Another Anti-Immigrant Lie Exposed: IRS Records Will Be Used To Track Down Undocumented Immigrants
Lots of lies are told about immigrants to stoke the always-smoldering fires of bigotry in this country. Trump and his fellow Republicans have told most of them. They claim immigrants commit more crimes than legal residents, something that has never been true. They claim immigrants are lazy, something anyone who’s ever worked with any immigrants […]
FCC’s Carr Openly Admits He’ll Block Mergers Of Companies That Refuse To Kiss Trump Ass
Instead of doing things like protecting consumers or market competition, Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr has spent his first few months in office abusing agency authority to threaten companies that refuse to kiss the Trump administration’s ass. A cornerstone of those efforts has been to leverage merger approvals to get companies to support core administration […]
Contempt Continued: Rubio, Bondi Attempt To Stonewall Court Inquiry With Bullshit ‘State Secrets’ Response
In Mike’s thorough post yesterday on the topic of the Trump administration’s naked contempt for judicial oversight, the main theme and takeaway from it was a simple one: this authoritarian regime would much rather waste everyone’s time trying to play procedural and semantic games with the courts than actually participate in honest deliberations with them. […]
How Democrats’ Attack On Section 230 Plays Right Into Trump’s Censorial Plans
Like clockwork, lawmakers are once again rallying around the idea of eliminating Section 230. That Republicans are leading this charge is hardly surprising—repealing Section 230 is explicitly laid out in the Project 2025 playbook. But what’s surprising, and increasingly reckless, is the willingness of Democratic lawmakers to join forces with Republicans in dismantling one of […]
Techdirt Podcast Episode 412: Chris Hayes On How Attention Ate The World
Support us on Patreon » In the digital age, attention is a resource — but if we can have a little slice of yours, we’ve got a great conversation about that very subject for you to listen to. This week, Mike is joined by journalist Chris Hayes to discuss his new book, The Siren’s Call: How […]
The Presidential Toddler Theory Of Government
There comes a moment in every collapsing democracy when absurdity and menace fuse into something uniquely destabilizing—a phenomenon I’m tempted to call “malignant farce.” We’ve reached that moment. The President of the United States, after invoking a 1798 wartime law to mass-deport migrants to a third country, now claims he didn’t do it. “Other people handled it,” […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/25/the-presidential-toddler-theory-of-government/
FBI Shifts Resources From Tracking The Terrorists Trump Likes To Pitching In With Anti-Immigration Efforts
Be the “deep state” you want to see in the world. That’s the new FBI under conspiracy theorist/Trump acolyte Kash Patel’s “leadership.” Instead of being the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it will become the Federal Bureau of Investigating People Trump Doesn’t Like. I wouldn’t be too surprised to hear journalists are getting their phone records […]
Daily Deal: The Ultimate Python & Artificial Intelligence Bundle
The Ultimate Python and Artificial Intelligence Bundle has 9 courses to help you take your Python and AI knowledge to the next level. You’ll learn about data pre-processing and visualization, artificial neural networks, how to use the Keras framework, and more. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/25/daily-deal-the-ultimate-python-artificial-intelligence-bundle-6/
But Their Signal Chats: Trump Officials Share War Plans With Journalist
Look, I know you’ve probably already seen yesterday’s absolutely stunning story from Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic. The one where Trump administration officials somehow managed to add a journalist to their Signal group chat while planning out their bombing of the Houthi rebels in Yemen. The one that reads like a plot point rejected from […]
Even Traditional GOP Allies Are Urging The FCC To End Its Baseless Attack On CBS, 60 Minutes
Last October, Trump sued CBS claiming (falsely) that a 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris had been “deceitfully edited” to her benefit (they simply shortened some of her answers for brevity, as news outlets often do). As Mike explored, the lawsuit was utterly baseless, and tramples the First Amendment, editorial discretion, and common sense. CBS/Paramount is looking for […]
Anheuser-Busch Opposes Conservative Brewery’s ‘Ultra Right’ Mark
Historically, stories we’ve covered here about the collision between the beer brewing industry and trademarks have largely been born of the creative nature of the craft beer industry specifically. Far different from the bland trade dress and naming conventions of the macro-brewing industry, the craft industry blended its beer-making with colorfully named brews and artistic […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/24/anheuser-busch-opposes-conservative-brewerys-ultra-right-mark/
How Does This End?
The acceleration of institutional breakdown in America has reached a point where we must confront a sobering reality: the constitutional system, as designed, may no longer possess the internal mechanisms to save itself. When judges face impeachment threats for ruling against the administration, when court orders are openly defied, and when Fox News hosts declare that a […]
State Rep: We Need A Registry For People Who Attack Cops; Also, They Should Be Able To Buy Their Way Off The List
Speaking as someone who has covered a whole lot of extremely weird legislating in service of that notoriously under-protected class of citizens (you know: cops), I have to say this is one the most batshit insane things I have ever seen offered up for a vote at any level of government. Even taking into account […]
A Win For Encryption: France Rejects Backdoor Mandate
In a moment of clarity after initially moving forward a deeply flawed piece of legislation, the French National Assembly has done the right thing: it rejected a dangerous proposal that would have gutted end-to-end encryption in the name of fighting drug trafficking. Despite heavy pressure from the Interior Ministry, lawmakers voted Thursday night (article in French) to […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/24/a-win-for-encryption-france-rejects-backdoor-mandate/
Even The Guy Who Saw Nothing Wrong With CIA Torture Thinks Trump Is Going Too Far With His Deportation Efforts
Trump seems very interested in speed-running the martial law curve. His previous term in office saw him suggesting the military should help quell anti-police violence protests around the nation, as well as participating in his undeclared war on immigration by aiding in the policing of our southern border. With Trump taking office for a second […]
Daily Deal: Linux/UNIX Training Bundle
Linux and UNIX operating systems have become increasingly popular in commercial computing environments. Due to their rapid growth in today’s businesses, Linux/UNIX administrators have also become very much in demand. This Linux/UNIX Training Bundle has 2 courses to help you learn the knowledge and skills to install, configure, and support a Linux/UNIX server, and more. […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/24/daily-deal-linux-unix-training-bundle-2/
Contempt Of Court
I think lots of people know the kind of person who thinks they’re more clever than they really are. The kind of person who thinks that they can outwit the system by playing stupid games. The kind of person who thinks that this kind of beating the system is because they’re smart. This kind of […]
Max Streaming ‘Enshittifies’ Further, Removes Classic Looney Tunes
Now that subscriber growth has slowed, streaming TV giants have taken the predictable turn of making their services shittier and more expensive to deliver Wall Street (impossibly) unlimited quarterly revenue growth. That means higher prices, annoying new surcharges, greater restrictions, more layoffs, more cut corners, worse customer service, more limited catalogs, lower quality engagement-bait content, and […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/24/max-streaming-enshittifies-further-removes-classic-looney-tunes/
Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
This week, our first place winner on the insightful side is Bloof with a response to the latest accusation that Bluesky is a liberal echo chamber: Sorry republicans, you don’t get to use the N-word and still get invited to parties, that’s not how life works. You made the ‘marketplace of ideas’ a thing to […]
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/03/23/funniest-most-insightful-comments-of-the-week-at-techdirt-153/
Pentagon Anti-DEI Purge Leads To More Erasure Of Our Shared History
The only silver lining in just how stupid this supposed anti-DEI purge of government records has become is that it appears the stupids doing the stupid are now finally starting to realize just how stupid it has become. Stemming from one of Trump’s many executive orders, one which instructed the government to essentially purge its […]