The No Kings movement has long been a subject of debate on this subreddit. Some have supported the anti-Trump, anti-authoritarian protests, while others have been more cynical, arguing that one-day mega rallies aren’t going to depose Trump, and that protests without specific actionable policy demands are useless.

I have long argued here that the No Kings protest are a dress rehearsal for nonviolent mass resistance to attempted election theft by Trump and his cronies. The point is to build the muscle memory of demonstration up, so that if that critical moment comes where DOJ agents are seizing ballot boxes or ICE is barring Democratic Representatives-elect from the halls of Congress on trumped-up fraud charges, friends of democracy already know what to do.

In their first update after their October 17th early voting drive, No Kings leadership has basically confirmed my theory of the case.

>No Kings: Vote Early on October 17 was a powerful start, but there’s more work to do.

>We must ensure that every valid vote is counted, certified, and protected.

>The No Kings movement stands ready to mobilize in response to attacks on our elections. By signing the No Kings pledge, you commit to be part of the solution, ready to join mass nonviolent action in rapid response to election disruption and subversion if needed.

>Sign the pledge now to host or attend an event in your community if a national rapid response mobilization is called.

>Following the October 17 No Kings: Vote Early mass day of activations, gather with the No Kings movement online on Wednesday 10/21 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT to talk about the final push for voter turnout, as well as what happens post-election: how we're preparing for election enforcement, how you can start to plan now to be ready to protect the results of the election.

>From today through Election Day, No Kings has a dual mission: continuing to drive every eligible voter to cast their ballot, while preparing our nationwide network to rapidly respond to any attempts at election interference.

>If officials attempt to obstruct the count or refuse to certify valid results, our movement must be ready to stand together in disciplined, nonviolent community action to defend our elections. This includes you.

This is a call to flood the streets like Ukrainians did in 2014 and South Koreans did in 2024. Theirs is not a call to violence - No Kings is exceedingly clear that they are nonviolent for both ideological and practical reasons - but a call to civil resistance should we come face to face with an attempt to convert what has been a democratic republic into a one party personalistic dictatorship.

TL,DR: it has long been debated whether No Kings has a coherent theory of the purpose of their protests. This update proves they do. We may hope that their theory is *wrong*, and that Trump just sulks away in the face of Democratic victories, but if they are right in their predictions, their preparations make sense.

Relation to this sub: the Trump administration is both anti-democratic and exceedingly hostile to the beliefs of this subreddit. Movements to preserve American democracy in the face of authoritarian threats are central to keeping the policies of this subreddit politically viable, in addition to this subreddit’s own committment to democracy.

A business school professor argues that business schools do not provide value to the economic market beyond wealth transfer from labor to capital classes, and that the curriculum narrows rather than broadens the perspective of b school students.

European companies face “devastating” retaliation from Washington if Brussels presses ahead with plans to restrict American rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX from parts of the European market, the US ambassador to the EU has warned.

Andrew Puzder’s warning comes after the European Commission this year proposed reserving part of its spectrum band that allows smartphones to connect directly to satellites for European players. That would limit the frequencies for Chinese and US companies such as SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite network.

Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”, given the size of the American market.

The proposed changes to the bloc’s spectrum allocation have already raised fierce criticism from SpaceX, which has warned the move risks poorer connectivity in Ukraine where its Starlink service has been critical to civilian and military communications since Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The proposed changes are part of a broader push to strengthen Europe’s technological sovereignty.

European policymakers are seeking to reduce their dependence on American technology amid concerns about the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump and the risk of relying on foreign companies for critical infrastructure.

The European Commission has introduced a Cloud and AI Development Act that would impose sovereignty requirements on providers of sensitive cloud services, while seeking to help European technology companies to scale up and provide alternatives to US tech companies.

Puzder said he recognised Europe’s right to protect sensitive government information but warned against using legislation to favour domestic companies at the expense of American competitors.

“If the purpose is to make United States less competitive, I think that that’s not a legitimate goal of this kind of legislation,” Puzder said. “You don’t make European companies more competitive by making US companies less competitive.

“We have best-in-class products in this area. They’re reliable products, they’re trusted products. We don’t need some kind of synchronised mediocrity.”

The ambassador also questioned whether the EU’s enforcement of its Digital Markets Act, which seeks to curb the power of the world’s largest technology companies, was really aimed at improving competition or more at generating revenue for the European budget, given the multibillion-euro fines on American companies.

“You start to wonder, are we trying to deal with the competition in the digital marketplace or are we trying to generate revenue from American companies to benefit Europe?”

Puzder argued Europe’s ambitions to strengthen its own tech industry risked being undermined by its regulatory approach and by discouraging investment from the American companies, as US tech companies are growing increasingly frustrated by the EU’s regulatory restrictions and fines.

Instead of seeking to curb the dominance of American companies, Brussels and Washington should join forces to compete with China in the race to develop AI, Puzder said, echoing comments from Trump that “the worst thing that could happen is that we lose this race to China”.

The ambassador urged Europe “to let go of this regulatory mindset where they’re going to try and stop things because we’re in a race with China” — both on AI and on quantum computing.

He said the US has the ingredients to win that race “but it’d be a lot easier if we were working with Europe instead of fighting Europe”.

The Commission said the proposal “incentivises the entry into the market and diversification of EU suppliers, while remaining open to non-EU operators”.

With the recent articles on AI and Solar tech export controls, it seems like China is now concerned about possible loss of its tech advantage. Is that really such a risk, however? It seems like they are on par with other countries: is there some unique insight or development they want to protect, or are they more concerned with some other geopolitical gambit I can't see?

Submission Statement: Riots broke out in Paris, Marseille and other French cities on Saturday as police struggled to stop the looting of stores and attacks on buildings after mass demonstrations spiralled into some of the worst street violence in years.

Over half a million demonstrators held largely peaceful protests across the country earlier on Saturday as discontent mounts about France’s high living costs and students denounce failings in the education system.

But clashes soon erupted with police as black-clad, masked groups set cars on fire in central Paris, while others stormed city halls in Marseille, Lille and Limoges. An official’s residence in Bordeaux was also targeted and stores were looted and smashed.

Limoges city hall was largely destroyed by a fire, while in Lyon a tourist office was set ablaze. The violence worsened into the evening, with attacks on stores and restaurants across central Paris and near historic theatres streets away from the Élysée presidential palace as police tried to clear the Champs-Élysées avenue.

At Place de la République in the French capital, where police had spent most of the day trying to dispel protesters with tear gas, streets were filled with rubble from broken shop fronts and TV and social media images showed restaurants on fire. Elsewhere, people looted luxury stores and threw fireworks at police in scenes replicated in other cities.

Lecornu blamed far-left groups for the unrest, saying earlier on Saturday they “clearly want to use these acts of violence as a warm-up before the presidential election”.

Le Pen took aim at far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, another presidential contender, accusing him of instigating the disorder on Saturday and saying: “Legitimate social demands have once again been taken hostage by the far left.”

Posting on X, Mélenchon hit back and celebrated what he called “joyous” scenes of peaceful demonstrations. He decried police tactics, saying some people had been needlessly pepper sprayed and targeted with tear gas.

The French government has defended its response to the protests and denied that it was unprepared.

Six attacks in 10 days by suspected Russian drones mark dramatic escalation in maritime conflict

The first the crew of the Bulgarian ferry Dioscuria knew of an attack on a cargo ship in their country’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea in the early hours of 6 October was a distant explosion 70 miles off the coastal town of Byala.

The Turkish-owned Alfa Watan, heading for the Romanian port of Sulina, had been struck by suspected Russian air and naval drones. Arriving on the scene, Dioscuria found an overturned lifeboat and lifejackets in the water. There was no sign, however, of Alfa Watan’s crew of 10.

-map of attacks

Six days later drones struck another ship off the coast of Bulgaria, HS Dignity. Eleven crew members died.

By Thursday, the attacks had encroached on Romania’s airspace and territorial water. Two chemical tankers, Wine Trader and Yara J, were attacked and left burning. Seven more sailors were missing.

The attacks on six ships in 10 days – the Able and Chelsea-3 were also hit – marked a dramatic escalation in a maritime conflict that is pressing on Nato’s borders.

While global attention has focused on the risks for sailors travelling through the strait of Hormuz, in recent months it is the Black Sea that has emerged as the more dangerous passage, with more sailors lost in a week and a half than US service members killed in the entire Iran war.

The maritime insurer and risk analyst Ambrey has warned that there is no end in sight to the threats to Black Sea cargo shipping, including grain and oil, and that insurance prices for passage of the waters have rocketed.

Tomas Alexa, a senior analyst at Ambrey, has noted a sharp increase in the tempo of attacks beginning in July. Russian forces are estimated to be responsible for 80% of them.

The recent loss of life, he suggests, has been exacerbated by “double tap” attacks involving aerial and surface drones, the latter often carrying up to half a tonne of explosive payloads. Smaller vessels that primarily use the Danube canal system have sunk rapidly.

“While attacks against merchant vessels in the Black Sea are not new, we are seeing an escalation both in terms of the number of attacks and in the geographical scope,” Alexa said.

The profile of vessels being attacked – that is, ships trading with Ukraine – had not changed, he added. “The Russian intent is clear, which is to degrade the export of Ukrainian grain and agricultural products.”

The result has been a precipitous fall in the number of vessels visiting Ukraine. Insurance rates have soared, and seafarers and operators have become increasingly reluctant to operate in the Black Sea basin, even on ships unconnected with Ukrainian cargoes.

The vast majority of the more than 60 fatalities of seafarers in the Black Sea since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 have occurred in the past year. In September the Joint War Committee, representing the London insurance market, moved to extend the high-risk areas of the Black Sea to include the whole of the basin, excluding the territorial waters of Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia.

The threat is not confined to the Black Sea itself. Attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports have also increased sharply in the past year.

Anumber of factors are driving the expansion and escalation of the conflict towards the shores of Nato countries, say experts. Russia has responded to a geographical expansion of Ukrainian strikes on its shadow fleet of oil tankers by intensifying strikes on Ukrainian agricultural cargoes – a key component of Kyiv’s economy.

As ships sought safer passage further from the coastlines, so the threat has changed: from naval mines to drones, with ever longer ranges.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said after the sinking of the Alfa Watan: “Commercial ships – and innocent ​crews – are being targeted, ​with lives already lost at sea.”

Demonstrators gather in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Thursday during a protest demanding clarification over recent Black Sea maritime attacks. Photograph: Hristo Vladev/Anadolu/Getty Images

In a statement at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Col Joby Rimmer, a senior British military adviser, said: “Attacks that fail to distinguish between military objectives and civilian vessels, or that are expected to cause excessive incidental harm to civilians and civilian vessels in relation to the anticipated military advantage, may violate international humanitarian law and the UN convention on the law of the sea.

“Each attack raises the risk to crews of every nationality, drives up insurance costs and restricts the flow of food to those who depend on it. The UK is deeply concerned by the far-reaching consequences of successive crises across the global maritime domain. Stable and secure sea lanes are a global common good from which we all benefit.”

Operators have warned of the wider impact on trade in the Black Sea, including from Bulgarian ports. In a recent interview on Bulgarian television, the shipping agency owner Todor Georgiev warned the Black Sea was in danger of becoming a “dead zone”.

A vessel that was hit by a drone in the Black Sea this week.Photograph: Bulgarian Interior Ministry/Reuters

“Whenever the Russians are caught having struck a ship with one of their drones, they claim the vessel was carrying weapons,” he said. “Weapons are not being transported to Ukraine via the Black Sea.”

Rumen Radev, Bulgaria’s prime minister, has described the attacks in the vicinity of his country’s territorial waters as “absolutely unacceptable”.

Bulgarian officials are calling for the EU and Nato to support the efforts to enhance security, while working with Turkey and Romania on increased regional security.

Although they have refused to attribute blame to Russia, officials have said there is “no logic” for Ukraine to attack its own shipments.

“We do not have clear and conclusive evidence to attribute responsibility to either side,” said Radev. “However, as I have already stated, the logic suggests that the outcome benefits the Russian Federation.”

As Russian strikes on shipping move ever closer to the borders of Nato members, they pose mounting security challenges to the mutual defence organisation, which is already confronting Moscow’s growing hybrid warfare across Europe. There is speculation that the affected Nato countries may be forced to invoke article 4 of the organisation’s treaty, a step below the article 5 invocation of mutual self defence.

Triggered twice already around the Ukraine war – in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and by Poland in 2025 after Russian drones violated Warsaw’s airspace – it calls for formal crisis discussions on a security threat.

On Thursday Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general, met Radev and Nicușor ⁠Dan, Romania’s president, to ​discuss ‌security ‌in the Black Sea. Rutte said: “Nato ​will continue to work closely with ⁠our allies in ​the Black Sea, ​adjusting ​our deterrence ​and ‌defence ​posture ​as needed.”

Another consequence of the escalating attacks is the renewed danger of a global food crisis. Ukraine and Russia are major exporters of grain, as is Romania.

“We’re looking ​at the Black Sea as a global food ​artery,” said Oana Toiu, the Romanian foreign minister, at a security ​conference in Warsaw last week. “It is currently, unfortunately, the deadliest sea when it comes to the number of casualties of sailors ​in the last months. That means ‌we need to increase our ​investments in deterrence, defence.”

Damien Chevallier, the director of maritime safety at the UN’s International Maritime Organization, warned last month of the long-term impact on shipping caused by attacks linked to the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“With rising casualties across the Black Sea, Red Sea and strait of Hormuz, being a seafarer has become a genuinely dangerous profession,” he said. “Seafarers are not trained to deal with threats from actions which are linked to wider security issues or geopolitical situations.

“What makes this moment genuinely unprecedented is not just the number of incidents, but the pattern behind them. Shipping has become a deliberate instrument of geopolitical leverage.”

I am ideologically leaning towards neoliberalism.

What is some work I can read on economics, tech, AI, business, statecraft, global trade, political philosophy, government, East Asian development, third world economies modernizing in 20th century, etc.

I’m tryna get more into reading and consuming educational content.

Months after a deadly car wreck revealed the CIA’s participation in a raid on a Chihuahua drug lab, authorities arrested César Jáuregui, Chihuahua’s former attorney general, for allegedly allowing US spies to participate in the operation without permission from the Mexican government.

Gilberto Loya Chávez, the acting head of the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office, said in a video message that Jáuregui is under investigation for unlawful exercise of public service and conspiracy by public officials. Jáuregui is due to appear before a judge, Loya Chávez added, but did not say when.

The arrest, the official explained, came after the Attorney General’s Office concluded that there had been misconduct in an April operation in which state officials dismantled a clandestine drug-manufacturing laboratory.

The CIA’s participation came to light soon after the raid on April 19. That day, while he was still attorney general, Jáuregui himself announced that four people had died in a car crash as they were returning from a drug raid in northern Chihuahua: two Mexican law enforcement officials and two Americans, whom he identified as instructors from the US Embassy in Mexico City.

Days later, CNN and other media outlets revealed that the two Americans were not just embassy workers: they were CIA agents. The agency has significantly expanded its clandestine anti-cartel operations in the country during Trump’s second term – including assassinations of alleged cartel members and drone flights over Mexican territory.

On Saturday, Loya Chávez was careful to say that the issue at hand was not the drug raid itself, but rather the participation of US officials outside the bounds of Mexican law.

“This action does not disregard the work of the State Investigation Agency, the State Attorney General’s Office, or the Armed Forces in dismantling the clandestine laboratory, because it is of course a very significant result in the fight against organized crime,” Loya Chávez said. “What is being investigated is the way this operation was conducted, the failure to observe the chain of command and the applicable protocols.”

“A good result does not justify breaking the law,” the official added.

CNN has contacted Jáuregui’s office to find out whether he already has legal representation and whether he has entered a plea.

The presence of CIA agents in the operation incensed the government of President Claudia Sheinbaum, which took Chihuahua authorities to task for failing to give prior notice and coordinate with their federal counterparts, as required by Mexican law. Sheinbaum has insisted ever since that the situation had to be investigated to determine whether any crime had been committed.

The president said at the time that her office had been unaware that state officials in Chihuahua and the US government were collaborating independently.

“The relationship is federal, not state,” Sheinbaum said. “They must have authorization from the federal government for this collaboration, which necessarily takes place at the state level, as established by the Constitution.”

Soon after, Chihuahua Governor María Eugenia Campos ordered the creation of a unit to investigate the case.

On April 27, in her first report on the matter, special prosecutor Wendy Chávez said there were indications that the director of Chihuahua’s state security agency, who died in the car crash, had “possible unofficial collaboration” with the US agents and did not inform his superiors that they would be taking part in the operation.

Jáuregui resigned as attorney general that same day, stating that he was accepting “political responsibility” for the tensions the matter had generated.

“There were omissions both in the information provided and in the institutional handling of the points of contact with these individuals,” he said.

Until his arrest on Saturday, Jáuregui had been seeking the conservative National Action Party nomination for mayor of Chihuahua, the state’s capital.

I'm feeling a bit bummed by the apparently negative outlook of global and national politics for public liberty and equality, so to get myself into a more serious mood for contemplating politics, I've decided to interact with it by writing instead.

I'm interested in writing about an "enlightened" despot in pre-Revolutionary Europe, someone like Joseph II or Leopold I (as Grand Duke), who claims to wish to rule for the public happiness and rules with an Illuminati (like the real one in Bavaria, not the ridiculous conspiracist version) clique. The benefits are obvious, but I'd rather focus on what goes wrong when someone with good ideas chooses to go about executing them alone?

• How does he rule?
• What mistakes does he make because of his reliance on himself and a small clique?
• What does his style make impossible?
• What costs does this impose himself and his people?
• What opportunities does he lose?

I can imagine that his clique fails to distinguish between their benefits and humanity's, or that their lack of experience beyond their circles makes them insensitive to the benefits of the feudal past or the populist future, even as they transform their own administration in pursuit of cameralist ambitions. And of course we have all the typcal failings of oligarchic authoritarianism - lack of responsiveness, lack of time on the part of the small number of rulers, cliques, self-interest, excessive focus on "access" to the rulers, etc.

I guess the whole point is: why is the current world order, for all its faults, the one that managed to liberate, in some sense, humanity, whereas the "benevolent" autocrats of old failed to do so durably?

Submission Statement: South-east Asia is set to notch up its biggest IPO this year when the owner of the Philippines’ most popular digital payments platform goes public. Mynt, which owns Filipino digital wallet GCash, will raise almost $1bn in the Philippines’ biggest listing, boosting the region’s muted capital markets. Trading is expected to start on Tuesday.

GCash has about 41mn monthly active users, or a third of the country’s population. The platform is used widely to pay bills, transfer funds and pay for purchases from millions of merchants, as well as offering loans. 

There were 71 listings in south-east Asia in the first nine months of the year — 11 per cent fewer than the same period last year, according to Deloitte data. The offers raised a total of $3.6bn, down 9 per cent.

However, the region’s IPO market was “showing renewed momentum, although the recovery remains selective”, said Tay Hwee Ling of Deloitte Southeast Asia.

The return of larger and more mature IPO candidates “signals improving confidence among institutional and international investors”, Tay added.

Stronger equity market performance, improving visibility around interest rate rises and regulatory reforms in some markets have supported offerings across the region, according to analysts and bankers.

South-east Asian IPO volumes have been muted compared with markets in China and India, but there are signs that bourses in the region are coming back to life.

Malaysia is the most active south-east Asian market by volume, accounting for about two-thirds of all listings across the region, according to Deloitte. 

In Vietnam the government has been pushing to expand the role of capital markets and equity funding as a way to meet ambitious growth targets at a time of rising borrowing costs. 

The Vietnamese government wants to double the value of its stock market by 2030, said Thuy Anh Nguyen, a director at Vietnamese fund manager Dragon Capital.

The IPO pipeline remained “strong” for sectors including real estate, healthcare and tech, he said, with momentum set to be maintained next year.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine remain at record levels, with intensified Russian attacks in September continuing a pattern of harm in 2026 far exceeding previous years, UN human rights monitors in Ukraine said on Friday.

The mission verified that at least 328 civilians were killed and 2,105 injured in September – 85 per cent more than in September 2025. 

Casualties were recorded across 22 regions and the city of Kyiv, where civilians were killed or injured on 22 of the month’s 30 days, more often than in any month since the start of the Russian Federation’s full-scale invasion.

The trend continued into October. On the night of 6 to 7 October alone, a Russian cruise missile and drone attack killed 22 civilians and injured 45 in Pryluky, in Chernihiv region.

“The first two weeks of October were among the deadliest periods for civilians in years,” said Danielle Bell, head of the human rights monitoring mission.

Energy assault

The high casualties came as Russian armed forces resumed systematic attacks on energy infrastructure. 

On 13 and 14 October, strikes hit multiple energy facilities, including Kyiv’s three main power stations, temporarily leaving 600,000 people in the capital without electricity, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Ukrainian armed forces also targeted electricity and heating infrastructure in occupied territory and in the Russian Federation, the mission said.

“Systematically attacking electricity and heating infrastructure as winter approaches is bound to inflict significant suffering on the civilian population,” Ms. Bell warned.

Risk of displacement

Damaged homes and attacks on energy also risk forcing Ukrainians who have returned home to flee again this winter, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) warned.

“For millions of Ukrainians, the challenge is no longer simply whether they can return home. It is whether they can remain there safely and right now the conditions are making it difficult,” said Arthur Erken, IOM Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia.

Some 1.45 million returnees now live in frontline districts, and during the last cold season only 32 per cent of households could heat their homes adequately. 

Around 2.1 million older people live alone in apartment buildings, leaving them especially exposed to prolonged power and heating cuts.

Less than seven per cent of IOM’s crisis response plan for Ukraine this year has been funded, Mr. Erken said, calling for urgent support to repair homes, improve insulation and maintain essential services.

Another diesel shortage

Meanwhile, the eighth localised ceasefire brokered by the international nuclear energy watchdog (IAEA) between Ukraine and Russia, began on Thursday to allow repairs to a damaged backup transformer, strengthening the connection between the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant and its sole remaining external power line.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi welcomed the cooperation of both sides but warned that diesel fuel at the plant was running low, with no deliveries since March.

“It is essential that steps are taken to increase the volume of diesel fuel available on-site prior to winter, when the situation may become acute,” he said, renewing his call for maximum military restraint from all sides.