama and Eric Holder's most enduring victories: https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/200912513op2.pdf

An 87-year-old Republican judge wrote a dissent. Having served in WWII, he called the explicit decision to illegally keep a human being in jail “shocking.” He wrote that a “judicial system that values finality over justice is morally bankrupt.”

Addressing Obama/Holder argument directly, he said: “[T]here are many others in Gilbert’s position — sitting in prison serving sentences that were illegally imposed. We used to call such systems ‘gulags.’ Now, apparently, we call them the United States.”

Major media ignored Ezell Gilbert’s case at the time. Eric Holder did something similar in an even more egregious effort to preserve illegal sentences in the cases of Cornelius and Jarreous Blewitt, which consigned tens of thousands more people to federal cages illegally.

In 2013, two years after sending him back to a cage, Obama granted Gilbert clemency, and the media praised Obama for his leniency. Tens of thousands of other human being remained in prison illegally. You’ve never heard their names.

These legal precedents, and the unaccountable formations of lawyers, judges, politicians and bureaucrats who make them possible, are essential to the authoritarian project. They normalize the unjustified deprivation of liberty.

Once this normalization of the senseless deprivation of a single person's liberty is allowed to sprout, it is almost impossible to contain. This is the enduring import of the civil rights work that we do, and why telling these stories matters to the hope of a better world.