☕️ TECTONICS ☙ Wednesday, August 13, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Whatever is about to happen feels big, and the media is just as much in the dark as we are. Cue the freakout. Lots of delicious stuff in today's breaking news roundup, including more election arrests.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Wednesday! Big things are starting to happen. I’ve an early court hearing to prepare for, so let’s just dive right in.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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The articles started popping up yesterday, right after lunch time. The Guardian ran its submission below the headline, “National guard arrives in DC as mayors warn of Trump power grab.” That sure was fast.

By early yesterday morning —barely 12 hours after Trump’s announcement— National Guard units were already rolling into DC. That doesn’t happen because someone made a couple of phone calls over coffee. It means this was in the can, locked and loaded, long before the press conference.

And yet the media was completely blindsided. Which tells you something else: the operational security on this move was airtight. No leaks, not even a whisper— not even a suspicious calendar entry.

WaPo teased out the constitutional and legal implications and concluded, correctly, that this is truly unprecedented. The media is losing its hive mind.

The collective tone was panicked, sardonic, and vividly skeptical, if not downright conspiratorial. From coast to capital, the media’s not just rattled— they’re leaning on the alarm button. In story after story, op-ed after op-ed, they’re refusing to settle for the official narrative of a “crime emergency.” Instead, they’re parsing the legal seams, calling foul on federal overreach, invoking racial dog-whistles, and yammering about constitutional boundaries.

They’re desperately trying to find some way to shut this down, fast.

One huge problem is D.C.’s own Mayor, Muriel Bowser, has agreed to cooperate. Trump apparently has her locked down, too. From the New York Times, yesterday:

If Mayor Bowser is okay with it, then what should we make of all this media hysteria?

The second problem is Democrats are wildly missing the mark, accusing Trump of fascism, Epstein-denialism, racism, and lots of other -isms, everything except talking about crime. Which means, TAW. CNN, early this morning:

CNN admitted it: Democrats can’t talk about public safety without stepping on a rake. “Democrats are hopeless at coining winning messaging,” CNN conceded. So instead of meeting Trump in the “make people feel safe” lane, Dems have parked themselves in the “save democracy from Trump” lane, while voters are still looking over their shoulder walking home from the Metro. (The article was actually a terrific recap of the Democrat implosion, but that’s for another day.)

Media’s reaction to these problems is volcanic. They are reacting more strongly to this temporary law enforcement maneuver —which everyone agrees he holds the complete legal and Constitutional right to do— than nearly anything else Trump has done since he took office.

Why?

I can only guess. One, they are probably shocked and surprised, since nobody leaked even a hint of this well-planned, multi-agency operation. Hundreds must have been involved; but nothing got passed to a reporter. So they’re not just reporting on what happened— they’re rattled, still processing the fact that it somehow happened without them knowing it was coming.

Two, they can see as well as we can that the depth and scope of the federal response shoots well past the mark of merely managing street crime. They sense something else is afoot. But they don’t know what.

Here are the types of questions they must be asking each other: If this were just about crime, why all the operational secrecy? Why the immediate, full-scale interagency mobilization instead of a gradual ramp-up? And why install trusted, key political allies like Hegseth and Bondi in the direct chain of command unless you expect to use them for something more sensitive than standard policing?

It vexes them that they don’t know. Nobody in the deep state is telling them what to think this time, either. So all they can do is fling around a million silly complaints, like caged monkeys throwing banana peels at tourists.

Whatever it is, they know they’re going to hate it, but I bet we’re going to like it a lot.

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Speaking of things that took Trump’s enemies completely by surprise this week. The New York Times ran a prophetic but uninformative top-of-page story yesterday headlined, “When Trump Meets Putin, Anything Could Happen.” No duh. Thanks for that newsflash. But it really means they have no idea what’s going to happen.

That headline translated to: ‘We’ve got bupkis, folks. Zip. Nada.’ No leaks. No rumors. Not even a tremulous anonymous source offering to swap secrets for an NPR tote bag. And if that left the media’s right eye twitching, it was nothing compared to the Europeans, who are currently mainlining espresso and chewing the lacquer off their manicured fingernails. It’s practically existential dread.

In a galactic level of irony and happenstance, the Times picked this particular picture to lead its story (shown above). It depicts one of the last times Trump and Putin met face-to-face. The fateful meeting in 2018, in Helsinki. The star-crossed meeting wherein I strongly suspect Putin handed Trump what we now know he had —a 2016 Russian intelligence report laying out Hillary Clinton’s RussiaGate plot— and which U.S. intelligence failed to provide their own President even though they’d had a copy for nearly two years.

Behold how suggestively the Times captioned its photo: “President Trump sided with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on whether the Kremlin had meddled in the 2016 U.S. election during their meeting in Helsinki in 2018.”

That caption makes me think that, after all this recent declassification, the Times knows that Trump and Putin have a lot of very interesting threads to pick up.

🔥 Now, Trump and Putin are meeting again, completing a seven-year arc through two impeachments, four years in the prosecutorial wilderness, the entire Proxy War, and Trump’s triumphant return to power. As they said, anything could happen.

The Times story provided some more context than we’d had before. Helsinki was not the first time Trump and Putin spoke privately. The first private encounter was in 2017— one year after Russia tried to alert the Obama intelligence agencies about Hillary’s plot:

When the men first sat down together, at a Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, in 2017, Mr. Trump was joined only by his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, and an interpreter. After the meeting, Mr. Trump took the interpreter’s notes and ordered him not to disclose what he heard.

That evening, Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin had an impromptu conversation, initiated by Mr. Trump, at a group dinner. No other Americans were present, and the White House confirmed the meeting only after surprised witnesses spoke to reporters.

Asked by reporters what he had told Mr. Trump in Hamburg about the 2016 election, Mr. Putin replied, “I got the impression that my answers satisfied him.”

That new context could explain a lot, more than I have time to get into this morning. But remember it for later.

The new meeting, the first since Trump 1.0, is set for Friday in remote Alaska— where privacy is guaranteed. Last Friday’s announcement took the media, the Ukrainians, and the Europeans by complete surprise. It’s fair to say they are terrified. The Guardian, this morning:

Politico, European Edition, yesterday:

Europe fears betrayal! Maybe not all of Europe, but their leaders are right to fear it. They helped Zelensky create the impeachment case against Trump seven years ago.

Speaking for the U.S. on today’s ‘frantic’ call will be: President Trump and Vice-President Vance. That’s the whole list. Attending the totally lopsided call for the ‘affected parties’ will be an astonishing list of narcissistic European neocons and one unamusing former comedian: Friedrich Merz (Germany), Alexander Stubb (Finland), Emmanuel Macron (Frogs), Giorgia Meloni* (Italy), Donald Tusk (Poland), Keir Starmer (UK), Ursula von der Leyen (E.U.), António Costa (ditto), Mark Rutte (NATO), and last and least, tiny Volodymyr Zelenskyy (two y’s). Whew. (* Actually, I kind of like Giorgia Meloni. But she’s the only one.)

To call these Defenders of Democracy’s ringleader Friedrich Merz “insufferable” does violence to that label. The worm-like leader’s internal popularity in Germany currently swirls the toilet bowl at an astonishing 24%—within his own party. Britain’s Kier Starmer is competing for worst, with a rock-bottom 23% favorable rating. Rounding out the big three is dainty Emmanuel Macron, for whom only 26% of Frenchmen hold any affection.

Just imagine how harshly the media would handle a U.S. president with a 23% popularity rating. “Rejected by voters!” “No mandate!” “Legitimacy crisis!” But they still treat these jokers as serious leaders. It’s a good bet that Trump knows better.

And honestly, there should be an upper limit to the number of people who can participate in one phone call. Group Zooms are bad enough. Have some sympathy for our hardworking president and vice-president, whose calendars include enduring a very painful gripe session today.

Anyway, yesterday, I heard a theory —a simple, fact-based theory I’d overlooked— connecting even more delicious dots. Till I heard it, I’d only expected that Trump would announce progress, but figured he would just push the timeline back another couple months and give the Russians a little more breathing room.

But this new theory changed my mind. Now I think something enormous could be coming together.

🔥 Robert Barnes is an American litigator and another veteran of the pandemic legal wars. He often pops up on podcasts and offers insightful commentary about current events. Like me, Robert has lots of opinions, and usually smart ones. Unsurprisingly, we are usually aligned. Like me, Barnes is fascinated by the timing of all these Trump events, and he agrees the timeline is probably not coincidental.

On a podcast Monday, Robert pointed out the remarkable and absolutely correct fact that, until Tulsi Gabbard began declassifying RussiaGate evidence, Trump was still stymied under a black “Russian influence” cloud.

No matter what he did to settle the war, if he gave any concessions to Putin, no matter how reasonable or justified, his enemies would have instantly accused him of “selling out” to Russia. They’d have hung him higher than Haman, with the rope of Russia collusion.

Barnes is right. Trump was stuck. It was like a hostage situation; his enemies were still holding Russia Collusion at a secret location, to force Trump to stay in his lane. Then, a few weeks ago, Trump sent in a rhetorical special forces team and started declassifying documents, one after another.

Now, everything has changed.

Within a handful of weeks, all Trump’s enemies have now lawyered up. And their lawyers have surely told them to shut up. Anyone who now accuses Trump of being compromised by Russia risks being linked to the seditious plot.

In other words, it had to happen in this order. Trump had to draw out the poison. First declass, then peace deals. In hindsight, it seems obvious that Trump could never settle the proxy war with Putin until after he’d briefed the public on where the RussiaGate allegations originally came from.

The mind-blowing implication is that this sudden and unexpected meeting between Trump and Putin was not a happy recent accident, but was planned long ago, before the declassifications began.

And if that is the case, then whatever the two leaders plan to do has also been long in the works. And if that is true, then it may not, as I thought and many others suggested, be a dud of a meeting where they only ‘make progress’ but don’t agree on anything.

Instead, it could be something historic. Maybe ending the Proxy War. Maybe something even bigger than that.

I know we are all hoping for high-profile arrests, but … could whatever deal Trump is planning to announce at this meeting explain why DC is now under federal control? The synchronicity is very suggestive. Whatever he’s planning in Alaska could create a global shock wave of NGO-fueled progressive protest. (It could also include arrests, who knows? That’s the point; nobody but Trump’s Team knows. Isn’t it exciting?)

Or maybe it’s all just random noise, incoherent political signals with no discernable tune. First, Tulsi Gabbard starts dropping the RussiaGate receipts, scrubbing the “Russian asset” smear off Trump like it was last season’s graffiti. Then — totally unrelated — the capital gets locked down under a leak-proof, multi-agency security blanket, with the National Guard on street corners and Pam Bondi running the cops.

And finally — pure happenstance — Trump pops up in richly symbolic Alaska, for his first closed-door confab with Putin since 2018. If you believe in Jungian synchronicity, that’s the classic trifecta: the Clearing of the Shadow, the Guarding of the Threshold, and the Meeting in the Borderlands. Or, if you don’t, then it’s just three consecutive, airtight, symbolically aligned moves in the span of a week, all pointing in the same direction for no reason whatsoever. Either way.

🔥 Among other advantages, Borderland Alaska was clearly selected because it is remote. Reporters (and party-crashing former comedians) wanting to infest the meeting will need snowshoes and rented dogsleds. Last night, the Times confirmed America will host the historic meeting at the even more secure and inaccessible Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage. It is not unprecedented: In 1971, Nixon hosted Japan’s Emperor Hirohito at JBER.

Hosting the meeting at JBER means no photos, no leaks, no running commentary, no hotel staff interviews, nothing. It’s a total blackout. We’ll all just have to wait for the official announcement. The location itself might not be unprecedented, but the complete absence of any signal, speculation, or hint of what might be coming is, in living memory, unheard of.

The closest historical analogue might be 1945’s Yalta Conference between Stalin, Churchill, and FDR, held in remote Crimea. In a twist for the history books, Crimea is also now one of the Ukrainian territories at the heart of the current conflict. Talk about historical bookends.

As the Times said in its headline, “Anything could happen.” And they’re right. They can see something is coming, too — they just hate being in the same position as the rest of us: outside the loop, staring at a sealed box, waiting for it to open.

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Arrest alert! On Monday, the Detroit News ran a story headlined, “Two Hamtramck City Council members charged with election fraud.” Remember the thing that was just a conspiracy theory? It happened again.

According to the story, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office stated that

six people worked together during the 2023 municipal election and received blank absentee ballots signed by recently naturalized citizens. Those six people would write in the name of the candidate they preferred.

Following a visit to Hamtramck by the FBI two months ago, the local DA appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the case, and this week, the charges against City Councilmen Mohammed Hassan and Muhtasin Sadman ensued. Both are Democrats.

Hamtramck isn’t alone. For instance, see this Michigan Live headline, also from Monday. “Saginaw council takes step that could remove councilwoman guilty of election fraud.” (“Saginaw City Council members approved a measure that could lead to the removal of Councilwoman Monique Lamar-Silvia (D) from her elected position once a judge sentences her for three election fraud-related felonies later this month.” Monique faces three five-year sentences, so jail time seems likely.)

Michigan’s Hamtramck scandal isn’t just a quirky local dust-up over forged absentee immigrant ballots — it’s political nitroglycerin rolling into the 2026 midterms. For Republicans, it’s more evidence of the smoking gun: elected officials, caught red-handed, allegedly gaming the system they swore to uphold. Democrats will cry about selective prosecution and rally minority voters around the banner of “targeted community leaders.”

Either way, this new scandal plops right into the heart of a state where a few thousand votes can swing a legislature, a congressional seat, or the White House. The fight won’t just be about what happened in Hamtramck; it’ll be about who controls the rules of the game everywhere else, and what message these election prosecutions is sending.

If there’s a hole in the roof, you patch it. You don’t keep arguing about whether your husband should have patched it before last year’s storm, at least not after reminding him several dozen times. But that’s exactly how Democrats treat election vulnerabilities. No matter how many examples appear proving how easy mail-in ballots are to manipulate, Democrats cling to them like they were the last ticket to a Taylor Swift concert.

Either way, all across the country, local officials are being charged in record numbers for electoral hi-jinx. And every time, it gets a little harder to cheat.

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Tired of winning yet? Yesterday, on its live broadcast, CNN confirmed that inflation is flat and energy is still falling — even during summer travel season.

CLIP: Inflation flatlined, gas still falling (0:14).

But if you read the headlines this morning, you’d think that inflation was skyrocketing. Suddenly (but predictably), media is sneering at the official statistics, and digging into the data to find pockets of personal price increases. They never did this kind of microscopic financial analysis during Biden’s term, not even while eggs traded on the markets at $10 a dozen. They couldn’t find inflation anywhere back then; now they see a 0.2% CPI fluctuation and it’s pass the smelling salts.

But we up in the cheap seats can tell when the economy is firing on all cylinders. I just got back from a road-trip vacation, and I’ve never seen so many semis. The markets are at all-time highs. Tariffs are fueling massive domestic investments. The media’s doomcrying isn’t working.

Have a wonderful Wednesday! Get back here tomorrow, for a brand-new cup of delicious and educational essential news and commentary.

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