Quick Hits

Mickey Kaus: Now that illegals are being deported, wages are going up, and rents are coming down.

Mickey Kaus @kausmickey

17h

"Leisure and hospitality" Biden '24 = down 0.81%; Trump '25 = up 1.13%.
"Grocery & convenience" Biden '24 = down 0.17 %; Trump '25 = up 1.05 %
"Landscaping services" Biden = up 1.42 %; Trump '25 = up 2.41 %
"Retail" [big category] Biden '24 = down .15 %; Trump '25 = up 1.32 %

Some categories went down and "construction" only went up a bit (+1.65 percent to +1.71 percent). Still. Overall seems evidence that illegal workers do bid down wages and when they leave wages rise.

Mickey Kaus @kausmickey Do we still need housing Abundance in Los Angeles if illegal immigrants leave? I assume yes, but am having doubts! Walked up the block--three "For Lease" signs, and at the end of the block is a big new apartment house with vacancies.

Murders are also down, he points out. "What a nightmare," he comments.

Shoe @samosaur

Jan 26

Pramila Jayapal, Congresswoman for WA-07, is training citizens to "resist authoritarianism."

This is the "pressure from below" aspect of the color revolution. Mobilizing the grassroots.

She'll apply the "pressure from above" phase of the revolution as an elected official when these citizens she trains protest and riot on the ground.

Video here.

He provides a description of the "color revolution" tactics being used to destabilize and conquer the US, which I'm grateful for, because while I had a vague sense of what color revolution meant, I didn't really understand it.

Shoe
@samosaur

I think we're in a hybrid between a color revolution playbook and an insurgency fueled by oppressor/oppressed sentiments.

The overall goal is the same: enable a minority to gain and consolidate total control "legally" without major bloodshed by convincing the majority they're hopelessly outnumbered and overwhelmed.

"The concept of "pressure from above and below" (sometimes described as the "revolutionary use of pliers") originates from a 1957 analysis by Jan Kozák, a theoretician and member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party's Central Committee."

Without delving into the entire post WWII scenario, Czechoslovakian communists conducted a soft coup in 1948 by exerting "pressure from below" through the use of rioters, strikers and protesters. They created the illusion of widespread chaos at the grassroots levels.

Communists in the government, who held democratically elected seats, came over top and applied "pressure from above" by creating laws to appease the protesters, even though it was the same group of people.

They would use "positions already held within government, parliament, ministries, courts, police, and media to enact legal changes, pass laws, appoint loyalists, and shift power incrementally toward the party."

The idea was to squeeze the majority populace into "apathy and despair" and allow the lawmakers to make concessions to appease the rioters. This ultimately lead to communist overthrow through democratic means.

Though the precursor to the modern color revolution was rooted in communist seizure of power, post USSR color revolutions employed many of the same tactics by demonstrating against authoritarianism and fraudulent elections (see Serbia 2000, Georgia 2003 and Ukraine 2004).

While NGOs have been linked to the revolutions, "proponents of color revolutions counter that they were driven by domestic grievances and civil society, with any external aid limited to democracy promotion (e.g., election monitoring, civic education) rather than engineered takeovers."

Modern color revolutions became popular due to the themes they used such as specific colors, flowers and "peaceful" means of government overthrow, but the concept behind them is one of a disenfranchised people who seek to throw off the reins of authoritarianism.

What we're currently seeing in the U.S. is more akin to the "pressure from above and below" model from 1948 Czechoslovakia, as elected, sympathetic members of the government provide legitimacy to the riots and demonstrations carried out in the streets. Media cements the narrative by amplifying the messaging while often carrying scripted narratives that are repeated on every outlet by every anchor.

Many are hesitant to call it a full blown insurgency, though insurgency like methods are heavily involved in the "pressure from below" as autonomous zones are created and "protesters" take over legitimacy and sideline law enforcement, medical care, journalists and anyone else not sympathetic to their cause.

An insurgency is generally defined by a long period of time where terrorist tactics are employed such as assassinations and sabotage, and I think a valid argument can be made that many of these tactics have been employed across a national space for a decade or more.

The color revolution aspect of the resistance is employed through organizations such as BLM and No Kings, based in the oppressor/oppressed framework I mentioned earlier.

While these definitions are important and give context, there is one key factor missing from every other color revolution/coup previously mentioned: illegal immigration.

The number one priority of the Biden Administration was to flood the interior with as many foreigners as possible. By absorbing 20+ illegal immigrants, communists and progressives (working in parallel with converging interests), shored up their voting demographic for the foreseeable future. They will fight to the death to preserve it.

While grassroots AND paid actors demonstrate in the color revolution space for either their belief that Trump is an illegitimate authoritarian figure, illegal immigrants being allowed to stay, or simply because they're paid to demonstrate, the communist NGOs and support networks creating the infrastructure and networks, plus the funding streams, are focused on government overthrow.

They've been working in both peaceful and violent spaces for over a decade, and communist rule is their focus. They leverage the media, their people in government and law enforcement, and the emotional ideology of their "grassroots" movements apply "pressure from above and below" with the sole purpose of overthrowing the Government of the United States.

December 2025: Candace Owens attacks Erika Kirk for being too emotional, says that she needs to either step down from TPUSA or "comparamentalize" her emotions

Just this week: Candace Owens attacks Erika Kirk for not being emotional enough over her husband's murder

She fixates on accusing Erika Kirk of faking her grief over Charlie's murder, or showing no grief about Charlie's murder, because her grift consists of claiming -- well, insinuating -- that Erika Kirk was part of the plot to kill her husband.

Oh, and also, because she was fired by, and romantically rejected by, Charlie Kirk, and she's crusading to destroy TPUSA so that they're forced to make her the head of it.

posted by Ace at 06:20 PM

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